The practice of poker

The end

noreply@blogger.com (Rob1606) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 11:01:00 +0000

So that's it, I'm quitting. My final bankroll at Full Tilt was $770, after taking out $750 earlier (and depositing only $50 in January!). I did not check yet how much I won in total by playing poker, but it most be something like $3300. Too bad the dollar is so low at the moment! Still, I'd better cash out before it drops even further...

Probably I will only post in the future when I play live somewhere, if anything interesting happens.

Thank you for your attention. Any questions?

$22 seems to be the sweet spot

noreply@blogger.com (Rob1606) — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 11:31:00 +0000

I have now played twenty $33 games, but I was fortunate to win the last one and bring my ROI up to "only" minus 10%... It seems that there really are more people that know what they are doing at this level. Of course, this is based on a relatively small sample, but some of the chats were also quite insightful. Guess I will stick with the $22 games, if I get around to playing a few more before we move, that is...

About those $22 games, I suppose that an ROI of 55% cannot be maintained over the long run. Still, I have played 45 such games now, and I have also played 61 games at Pacific Poker earlier, where I maintained an ROI of 31%.

This means that I am now maintaining an ROI of about 40% in $20-22 games for over 100 games already. Of course that is still not statistically significant, though you can probably say with some certainty that I am a winning player at this level. (It has been a long time since I did some actual statistics...)

Well, that didn't last long...

noreply@blogger.com (Rob1606) — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 19:15:00 +0000

An hour and ten minutes, to be precise. But I played OK. Not great, but OK.

FTP $240 + $16

There are 1637 participants, top 162 gets paid. First place is $70391.

Tried to qualify for this tournament by playing a SNG, but finished 3rd. Still, that did pay $40 net.

Early on, flop a set with 44 and manage to eliminate an extremely short stack: this immediately earns me $40! So even if I get eliminated on the next hand, it has cost me "only" $176 to play.

I bet out 2/3 of the pot with my set because there were 2 diamonds on the flop. One opponent folded after some thought, and the turn was a diamond. I wonder if he was on a flush draw...

Anyway, stack now 3536, average is 3256 :-) I should enjoy having an above average stack while it lasts! There are 1508 players remaining after 22 minutes. Wow, it is really going slowly with eliminations!

Fold A5o as BB to an MP raise. Then lose a blinds confrontation: 3446.

185 players gone after half an hour. This is going to be a long night, if I survive that long!

Stack 3406 after paying the BB, average stack 3402!

Try to make a move in MP which backfires completely. 2866.

Got moved to a new table. Time to run sharkscope again.

Try a steal in cutoff with K6s, success. Then get AKo! Raise to 200 after a limper. He calls after long thought and also calls my c-bet, damnit. With second pair. Beats me! Down to 2416 now. That's how fast you can lose 1000 chips... he had A9.

AK as SB. Raise to 250 when my finger slips, BB folds. Oh well. (BB's stats are still 0/0/0/0 after 13 hands...)

A9 as BB. Get a free ride! Fine by me...

I am 986th out of 1251 remaining. Could be better. Now 971st out of 1238 :-)

It really is going to be quite some time to even reach the money spots...

BREAK 1: 2326 chips. Blinds will be 40/80, so my M is still 19. 1157 players remain, so nearly 500 players have been eliminated in the first hour: not even a third!

Let's hope another 500 leave in the second hour - at least!

JJ as BB, very nice. SB raises after long thought. With AT, it turns out. I reraise him, he pushes, I call, he flops TWO ACES. Not just one mind you, but two. As if to emphasize. Oh well.......

The $75 game

noreply@blogger.com (Rob1606) — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 12:47:00 +0000

Buyin was $69 plus $6 rake, so $75 in total. It was a SNG with 45 players, top 6 would get paid.

KQo as BB does not pay off; I call a minraise but have to fold to a potsized c-bet with only an oesd. Later I raise 88, BB calls but fortunately folds to my c-bet on a KKQ-flop (I was not too happy about betting here, but I had to try it). This put me back to my starting stack of 1500.

A round later I get a free round as BB, the first of what would turn out to be quite many free rides... The blinds are up to 40/80 now and my first steal (QTo in MP) works out: again 1500.

I survive an early scare when the SB calls my steal attempt with T2 (hey, I was the button!) but folds to my c-bet on an AJ9 flop. Here I used the fact that from his perspective, my most likely high card was an Ace. Losing this pot would have put me down to 765, but now I had 1645. It could have been a pretty short tournament for me!

A round later, I pick up A6 in 2nd position (out of 7). The blinds are already 60/120, my stack is 1500 and I decide to just push here - my M was only a little over 8. Fortunately all fold.

A funny hand as BB: we check a hand down until the river gives me a single, lowly pair and the SB minbets. I call and it turns out we both have K5 in our hands, so we share the pot!

Steal with JTs OTB by pushing my 1675 chips: 1855. The next time I am BB, I pick up my first premium hand: AQo. But it is folded around to me! The second free ride, but I was not too happy about this one.

Another round later, I have my first preflop all-in confrontation when I push T9 OTB and get called by a short stack with QTs. Losing this would have cost me half my stack. The board: J 8 J (giving me an open ended straight draw) Q (bingo... quite a cruel card here) 4. Now I have 2600, but this is still well below average at this point. It puts me in about the middle of the field.

Since everybody saw my cards, I decide to lay low for a couple of hands. But when I pick up A8 three hands later in 2nd position out of 6, I decide to do a standard threebet, which works: 2835. A round and a half later, I am UTG and pick up JTs again. There are again 6 players at the table, blinds are 100/200 and my stack is 2500, so my M is again a little over 8. I decide to push and all fold. The blinds actually go up to 120/240 on the very next hand, so my M was actually only 7.

My first race of the tournament occurs when I pick up JJ as SB and the button pushes with AQo. The board is 8 10 10 10 2 and my opponent has 147 chips left after this debacle. (Nevertheless, he would go on to finish in the money! In fact, he would remain seated to my immediate right and gave me quite a few free rides later.

