What defines a bad risk? One that is unsuccessful, or one that will be unsuccessful in the long run?
I like risks. I have a lot more gamble in me than most of the people I play with live, more so than those online. I just struggle to determine when my risk taking is good or bad. Here's an example from last night.
I hadn't played any $35+3 FT SNGs in a while, so I decided to play a few and nothing was going right. I was getting counterfitted, or just plain sucked out on left-right-and-center in the 3 games I played. I didn't think I was playing poorly, but one can never tell at the time. So after 3 games where I finished 5th, 7th and 9th (a rarity I end up last), I took a break, came back and played a little cash (25PLO8 and then 50PLO8) before noticing that the $105+9 tourney was filling up.
I've never played at this level, though I had notes on a couple of the players from the lower levels (35+3, 55+5). I looked at my stats for the night, and if I played and lost, and lost the cash I still had at the 50PLO8 table, I would have been out $200 on the night. I (maybe rationalized that I) was going to be ok with that loss if I didn't place, so I registered.
So here are my thoughts for taking the risk:
1) In general, I place in 30-40% of the FT tables I play making any tourney I play +EV
2) I had been playing well in the previous tourneys, and just getting unlucky, and was playing well in the cash games.
3) I didn't think that, if I'm playing well, that I would not place in 4 tourneys in a row.
4) I was ok with playing and losing, thereby I was not playing with scared money.
Am I simply convincing myself that I didn't take a bad risk, or, did I really take a good risk?
In the end, I finished up $25 at the 25PLO8 table, up $41 at the 50PLO8 table, and placed 2nd in the $105+9, for an overall night of >$160 profit. I finally crossed the 8k barrier after flirting with it for a while, which is a little psychological milestone I happy to have passed. The question I still have lingering is: Was I stupid and was lucky to place inthe $105+9, or was that a smart decision that actually panned out?
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Cash games
I've been playing a lot more 25PLO8 lately, with 4 sessions thus far this month. I've been having difficulty finding players I want to play HU, so rather than play random players by signing up to a HU SNG first, I've been trying to play some 6max table games.
My goal was to play and if I make the max buy-in for the next level, I move up. So starting at 25PLO8, I would want to win $50 before moving to the 50PLO8 table. So far, I haven't moved up on any given night, though last night I came close. I made $45.55 in about an hour and a half, but had to lose my initial $25 buy-in first to do that. Normally I don't want to re-buy, I just want to shut it down. But the hand I lost was played just bad enough to give my opponents the impression that they would be able to take my money. Ironically, I was holding second nut high, and a decent low, when my opponent had nut high and second nut low for the scoop. Normally, I'm taking half the pot there, but that hand is proof that second nut does suck... But I was right, no one respected my bets anymore, and I played solid the rest of the way out and just collected the chips.
So half way in, here are my stats:
$33+1.5 HU SNG: 4/10 ($219.00)
$55+2.5 HU SNG: 7/4 $134.50
$50+5 FT SNG: 0/0/1/0 $35.00
25PLO8: 4 sessions $86.65
$10+1 Dream Job NLHE qualifier: ($11.00) -> Won entry to many tourney
Total: $29.15
Not the greatest, but I'm having fun, which is always good.
My goal was to play and if I make the max buy-in for the next level, I move up. So starting at 25PLO8, I would want to win $50 before moving to the 50PLO8 table. So far, I haven't moved up on any given night, though last night I came close. I made $45.55 in about an hour and a half, but had to lose my initial $25 buy-in first to do that. Normally I don't want to re-buy, I just want to shut it down. But the hand I lost was played just bad enough to give my opponents the impression that they would be able to take my money. Ironically, I was holding second nut high, and a decent low, when my opponent had nut high and second nut low for the scoop. Normally, I'm taking half the pot there, but that hand is proof that second nut does suck... But I was right, no one respected my bets anymore, and I played solid the rest of the way out and just collected the chips.
So half way in, here are my stats:
$33+1.5 HU SNG: 4/10 ($219.00)
$55+2.5 HU SNG: 7/4 $134.50
$50+5 FT SNG: 0/0/1/0 $35.00
25PLO8: 4 sessions $86.65
$10+1 Dream Job NLHE qualifier: ($11.00) -> Won entry to many tourney
Total: $29.15
Not the greatest, but I'm having fun, which is always good.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
PokerStars Dream Job Canada
PokerStars is running a $100+9 buy-in tourney on Nov29 @ 7PM EST where the winner is awarded a$100k contract with PokerStars. The breakdown of the contract is $5k/month for 12 months with $40k to be used for live tournement entries via the site. It also appears that places 2-11 will win $2.5k.
