A couple of illogical misconceptions have been frequently popping up lately that I'd like to address.
Raising for information, finding out where you stand, defining hands.
These are all essentially the same thing and none of them are a reason for throwing money into the pot.
Poker is a battle for information. Correction: Poker is a battle of incomplete information. It is not about who is going to gather the most information to use against their opponents (while paying the price for doing so). It is about who can make the most correct wagers based on the information already available.
That only leaves 2 options. Getting worse hands to call: Value. Getting better hands (or significant equity shares) to fold: Bluff. Information, initatiative, and any other reason that people cite for betting or raising is merely a by-product of one of those 2 options.
A prime example of people betting to see where they are at is that 38/4 that donkbets 100% of flops against you to see if you have AK or not. I always let them know where they're at by raising my AA every time they donk.
Leave this one to your home game buddies and try to control your giggles while they spew their flawed strategy along with their money.
You can't fold on blank rivers if you called the turn.
I don't know for sure where this idea came from and It's been a while since I read bits and pieces of Super System but it seems to be in that sort of thought process framework - putting your opponent on a specific hand, trusting your instinct, etc.
Maybe it's been carried over to No Limit from Limit. I'm certainly no poo-flinging expert, but it would seem more applicable to that game and maybe it still applies there since turn and river mistakes are not the huge disasters that they are in NL and you're generally getting ridiculous pot odds to call a lot of rivers. So it ends up working in a right action, wrong reason kind of way.
Relatively recently in poker history, we have switched from putting people on hands to putting people on ranges. Those ranges narrow each street as villain acts and reacts. Villain has as many subset ranges in a hand as he has decisions to make. He raises range A preflop. He cbets range B on the flop. He checks range C on the flop. He raises range J on the river...
In some cases our hand is going to be +EV against his turn betting range. His range for betting the river is then going to narrow and we might be -EV against that range. In that case, calling the turn and folding the river is the correct play.
For example, we might have AA and be playing against someone that we know will double barrel the turn with top pair on a K763 board but we know that he will only triple barrel sets or better. So we know that we should call the turn and fold the river while thinking about bet/folding the river if checked to us.
This one should be relegated to the table captain of your local card room while he encourages everyone else at the table to become a station for large bets.
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Sunday, 15 August 2010
Monday, 19 July 2010
Standard
*** WARNING *** Standard 80/20 flop hand history beat. Move along, nothing to see here. It nicely sums up my life for the past 7 weeks which is why I'm posting it as a semi-update.
Standard 1/2 pot cbet in 3bet pot for induceaments since I expect this 40/30 to ship all flush draws, Jx, KQ, AK, AQ if I haven't "committed" yet.
Poker Stars $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em - 8 players - View hand 811834
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter
CO: $74.35
BTN: $50.00
Hero (SB): $52.00
BB: $50.00
UTG: $26.65
UTG+1: $51.55
MP1: $50.00
MP2: $50.00
Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is SB with Q
Q
1 fold, UTG+1 raises to $2.50, 4 folds, Hero raises to $6.75, 1 fold, UTG+1 calls $4.25
Flop: ($14.00) 5 T J (2 players)
Hero bets $7, UTG+1 raises to $22.50, Hero raises to $45.25 all in, UTG+1 calls $22.30 all in
Turn: ($103.60) 4
(2 players - 2 are all in)
River: ($103.60) A (2 players - 2 are all in)
Final Pot: $103.60
Hero shows Q Q (a pair of Queens)
UTG+1 shows A
J (two pair, Aces and Jacks)
UTG+1 wins $100.60
(Rake: $3.00)
Re-listening to Tommy's 8 fold path which is helping me get through this shit.
Standard 1/2 pot cbet in 3bet pot for induceaments since I expect this 40/30 to ship all flush draws, Jx, KQ, AK, AQ if I haven't "committed" yet.
Poker Stars $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em - 8 players - View hand 811834
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter
CO: $74.35
BTN: $50.00
Hero (SB): $52.00
BB: $50.00
UTG: $26.65
UTG+1: $51.55
MP1: $50.00
MP2: $50.00
Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is SB with Q
Q1 fold, UTG+1 raises to $2.50, 4 folds, Hero raises to $6.75, 1 fold, UTG+1 calls $4.25
Flop: ($14.00) 5
T J (2 players)Hero bets $7, UTG+1 raises to $22.50, Hero raises to $45.25 all in, UTG+1 calls $22.30 all in
Turn: ($103.60) 4
(2 players - 2 are all in)River: ($103.60) A
(2 players - 2 are all in)Final Pot: $103.60
Hero shows Q
Q (a pair of Queens)UTG+1 shows A
J (two pair, Aces and Jacks)UTG+1 wins $100.60
(Rake: $3.00)
Re-listening to Tommy's 8 fold path which is helping me get through this shit.
Thursday, 8 July 2010
BR Rebuilding Plan
I mentioned in my last post that I'm going to pretend I have $500 and work my way back up to re-pad my bankroll since I'm a huge life nit. I'm still actually rolled for 100nl by most people's standards but other people's ability to withstand variance without moving down makes me sick. My BR took a large hit between cashing out a decent amount at the beginning of June and the ensuing soul crush.