On the very next hand, he beats K9 with A3 on a K3x flop and a 3 turn. Two hands after that he beats ATo with KTs (K on flop). The hand after that he pushes UTG and all fold! He now has 1600 again (blinds 120/240). THEN he gets AK as BB and doubles up when AQ pushes: 3400! The next time he is BB after this, he has AQ and beats JJ from the button: 7000. It was quite astonishing to watch this.)

Meanwhile I was just staying quiet, because I was not getting any cards, so I had slowly dropped to 4770 by this time. I then raised first in as SB with A5 and was not very happy to see the BB flat call. The flop came 3 4 7. I deemed this unlikely to have hit my opponent and pushed my remaining 4k into the 2k stack: he folded. (The blinds were 150/300 by this time.)

On the next hand, I called a raise myself with AQo, but missed the flop: 5k. I then got JJ in 2nd position (out of 6) and raised to 1000. The next player pushed and I had to call: my second race! Board 9 5 3 6 10 and now I had 10k... This was clearly above average and put me in the top 3 of about 12 players remaining.

I lose quite a bit of this stack a few hands later however, when my opponent refuses to fold to my steal as well as to my c-bet: 7700 chips left. Next time I am BB, I pick up 55. Only the button calls for 400, I make it 2000 to go and he folds. I pick up 55 on the next hand as well. This time I decide to just limp in, the flop is Q44 but the BB bets out before I get a chance. I wisely fold but the SB raises! Phew...

I raise with ATs against the same player who refused to fold before, this time he fortunately wisens up and folds immediately: 8500. With this, I reached the final table, which I reported on before (see earlier post).

One day profit: $900

noreply@blogger.com (Rob1606) — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 08:54:00 +0000

Yesterday I had my best day ever, poker-wise. My profit was larger than that of my third and fourth best month, combined! This is now the third month in which I have made a net profit of over $700. And it did not even start off that well...

Two losses in $33 games: -$72 (rake 2x$3)
Two wins in $22 games: +$150
Second place in $69+6 MTT (45 players): +$701.25
Two third places in $33 games that I played during this MTT: +$46.80
TOTAL: $926.05

I will write a detailed report of the $75 game at some point. I got quite lucky several times, but mostly I was simply very aggressive and managed to get a lot of laydowns when it mattered. The game lasted a little over two hours and 236 hands.

(For the record, I have had 5 losing months, with a total loss during those months of $238.53. My most recent losing month was December. My profit in 2008 is already larger than it was in the entire year 2007... In the last two months (i.e., since January 15th), I have doubled my total winnings! Did you notice that I love numbers?)

One card away from another MTT win

noreply@blogger.com (Rob1606) — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 21:39:00 +0000

I was THIS close to taking down a $69+6 game at Full Tilt with 45 players... But the river killed me and I lost on the next hand. Still, a nice payout. First place would have brought me about $350 more.

FTP $69, FINAL TABLE

Stack nearly 8K, blinds 250/500, M=10.5. Am in third position of 9 players remaining...

55 as BB. Not going to go crazy here... SB first in raises to 1555. I push, he folds. Yeah. 9k now.

Limp as SB, fold to push. Still 9k.

I am now in SECOND position!!!! Very nice... Should be able to fold into the money here, but want to see how high I can get. First prize is over 1k. Eight players left now.

KK in 3rd pos. raise to 1800 = 3BB, all fold. 10k!! This is really amazing... Average stack is 8k, number 1 has 19k. Smallest stack has 2k.

The player to my immediate right came back from 147 chips, I nearly eliminated him earlier. Quite amazing, he now has 7k!

AT as SB. Raise to 2400, BB calls!(!) Low flop, I push, he folds. 11641 chips now...

ATs in hijack! Exact same hand as before, hearts. I raise to 3BB, all fold. 12541 chips... Still 8 players left.

AKo in 2nd position... Raise to 3BB... all fold. 13441 chips. People seem to be very afraid of me. GOOD.

AQs as SB! First in, raise to put BB all-in, he folds. 14641 chips. He now is the shortest stack with 1620 chips.

I sure am getting some monster cards here... must make the most of this.

Showdown, short stack wins. Blinds now 400/800, so my M is 12. Still easily in 2nd position, 3rd position has only 7k!

Shorty just doubled up. Four people with stack between 4k and 5500 now.

66 as BB... ANOTHER free round! Amazing. Is Diddy afraid of me? He is a shark!

The top stack is not doing anything, just remaining constant at 20k.

Showdown, 7 players left now: THE BUBBLE.

Try a steal with J9o OTB, success. 15841 chips now. Am closing in on the chip leader!

Four people between 6400 and 5500 now (5500 is lowest stack).

Blinds up to 500/1000, finally we are getting somewhere. Another showdown, shorty wins by making runner-runner two pair against QQ... Loser is left with 1455 chips.

My M is 10. QJo as SB. Button raises, I fold.

ATo as button! Fold after UTG limps.

Shorty pushes, he was going to be blinded out in 3 hands. SB calls. BB as well, good. SB pushes on flop! But loses!! Shorty makes a flush on the river... and immediately pushes the next hand UTG. No callers.

Lose against shorty in triple showdown. Put BB all-in as SB, he folds. 14k.

Blinds now 1200/600, my M is 7 or so. Still in 2nd position, but only barely now!

AM in FIRST position in the very brief period between a showdown and my paying the big blind :-)

IN THE MONEY!!!

Raise OTB with A3o. Blinds fold. 15547 chips. Back in first place. Very nice. Raise again with A8o in 2nd pos, all fold. 17k!!!!

Wow, triple showdown: AK- AT- 99. AK wins, he had the shortest stack, no eliminations.

Five players left. Payout $186 assured.

Blinds now 800/1600, steal OTB and in hijack: 19k! M=7 or so. First position again!

For a little while. No, again.

Wow. I manage to river a straight as BB. 21k.

Raise OTB with A6o. BB calls with AJo, I flop 665....... Now I have 29k!!!!!

Four players left, I am clearly in first position. Payout $300 assured.