They are running various qualifiers to that tourney, some for cash buy-ins ($1+.10, $10+1) and some with player point buy-ins. I decided to play in one of the $10+1 qualifiers last night after exercising. PS offers late registration (15 minutes) to their tournaments. I don't normally register for a tournament late, because I feel that I will be at a slight disadvantage. Wasn't the case last night. The first half dozen hands were good to premium quality and I doubled my stack quickly. Now with a stack, and a fairly passive table, I would raise with a wide range of hands, and more often than not win PF or take it down with a bet on the turn(*). I was rolling quite smoothly until one player came from another table and figured out what I was doing as started to play back at me. Still, I was able to build up a top-10 stack and stay there as the number of people dropped from 106 to about 40ish.
(* side note) Checking the flop and betting the turn is turning out to be one of the best strategies that I have developed in my PLO8 game that's turning out to be quite profitable in NLHE as well. The concept is that a fish will call light on the flop and hope to catch good on the turn. And since many players will bluff at the flop and shut down on the turn, cause a bluff bet there will consume too much of their stack, the fish's call allows them to see the next two cards for that one call. It's a very advanced play that they make quite accidentally. By going PF bet, check flop, and betting the turn, I've done a couple things: 1) I've played it like I'm slow playing a monster, 2) I've been able to see my opponent's reaction to that flop twice, if in position, and once if out of position. Remember, I'm playing a fish who, even in position, isn't likely to bet at the PF raiser. So, my delayed continuation bet takes down many more pots than my flop continuation bet ever would. Of course, the occasional opponent catches up on the turn, or then calls me down with flopped middle pair, but I'm more than compensated by the hands that have been folded to me there when I've had nothing. Ok, back to the original discussion...
Things got tricky with about 40 players left. For one, the player who was playing back at me has accumulated a few more chips than me, so I'm putting myself at risk if I try to make plays PF, when he's still left to act behind me (two to my left at a 9 person table). Secondly, the blinds were getting high relative the the stack sizes. I may have been top-10, but my M was less than 20 (M=stack/(BB+SB+antes), M>20 means any PF approach is acceptable, less than that and certain plays, like set mining don't give the right ROI if you flop it and stack your opponent). Beyond just constraining my PF plays, my M issues mean that others with bottom tier stacks have worse M problems. That usually means that have only 1 PF play: all-in. So I had to tighten up and navigate those waters carefully.
Didn't work out too well initially. I lost 2 all-ins to smaller stacks to find myself with an M of 8 and forced to go all-in PF or fold. That's when I started to get lucky. I push from middle position with Td5d and get called by QQ. I flop a 5 and turn a T to win with 2 pair. 2 hands later, ironically to complete my knock out of the same QQ opponent, I move all-in PF with 33, and he called with AT. I flop a set and turn quads to finish him off. I'm now back in the top-10 and there are only 30 people left.
Shortly after, I finally get moved to a new table (27 left), and basically tread water the rest of the way to the payout bubble. Top 9 get entry to the $109 tourney, 10-16 get their entry fee refunded and 17th gets the $2 left over. I'm fortunate that there are 2 bigger stacks sitting out, so I try to steal their blinds when possible. By doing this once per round, I'm able to keep the same stack size. Occasionally I get a caller, and occasionally I get a hand and would win some more chips. But my plan was to stay away from big pots with the hugest stack, who happened to be 1 to my left, and take many small ones.
Hand-by-hand play went into effect from 20 players to 16, took about a half hour for a dozen hands, but was happy to get to 16th, since now I've broken even for the day. At 16, we're down to 2 tables, and most of the big chips stacks are sitting at my table. Sometimes this is a bad thing, cause if you get some greedy big stack raising every hand, then you can't just keep mucking or you'll get blinded out, but you have to put your tourney at risk any hand you decide to play. But I had smart table mates. We only had 1 short stack, so it was clear that everone's focus was to knock him out. When that was done, we effectively folded to the BB every time. This put the pressure on all the short stacks on the other table. We all stayed at roughly the same level, except for the one player, who was once chip leader but was sitting out. His blind got stolen by anyone who min raised PF.
After 40 minutes of that, I won my entry to the main tournament. Now I need to convince my wife to left me play starting at 7PM, which is usually when I'm giving my kids their baths and am putting them down to sleep.