So far so good. Played 10k hands at 25nl for 8 ptBB/100 in the last 3 days so I only have about 4-5 buyins to go to move back up to 50nl again. That's a solid $40/hour 12 tabling 6max so it's really not that far off my 100nl 18 tabling FR hourly. And there's virtually zero stress and zero risk. The only really difference is that bonus $/hour drops from $19.90 to $7.75. I'll cut that difference in half once I move up again next week.
I'm starting to catch up on the DC podcasts and they're really interesting with a lot of interesting and good information. Just downloaded all of the Stars/2p2 Podcasts but I'm a little tilted at them using long titles that don't let me see who's in the interview on my podcast list on my iPod. I put a text file with the list on a different app so I guess that will have to do.
25nl Observations:
Suggestions:
But the hourly is really good, the variance is virtually nothing (38 ptBB/100 standard deviation compared to my usual 34 ptBB/100 for FR), I have had 3 stress free days feeling happy, and my confidence is building a lot at the same time. Everyone had a 5 day head start and I'm now in the top half of the list.
So far so good. Played 10k hands at 25nl for 8 ptBB/100 in the last 3 days so I only have about 4-5 buyins to go to move back up to 50nl again. That's a solid $40/hour 12 tabling 6max so it's really not that far off my 100nl 18 tabling FR hourly. And there's virtually zero stress and zero risk. The only really difference is that bonus $/hour drops from $19.90 to $7.75. I'll cut that difference in half once I move up again next week.
I'm starting to catch up on the DC podcasts and they're really interesting with a lot of interesting and good information. Just downloaded all of the Stars/2p2 Podcasts but I'm a little tilted at them using long titles that don't let me see who's in the interview on my podcast list on my iPod. I put a text file with the list on a different app so I guess that will have to do.
25nl Observations:
- TAGs and nits are extremely straightforward and transparent.
- LAGs are extremely bad and spewy. All of them.
- People limp a lot. Limpers are 100% fish and generally won't fold any piece postflop.
- Everyone calls down and stacks off much lighter than I am used to.
- Implied odds are ridiculous.
Suggestions:
- Play straightforward most of the time.
- Punish limpers.
- Let LAGs hang themselves and induce spazz. Widen your 3bet value range against them.
- Take cheap draws with high implied odds instead of semi-bluffing a lot unless you're the PFRer making cbets.
- There are a lot of very floatable TAGs on good boards with position.
- Bet/Bet/Shove your monsters.
But the hourly is really good, the variance is virtually nothing (38 ptBB/100 standard deviation compared to my usual 34 ptBB/100 for FR), I have had 3 stress free days feeling happy, and my confidence is building a lot at the same time. Everyone had a 5 day head start and I'm now in the top half of the list.
Tuesday, 6 July 2010
Frustrated
I'm at a loss as to how to explain my last 50k hand stretch. I find it kind of funny that I'm positive $ in pots smaller than 50bb but making pots larger than that activates one sick doomswitch monkey. I'm actually being a ridiculously accurate psychic and calling out cards while sweating all in pots as a decent favorite lol.
To top things off lately a lot of the fresh batch of noobs on 2p2 seem to have monster egos which is always good for the game. Apparently I'm a troll (standard) and a demagog -- yes a demagog, "gaining political power by appealing to the prejudices, emotions, fears and expectations of the public—typically via impassioned rhetoric and propaganda, and often using nationalist, populist or religious themes," (Wikipedia) you know, like Hitler, for pointing out obvious logical flaws in thought process.
Funny how I never seem to see this message in any threads within 2 weeks of adding someone to the list. I guess they either move on, create a new account once they realize good posters don't put up with douchebags, or go busto.
Graphs since beginning of June.
Pots smaller than 50bb:
Pots larger than 50bb:
Result:
I got some coaching yesterday which helped me find some spots where I was missing a lot of value and spewing a little too much and I'm feeling really confident again postflop. I'm just waiting for variance to turn around, all-in hands to start holding up, and the worst runner runner cards in the deck to stop slapping me in the face.
Still feeling like I'm playing some of the best poker of my life so amazingly my confidence is still high. Would be huge if that turned into actual dollars instead of having to spend them at the Sklansky Mall.
My plan right now is to pretend I have 20 buy ins for 25nl and run it up how I would if that was actually the case. I think this will force me back into the strict value bet frame of mind. Ran up 5 buyins there in a couple hours playing 6max this evening and will get back up to 50nl once I win 15 more in the next couple days. To the people asking wtf am I doing at 25nl in chat, I have been self-imposed chat banned for the last few months, it's too much of a distraction for me.
To top things off lately a lot of the fresh batch of noobs on 2p2 seem to have monster egos which is always good for the game. Apparently I'm a troll (standard) and a demagog -- yes a demagog, "gaining political power by appealing to the prejudices, emotions, fears and expectations of the public—typically via impassioned rhetoric and propaganda, and often using nationalist, populist or religious themes," (Wikipedia) you know, like Hitler, for pointing out obvious logical flaws in thought process.