Blinds now 2k/1k, M=10...

Staying about constant at 29k. Oops, steal fails: 16k.

Showdown! Short stack loses, payout $500!!

ANOTHER SHOWDOWN!!! HEADS UP!!!!

Equal stacks after a while.

Lose a big pot: 20k vs 40k.

JJ as SB, limp-push. He has A8 and I win. Now stacks are reversed!

Lose all-in AT vs KJ, river is J...
Payout $776.25. Not bad for two hour's work.

More of the same

noreply@blogger.com (Rob1606) — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 14:29:00 +0000

I managed to win two simultaneous turbo games again :-) This brought my return on investment for the $22 games back up to 57%, very nice. Since such a game usually lasts about 35 minutes (less if I lose early!), this means that on average I earn about $12 in 35 minutes, or about $20 per hour. However, since I usually play two games in parallel, this comes to $40 per hour. That is not a bad hourly wage, especially since there are no taxes on it...

Nice to know that I have something to fall back on if things do not work out career-wise :-)

On the negative side, I tried two $33 games this morning and finished out of the money in both. One of them involved losing with QQ against 77 (all-in preflop), so I do not feel too bad about this.

I also managed to cash in a $50 MTT - I went out in 27th place, and 27 places got paid, so I earned exactly $7.70 for those three hours of work :-) Still, this marks the highest ever buyin of a tournament where I managed to cash. I still need to see if I could manage to play a $100 game, but they seem to be quite rare.

PS Another nice statistic: according to PokerOffice, I am now making a profit in every position apart from the big blind. Usually of course, the blinds are losing positions. By far the largest profit comes from the button (which is no surprise), but the second largest profit actually comes from under the gun! I was quite amazed to see that.

Oh no it isn't!

noreply@blogger.com (Rob1606) — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 14:13:00 +0000

At least, I managed to win a game now (out of the money in the parallel game though), so I am back to $226.

Yes, it kind of IS

noreply@blogger.com (Rob1606) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 20:43:00 +0000

In my last post, I asked rhetorically whether this was the beginning of another downturn for me. After losing the next 4 games, it sure seems like it (see title of this post). Fortunately I finally managed to catch a 2nd place in the 9th game to stop this sequence and avoid the "super tilt" label. I am now down to $176. But like I said, I am not going to worry about losing this money. If it happens, it happens; I will just try to have some fun in the meantime. It is not like it is MY money that I am playing with :-) All of this money was given to me by my friendly opponents... I took out my initial deposit a long time ago!

4 in a row

noreply@blogger.com (Rob1606) — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:10:00 +0000

Now I have lost four $22 games in a row. Is this the beginning of another bad beat period? In my last two games, I ran into KK and QQ in the blinds... Good thing I cashed out $750 a couple of days ago! Now if I should happen to lose my remaining bankroll at Full Tilt ($238 now), that's OK. The important thing is to keep playing in the same way...

The games:

Push 9-3 OTB with 1700, blinds are 120/240 so my M was 5. There were 5 players left. Get called by KQ (a bit loose), I actually get a 3 on the flop but the river is a King. I think this was a reasonable move by me.
I fell for the old limp-reraise trick with AA. I had AJ, I was getting odds of 2:1, I could not get away from this hand after raising.
Run 88 (SB) into QQ (BB). He thought a long time before calling my raise preflop, and I decided to gamble on a JTx flop. Bad timing!
Again I got tricked by a limped KK (in the BB). I bet out on a 765 flop with T6, he went all-in! This screamed a draw (to me) but of course he had a made hand. Nice hand sir.

Too bad I finished out of the money in my last two $22 games...

noreply@blogger.com (Rob1606) — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 17:10:00 +0000

Nice to get this up on Sharkscope :-)

FTP $24, 2nd hour

Eliminated 2 players in the 1st hour. First AA beat JJ in the BB, then KQ beat KT on KTx flop after the turn was a Q...

Am now in 4th position overall! Dropped to 6th since the break.

My stack is 11k, blinds are 50/100, this is amazing... My M is 72! :-) I am also the chipleader at my table, but only barely. There are 149 players remaining out of 364, top 36 gets paid (this is a $7500 guarantee tournament).

Just dropped to 10th place. Not doing anything, but am getting overtaken. Still not much to worry though :-)

Quite a bit of action at my table. Not getting involved for the moment. No reason.

127 players left, 11th place. M=59 :-)

Dodged a tremendous bullet when I folded on a J77 flop with KJ after I bet half the pot and an opponent went all-in with QJ. He made a runner-runner flush...

9400. Raise ATs after 1 limper in CO. BB calls, limper pushes on flop that I miss: fold. 8900. In 18th place now out of 115 remaining, still not bad...

JJ in CO. Raise to 600 = 3BB. All fold. Back to 8900... 23rd out of 103.

QQ in 2nd pos. 1st pos. raises, I reraise to 1400. He calls with 66, goes all-in on an oesd and makes it on the turn. Down to 3678... M is now 12.

Now I am 76th out of 96 remaining :-(

Raise TT to 1000 in MP, all fold...

Raise 88 in 2nd pos to 1000, all fold...

Push AQo UTG, all fold... The last two of these hands were consecutive! Now up to 4178 again (after paying the blinds).

JKo in SB. Fold after early limp and raise.

The antes have kicked in. Round now costs 585, so M is 7. I am 67th out of 84 players remaining. Will there be other people so willing to give me their chips as in the first hour? (And of course I got lucky at the end of the first hour as well.)

Now really waiting for a good hand... Stack down to 3548 after the next blinds passed.

Getting very close to pushing ATC here, given good position... but not getting the chance! Many limps, early raises etc. To top it all off, the blinds just went up to 150/300 plus 25 antes, so a round now costs 675 and my M is only 5.5 or so. 64th out of 73 remaining.

I just got moved to a new table. Maybe it is an advantage that nobody knows me here, we will see... Only 8 tables left now, final 4 tables get paid!

88 in MP. Push. All fold. Back to 4k.