They are running various qualifiers to that tourney, some for cash buy-ins ($1+.10, $10+1) and some with player point buy-ins. I decided to play in one of the $10+1 qualifiers last night after exercising. PS offers late registration (15 minutes) to their tournaments. I don't normally register for a tournament late, because I feel that I will be at a slight disadvantage. Wasn't the case last night. The first half dozen hands were good to premium quality and I doubled my stack quickly. Now with a stack, and a fairly passive table, I would raise with a wide range of hands, and more often than not win PF or take it down with a bet on the turn(*). I was rolling quite smoothly until one player came from another table and figured out what I was doing as started to play back at me. Still, I was able to build up a top-10 stack and stay there as the number of people dropped from 106 to about 40ish.
(* side note) Checking the flop and betting the turn is turning out to be one of the best strategies that I have developed in my PLO8 game that's turning out to be quite profitable in NLHE as well. The concept is that a fish will call light on the flop and hope to catch good on the turn. And since many players will bluff at the flop and shut down on the turn, cause a bluff bet there will consume too much of their stack, the fish's call allows them to see the next two cards for that one call. It's a very advanced play that they make quite accidentally. By going PF bet, check flop, and betting the turn, I've done a couple things: 1) I've played it like I'm slow playing a monster, 2) I've been able to see my opponent's reaction to that flop twice, if in position, and once if out of position. Remember, I'm playing a fish who, even in position, isn't likely to bet at the PF raiser. So, my delayed continuation bet takes down many more pots than my flop continuation bet ever would. Of course, the occasional opponent catches up on the turn, or then calls me down with flopped middle pair, but I'm more than compensated by the hands that have been folded to me there when I've had nothing. Ok, back to the original discussion...
Things got tricky with about 40 players left. For one, the player who was playing back at me has accumulated a few more chips than me, so I'm putting myself at risk if I try to make plays PF, when he's still left to act behind me (two to my left at a 9 person table). Secondly, the blinds were getting high relative the the stack sizes. I may have been top-10, but my M was less than 20 (M=stack/(BB+SB+antes), M>20 means any PF approach is acceptable, less than that and certain plays, like set mining don't give the right ROI if you flop it and stack your opponent). Beyond just constraining my PF plays, my M issues mean that others with bottom tier stacks have worse M problems. That usually means that have only 1 PF play: all-in. So I had to tighten up and navigate those waters carefully.
Didn't work out too well initially. I lost 2 all-ins to smaller stacks to find myself with an M of 8 and forced to go all-in PF or fold. That's when I started to get lucky. I push from middle position with Td5d and get called by QQ. I flop a 5 and turn a T to win with 2 pair. 2 hands later, ironically to complete my knock out of the same QQ opponent, I move all-in PF with 33, and he called with AT. I flop a set and turn quads to finish him off. I'm now back in the top-10 and there are only 30 people left.
Shortly after, I finally get moved to a new table (27 left), and basically tread water the rest of the way to the payout bubble. Top 9 get entry to the $109 tourney, 10-16 get their entry fee refunded and 17th gets the $2 left over. I'm fortunate that there are 2 bigger stacks sitting out, so I try to steal their blinds when possible. By doing this once per round, I'm able to keep the same stack size. Occasionally I get a caller, and occasionally I get a hand and would win some more chips. But my plan was to stay away from big pots with the hugest stack, who happened to be 1 to my left, and take many small ones.
Hand-by-hand play went into effect from 20 players to 16, took about a half hour for a dozen hands, but was happy to get to 16th, since now I've broken even for the day. At 16, we're down to 2 tables, and most of the big chips stacks are sitting at my table. Sometimes this is a bad thing, cause if you get some greedy big stack raising every hand, then you can't just keep mucking or you'll get blinded out, but you have to put your tourney at risk any hand you decide to play. But I had smart table mates. We only had 1 short stack, so it was clear that everone's focus was to knock him out. When that was done, we effectively folded to the BB every time. This put the pressure on all the short stacks on the other table. We all stayed at roughly the same level, except for the one player, who was once chip leader but was sitting out. His blind got stolen by anyone who min raised PF.
After 40 minutes of that, I won my entry to the main tournament. Now I need to convince my wife to left me play starting at 7PM, which is usually when I'm giving my kids their baths and am putting them down to sleep.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
October Roundup
I split my time between UB and PS this month. The UB experiment was basically break even, except for the PLO8 MTT, so I don't think I'll play there often, but I'll try and play that MTT a couple of times a month. It's just too much fun not to play, but takes too long to play too often.
Overall an ok month, but I didn't play very often. I have roughly 70 games played, but 15 of those were one day I was home from work and was given the day to myself to play (coincidentally, 100% of my profit was that day, the rest of the month was breakeven). Since the middle of the month, work has been quite hectic, and I just haven't been up to playing. That is kind of a good thing, since I lose when I try to force sessions in when I shouldn't.