Funny how I never seem to see this message in any threads within 2 weeks of adding someone to the list. I guess they either move on, create a new account once they realize good posters don't put up with douchebags, or go busto.
Graphs since beginning of June.
Pots smaller than 50bb:
Pots larger than 50bb:
Result:
I got some coaching yesterday which helped me find some spots where I was missing a lot of value and spewing a little too much and I'm feeling really confident again postflop. I'm just waiting for variance to turn around, all-in hands to start holding up, and the worst runner runner cards in the deck to stop slapping me in the face.
Still feeling like I'm playing some of the best poker of my life so amazingly my confidence is still high. Would be huge if that turned into actual dollars instead of having to spend them at the Sklansky Mall.
My plan right now is to pretend I have 20 buy ins for 25nl and run it up how I would if that was actually the case. I think this will force me back into the strict value bet frame of mind. Ran up 5 buyins there in a couple hours playing 6max this evening and will get back up to 50nl once I win 15 more in the next couple days. To the people asking wtf am I doing at 25nl in chat, I have been self-imposed chat banned for the last few months, it's too much of a distraction for me.
Friday, 25 June 2010
End of June Please
I'm ready for July. June has been an absolute full ring disaster:
But instead of making a whine post, I am actually quite happy with my play. I've been doing a ton of work on figuring out people's ranges and taking optimal exploitive lines and I feel like I'm playing the best that I ever have. For all the talk of games getting harder, there sure are a ton of TAGfish that refuse to fold anything postflop.
Also not checking the cashier/HEM graph while playing nearly as much so that bad habit is starting to go away.
As soon as I start getting my ability to fade draws and win flips vs FPSing reg's dominated hand's kickers AIPF I'm going to be crushing. fwiw I think I only have about 2 tilt shoves in there where my equity was still pretty decent with turn NFDs even though I know they're never folding and everything else is super standard so that feels like a really good accomplishment.
Thankfully I'm up a decent amount in the bit of 6max I played this month. The sick runbad vs kickers carries over into the 280 turbos but I'm still managing $0.0182/FPP over 150 games for the month so that's fine, too.
Also not checking the cashier/HEM graph while playing nearly as much so that bad habit is starting to go away.
As soon as I start getting my ability to fade draws and win flips vs FPSing reg's dominated hand's kickers AIPF I'm going to be crushing. fwiw I think I only have about 2 tilt shoves in there where my equity was still pretty decent with turn NFDs even though I know they're never folding and everything else is super standard so that feels like a really good accomplishment.
Thankfully I'm up a decent amount in the bit of 6max I played this month. The sick runbad vs kickers carries over into the 280 turbos but I'm still managing $0.0182/FPP over 150 games for the month so that's fine, too.
Wednesday, 9 June 2010
FPPs: Trying Something New
*June 16th, UPDATE at bottom of post*
I just cashed in my 100k vpp milestone bonus and I've decided to try turning my FPPs into cash in the Sunday 1/4 million 280 turbo sats for $11 a shot.
I've always cashed in 100k FPPs for $1500. I really couldn't bother to wait the extra 2 months to get the best deal of 250k for $4000 even though I know it's illogical to care about when I get the money when it's going to be more. I hate clearing huge bonuses.
So instead of my $0.015/FPP, I did the math on the 280 turbos:
Out of 100 turbo sats and 28k FPPs, if I can cash in 40%, that's already $440 in instant cash as opposed to $420 worth of bonus. Add in 10% 3rd place retries and I get back 2800 FPPs. Cash in 40% of those and that's another $44 for a total of $484.
That comes out to $0.0173/FPP which is better than Supernova rate with no clearing required. And the way these play out I wouldn't be surprised if 55% ITM is possible despite the variance due to structure. These are generally 5nl cash and nanostake tournament players trying to get something besides a Chris Moneymaker poster for their FPPs. Somewhere around $665 per 100 sats and $0.023/FPP is sustainable imo.
At 1000 hands an hour at Supernova multiplier it comes out to 3 to 4 sats worth of FPPs per hour at 50nl and 100nl. Considering they finish in 5 minutes on average and fill up fast, it doesn't really take away from opportunity cost unless you're mass tabling 400nl+ and would need to play something like 6-8 of these for every hour of cash play.
I'll obviously try this out until I run significantly behind my regular bonus rate. So far so good with ITM of 50% and 3 retries out of 20 sats.
^ Cue donkament doomswitch.
* UPDATE*
I've played nearly 100 of these now with some reasonable results. I've cashed in 44% of them which is a little lower than I expected and I've won 3rd place retries in 15%. Quite a bit of sickening villain ability to hit kickers while dominated going on in the last 30 tries. If I remove the 3rd place finishes and discount the FPPs back making it a 2/5 pays satellite, I'm showing an ITM of 50% and an FPP rate of $0.0192/FPP. That's pretty decent considering Supernova is $0.0160, plus this is instant cash.