Down to 3300 after a few more hands... I got moved again! Blast, I had just looked everybody up on Sharkscope :-( Now I can start all over again! Used the break to look them all up.

57th out of 62 remaining.

START OF THIRD HOUR

Round now costs 1k, so my M is down to 3. This is not going to be quite enough to make it ITM... Looking to double up here, and stat!

77 as BB, here goes nothing... I actually win a race against AQo! Now ATs as SB. Push after 1 limper, he folds. Now in 33rd position out of 55...

AJo in MP, push. All fold. Back to over 9k now! 31st out of 54. M=9... for the moment.

BLinds went up, round costs 1200, M=6. Stack is 8500 (just paid SB).

50 players remain, only 14 more to go. I might still make it!

36th out of 49. Should be happy to sneak into the money here!

Fold QJo in 2nd pos. 46 players remain! 45. 43. Going now.

Got blinded out in 32nd position, not bad! Eliminated two players, so I earned $15.75.

Goals

noreply@blogger.com (Rob1606) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 19:54:00 +0000

Yesterday Pacific became the third site where I have earned more than $900; my total profit is now $2782, so you can see that the profits are very equally distributed among these three sites (the other two are Full Tilt and Party).

I've stated before that I don't really have any further goals now. However, there is one thing that I like to reach, and that is to have played 20 turbo $22 SNG's at Full Tilt. The reason? Starting from 20 games, the graph at Sharkscope indicates your ROI :-) Currently my return on investment is 90%, earlier it was even above 100%!

After that, I guess I will play a few $33 turbo games to see what that's like. So far, I have not noticed much difference in level. This is different from Pacific, where the level of the opposition is clearly better at the $20 level. This is probably partially due to the fact that Full Tilt simply have much more players; even the $22 games usually fill up within one minute, where at Pacific I usually have to wait 5 or 10 minutes. Nevertheless, we are approaching real money territory here, so I expect most of the $33 players to know what they are doing. We will see...

Three weeks until moving day!

Don't play at Party

noreply@blogger.com (Rob1606) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 17:29:00 +0000

They gave me another bonus, this time $55, and I lost it in three games, but that is not my reason for writing this (it was not my money anyway :-) ).

Coming back to Party after playing at Full Tilt for so long really brought home to me how different the speeds are. Not just that the levels are different, and increase faster at Party as I explained earlier, but I just noticed something which makes this effect even worse: it takes longer to play a single hand at Party!

Compare:

at Full Tilt, I played 700 hands in the most recent 7 hours (420 minutes) (however, this number is skewed because I made it to the heads-up phase six times: in the previous 448 minutes, I played 705 hands)
at Party, I played 350 hands in the last 4 hours (240 minutes), and 577 in the 370 minutes before that

This translates to 1.6, 1.57, 1.46, and 1.56 hands per minute, respectively. Again, the difference is not as large as I thought when I started writing (and thought of the title ;-) ) but it is , perhaps, noticeable. If you play for 40 minutes, using averages of 1.58 and 1.51 hands per minute, you play 63 hands at Full Tilt and 60 hands at Party. Oh well, maybe I overestimated the difference. I may have been biased by the unlucky cards I got at Party last night...

Ah now I know what I should do, look only at games where I got eliminated early (out of the money). Then I get

FT: 55/37, 66/35, 10/10, 54/39, 57/40
Party: 29/24, 2/2, 26/21, 45/36, 7/6, 68/47

From this I think you can see a clear advantage to playing at Full Tilt: the difference is easily one full round in 35-40 minutes. Given that SNGs do not consist of so many rounds, this is quite important.

My eighth successive cash

noreply@blogger.com (Rob1606) — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 16:11:00 +0000

This has never happened to me before! I started playing this 90-man game, fully expecting that this would mean the end of my winning sequence. By the way, it seems that $100 tournaments are hard to come by at Full Tilt, I guess not that many people are interested in playing at this level. Probably you can get them during U.S. evenings... Anyway, the highest tournament regularly on offer is $69 (45-man SNG). I thought about joining it but in the end decided to play this $24 game instead.

Again, there were many bad players around. Still, I needed an unnatural amount of luck to make it to the final table, where my run came to an abrupt end...

FTP $24+2, Knockout, 2nd hour

Stack 7430, avg = 9000 (30 out of 90 left). Blinds 250/500, ante 50: round costs 1200. M=7.5 since I just won a pot :-)

The pot went: I raised A6 in CO on a pure steal, BB calls, check-folds flop KKT. Am now 12th out of 30 remaining.

Blinds: down to 8k. AT OTB. Call short push (1230). SHould have isolated here. BB calls, we check it down, we split the pot! Shorty had AJ! Board contained AKKK...

Again 9k!

But down to 7.5k after next blinds, that are now 400/800, antes 700 (in a round). Round costs 1900, M=5 because I just won another pot :-)

I completed as SB, missed the flop, but nobody bet. I had T9, the turn was a 9, the flop had been Qxx. I had to believe I was good here, so I pushed my remaining 7k into the 3k pot. Both opps folded.

We just had a triple showdown, 9-7 beat 77 and QJ... Only 17 players remain! I am in 12th position. We are down to 2 tables.

Had to pay the blinds again, down to 8k again. Not getting a chance to steal OTB with A2.

Rounds now cost 2500... M=3! Desperate.
Push A4 on next hand, get called by AK... Flop a 4, we share the pot!! Other cards on table were TT77.....

Now I have 9k again. Although we shared the pot, I improved because of the very high antes.

Push JJ in 2nd pos. Called by K8!! And I win!!!! WHAT a moron... Now I have 20k suddenly, M=8.

AQs as BB! Lose a race to 5-5, down to 12k. Actually flopped an Ace, he rivered a 5...

Push J7 in CO, BB folds after LONG thought, phew! That immediately brings me back to 15k. But a round now costs 3k, so my M is 5.

Still 15 players left, it is going slowly. Next break in 36 minutes.

13 left. I have 11k now. Round costs 3800, M=3..

