Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Multi Success - Oct 25, 2005

If you look down to an earlier post you will notice a freeroll tournament from PokerStars. Well, I was knocked out in the first 20 minutes as I wrote in the comment field under that post. I wasn't prepared to play and it was free so I didn't take it seriously. So last night, I got home and had some time before my wife returned home. I decided to fire up a couple 2/4 games and then I noticed that there was also a $30 Multi set to start in 4 minutes. I didn't have any plans for the evening so I sat down to play.

The first hour I looked for a chance to double up but was selective about my hands. I only played great hands or big opportunity (flush/straights) from late position. My first big hand came about 20 minutes into the tournament. A real aggressive player raised to 100 (5x the BB) and got 3 callers. I had KK on the button with 900 chips left. I reraised all in to isolate. I got one caller and my KK held up against 44.

About 4 hands later I get all in with QQ preflop against a loose player with 88, but lose the hand when an 8 hits the flop. After that I won an occasional pot here and there and was at about 1400 when I was dealt AJo in MP (middle position). I decided in big Multi's to take the Doyle approach and limp with AJ and AQo. The more I think about this I think it is the appropriate way to play these hands. You are not going to get much action by raising. You may pick up the blinds or since you are not in LP (late position), you may get raised and be isolated against AQ or AK. This is a second best hand, one of those hands that you are going to win a lot of small pots, but lose a lot of big pots. UNLESS, you limp. So I limp and the flop is J76 rainbow against 5 players. I bet a little over 1/2 of the pot and get one caller. Next card is a 2. I was a bit worried about the set but wanted to chase away any straight draws or flush draws. The guy I was up against wasn't the best player and I really think he would have raised the flop with any pair (he had previously done that more than a couple times). I bet the pot, which was about 3/4 of his stack. He raised all in with JT and I called and won a big pot.

This was a huge pot for me. I was double the average in the tourney and now I was the chip leader at my table. For those of you who have played with me before, you know what happens next. I became a big table bully. I started reraising with good hands to put other players all in. I also tried to keep the pots small and betting at nearly every flop or picking up the blinds. I was very active, but not enough for people to really adjust their play. I wasn't a complete maniac.

By the time it got down to about 200 people, I had shut down the 2/4 limit tables I had been playing (up around 15BB/100 on average) and was done cooking dinner (my day of the week to cook). It was time to start concentrating a bit more. My wife had returned home by now and she was watching me play. Some people are very distracted when people are watching them. I can be distracted at times but it really depends on the person. I tend to actually play better if the person watching me is still learning poker or doesn't know anything about it. I tend to question myself a bit if there is an experienced player watching me. I had a really good time playing with my wife watching last night. Once we got close to the bubble I looked at her and said, "We are not playing this tourney just to win $20. We are playing to get to the final table where the real money is won. Time to be aggressive."

By playing aggressive on the bubble I found out who was there to win and who was there to cash. I had probably the second or third highest chip count at my table. So as soon as the big stacks folded I raised the blinds. If someone called, I bet the flop. I was very aggressive because I had nothing to lose. This helped build my stack. In fact, right before the bubble hit, the big stack raised in EP. I was in late position and called with 22. Flop 7A2. This was a monster flop. He bet the flop and I called. Turn was a blank and he bet half my stack. I was playing against a guy that refused to fold in a big hand. He had built his stack by sucking out on a couple guys. I was confident I had the best hand and at this point, but I was a bit worried about a higher set hitting on the river. I didn't think he had me beat at this point because I think his betting patterns would have been different. I put him on an Ace. I decided to reraise all in. Unfortunately, he didn't call, but I took over the chip lead in the whole tournament.

The bubble burst and I continued to pick on the guys that were not playing to win but playing to move up a couple levels and win another $10 or $20 bucks. It was very amusing to watch my wife as she became very nervous as I was raising with Q7 or 83o. I was sitting with A4s on the BB when another key hand came up. A weak post flop player raised his standard raise of 2x the BB. I called and the flop was 6JT. I checked and he bet a small amount. I decided to call because I had a runner runner opportunity and I think I can buy the pot on the turn. The turn card was an A giving me top pair. Here is where I made my mistake. I have top pair, but I was worried that he had a higher kicker (maybe a reason to fold the bb preflop, but it is hard to do as big stack when you have an advantage post flop). I bet about half of his stack and he called. This was interesting to me. Now I think he is scared and I have the hand. I think he would have reraised all in with a hand that beat my A4. Either that or he had a monster. I actually put him on a mid size pair 77-99. The turn was a K. I put him all in and he called with QJ and the nut straight.