I'm going to run these up until I hit 186k VPP for the year at which point I'll have to save the next 14k so I have 50k FPP to buy the next milestone.
I just cashed in my 100k vpp milestone bonus and I've decided to try turning my FPPs into cash in the Sunday 1/4 million 280 turbo sats for $11 a shot.
I've always cashed in 100k FPPs for $1500. I really couldn't bother to wait the extra 2 months to get the best deal of 250k for $4000 even though I know it's illogical to care about when I get the money when it's going to be more. I hate clearing huge bonuses.
So instead of my $0.015/FPP, I did the math on the 280 turbos:
Out of 100 turbo sats and 28k FPPs, if I can cash in 40%, that's already $440 in instant cash as opposed to $420 worth of bonus. Add in 10% 3rd place retries and I get back 2800 FPPs. Cash in 40% of those and that's another $44 for a total of $484.
That comes out to $0.0173/FPP which is better than Supernova rate with no clearing required. And the way these play out I wouldn't be surprised if 55% ITM is possible despite the variance due to structure. These are generally 5nl cash and nanostake tournament players trying to get something besides a Chris Moneymaker poster for their FPPs. Somewhere around $665 per 100 sats and $0.023/FPP is sustainable imo.
At 1000 hands an hour at Supernova multiplier it comes out to 3 to 4 sats worth of FPPs per hour at 50nl and 100nl. Considering they finish in 5 minutes on average and fill up fast, it doesn't really take away from opportunity cost unless you're mass tabling 400nl+ and would need to play something like 6-8 of these for every hour of cash play.
I'll obviously try this out until I run significantly behind my regular bonus rate. So far so good with ITM of 50% and 3 retries out of 20 sats.
^ Cue donkament doomswitch.
* UPDATE*
I've played nearly 100 of these now with some reasonable results. I've cashed in 44% of them which is a little lower than I expected and I've won 3rd place retries in 15%. Quite a bit of sickening villain ability to hit kickers while dominated going on in the last 30 tries. If I remove the 3rd place finishes and discount the FPPs back making it a 2/5 pays satellite, I'm showing an ITM of 50% and an FPP rate of $0.0192/FPP. That's pretty decent considering Supernova is $0.0160, plus this is instant cash.
I'm going to run these up until I hit 186k VPP for the year at which point I'll have to save the next 14k so I have 50k FPP to buy the next milestone.
Sunday, 30 May 2010
No money in full ring...
[ ] everyone's solid.
Had a sick good run in a short 45 minute session last night finishing up nearly 4 buyins. I found the following hand a little amusing.
Back story:
I sit down at this table specifically because of this guy sitting 2 to my right. I've only got 75 hands on him at that point but so far he had been running 45/30 and had stacked top pair 2x and 2nd pair 1x vs regs, losing all 3 hands obviously.
My 2nd hand at the table I'm dealt KK in the SB. An MP reg opens, my target 3bets, I pretty much snap-cold-4bet. MP reg flats which I found slightly disturbing and fish flats too. Whatever I'm not folding KK if the board comes out low, which it does - 973 two tone. So I obviously bet/call the flop although I think it's close between checking and letting the reg ship his QQ+ but I'm scared that being OOP it's going to check through which I don't want. Reg tank-calls his QQ (yay!) and of course this genius to my right shows up with 77 and ships. He then goes on to say how hard he owned us both.
The very next orbit, he's already lost $100 out of the $300 stack immediately prior to this hand (another bad 1 pair stackoff where he was actually ahead):
Poker Stars $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 7 players - View hand 726635
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter
UTG: $131.10
UTG+1: $43.20
MP: $134.25
CO: $100.00
BTN: $203.40
SB: $188.40
Hero (BB): $120.50
Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is BB with K A
3 folds, UTG says "nice ha", CO raises to $3, BTN says "brutal", BTN calls $3, 1 fold, UTG says "lol", Hero raises to $14, UTG says "only at pokerstars", BTN says "only at jokerstars", 1 fold, BTN calls $11
Flop: ($31.50) 8 4 K (2 players)
Hero bets $19, BTN calls $19
Turn: ($69.50) 4 (2 players)
Hero bets $34, BTN calls $34
River: ($137.50) 3 (2 players)
Hero bets $53.50 all in, BTN calls $53.50
Final Pot: $244.50
BTN shows T K (two pair, Kings and Fours - lower kicker)
Hero shows K A (two pair, Kings and Fours)
Hero wins $241.50
(Rake: $3.00)
Had a sick good run in a short 45 minute session last night finishing up nearly 4 buyins. I found the following hand a little amusing.
Back story:
I sit down at this table specifically because of this guy sitting 2 to my right. I've only got 75 hands on him at that point but so far he had been running 45/30 and had stacked top pair 2x and 2nd pair 1x vs regs, losing all 3 hands obviously.