KJ OTB. Push after limper. OOPS!! after two limpers... but both fold!!!! very lucky here.

Push again on next hand with AKs. All fold. Suddenly up to 21.5k. Should really make the money here... 88 > KQ, 11 players left!

T9s as BB. Fold to push, obviously. Am in 7th position.

Push A7 as SB, BB folds. 22k. Fold 54s in next hand after limp and minraise.

Round now costs 4500... Blinds are 1k/2k!

Down to 17700 after blinds. I push again as SB, this time with K7 (is this a bad move? I had pushed against him in the previous round as well); BB calls with A6 (??? this IS a bad move, I would say) and I RIVER a 7 after being behind the whole time. Very, very lucky.

Now my stack is 38k and I am in 2nd position overall. Round now costs 5k, so my M=7. Only 10 players left. Definitely not going to take undue risks now.

Showdown! AK vs QQ, short stack LOSES, I am IN THE MONEY!!!

FINAL TABLE

Let's see how deep I can make it. Payout already $45 (net $21). Just $4 more and I am above $1000 at Full Tilt.

A8s as BB. Fold to UTG raise.

Round now costs 8k!! My M is just slightly above 3, but I am still in 3rd position.

Push KTo, AK calls... and wins. But another player lost in the previous hand, so I finish 8th, $54. Bankroll at FTP now $1004. Very nice... Unlucky about this last hand, but of course very very lucky on earlier occasions.

Tremble before me

noreply@blogger.com (Rob1606) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 07:55:00 +0000

Could also be titled: This Is Not a Photoshop (of course, you can easily verify the above picture by going to www.sharkscope.com and looking for Rob1606 at Full Tilt)

or: I Have No Further Poker Goals Now

or: My Best Month Ever

Note also the "Form" column... This classification is due to the following sequence:

I never expected to achieve either "Shark" status or "Super Hot". To achieve both at the same time is something very special. My bankroll at Full Tilt is now only $24 shy of $1000, meaning that I have multiplied my initial deposit almost by 20 now...

$150 in 40 minutes

noreply@blogger.com (Rob1606) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 17:29:00 +0000

Probably my best result per minute ever: I just won two simultaneous $22 turbo SNGs at Full Tilt.

The $700 that I won in a Steps game does not count of course; I first had to win 5 other Steps games to even be allowed to play that game. And all my tournament cashes cost a couple of hours before I was eliminated (or won :-) ).

This makes things like losing with a full house to a flopped straight flush (!) bearable... My bankroll at FTP is now $865, after depositing $50. $65 of this is due to bonuses that I cleared.

No Limit Holdem Tournament
$22 + $2 Sit & Go (Turbo)
7 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		(1175)
UTG+1		(1700)
MP		(2305)
CO		(1155)
BTN		(3265)
Hero		(2350)
BB		(1550)

Blinds: 50/100

Pre-flop: (150, 7 players) Hero is SB

1 fold, UTG+1 calls 100, 2 folds, BTN calls 100, Hero calls 50 (standard completion as SB after two callers), BB checks

Flop: (400, 4 players)
Hero bets 300 (a good flop for me obviously, but I do need to protect my hand immediately against possible straight and flush draws, so I bet out strongly, 3/4 of the pot), 1 folds, UTG+1 calls 300 (after some thought, or so it seemed. In fact, my opponent was in shock), 1 folds

Turn: (1000, 2 players)
Hero goes all-in 1950 (after a completely harmless card on the turn, I definitely want to win this pot right now. My opponent thought for a long time, or so I thought. I became convinced that he had a diamond, but in fact he was not thinking at all but simply typing in the chatbox...), UTG+1 says "my best flop ever in 3 years", UTG+1 calls 1300 (and then I saw what he actually had)

River: (4259, 2 players) (so me making a full house is irrelevant here--that does not often happen...)

Final Pot: 3600
UTG+1 shows:
Hero shows:

UTG+1 wins 3600 with a straight flush, King high ( won +1900 )
BB lost -100
BTN lost -100
Hero lost -1700 with a full house, Kings full of nines

A $50 tournament

noreply@blogger.com (Rob1606) — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 12:27:00 +0000

I know I talked about playing a $100 tourney, but this one happened to be starting, with not too many players (225) so I decided to jump in. I can report that there is definitely a difference in skill level noticeable. For one thing, people simply get eliminated much slower. This is also due to the excellent blind structure at this buyin: 12 minutes per level! After one hour, only slightly more than half the contestants were gone, as opposed to two thirds at lower buyins.

I am not very happy with the way that I played. I was seated immediately to the left of a complete idiot who could not lay any hand down. Unfortunately, I did not manage to hit any of my draws against him, so I ended up giving him quite a few chips.

Remarkably, it seemed that I was not the only one who was playing above their level. I checked all my tablemates at Sharkscope and the highest average stake that I found was $25 or so. There were many people that on average play for less than $10. Apparently many of these people cannot resist taking excursions to higher buyins--like me I guess, but at least I made sure that I first earned $500 before risking $50...

FTP $50, 2nd hour.

1205 chips, started with 2000 :-(
Am in 100th position out of 105 remaining. Still, due to the excellent structure, the blinds are now 40/80 so my M is still 10. No need to give up just yet... I am not even the shortest stack at my table! One player has 670.

120 out of 225 players left in the 1st hour, this is slightly less than would happen in a $5 tournament (but it is still 53%, compared to 67% in lower buyins).

AA just got cracked by 86s (quad 6s!) so now I am even the 3rd lowest stack at the table.

The same player almost lost with KK against 96s on the very next hand, due to two sixes on the board, but spiked a K on the river to make a full house.

Just missed my chance to make a full house when I check-folded 82 on a 432 flop, all clubs. Turn 2, river 8... I would have beaten a flopped flush.

Try to steal with K9o in CO. Success! Back to 1205.

AK UTG. Raise to 240 = 3BB. One caller. Miss ragged flop, push anyway. She folds, phew.... 1485!

Sick sick sick. Lost to a complete idiot to my right, who has been annoying me for the past hour. He is SO stupid, cannot lay down anything. He made his flush on the river and bet the pot...

