PokerStars has started a new type of SnG tournament they call "Double or Nothing". From what I can see on the games list these are all single table, 10-player affairs. Half the field doubles up, half hits the rail with nothing. They play, or at least should play, much like the ticket tournaments where the top X players all get the same prize. Except in these you only have to beat half the field.
I've played three of these at the $5 level and have cashed in all of them. They may play differently at the higher entry fee ones, but in the ones I've played I'm pretty sure you could practically fold your way to the money. Certainly playing nothing but premium hands until forced by stack size to do otherwise would appear a solid strategy.
While these are still young and many players are figuring out the proper strategy, I think I'm going to hit them up big time. The turbo ones play out very quickly. Neither of the ones I played lasted much more than 30 minutes. $5 profit in half an hour is better than I usually do at the $0.05 NL tables.
There are some frustrating moments, such as in the last hand of the last one I played. On the bubble, one player was down to less than 1BB and clearly had to just pick a hand and pray. He did, and three others called to see the flop. Since we're on the bubble and all but one win the same amount with the next elimination, the clearly correct strategy here is for everyone to check it down and hope one of us has a better hand than the guy who's all-in. I caught a small piece of the raggedy flop and checked like I should. But Mr. Big Stack figured this would be a great time to push in his huge stack. Idiot. He had top pair, but the short stack had a pocket pair. The all-in forced the other two of us out of the pot. Had I stayed I would have caught queens up and taken the pot. Luckily, the short stack's pocket pair was very small and the pair of sevens Mr. Big Stack caught on the flop took it down. The proper play here -- to check it all the way down -- seems so obvious to me I'm shocked when other players apparently don't see it.
Since I last wrote here I had another of those horrible sessions where I kept getting good cards that came in second. Very frustrating. I had one pretty decent session where I won almost two buy-ins. It didn't quite make up for the big loss, but at least I felt better.
With the help of the Double or Nothing SnGs the Quest bankroll has hit a new high of $131.06. As time allows I'm going to keep working the Double or Nothing tournaments. So far it's easy money.
30 December 2008
09 December 2008
Mid-week update
Tonight was one of those nights that make me want to walk away from poker and never look back. The idiots were out in force, making mistake after mistake and having the card gods sweep down to save them.
It started out okay. In an early hand I had AKs in the SB. Four limpers ahead (this is 6-max) so I make it 6BB to go. Three calls. One was okay, one was very questionable, one folded afterwards so I don't know.
This kind of thing was rampant tonight. A couple limpers, a large raise, and then everyone calls. It was like everyone really wanted to play craps. It didn't matter how big the raise was, at least half the table called.
The flop comes Q-high. Check, all-in for 2/3 the pot, and a call from the button. I wasn't getting quite the odds I needed to make the call, but it was close. I called. The checker folded. Three to the turn.
The turn paired the board but didn't help me. I check. Here's where I think the button made a mistake. He was betting into a dry side pot, but he's either very strong and trying to suck more money out of me or he's trying to force me out. He bets $0.10 with $3.82 in the main pot. What is that? If I just called a $0.80 all-in bet on the previous card, it would seem likely I'd call a bet considerably larger than that, so it doesn't seem like a bet for value and with the pot laying me 39-to-1 the only way I'm not calling is if I know to a certainty that I'm drawing dead. No way I'm folding.
The river brought my king. I was concerned one of the other two may have lucked into trips when the board paired so I just checked. The button again puts in a $0.10 bet. I just don't get this. Of course, I call. The button turns over AQ. Pretty strong, but considering I was the one raising pre-flop he should have been more aggressive to see where he stood. If he'd have bet $1 on the turn I'd have folded. He probably figured me for an overpair, but then why bet at all? Take the free card and be happy. The original all-in had pocket 6's so I was up $3 on my second hand at the table.
From there it pretty much went downhill. Three-outer at the river. Two-outer at the river. And another of the "I'll call any pre-flop raise with total crap and then luck out" hands. All of them from the same player. Very discouraging.