My 2nd hand at the table I'm dealt KK in the SB. An MP reg opens, my target 3bets, I pretty much snap-cold-4bet. MP reg flats which I found slightly disturbing and fish flats too. Whatever I'm not folding KK if the board comes out low, which it does - 973 two tone. So I obviously bet/call the flop although I think it's close between checking and letting the reg ship his QQ+ but I'm scared that being OOP it's going to check through which I don't want. Reg tank-calls his QQ (yay!) and of course this genius to my right shows up with 77 and ships. He then goes on to say how hard he owned us both.
The very next orbit, he's already lost $100 out of the $300 stack immediately prior to this hand (another bad 1 pair stackoff where he was actually ahead):
Poker Stars $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 7 players - View hand 726635
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter
UTG: $131.10
UTG+1: $43.20
MP: $134.25
CO: $100.00
BTN: $203.40
SB: $188.40
Hero (BB): $120.50
Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is BB with K
A3 folds, UTG says "nice ha", CO raises to $3, BTN says "brutal", BTN calls $3, 1 fold, UTG says "lol", Hero raises to $14, UTG says "only at pokerstars", BTN says "only at jokerstars", 1 fold, BTN calls $11
Flop: ($31.50) 8
4 K (2 players)Hero bets $19, BTN calls $19
Turn: ($69.50) 4
(2 players)Hero bets $34, BTN calls $34
River: ($137.50) 3
(2 players)Hero bets $53.50 all in, BTN calls $53.50
Final Pot: $244.50
BTN shows T
K (two pair, Kings and Fours - lower kicker)Hero shows K
A (two pair, Kings and Fours)Hero wins $241.50
(Rake: $3.00)
BTN says: "wtf"
BTN says: "how did i lose that hand?"
BTN says: "we both have top pair"
UTG says: ;)
I lol'd irl. Good to see that there's still actually people out there that don't fully understand the rules. I miss the days of Jack high call downs, but this confirms that poker is not dead.
Saturday, 22 May 2010
It's a Boy!
We finally had our 2nd child 13 days overdue last week. I was waiting to post until I was able to put a few pictures online but life has been a little bit busy so far with two kids now. Busy but fun!
Managed to grab this photo off of Facebook so far. Need to get better ones online still. Thanks for the comments guys!
8 lbs 12 oz and 21.25" tall. Very hungry little guy who we've knicknamed "Starvin' Marvin" (no that's not his real name lol).
Managed to grab this photo off of Facebook so far. Need to get better ones online still. Thanks for the comments guys!
Thursday, 20 May 2010
OTF OTT OTR = tilt
Just a little rant here but it appears that some forum somewhere has started using acronyms for "on the flop," "on the turn," and "on the river" and the influx of noobs with less than 50 posts seem to be bringing it with them in waves to 2p2. I don't know why it bothers me considering a ton of other stuff is standard to acronymise (is that a word?) like UTG and SB and EV but it does.
I will continue posting using all three words with respect to which street I'm talking about out of spite. I'm also rather old in terms of online poker players (late 20's) and I am probably just resistant to change.
=)
I will continue posting using all three words with respect to which street I'm talking about out of spite. I'm also rather old in terms of online poker players (late 20's) and I am probably just resistant to change.
=)
Tuesday, 11 May 2010
6max so far...
First week of May was absolutely amazing and I made a lot of money because 82% of "regs" call down with absolutely any piece
Second week of May has been absolutely terrible because 82% of "regs" call down with any piece and have added +78 to their weird 2 pair making skill. The apparent strategy reminds me of homegames. "If I can hit my Queen... (Q5s on T42r)..."
I find it amazing that cbets have been working approximately 34% over my last 12k hands while I manage to win at showdown 42%. Easy adjustments obviously but I need someone to turn off my doomswitch so I can get my run-average back. Here's to hoping I can start fading luckboxes again. I do find it comforting that the vast majority of 50nl puts me on AK 52% of the time. The other 48% of the time the flop is Axx or Kxx and they put me on KQ or AQ.
Second week of May has been absolutely terrible because 82% of "regs" call down with any piece and have added +78 to their weird 2 pair making skill. The apparent strategy reminds me of homegames. "If I can hit my Queen... (Q5s on T42r)..."
I find it amazing that cbets have been working approximately 34% over my last 12k hands while I manage to win at showdown 42%. Easy adjustments obviously but I need someone to turn off my doomswitch so I can get my run-average back. Here's to hoping I can start fading luckboxes again. I do find it comforting that the vast majority of 50nl puts me on AK 52% of the time. The other 48% of the time the flop is Axx or Kxx and they put me on KQ or AQ.
Wednesday, 5 May 2010
May = 6max
After putting in 100k hands of full ring in April I think I'm going to give 6max a shot. I want to see which one suits me better for long session grinding and I want to keep my skills in both dynamics up to date. I did play a few thousand hands of full ring the past couple of days as well as final tabled a 135-player Rush tournament for a decent score. That was mainly the result of me swonging +4/-4 buyins at 100nl to breakeven on FR cash yesterday and feeling kind of bad about it, still up several buyins there for the month.