Down to 1035, blinds 50/100, M=7. 93rd out of 96 remaining.

Push KJo in 2nd pos. No callers! 1185. 80th out of 88 remaining.

Push 33 as BB after 4 limpers. Two callers!! QQ and 66... Out in 87th place.

PS: by playing this game, I released a $25 refer-a-friend bonus as well as $5 of my deposit bonus. I also played a $11-turbo SNG (I LOVE these FTP turbo games) simultaneously with this tournament, finishing 2nd, so I made a net profit of $17.70 there. So overall, losing this $55 game has cost me only $7.30 :-)

Disenchantment

noreply@blogger.com (Rob1606) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 20:06:00 +0000

First a nice graph. Can you tell when things started looking up for me at Full Tilt?

Nevertheless, again after being away from poker for a week or so, I notice that the game bores me. I still have the plan to play some $100 tourney, but I think I will retire from online poker when I move (in a month or so).

I did play some live poker last week, for the first time ever. It was quite interesting. We played some $5 SNG's. I did not manage to win any money, but it was not so easy because we were playing winner takes all with 6 players. The first game I lost heads up when I called an all-in on the first heads-up hand with A2 against what turned out to be 66. My opponent had been bluffing throughout, but even bluffers get good hands sometimes! But it was a bad call.

In the second game I lost with 77 against AK held by the same bluffer as before. Well, what can you do.

But it was quite an experience to play live poker, it really is a whole new world. I realized later that I was looking at the cards on the table when I had nothing and was waiting to check/fold, and was looking at my opponents when I had a set. This would be something to work on before the next game :-) Of course you need to pretend to care about every hand as long as you still have cards! I did not look enough at my opponents anyway. So I also do not know whether they exhibited the same behavior.

Times twelve

noreply@blogger.com (Rob1606) — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 23:10:00 +0000

Just a quick note before I turn in: in the last month, I managed to turn a $50 deposit at Full Tilt into $600. The last $100 or so was earned mostly by playing $11 turbo SNGs. I never used to be very good at these, but the structure at FTP is much more suitable for playing turbo games. The games still last fairly long: it typically takes 35-40 minutes to win one.

I am planning to play in some really big tournament, like a buyin of $100 or so. Just to see what it's like...

A thought about odds

noreply@blogger.com (Rob1606) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 10:50:00 +0000

PokerOffice displays your odds to improve in green if they are better than your pot odds, indicating that you should call in this case.

This is, of course, nonsense.

To be precise, it only holds in one specific case:

your opponent has a made hand
you have nothing (well, a draw)
if you do not improve, you lose the hand
if you do improve, you are guaranteed to win

I guess I was somewhat aware of this already, but I think it is important to write this down. I was given a very clear example of this situation in my latest game: I had 33 and I limped (possibly called a minraise). The flop was 542, and it got checked round to me. I bet out for two thirds of the pot or so, and I got checkraised all-in.

At this point I looked at my odds in PokerOffice. I was not happy about the situation, but the combined odds of making trips and making my straight (1.6:1) were slightly better than the pot odds I was being offered (1.8:1), so I called.

My opponent flipped over 9-8 offsuit for a total bluff. I had not even considered that I might be ahead... I should have though, it was (somewhat) reasonable that he might have AK or something, and figured he had showdown value.

In general of course, deciding whether or not to call should be based on much more than just comparing two numbers (pot odds and your odds to improve).

Your opponent may improve. More generally, you might improve but still lose. For example, in the case above, he might have had an Ace, so that a 3 on the turn or river would give me trips but still kill me.
You may have implied odds. When you are on a flush draw, you can call against the odds (up to a point!) in the hope that your opponent will put in more money after you make your flush.

The game really is not that simple!

Lies

noreply@blogger.com (Rob1606) — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 19:36:00 +0000

Last week, I referred you to the MTT series by Bond18. This is perhaps the comment that most struck me from his series. He wrote a part about lies that you have been told in the past. Here is Lie #1:

“You can find a better spot”: What? What the fuck? Listen, any spot that’s good, by which I mean ANY SPOT THAT IS +EV/+cEV is a spot you should take. Now, are there occasionally spots that are +cEV but you should fold because they're –EV? Yes. An obvious example is folding AA in a satellite where you have a seat guaranteed. Want a better example than something this simple? Okay here’s one:

I recently played a live 3k event in Melbourne with ~440 entrants. The structure was very deep, very slow and had high antes. 40% of the field was freeroll qualifiers and probably less than dozen players in the whole field were actually good tournament players. If I was BB the very first hand with a 20k bank at 50/100 with 22, and it folds to the SB who shoves his whole 20k then flips up AKs, I would fold. However, it really does take an example that extreme to make me consider passing up a +cEV spot. SO STOP DOING IT!

After I read this, I started accepting coinflips early in SNGs. E.g. call with AK if you raise and somebody pushes. This is a call that clearly has a positive expectation: you get good odds against almost any pair, and may also be up against a bluff or a hand like AQ/KQ.

I will report on how I like this after a while. I never did like laying down these coinflips, and I am glad to have gotten an excuse for taking them. Of course it will lead to some early eliminations, but poker is and remains a long term game, and the long term profit is what I should be optimizing.

Good luck at the tables

PS: Bond18 basically repeats his point in Lie #3:

“I didn’t want to risk it on a coin flip.” This has got to be one of the most common. Here’s the simple truth with most probable coin flip situations: at the point you’re considering folding knowing you’re likely in a coin flip, there’s already probably way too much money in the pot to ever fold. If you raise AQo 3X and a guy shoves 15-20X, and you figure his range is AJ+/66+ (You’re about 43.5% against his pretty tight, never stealing range, and still basically flipping) you ARE NOT folding. There’s nothing wrong with getting it in on a flip as long as it’s a +EV one, which most are, especially once antes kick in.

The difference between $230 and $0

noreply@blogger.com (Rob1606) — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 16:40:00 +0000

I just won ANOTHER MTT; this time it was a 90-man SNG at Full Tilt. The hand below occurred on the bubble (10 players left on two tables).