This hurt a lot. I am not upset at myself for playing the hand. In fact I think I played that hand well preflop and on the flop. However, I really think I could have bought the pot on the turn. I was no longer the chip leader at my table and was near the average. I could not longer play bully. At this point we were down to about 40 people. I didn't get a hand I could play for a while and I started to lose ground as the blinds increased. I had to keep reminding myself out loud that I am playing to make the final table as the new bully starting buying people's blinds. I picked up KJs in the CO and moved all in to buy the blinds or look to double up. Unfortunately, neither of these happened. The big blind with half of my stack typed in "what the hell, I'm tired" and called with KJs. I had hearts and he had clubs and three clubs hit the board and he doubled up. Now the blinds are up to 500/1000 and I'm sitting at 8000 needing two double ups to get to the table average. At this point there are 28 people left in the tourney. The payouts for are the same if you finish 11-20 or 21-30. I could have played passive and tried to finish in the top 20 but I wasn't playing for another $50, I wanted to make the final table.

I picked up 78o in the CO after everyone folded. I still had FE (fold equity) so I moved all in and was called (my wife screamed). Luckily I had two live cards as the BB showed AQ. Flop QJ5, Turn T, River 9. I picked up the low end straight and doubled up. 8 hands later, I picked up KTs on the button. The chip leader raised 2.5 x the BB just to the right of the CO. He had been raising consistently (as he should) and I decided to play for the final table and take a stand. I reraised him all in and he folded immediately. This was a huge pickup for me and I was near the table average. I started playing a bit more aggressively and picking up blinds against the weak players. I picked up some good hands and knocked a couple short stacks out of the tournament. My TT held up against A3. My JJ knocked off 55. All of a sudden I was over the average and we were down to 15 players. No key hands for a while as I picked up some blinds but didn't play any big hands. About 20-30 minutes later I had made the final table.

When I got to the final table my goal was to get in the top five (when the prize was over $1000). This quickly changed as I knocked a couple guys out. One big hand came when I called from the CO (cut off, right of the button) with 33 against a 2.5x BB MP raise. The button also called and the flop came AK7 all hearts. The MP bet a very small amount and I called with 33 (one of which was a heart). Why did I call? Well, I thought I had a better hand than the MP and he had also been playing scared so I thought I could push him off a better hand on the turn. But I was worried about the button. The turn was the 8 of clubs and MP fired out about a 1/4 pot bet. I sensed weakness and I decided to play like I had been playing, aggressively. At this point I had got in the zone and wasn't even thinking about the money. I wanted to win the tournament, not for the cash, but because I am very competitive and want to win at nearly everything I do. I reraised all in deciding that he didn't have a heart and probably had a pair higher than 33 or an A or K. I decided that I think I can make him fold his hand and if not, I think I have some outs with my 3 of hearts. I moved AI and he folded. I was elated and jumped around the room.

I was 3rd in chips now and I continued to play aggressively. I picked up 83s in the small blind and raised to 2x BB (normally I would raise more from the small blind, because it is an easy EV call for the BB, but this was enough to get this guy to fold in the past). The big blind called (we were the only players). Flop was 459. I bet out 1/3 of the pot and got a call. I was a bit worried and considered just check folding the rest of the way. But the BB was playing scared all night. Next card was a 7. I had no opportunity to win the hand unless he folded. If I moved in and lost, I would still be alive in the tourney with a decent size stack. I decided to push. He folded and I was off and running. I then proceeded to knock two players out.

The first hand I was very very fortunate. I called a 2x raise from the BB with T7s against a timid player. It was his standard raise so I wasn't worried about a slowplay AA or KK. Flop was K75. I decided to check to get a read on his bet. He bet 1/4 of the pot and I moved him all in. He took a long time and then called and flipped over KQ. Ouch. Great play by him. He sensed my aggressiveness and I played right into his hands. Unfortunately for him another 7 came on the river and he was knocked out. The second hand I picked up 44 and made my standard raise from MP to 10,000. I was the chip leader now and starting buying pots again. However, the button reraised all in for about 70,000. Against a tight player I probably would have folded, but this was a guy who was playing table bully an hour ago at a table of mine. He knows how to play the bully which means he knows to play aggressive against the bully. He read a steal on my part and moved in. I decided to call him down and look for the coin flip. I got it when he flipped over AK. My 44 held up and I we were down to 6 players.