I've played in a few SCOOP events but so far haven't really been able to chip up very well. Typically running around average stack for the first 3-5 hours and then crash and burn. Very card dead plus I feel like I've wasted 4 hours of my life when I run set under set or Queens into Kings or some other random postflop bullshit that cripples me or knocks me out. It's really not worth it for me if it makes me feel like not playing poker at all afterwords... might as well stick to cash then. Kudos to all the donkament pros out there that can handle the long hours and months of winning nearly nothing in anticipation of that huge score without jumping off a bridge in the meantime. I had to laugh at the 42% final table payout for the last SCOOP event I played considering there were 18k entries. Seriously, spread the wealth a little.
Today I decided to start watching a bunch of videos again and really think about my decisions at 6max. So I obviously 18 table 50nl so I could focus and get back into the game flow =) 7k hands later I'm up 10 buyins so far. Will probably put in another 3k hands or so today. Pretty sure I win the internets for volume in micro-6max games (aside from CJ and Chiren of course).
I'm really hoping I can move up to 100nl 6max without getting crushed again. I think my understanding of ranges vs lines is approximately 34x better this time around compared to the end of last year so it shouldn't be a problem.
Baby was due last Saturday so I'm expecting to become even more busy any day now. My 2 year old daughter is extremely excited so that's nice.
Planning to hit Supernova for 2010 sometime next week. Time for some milestone bonuses!
EDIT: Make that 1 more hour for a total of 8k hands and 14 buyins and my last Stellar bonus for the day!
I've played in a few SCOOP events but so far haven't really been able to chip up very well. Typically running around average stack for the first 3-5 hours and then crash and burn. Very card dead plus I feel like I've wasted 4 hours of my life when I run set under set or Queens into Kings or some other random postflop bullshit that cripples me or knocks me out. It's really not worth it for me if it makes me feel like not playing poker at all afterwords... might as well stick to cash then. Kudos to all the donkament pros out there that can handle the long hours and months of winning nearly nothing in anticipation of that huge score without jumping off a bridge in the meantime. I had to laugh at the 42% final table payout for the last SCOOP event I played considering there were 18k entries. Seriously, spread the wealth a little.
Today I decided to start watching a bunch of videos again and really think about my decisions at 6max. So I obviously 18 table 50nl so I could focus and get back into the game flow =) 7k hands later I'm up 10 buyins so far. Will probably put in another 3k hands or so today. Pretty sure I win the internets for volume in micro-6max games (aside from CJ and Chiren of course).
I'm really hoping I can move up to 100nl 6max without getting crushed again. I think my understanding of ranges vs lines is approximately 34x better this time around compared to the end of last year so it shouldn't be a problem.
Baby was due last Saturday so I'm expecting to become even more busy any day now. My 2 year old daughter is extremely excited so that's nice.
Planning to hit Supernova for 2010 sometime next week. Time for some milestone bonuses!
EDIT: Make that 1 more hour for a total of 8k hands and 14 buyins and my last Stellar bonus for the day!
Thursday, 29 April 2010
April Wrap-up
April turned out to be really swongy. Thankfully the swong ended on a nice upswing towards the end of this month. I've nearly completed 100k hands of fullring for the month to finish out the 2 group volume props for this month totaling $250 so I'm thinking I might make a little off of that. Doesn't hurt to throw my name on the list when I'm pretty much guaranteed to play enough hands - it is a good motivator.
Had some really sick variance in 2/3 of the 200nl shots I took this month running top fullhouses and AA into quads several times. Variance is expected over 5k hands though. The 3rd shot ended nicely though and I think I'm going to be taking more controlled shots there a lot more often in the near future. Currently running 100nl at 3 ptBB/100 over 45k hands this month and I've only managed to put in about 10k of those on the weekends.
Games are running extremely well in small stakes. Table selection continues to be absolutely amazing with the Stars structure changes and there are still way more 40-100 tables than 20-50 tables which is a good sign. I've heard people complaining at 600nl+ that this is not true. I don't see a reason why Stars couldn't adjust structure according to different stakes depending on current strategies and player bases - no reason for everything to be site-wide. The counter-argument is obviously that it's unethical to try to shuttle fish into regs' preferred games and could be detrimental to the future economy of the game. Overall I think they did a really good job still.
Tried out several Rush donkaments on FTP and all I can say is wow. The fish:shark ratio in tournaments is generally higher than in cash games but these tournaments are off the chart. I obviously only finished on the bubble in both that I played and couldn't keep dodging the minefield forever. Crippled with KK<65o AI on the flop on T75r and a couple standard KK<AA (one on the first hand lol).
I have 8k hands to finish up today and tomorrow which shouldn't be a problem. Right on pace. I am having trouble putting in 6 hours a day with the rest of life going on but that's ok. I'm going to scale this back to a 25 hour week schedule next month.
Had some really sick variance in 2/3 of the 200nl shots I took this month running top fullhouses and AA into quads several times. Variance is expected over 5k hands though. The 3rd shot ended nicely though and I think I'm going to be taking more controlled shots there a lot more often in the near future. Currently running 100nl at 3 ptBB/100 over 45k hands this month and I've only managed to put in about 10k of those on the weekends.