I also ran into several rather frustrating calling stations. This used to come up all the time in limit, but I've not seen it much in NL, even in the cheap seats. The player has a decent, strong hand, but refuses to bet it and refuses to fold no matter how much you bet.
I've had sessions that were much worse financially, but for some reason tonight was especially frustrating. Other than the one hand mentioned above, it seemed like nothing went right and lots went wrong.
It started out okay. In an early hand I had AKs in the SB. Four limpers ahead (this is 6-max) so I make it 6BB to go. Three calls. One was okay, one was very questionable, one folded afterwards so I don't know.
This kind of thing was rampant tonight. A couple limpers, a large raise, and then everyone calls. It was like everyone really wanted to play craps. It didn't matter how big the raise was, at least half the table called.
The flop comes Q-high. Check, all-in for 2/3 the pot, and a call from the button. I wasn't getting quite the odds I needed to make the call, but it was close. I called. The checker folded. Three to the turn.
The turn paired the board but didn't help me. I check. Here's where I think the button made a mistake. He was betting into a dry side pot, but he's either very strong and trying to suck more money out of me or he's trying to force me out. He bets $0.10 with $3.82 in the main pot. What is that? If I just called a $0.80 all-in bet on the previous card, it would seem likely I'd call a bet considerably larger than that, so it doesn't seem like a bet for value and with the pot laying me 39-to-1 the only way I'm not calling is if I know to a certainty that I'm drawing dead. No way I'm folding.
The river brought my king. I was concerned one of the other two may have lucked into trips when the board paired so I just checked. The button again puts in a $0.10 bet. I just don't get this. Of course, I call. The button turns over AQ. Pretty strong, but considering I was the one raising pre-flop he should have been more aggressive to see where he stood. If he'd have bet $1 on the turn I'd have folded. He probably figured me for an overpair, but then why bet at all? Take the free card and be happy. The original all-in had pocket 6's so I was up $3 on my second hand at the table.
From there it pretty much went downhill. Three-outer at the river. Two-outer at the river. And another of the "I'll call any pre-flop raise with total crap and then luck out" hands. All of them from the same player. Very discouraging.
I also ran into several rather frustrating calling stations. This used to come up all the time in limit, but I've not seen it much in NL, even in the cheap seats. The player has a decent, strong hand, but refuses to bet it and refuses to fold no matter how much you bet.
I've had sessions that were much worse financially, but for some reason tonight was especially frustrating. Other than the one hand mentioned above, it seemed like nothing went right and lots went wrong.
08 December 2008
The week in reivew
Last week I wrote about my trip to the Hard Rock casino and the rather poor results. I've been reflecting on that experience and have concluded it was just one of those sessions. One big loss due to somebody making a ridiculous pre-flop call and then getting lucky. Most of the rest of the time I just wasn't getting any cards. It happens. No reason to get discouraged about it.
I played a bit more on The Quest and am up $13 on the week. It may not sound like much, but when you consider that's a 12% increase in the bankroll, it's not bad at all.
I probably shouldn't get too excited since the vast majority of it came from one hand. It was one of those right place, right time, right opponents kind of things. I'm UTG with AQs. The guy in the cutoff has been playing extremely loose and aggressive. I've noticed that almost without fail when there are limpers ahead of him he'll put in a big raise. Of course, I want to raise here, but I figure I'll let him do my raising for me. I call, one fold, then the LAG, just as expected, raises to 5BB. The button calls, two folds, then I call.
The flop brings J97 with two of my suit. Figuring the LAG will again bet for me, I check. He does, though his almost pot-sized bet was a bit more than I would have liked. The button calls. I'm getting slightly more than 3-to-1 from the pot so I make the call. (I probably would have made the call even if I wasn't getting the right odds since I'm likely to stack one or both of my opponents if I hit.)