It was time to settle down a bit as people started to play back at me and I had to fold some steal attempts. I gained some credibility and mixed up my play. The rest of the tourney is a blur and I need to go through the hand history to critique my play both before the final three and after. When it came down to the final three I had about 400k chips. Second place to my left was the guy who couldn't get away from a big pot who I had won a lot of hands from earlier. He had about $250k and the third place was the guy who had QJ earlier when I should have raised all in on the turn with my A4. He was very timid and it became clear right away that he was playing for 2nd.

First prize was over 5K, second was $3000 and third was $1900. I can tell you this right now, but at the time it never even creeped in my mind. I was there to win the tournament. This is both good and bad. If I finish 3rd I lose the chance to win 1100 dollars (difference between 3rd and 2nd). However, I got to this point by playing aggressive, not by playing weak poker. If you start to play scared, you lose your edge and it could negatively impact your game.

We had a lot of chips now relative to the blinds as everyone was over 10x the BB. The passive player to my right was very nice and seem to fold from the sb every hand. He would raise from the button occasionally, but was very tight and weak post flop. I took this into account when I was the BB with J9s. The button called and the sb completed the blind. I checked and the flop came J33. Great flop for me, however there was not a raise so it is hard to put players on a hand. SB checked and I bet 2/3 of the pot. I had picked up a lot of pots this way. I just wanted to keep winning the small pots and staying away from any big confrontations without big hands. The button folded and the SB moved all in. He had not done this to me all day. He was basically a mouse and when mouses take a stand you have to respect it. I have a great hand three handed but I folded to the SB having to give him credit for a better hand.

This is one of three hands I remember from the final three. The next two involve me playing against the loose aggressive player who was second in chip count and now was nearly even with me. I picked up KQ suited and I made a standard 2.5 x raise. BB calls and the flop comes AJ5 with two spades. I bet 1/3 of the pot and he called. Turn was another J. I threw out a big bet (1/2 pot) and he called. River was a 7 (not a spade) and I checked. He bet 50,000. What could he have? If he had a good ace, I think he would have reraised me preflop. If he had a weak ace I think he would have raised me on the turn to see where he stood against a possible J. If he had a J I think he would have raised on the flop because he either needs to see where he stands against an A or he is giving a free card to a flush draw, K or Q. If he has a 5 or 7 he should check because theoretically he is only going to get called by a better hand. Finally, he could have a monster set or two pair that he was slow playing. This was my thought process. After all that I only had KQ but this was the best non paired hand on the board. I finally concluded that he didn't have a monster and he has a busted flush draw. It is common against loose aggressive players that they will chase a straight or flush draw and then make a maniac bet on the river to try to pick up the pot if they don't hit their hand. I thought I had him outkicked so I called. He turned over J3o. This hurt. All of a sudden I was down to 10x the bb. The tight weak player to my right was about the same until he picked up a big pot against the chip leader.

The next hand I'm on the BB and needing to double up. Blinds are at 5,000/10,000 and I have 80,000. Button limps, sb completes and I move all in with QTo. Big stack calls and tight/weak player folds. I figure that I am behind and need a draw. In actuality, I was ahead as the button flips over J9 of hearts. Turn gave me a Q and a commanding lead but the Q was a heart as was another card. Turn was another heart and I was gone.

The tournament ended less than five minutes later as tight/weak got knocked out with QQ vs AA. This was a great experience and it was very fun to have my wife sitting next to me watching me play. It puts things in perspective and also allowed me to explain the game to her as I played. By talking it through with her it made me think more clearly and actually helped throughout the tourney. A very fun time that I can think about now. I was in a daze and it took over an hour for the adrenaline to return to normal levels. The crazy thing was sitting there and thinking how I wanted to win first and just speechless. After 20 minutes, it sunk in that if I had even finished second I would have won $1100 more dollars. That is a lot of money.