Games are running extremely well in small stakes. Table selection continues to be absolutely amazing with the Stars structure changes and there are still way more 40-100 tables than 20-50 tables which is a good sign. I've heard people complaining at 600nl+ that this is not true. I don't see a reason why Stars couldn't adjust structure according to different stakes depending on current strategies and player bases - no reason for everything to be site-wide. The counter-argument is obviously that it's unethical to try to shuttle fish into regs' preferred games and could be detrimental to the future economy of the game. Overall I think they did a really good job still.
Tried out several Rush donkaments on FTP and all I can say is wow. The fish:shark ratio in tournaments is generally higher than in cash games but these tournaments are off the chart. I obviously only finished on the bubble in both that I played and couldn't keep dodging the minefield forever. Crippled with KK<65o AI on the flop on T75r and a couple standard KK<AA (one on the first hand lol).
I have 8k hands to finish up today and tomorrow which shouldn't be a problem. Right on pace. I am having trouble putting in 6 hours a day with the rest of life going on but that's ok. I'm going to scale this back to a 25 hour week schedule next month.
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
PokerStars Buyin Changes
Yay!
(understatement - I am slightly more ecstatic than I was when I received video games at Christmas when I was 6 years old)
The change to buyin requirements has finally been implemented on Stars:
As of last night and this morning, the deep and medium buyin levels have been outnumbering the shallow games by at least 2:1 at small stakes which is a good sign, despite all the shortstackers that 24 table. There's also been somewhat of an influx of shortstackers in the 40-100 game buying in for 40 bb and so far they've been getting crushed trying to implement their style as far as I have seen. They look completely lost by the turn with an extra large (to them) PSB left. Hopefully they'll try out the medium games for a while and be the new fish.
I haven't really had to table select much at all at 100nl since the change. There's generally three 60-80 bb stacks at a lot of tables so I hardly even have to waitlist at all. I guess some of the 40-50 bb fish might be playing the shallow games, but having all the 40-80 bb fish that avoided the 50bb-min games is a laughable tradeoff. The games seem to have loosened up dramatically, especially the deep games - I tried out some 50nl FR deep-ante and was running at about 0.45 vpp/hand which a few other people confirmed. I don't know if that's going to sustain or not, but that's a ridiculously good rate for 50nl.
Overall I really like the changes and I think they're going to be good for the game. But I think PokerStars needs to implement a couple tweaks to the new structure to fine tune it:
I still think they need to get rid of the overlap in buyin. There really is no point to it other than to give the 20bb stacks a decent edge over the 50bb stacks. 40bb is going to drastically reduce that edge imo, as 4bet shoves are going to be much more correct. 50bb just makes awkward stack sizes vs 3bets (unless you make some adjustments and just minraise all the time - assuming the shortstackers are not going to adjust at all to that and 3bet smaller). Haven't done the math on this yet so this is just my logical guestimate - not sure if I will do the math considering I don't plan on opening any 20-50 tables other than to have a laugh at the shortstack on shortstack violence rakefest.
Re-label the buyin structures "Shallow, Medium, Deep" and colour code accordingly as per Full Tilt. I prefer "Normal" to "Medium" but a ton of people think that's unethical wrt the fish thought process. The lobby is a mess of descriptions right now. The last thing you want to do is have recreational players have to read through a somewhat complicated looking information banner and try to find the game they want in a lobby that's currently a wall of text. This re-labeling and especially colour coding is pretty much a no brainer and just about everyone is calling for it so I would expect this to be implemented relatively soon.
Overall, good job Stars. A few minor fixes should make the site completely in tune with current strategies and player bases.
(understatement - I am slightly more ecstatic than I was when I received video games at Christmas when I was 6 years old)
The change to buyin requirements has finally been implemented on Stars:
- 20-50 bb, with default buy-in of 40bb
- 40-100 bb, with default buy-in of 80bb
- 100-250 bb, with default buy-in of 200bb and ante equal to 20% of the Big Blind
- http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/games/rules/ring/
As of last night and this morning, the deep and medium buyin levels have been outnumbering the shallow games by at least 2:1 at small stakes which is a good sign, despite all the shortstackers that 24 table. There's also been somewhat of an influx of shortstackers in the 40-100 game buying in for 40 bb and so far they've been getting crushed trying to implement their style as far as I have seen. They look completely lost by the turn with an extra large (to them) PSB left. Hopefully they'll try out the medium games for a while and be the new fish.
I haven't really had to table select much at all at 100nl since the change. There's generally three 60-80 bb stacks at a lot of tables so I hardly even have to waitlist at all. I guess some of the 40-50 bb fish might be playing the shallow games, but having all the 40-80 bb fish that avoided the 50bb-min games is a laughable tradeoff. The games seem to have loosened up dramatically, especially the deep games - I tried out some 50nl FR deep-ante and was running at about 0.45 vpp/hand which a few other people confirmed. I don't know if that's going to sustain or not, but that's a ridiculously good rate for 50nl.