The turn is my card, the 6 of clubs. This couldn't be better. The board is now J high, so an overpair might still think he's good, and there are obvious lesser flushes, and a ton of straight draws. Sticking with my plan of letting others do my betting, I check. The LAG bets about half of what he has left, which is actually a rather small bet into this pot. The button calls. I figure one or both of the other guys will probably call a small raise here, so I make it a little more than double the original bet. The LAG calls for the rest of his stack. As you'll see in a minute, this makes absolutely no sense. The button also calls. We now have a $10 pot and the button still has $3.65 left. I have him covered.
The river makes things even more interesting. The 4 of clubs brings lots more lesser flushes into play and adds even more straight opportunities, though anyone playing those with four clubs on the board is an idiot. I decide not to be coy and just push in my whole stack. The button calls and sadly (for him) turns over the penultinuts. He had KK from the start, with one of them a club.
The LAG turns over ATo, with no clubs. As I said before, this makes his turn call of my raise look very stupid. He's got nothing but a gutshot draw, and even that is likely (and in reality is) drawing dead. If this was a tournament I might understand, but this is a ring game. When you know you're beat, it's time to fold, no matter how much you have invested.
A very nice $18 pot (at $0.02/$0.05 NL!) for a $9.73 profit. Not bad at all.
Two things struck me during the play of this hand and reflecting back on it later. First, the button played it poorly. He was in good position to (re-)raise both before the flop and on the flop. If he'd done either, I'd have probably gotten out and he'd have won the hand. This is $0.02/$0.05, so it's not reasonable to expect stellar play. I just point out the error for educational purposes.
Second, and this may tie into the first point as well, I realized after the fact that if I had been playing more than two tables it's quite likely I might have overlooked the tendencies of the LAG. PokerTracker would certainly have displayed the guy's 87% VP$IP and let me know he liked to play essentially every hand, and the other stats would have told me he was aggressive, but it's unlikely I'd have had time to dig through the stats to find his %PFR with limpers ahead of him, if there even is such a stat. That I had noticed his tendency allowed me to use it to my great advantage and completely disguise the strength of my hand. I don't recall how long the button had been sitting at the table or have any idea if he was playing multiple tables, but he's either very passive or was concerned that the LAG's pre-flop raise might indicate aces. If he'd been paying attention, he'd know the LAG's pre-flop raise indicated nothing about the strength of his hand.
Other sessions during the week were far less noteworthy. In fact, they added up to just about zero. One table accounted for the whole profit for the week.
I'm still learning about the new PokerTracker and what it can do. In the Reports section they have a sample "Fish List" report. Is it a bad sign that I show up on the fish list?
I played a bit more on The Quest and am up $13 on the week. It may not sound like much, but when you consider that's a 12% increase in the bankroll, it's not bad at all.
I probably shouldn't get too excited since the vast majority of it came from one hand. It was one of those right place, right time, right opponents kind of things. I'm UTG with AQs. The guy in the cutoff has been playing extremely loose and aggressive. I've noticed that almost without fail when there are limpers ahead of him he'll put in a big raise. Of course, I want to raise here, but I figure I'll let him do my raising for me. I call, one fold, then the LAG, just as expected, raises to 5BB. The button calls, two folds, then I call.
The flop brings J97 with two of my suit. Figuring the LAG will again bet for me, I check. He does, though his almost pot-sized bet was a bit more than I would have liked. The button calls. I'm getting slightly more than 3-to-1 from the pot so I make the call. (I probably would have made the call even if I wasn't getting the right odds since I'm likely to stack one or both of my opponents if I hit.)
The turn is my card, the 6 of clubs. This couldn't be better. The board is now J high, so an overpair might still think he's good, and there are obvious lesser flushes, and a ton of straight draws. Sticking with my plan of letting others do my betting, I check. The LAG bets about half of what he has left, which is actually a rather small bet into this pot. The button calls. I figure one or both of the other guys will probably call a small raise here, so I make it a little more than double the original bet. The LAG calls for the rest of his stack. As you'll see in a minute, this makes absolutely no sense. The button also calls. We now have a $10 pot and the button still has $3.65 left. I have him covered.