I think I'm the most proud of myself for continuing to play my game despite the difference in the payouts. I could have folded that hand with KQ and started playing for second place, but in a very high pressure situation I thought through all of the possibilities and made a tough decision on my past experience against my opponent. It was a logical decision that ended up being the wrong one. But I could have easily folded because I didn't have a hand instead of trying to decide if I had a better non hand than my opponent.

Maybe I will think differently about my play after I look through the hand history, but either way it was a very fun experience.

Monday, October 24, 2005

Weekly Update and Ace on the River - October 24, 2005

This has been a pretty good month for me. I thought there would be a huge transition to switch from NL to Limit poker. However, I am a bit surprised that I have continued a positive swing in my bankroll. I have been fortunate lately with good cards coming my way. However, I think I have been playing good poker as well. Up to $2/4 now and enjoying Poker Tracker and GameTime+. I ended the weekend with a very good one hour session. I three tabled $2/4 before dinner time and ended the one hour session with an average per table 20 BB table win.

In this blog, I may be using BB to abbreviate for two different ideas. If I am talking about preflop play, BB will often represent Big Blind. Usually in NL we use BB to refer to the severity of your raise before the flop. However, when you are playing Limit poker you cannot change the severity of your raise since it is a set amount. In a 2/4 game the small blind will be $1 and the big blind will be $2. If you read Small Stakes Hold Em by Ed Miller (which you should if you want to be successful at Limit Poker) they talk about bets in terms of Small bets and big bets (BB). The first two rounds of betting you are only allowed to bet in increments of $2 in a 2/4 game. On the turn and river you are only allowed to bet in increments of $4. Therefore, if you are calculating pot odds and deciding what hands to play you need to count the number of bets in the first two rounds. Divide the pot by two once the turn comes and then count the number of BBs that are added.

If you are discussing how well you are playing in Limit poker, you may be playing a $0.50/$1.00 game or you may be playing a $15/$30 game. You also may play for an hour or you may play all day. Therefore, players will often talk about their results in a a BB/100 hands context. A good limit poker player will try to win at the rate of 2 or 3 BB per every 100 hands. As you can see, to win at a 20 BB/100 clip for a session you have to have two things going for you. (1) You have to get great cards and (2) you have to be playing against some very bad players. I was fortunate enough to have both work my way yesterday.

On another note, I am in the middle of a great poker book right now. Barry Greenstein (a.k.a. the Robin Hood of poker since he gives all of his tournament winnings to charity) came out with a book called Ace on the River. Very entertaining book about managing your bankroll. Doyle Brunson wrote the foreward and said that if you want to learn how to play poker to read Super System 1 and 2, but if you wanted to learn how to win money to read Ace on the River. The book is full of color photos which are entertaining by itself. There are plenty of philosophical and humorous quotes in each chapter. Best of all it describes the makeup of winning and losing players. Very interesting to think through the little things that are necessary to be a professional poker player besides technically playing the cards correctly. Whether the book is describing the ideal personality of a great player or the most profitable way to tip the staff it is very thought provoking. There is even a chapter on "poker and sexuality" which had me laughing out loud. I had to read the chapter to my wife (only two pages) because I thought the unintenional comedy was too good not to pass on. Apparentely, Barry concludes the players who are able to find a partner when on the road are at a competitive advantage over the other "frustrated" players, because they will be better rested for the competition the next day.

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

OESD and Bubble Burst Definition - October 18, 2005

Update: I'm beginning to really like limit hold em cash games. I have fared pretty well. I have began playing a lot and seem to do pretty well. Amazing that if you look at a database of hands and classify people based on three categories, there is one distinct feature that separates the profitable from unprofitable. If you look at the following three categories, what do you think is the most important?

1) starting hands that people play (Tight, Loose or Semi-Loose classification)
2) the aggressiveness that people play before the flop (aggressive, nuetral, passive)
3) the aggressiveness that people play after the flop (aggressive, neutral, passive)

I have found that being aggressive after the flop makes the most profitable limit hold em player. You can refine 1 and 2 to increase your profitability but if you want to be profitable you have to be aggressive in category number 3.

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Follow up to earlier post: I had a couple questions on what an OESD and Bubble Burst meant. Listed below are some definitions.


OESD = Open Ended Straight Draw. When you have four cards in a row and are hoping to fill your striaght with your eight outs. Example: 5678 and hoping for one of the four 4s or one of the four 9s left in the deck.