The PS breakdown:
$22+1 HU: 1/1 ($2.00)
$30+1.5 HU: 1/0 $28.50
$33+1.5 HU: 6/10 ($156.00)
$50+2.5 HU: 4/0 $190.00
$55+2.5 HU: 11/10 $2.50
$35+3 FT: 1/0/0/0 $119.50
$55+5 FT: 1/0/1/3 $46.50
25PLO8: 2 session ($30.15)
The UB breakdown:
$10+0.5 PLO8 HU: 1/0 $9.50
$20+1 PLO8 HU: 7/6 $7.00
$20+1 PLO HU: 1/0 $19.00 (OOPS, signed in to the wrong tourney)
$50+2.5 PLO8 HU: 3/3 ($15.00)
$20+2 PLO8 FT: 0/0/0/1 ($22.00)
$10+1 PLO8 MTT: 3/116 $125.30
200PLO8: 1 session $9.50
It's another profitable month, $332.15, making it 2 in a row. The biggest obstacle now is getting past the 8k barrier. I've been close before only to drop big time. Don't know why there should be a problem around a round number, it is just one number, but I've seen myself struggle there at 7k, 8k, 9k, 10k, 11k (which was the worst since I never made it and free falled to 8k shortly there after).
Overall, I'm up $716.67. Averaging $179.17 which is 20% of where I wanted to be when I originally started tracking this, but not a bad number from historical perspectives.
I started this with the goal of playing FT tourneys, since I was averaging around $20 per, but I've become addicted to the HU SNGs. I feel like I can win more with the HU SNGs, but looking at the past 4 months, I'm only up $150 total on all HU SNGs. What does that mean? Should I force myself to play more FTs? I'll have to start thinking about that more in depth.
I do know that I used to go the the HU page only when the FT games didn't look like they'd fill up soon, but now I go directly there. Then again, I had such a bad run at the FTs to start, I did start to shy away from them. Decisions, decisions...
I think it's time I re-focus on the FTs. I need to mentally prep myself, because I've gotten used to the 20 minute HU matches. The FTs are minimum 45 minutes to cash, so I've got to play patiently.
It's time to have my best month yet!
Overall an ok month, but I didn't play very often. I have roughly 70 games played, but 15 of those were one day I was home from work and was given the day to myself to play (coincidentally, 100% of my profit was that day, the rest of the month was breakeven). Since the middle of the month, work has been quite hectic, and I just haven't been up to playing. That is kind of a good thing, since I lose when I try to force sessions in when I shouldn't.
The PS breakdown:
$22+1 HU: 1/1 ($2.00)
$30+1.5 HU: 1/0 $28.50
$33+1.5 HU: 6/10 ($156.00)
$50+2.5 HU: 4/0 $190.00
$55+2.5 HU: 11/10 $2.50
$35+3 FT: 1/0/0/0 $119.50
$55+5 FT: 1/0/1/3 $46.50
25PLO8: 2 session ($30.15)
The UB breakdown:
$10+0.5 PLO8 HU: 1/0 $9.50
$20+1 PLO8 HU: 7/6 $7.00
$20+1 PLO HU: 1/0 $19.00 (OOPS, signed in to the wrong tourney)
$50+2.5 PLO8 HU: 3/3 ($15.00)
$20+2 PLO8 FT: 0/0/0/1 ($22.00)
$10+1 PLO8 MTT: 3/116 $125.30
200PLO8: 1 session $9.50
It's another profitable month, $332.15, making it 2 in a row. The biggest obstacle now is getting past the 8k barrier. I've been close before only to drop big time. Don't know why there should be a problem around a round number, it is just one number, but I've seen myself struggle there at 7k, 8k, 9k, 10k, 11k (which was the worst since I never made it and free falled to 8k shortly there after).
Overall, I'm up $716.67. Averaging $179.17 which is 20% of where I wanted to be when I originally started tracking this, but not a bad number from historical perspectives.
I started this with the goal of playing FT tourneys, since I was averaging around $20 per, but I've become addicted to the HU SNGs. I feel like I can win more with the HU SNGs, but looking at the past 4 months, I'm only up $150 total on all HU SNGs. What does that mean? Should I force myself to play more FTs? I'll have to start thinking about that more in depth.
I do know that I used to go the the HU page only when the FT games didn't look like they'd fill up soon, but now I go directly there. Then again, I had such a bad run at the FTs to start, I did start to shy away from them. Decisions, decisions...
I think it's time I re-focus on the FTs. I need to mentally prep myself, because I've gotten used to the 20 minute HU matches. The FTs are minimum 45 minutes to cash, so I've got to play patiently.
It's time to have my best month yet!
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