The river makes things even more interesting. The 4 of clubs brings lots more lesser flushes into play and adds even more straight opportunities, though anyone playing those with four clubs on the board is an idiot. I decide not to be coy and just push in my whole stack. The button calls and sadly (for him) turns over the penultinuts. He had KK from the start, with one of them a club.
The LAG turns over ATo, with no clubs. As I said before, this makes his turn call of my raise look very stupid. He's got nothing but a gutshot draw, and even that is likely (and in reality is) drawing dead. If this was a tournament I might understand, but this is a ring game. When you know you're beat, it's time to fold, no matter how much you have invested.
A very nice $18 pot (at $0.02/$0.05 NL!) for a $9.73 profit. Not bad at all.
Two things struck me during the play of this hand and reflecting back on it later. First, the button played it poorly. He was in good position to (re-)raise both before the flop and on the flop. If he'd done either, I'd have probably gotten out and he'd have won the hand. This is $0.02/$0.05, so it's not reasonable to expect stellar play. I just point out the error for educational purposes.
Second, and this may tie into the first point as well, I realized after the fact that if I had been playing more than two tables it's quite likely I might have overlooked the tendencies of the LAG. PokerTracker would certainly have displayed the guy's 87% VP$IP and let me know he liked to play essentially every hand, and the other stats would have told me he was aggressive, but it's unlikely I'd have had time to dig through the stats to find his %PFR with limpers ahead of him, if there even is such a stat. That I had noticed his tendency allowed me to use it to my great advantage and completely disguise the strength of my hand. I don't recall how long the button had been sitting at the table or have any idea if he was playing multiple tables, but he's either very passive or was concerned that the LAG's pre-flop raise might indicate aces. If he'd been paying attention, he'd know the LAG's pre-flop raise indicated nothing about the strength of his hand.
Other sessions during the week were far less noteworthy. In fact, they added up to just about zero. One table accounted for the whole profit for the week.
I'm still learning about the new PokerTracker and what it can do. In the Reports section they have a sample "Fish List" report. Is it a bad sign that I show up on the fish list?
01 December 2008
Poker Weekend
I took all of last week off work and had time to play more poker than I have been of late. The most interesting bit, poker-wise, was Friday when I went with my brother to the Hard Rock Casino in Tampa. They recently began offering Vegas-style table games and my brother wanted to play some blackjack. I, of course, went straight to the poker room. After maybe a ten minute wait they seated a new table of $1/$2 NL. State law allows a maximum buy-in of $100.
I got a couple decent starters near the beginning and took down some small pots. Then came a long dry spell. Fold, fold, fold, fold...
The guys at this table didn't seem quite the mix of idiots and okay players as I saw on the casino cruise. I suppose the $100 buy-in might have something to do with that. One guy was seriously overbetting at the beginning. It may have just been nerves. He calmed down after a bit and his raises were more in line with what I consider normal play. There was only one guy of the starters who seemed out of his depth. He was playing way too many hands and staying in with very mediocre holdings. Somehow he managed to win just enough to stay afloat.
My stack, on the other hand, just kept dwindling. If I tried to play a speculative hand cheap, somebody would almost always come over the top big. If I saw a flop, I'd miss it by a mile.
Then I had the misfortune of catching a hand. I get KK in the SB. Four limpers ahead of me. I'd like one or two callers on this one, so I made it 5BB to go. The BB calls, then all of the limpers call. I couldn't believe it. We haven't even had the flop yet and this is by far the biggest pot of the day.
The flop comes Q-high with two spades. There's $60 in the pot already, so I bet $40. The BB pushes all-in. It folds around back to me. I'm looking at the stack of chips the guy has pushed in. The dealer looks at me and says, "He's all-in." It was like he expected me to either fold or push all my chips in too. I finally had to ask him, "How much is there?" Turns out to be a $4 raise. Gee, let me think about this. $144 in the pot and it's going to cost me $4 to call? I don't know, that's a toughie. (I don't mean to go on about this, but the dealer's actions at this point just struck me as odd.)