No Limit Holdem Tournament
$10 + $1 KO Sit & Go
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		(19775)
Hero		(16765)
BTN		(22930)
SB		(18791)
BB		(19448)

Blinds: 800/1600 Ante 200

Pre-flop: (3400, 5 players) Hero is CO

1 fold, Hero calls 1600 (definitely limping here), 1 fold, SB calls 800, BB checks

Flop: (6800, 3 players) (well, not much can go wrong on this flop!)
SB checks, BB goes all-in 17648 (top pair I guess), Hero calls 14965, SB folds

Turn: (39663, 2 players) (At this point I had seen my opponent's hand: 22. I could not believe my luck. I was thinking that I was out, unless...)

River: (39663, 2 players)

Final Pot: 35730
BB shows:
Hero shows:

BB wins 2683 ( lost -16565 ) with three of a kind, twos
Hero wins 35730 ( won +19165 ) with a straight, five high
SB lost -1600
-------------------------------------------------------------
FTP $10 90-man SNG, 2nd hour

Stack 10k = exactly average.
Blinds 250/500, antes 50, round costs 1200, M=8.

This is a knockout-tournament: each person that you eliminate earns you $2. However, I did not knock anyone out so far. 25 remain, top 9 gets paid. 12th position.

Q3 as BB, check top pair on flop, bet turn K, he folds, phew. 10.8k.

Round now costs 1400, M=7. 20 left.

Raise with A6o in MP. Short SB pushes, gives me odds of 3:1, I win the race (he had 33). My first knockout bonus! And more importantly, my stack is now 16k, M=11.

18 players left. 9 more to go... I am 7th.

Eliminate another player with 99 vs A6 (I make a full house!). Steal with A9 OTB. Stack now 20k! But round now costs 2250 (with 6 players at the table), so my M is 9.

I am starting to like these Full Tilt turbo tournaments... People seem to feel pressured to make bad decisions even sooner.

I am now in 7th position. Get a free round as BB! Nice, I had 5-3.

Round now costs 2700, M=7.5... 12 players left. 11, hand for hand play starts! 10.

Round now costs 3400... M=5. Stack 17k. Shortest stack has 11k. Darn, now 18k.

AA..Call. BB has 22, flops a 2, pushes, I call, I get a runner-runner straight.... 35k!

AJ as BB. Eliminate same opp with 66, flop AKA...

40k! 3rd position! 8 left now, so I get $21. Nice payouts start at top 4 ($80). Should outlive a few players here...

AQ in 2nd pos., raise to 3BB, all fold. 44k. Round costs 5k now! M=9.

Win HU vs BB, 44.6k. 7 left, payout $28.

QQ in 2nd pos, reraise after UTG raises. He calls, folds to my pot-sized push on flop T88. Stack 61k, oh yeah. But a round now costs nearly 6k, still OK: my M=10!

I am in 2nd position! Top stack is 100k.

Raise AJo in CO. BB calls, folds to my c-bet on low flop. 66k. BB was top stack by the way, he now has 91k.

Limp KT UTG, flop AKx, BB folds to my minbet. 67k after paying the blinds. Another player was eliminated meanwhile, so I get $43. Steal with A4: 73k.

Top stack loses another hand, now he only has 75k!

Limp KJo, no luck this time. 66k after paying BB.

KK as SB... Button pushes 44! 90k! Call a short push with AJ: win again!! 111k! Only four players left!

33 as SB. Fold to raise - he had KK! And gets beaten by 33!

I am chip leader with almost twice the stack of nr.2. Am already assured of $80.
First place is $230.

Raise J9o UTG. Button pushes, I fold. Now he has a similar stack to mine.

Time to take it a bit slower maybe... Although, round now costs 8k, M=10.

Lose a "small" pot, stack now 71k.

Call with QQ. Button pushes again, I call. And win. Payout $100, third place assured.

Shortest stack has 33k, other two stacks are 115k - 110k (me).

93k.

78k.

67k.

Round costs 10k.

64k. Finally, get a free round.

Steal as SB and as button: 80k!

Bottom stack has 40k. Not anymore, he's out. Heads up with 3:1 chip deficit.

Win showdown: I lead! Opponent pushed 77 on Jxx flop, I had a J...

165k.

199k.

221k.

I win.

Biggest hand of the night

noreply@blogger.com (Rob1606) — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 16:16:00 +0000

I actually won more chips on several other hands, but this was definitely the most important hand of the night. Thanks to this hand, I had a relatively straightforward path to the payouts...

No Limit Holdem Tournament
$10 + $1 Tournament
8 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		(2850)
UTG+1		(5015)
MP1		(6080)
MP2		(5455)
CO		(12235)
BTN		(3980)
Hero		(6960)
BB		(5505)

Blinds: 250/500 Ante 50

Pre-flop: (1150, 8 players) Hero is SB

UTG goes all-in 2800, 3 folds, CO goes all-in 12185, BTN calls 3930, Hero says "here goes nothing....", Hero calls 6660, 1 fold, CO says "omg blah"

Flop: (27131, 4 players)

Turn: (27136, 4 players)
CO says "one outer"

River: (27141, 4 players)
CO says "blah"

Final Pot: 21450
BTN shows:
Hero shows:
UTG shows:
CO shows:

Hero wins 21450 ( won +14540 )
CO wins 5275 ( lost -6910 )
BTN lost -3930
UTG lost -2800

That MTT that I won

noreply@blogger.com (Rob1606) — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 15:09:00 +0000

I did not have that much time, so I registered for a turbo tournament. Actually, I registered for two turbo tournaments simultaneously :-) One at Pacific, a heads up tournament, and one at Full Tilt. At Full Tilt, turbo means 5 minutes per level, and given the very slow level increase, it is still not that fast. This is where I earned $165 (see last post).

At Pacific however, the blinds increased every 3 minutes. Still, I decided to join since I had cashed in several of these heads up tournaments before. Unfortunately, I don't have a record of my play, since PokerOffice does not work with the new interface that Pacific asked me to try out.