Often confused with the OESD is the double belly buster. You still have eight outs but they are not in a row. For example You have 678 and the board has a 4 and a T. If a 5 or a 9 come you fill your straight.

Bubble Bursting = When you are playing in a tournament the cutoff point for who makes the money and who doesn't is called the bubble. If I am playing in a single table tournament (often referred to as a SNG) they will pay the top 3 out of 10. When there are ten people at the table you are likely to play your normal game. But once you get down to 4 or 5 people you may make different decisions based on the size of your opponents chips because you are on the bubble.

For example, say you are down to four people. You have 1500 chips and are in 3rd place. The other three players have 4000, 2400 and 100. Blinds are at 1000/200. You are dealt AJ in the BB. The small stack is first to act (UTG) and folds. The button big stack at the table raises to 1200. the SB folds and it is your decision. Well, you probably have the best hand since it is only four handed. But if you raise all in the button is likely to call since he has to only put 300 more chips in the pot. If you were down to three players and had already been guaranteed the third place money you would likely raise all in. However, since the low stack is going to be committed to paying the blind and being "All in" on the next hand, you should probably fold. Even though you have a better hand than the Button, he has pot odds to call and you have a chance of being knocked out. You are better off waiting two hands for the small blind to likely get knocked out and then playing aggressively with the top two chip stacks to get back into contention.

Okay so you fold, and the next hand the small stack gets knocked out by the big stack. The Bubble has burst" because you are in the money, so now the decisions at the table should change.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

So Much for Rakeback - October 12, 2005

This past weekend caused quite a stir in the poker world. I explained rakeback in a previous post. I was anticipating collecting between $200-$400 a year in rakeback simply by playing the same games I was playing before only on Empire Poker. For those of you who don't know Party Poker was a main site that was interconnected with a few other sites. Empire Poker is one. So if I was playing at Empire Poker I was connected to the Party network and playing against players from Party. That all changed this weekend.

Party Poker decided to go solo and dropped the other affiliates from their network. So now you have Party Poker and then the "Empire Network". I can still receive rakeback but I have to be playing at Empire. The problem is that Party Poker accounted for nearly 90% of the players in the party network. Usually new signups and people who are oblivous to rakeback and not as good of players will sign up with Party Poker. The people at the affiliates are those that are aware of rakeback and most likely better players. So now my decision...Do I play at Empire against better players but with less rake or do I pay the higher rake and play at Party Poker against the worse players?

The only benefit of this is that with the huge change nearly every poker site (Empire, Party, Poker Stars, and I'm sure UltimateBet, etc) are offering lucrative deposit bonuses. So I put some money into PartyPoker last night so I could get a $100 free after playing a certain amount of hands. At party the amount of raked hands that you need to play is equal to seven times the amount of your bonus. I will collect a free $100 if I play 700 raked hands in the next seven days. Not an easy task, but not that difficult either. You don't have to play high stakes. So I sat down at the 0.50/1.00 Limit Hold Em table and played four tables at once. I had PokerTracker and Gametime + going so I did notice that after 50 hands from everyone there were at least a couple people at the table that played over 50% of their hands. It seemed a bit higher than at Empire. My session ended after about an hour and I was pretty tired. Tough to manage 4 tables at once. Although I don't think my play decreased much if at all. I ended up losing $15 in the session but I played well. Didn't feel like I won any huge pots and had some bad beats go against me.

Been playing pretty well lately. Not great, but I'm trying to get accustomed to playing limit poker. I have gathered about 2000 hands so I can begin to look at my tendencies in poker tracker. I am going to start reading up on the best way to analyze the data so I can critically look at my play and what I need to change. However, I think the best aspect of Poker Tracker is the ability to keep data on your opponents. As I build my database I will be able to see that the player on my left plays x% of the hands, raises preflop y% of the time, has an aggression factor after the flop of z and for the number of times they see a flop, they will go to the river k times. Plus, based on these stats I can setup characters for these players. For example, if someone is a calling station, gametime + will show a telephone by their name, so I will know to make a value bet on the river even if my hand isn't the nuts. Now, I just need to know how to play against the other styles.

Saturday, October 01, 2005

Poker Championship

I have registered to play in the
Online Poker Blogger Championship!

This event is powered by PokerStars.

Registration code: 8262091