Of course, I make the call. The BB turns over Q9 of spades. Okay, I get the push on the flop. He's got top pair and a flush draw. No problem. But how the hell do you call a 5BB pre-flop raise with a crap hand like Q9s? This is the kind of stuff that drives me crazy. Naturally, he rivers a spade.
I got KK one other time and also managed to lose a good chunk of my stack with that one.
After the first fifteen minutes of play I don't think I won a sizable pot the whole day. I know none of them were big enough that I felt I needed to tip the dealer.
In other poker activity, I played one of the new FullTilt "matrix" tournaments. I don't know if the whole concept is flawed or if it's just the way they've implemented it, but I thought it sucked. You play four tournaments simultaneously against the same opponents. Seating on each table is different, but it's the same players on all four tables.
They split the prize money so half goes to normal payouts on each of the four tables and half goes into the matrix pot that's awarded according to points. You get one point for each person eliminated before you on each table and two points for each player you send to the rails. The quicker among you may have realized this really means you get three points for each player you send to the rails, two for knocking the player out and one because you moved up a spot from the elimination.
I didn't care for it at all. It's too difficult playing four tournaments that are all in exactly the same phase at the same time. There are lots of delays due to players being busy on other tables. I think they're awarding too many points for eliminations. From the difficulty in getting one of these started, I gather there are a lot of other players who share my opinion.
I played Dr. Pauly's PLO tourney on Saturday. Not that I made much of an impact. I never got anything going and faded out somewhere in the middle of the field.
Sometime over the weekend I played in a normal SnG. I recall knocking someone out early when I slowplayed aces and caught a huge flop. Then I slowly redistributed the chips until I was back to my starting stack. I did that a couple times. I remember being on the good side of a couple horrible suckouts. In one of those I ran KQ into AA, catching one Q on the flop and rivering a third. I got to heads up with a 5-to-1 chip lead. The other guy was clearly not used to playing heads up. In these situations I try to keep telling myself, "Be patient." I did okay in that regard this time. I had the guy on the ropes at least three times. Each time he sucked out. Given that I wouldn't have been heads up if not for a couple sick suckouts, I suppose I can't complain too much. It's still very disappointing not being able to seal the deal when you've had the guy down to just a couple big blinds.
I played some cheap NL on The Quest, but had a run of just horrible cards. Considering how bad the cards were, I was probably lucky to only drop a bit over one buy-in.
Last night "60 Minutes" did a segment on the cheating scandals at Absolute and UltimateBet. Let me sum it up for you. Online poker is illegal (or so they allege). It's unregulated. It's virtually impossible to stop. Massive cheating has occurred. Nobody is serious about going after the cheaters. The end.
If you've spent more than ten minutes reading online about these scandals, you already know more than "60 Minutes" revealed in their story. I was rather disappointed that they simply said, "Online poker is illegal," instead of taking a few more seconds to note that this is simply the position of the justice department and not a matter of settled law. A fine point, perhaps, but now there are millions of people who believe online poker is absolutely illegal and all those playing online from the US are criminals. Of course, that aspect is probably second to the implanted notion that cheating is rampant and online poker is not to be trusted. This story could go further toward killing online poker than the UIGEA.
I got a couple decent starters near the beginning and took down some small pots. Then came a long dry spell. Fold, fold, fold, fold...
The guys at this table didn't seem quite the mix of idiots and okay players as I saw on the casino cruise. I suppose the $100 buy-in might have something to do with that. One guy was seriously overbetting at the beginning. It may have just been nerves. He calmed down after a bit and his raises were more in line with what I consider normal play. There was only one guy of the starters who seemed out of his depth. He was playing way too many hands and staying in with very mediocre holdings. Somehow he managed to win just enough to stay afloat.
My stack, on the other hand, just kept dwindling. If I tried to play a speculative hand cheap, somebody would almost always come over the top big. If I saw a flop, I'd miss it by a mile.