As I wrote right away, I lucked out a couple of times, but I also had some opponents that tried really very poorly timed bluffs (I guess that also falls under the heading of "luck"). I went through five or six opponents during the game. The first match lasted quite a while, the penultimate one was very long, and the last match lasted all of two hands!

I think the match two matches before the end was also quite long. I remember checking whether I had already made the money. Several times, I was on the verge of going out.

The last match started when there were 6 players left. And it in fact lasted so long, that when it was over, there were only 3 players left! That meant that I had to wait for the other two players to finish their match before I could play again. At first I thought this put me at a disadvantage (though it was of course nice to automatically reach 2nd place without playing any hands in the meantime...), but then I realized that the increasing blinds were to my advantage here.

The longer that their match lasted, the less severe my disadvantage would be! I could see that whoever won was going to have about three times as many chips as I had. However, since the blinds were now getting close to something like 1/4 or more of my stack, this meant that the longer their match took, the fewer hands I would have to win afterwards to get back to an even footing.

And in fact, when we were finally heads up, my opponent pushed on the very first hand, and I held TT... He had a shitty hand, I forget what it was, and I won the race. This immediately put me into the lead! And what's more, on the next hand he pushed as well. This time I had K9, and given the huge blinds by now, I was getting good odds to call. I got a K on the turn or the river.

It was a very strange feeling to see those cards, see the money slide to my direction, and know that I won the game; that there were going to be no further hands to play. But very nice too...

A good night....

noreply@blogger.com (Rob1606) — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 19:59:00 +0000

Read'em and weep! (I only started taking notes in the 2nd hour; in the first hour I was playing the heads-up tournament in parallel (see my previous post below!)). [To keep a perspective, always important after a win, my overall net profit is still below the maximum value that I ever reached, back in November. But it is getting close...]

$10 FTP Turbo, 2nd hour

KK, three all-ins before me. I call, they have AQ, QQ, 66. There is no A, Q, or 6 on the table, and I scoop a huge pot: 21k. This put me into 2nd place in the tournament.

Some steals fail: 16k. Blinds are 300/600 with antes, so my M is now 10, 4th place.

23 players left, top 18 get paid.

KQo UTG, I raise to 3BB, all fold: 17k. 22 left.

77 as SB... call button raise, lose to AA!
Down to 12k, he was short.

KK beats A9: 21 left.

22 in CO. Raise to 4BB, all fold. AQ in next hand. Raise to 4BB again, all fold.
15k, round costs 1900, M=7.5. I am in 5th place with 21 left. Fold A9s UTG. Would have won.

BB A8, folded to me. 16k. Fold SB 4-2. 20 players left, 2 more to go.

Raise A5o in CO, all fold. 17.5k. Shorty wins showdown, too bad.

Together with BB I push out the shortstack, 19 left!! Hand for hand play now. 18.5k, still in 5th place. Avg. stack is 13k.

Raise A9o in 2nd pos.(from 6), all fold. 20.5k.

QQ as BB... FOLDED to me! Blast. Blinds now 600/1200 + 150 ante, round costs 3150, M=6. I am IN THE MONEY!!

TT in CO. Push over short push, he has 77. I win. 28k. I AM CHIP LEADER!!!!!!!!

Not for long, some guy wins a big pot. Still, nice while it lasted :-) And another one, down to 3rd position now! Still, am in excellent position to make the final table here.

KQo UTG. Raise to 3BB. BB calls with... T4? Well, he had a tiny stack. AJ as BB...
I fold when I miss the flop, my opponent has the same stack as I do, this is no time for heroics. Fold my SB as well.

Still 29.5k. Raise KTo OTB, blinds fold. Call A9s in CO, button calls! Didn't count on that. 31k. I am at a 5-player table now! Wow, that went really fast, only one more player needs to go before I have reached the final table.

Blinds are now 1000/2000 with antes 250 (did I mention that this is a turbo tournament?), round costs 4250, M=5.

YES- final table is here!!

Payout of $35 assured. Nice prizes start at top 6 ($90). First player leaves, already payout $50!

AQo UTG, raise to 6k. BB calls with A9, pushes on flop A, and spikes a 9 on the river. That's it for me... (At this point I expected to go out in a few more hands.)

I am now down to 5k and have by far the shortest stack. The only question is how long I can still survive. I will-

I was just going to write I had to settle for an eighth place, when there was a showdown between two big stacks! (Well, they are all big compared to me...) SO now I will get at least $62, still nice...

Fold A7o in 2nd pos. BB pushes.

Down to 3.8k, UTG, BB costs 2.4k. Fold. And I get 66 as BB... SB obliges, raises with K4, and I actually win the race. Now I have 7.5k again, and can survive another round.

OMG, another showdown!! 99 vs AT. AT wins, too bad 99 still has 70k chips...

Oh great, blinds went up, now 1.5k/3k. Not that it makes that much difference to me...

Really too bad 99 didn't win that, would have earned me $30! ANOTHER showdown now!! YES!!! Largest stack wins! Now I get $90!

Q3 as BB. Button raises, I have to call and actually make a straight on the river... Now I have 14k, but completing SB and losing brings me down to 10k. Push K9o. All fold: 17k!

55 UTG, I push. All fold. 20k after paying the BB (3K). Yet another showdown... Blasted, short stack wins again. 33 as SB.
I fold after a big raise and call. Again the short stack wins. Push K5o as button, all fold. 26k. I am actually in 4th position now out of 6! ANOTHER short stack wins a showdown.

QT as BB... Fold to MP raise. Fold SB as well. 18k. ANOTHER showdown. A8 vs 33. A8 wins, I am actually assured of $123 now...

And I am not the shortest stack! Now I am, the short stack just lost. I am now 4th, but my payout is now $165, this is quite incredible. Will I outlast another player???

Now have 11.6k, round gets folded to me, 16.5k. Push 78s. BB calls with 64... and wins (flops a 4). What a game.