Then I had the misfortune of catching a hand. I get KK in the SB. Four limpers ahead of me. I'd like one or two callers on this one, so I made it 5BB to go. The BB calls, then all of the limpers call. I couldn't believe it. We haven't even had the flop yet and this is by far the biggest pot of the day.
The flop comes Q-high with two spades. There's $60 in the pot already, so I bet $40. The BB pushes all-in. It folds around back to me. I'm looking at the stack of chips the guy has pushed in. The dealer looks at me and says, "He's all-in." It was like he expected me to either fold or push all my chips in too. I finally had to ask him, "How much is there?" Turns out to be a $4 raise. Gee, let me think about this. $144 in the pot and it's going to cost me $4 to call? I don't know, that's a toughie. (I don't mean to go on about this, but the dealer's actions at this point just struck me as odd.)
Of course, I make the call. The BB turns over Q9 of spades. Okay, I get the push on the flop. He's got top pair and a flush draw. No problem. But how the hell do you call a 5BB pre-flop raise with a crap hand like Q9s? This is the kind of stuff that drives me crazy. Naturally, he rivers a spade.
I got KK one other time and also managed to lose a good chunk of my stack with that one.
After the first fifteen minutes of play I don't think I won a sizable pot the whole day. I know none of them were big enough that I felt I needed to tip the dealer.
In other poker activity, I played one of the new FullTilt "matrix" tournaments. I don't know if the whole concept is flawed or if it's just the way they've implemented it, but I thought it sucked. You play four tournaments simultaneously against the same opponents. Seating on each table is different, but it's the same players on all four tables.
They split the prize money so half goes to normal payouts on each of the four tables and half goes into the matrix pot that's awarded according to points. You get one point for each person eliminated before you on each table and two points for each player you send to the rails. The quicker among you may have realized this really means you get three points for each player you send to the rails, two for knocking the player out and one because you moved up a spot from the elimination.
I didn't care for it at all. It's too difficult playing four tournaments that are all in exactly the same phase at the same time. There are lots of delays due to players being busy on other tables. I think they're awarding too many points for eliminations. From the difficulty in getting one of these started, I gather there are a lot of other players who share my opinion.
I played Dr. Pauly's PLO tourney on Saturday. Not that I made much of an impact. I never got anything going and faded out somewhere in the middle of the field.
Sometime over the weekend I played in a normal SnG. I recall knocking someone out early when I slowplayed aces and caught a huge flop. Then I slowly redistributed the chips until I was back to my starting stack. I did that a couple times. I remember being on the good side of a couple horrible suckouts. In one of those I ran KQ into AA, catching one Q on the flop and rivering a third. I got to heads up with a 5-to-1 chip lead. The other guy was clearly not used to playing heads up. In these situations I try to keep telling myself, "Be patient." I did okay in that regard this time. I had the guy on the ropes at least three times. Each time he sucked out. Given that I wouldn't have been heads up if not for a couple sick suckouts, I suppose I can't complain too much. It's still very disappointing not being able to seal the deal when you've had the guy down to just a couple big blinds.
I played some cheap NL on The Quest, but had a run of just horrible cards. Considering how bad the cards were, I was probably lucky to only drop a bit over one buy-in.
Last night "60 Minutes" did a segment on the cheating scandals at Absolute and UltimateBet. Let me sum it up for you. Online poker is illegal (or so they allege). It's unregulated. It's virtually impossible to stop. Massive cheating has occurred. Nobody is serious about going after the cheaters. The end.
If you've spent more than ten minutes reading online about these scandals, you already know more than "60 Minutes" revealed in their story. I was rather disappointed that they simply said, "Online poker is illegal," instead of taking a few more seconds to note that this is simply the position of the justice department and not a matter of settled law. A fine point, perhaps, but now there are millions of people who believe online poker is absolutely illegal and all those playing online from the US are criminals. Of course, that aspect is probably second to the implanted notion that cheating is rampant and online poker is not to be trusted. This story could go further toward killing online poker than the UIGEA.
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