Overall I really like the changes and I think they're going to be good for the game. But I think PokerStars needs to implement a couple tweaks to the new structure to fine tune it:
I still think they need to get rid of the overlap in buyin. There really is no point to it other than to give the 20bb stacks a decent edge over the 50bb stacks. 40bb is going to drastically reduce that edge imo, as 4bet shoves are going to be much more correct. 50bb just makes awkward stack sizes vs 3bets (unless you make some adjustments and just minraise all the time - assuming the shortstackers are not going to adjust at all to that and 3bet smaller). Haven't done the math on this yet so this is just my logical guestimate - not sure if I will do the math considering I don't plan on opening any 20-50 tables other than to have a laugh at the shortstack on shortstack violence rakefest.
Re-label the buyin structures "Shallow, Medium, Deep" and colour code accordingly as per Full Tilt. I prefer "Normal" to "Medium" but a ton of people think that's unethical wrt the fish thought process. The lobby is a mess of descriptions right now. The last thing you want to do is have recreational players have to read through a somewhat complicated looking information banner and try to find the game they want in a lobby that's currently a wall of text. This re-labeling and especially colour coding is pretty much a no brainer and just about everyone is calling for it so I would expect this to be implemented relatively soon.
Overall, good job Stars. A few minor fixes should make the site completely in tune with current strategies and player bases.
Sunday, 4 April 2010
Test-Pro
I officially started my 7 months of test-pro on Saturday and will for the most part be putting in my hours Monday to Friday with at most 4 hours on the weekend. I have several goals in mind:
If I can make a decent run at this without being able to play much on the weekend, I should have the skill, mindset, bankroll and savings to actually do this for real. The conditions I’ll be playing in now will be slightly tougher than conditions for being a real pro: more hours squeezed into fewer days, no weekend fish (although without the stress of actually needing to make money).
Saturday and Sunday are my "days off" where I go to my day job, but I managed to get in a couple hours Saturday anyways and won 4 buyins in a couple hours so I’m already ahead of schedule =)
I’ll keep any updates related to this under the “Test-Pro” label until the end of October.
- Set up somewhat of a schedule.
- 30 hours per week.
- Focus on improving and moving up.
- Watch a lot of videos.
- Get some coaching.
- Hammer out a few milestone bonuses.
Wednesday, 31 March 2010
Non-poker books
I think I'm going to start getting back into reading some books. There's a bunch of classic books out there that I've always wanted to read and now with all my extra time off I'm going to start reading a bunch of them. I seem to be biased towards the dystopian books for some reason or another - I really enjoyed Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm. Besides good classics, I'm a huge fan of Stephen King-ish type novels.
Currently reading:
Under the Dome: Stephen King
Reading list in no particular order:
20,000 Leauges Under the Sea
Brave New World
Fahrenheit 451
Catcher in the Rye
Catch 22
... oh and of course playing poker when I'm not reading...
Ship the +8 buyins today. SessionLog.doc FTW.
Currently reading:
Under the Dome: Stephen King
Reading list in no particular order:
20,000 Leauges Under the Sea
Brave New World
Fahrenheit 451
Catcher in the Rye
Catch 22
... oh and of course playing poker when I'm not reading...
Ship the +8 buyins today. SessionLog.doc FTW.
Sunday, 28 March 2010
Back in the black!
Quick update:
Caught up on a ton of sleep
Feeling really good
Trying out a session journal to record goals and results (not $)
Got out of my poker funk.
Huge day at 50nl 6max: 10 buyins in 6k hands by 4pm
Maintained A game state of mind for 4 one hour sessions
Going to have 5 days off of work per week until November as opposed to 2 with full salary (bink!)
Had a big opportunity for tilt and ended up joking about it with the other player in chat instead. Hand History:
Stars 50nl 6max
Preflop: Hero has JTs as PFRer, c/r happy Villain calls in SB
Flop: Tc5d4s, checks through
Turn: 5s with the flushdraw out now, Hero bets 2/3 pot, villain c/r almost pot, Hero soul-reads that Villain has squadoosh and calls to induce river bluffs
River: 2c and Villain leads for 3/4 pot, Hero snapcalls and gets shown 22
Hero says: "nh"
Villain says: "that's generally my strategy, make stupid plays and then get there"
...
So hopefully you guys won't have to listen to me whine for a while :)
Caught up on a ton of sleep
Feeling really good
Trying out a session journal to record goals and results (not $)
Got out of my poker funk.
Huge day at 50nl 6max: 10 buyins in 6k hands by 4pm
Maintained A game state of mind for 4 one hour sessions
Going to have 5 days off of work per week until November as opposed to 2 with full salary (bink!)
Had a big opportunity for tilt and ended up joking about it with the other player in chat instead. Hand History:
Stars 50nl 6max
Preflop: Hero has JTs as PFRer, c/r happy Villain calls in SB
Flop: Tc5d4s, checks through
Turn: 5s with the flushdraw out now, Hero bets 2/3 pot, villain c/r almost pot, Hero soul-reads that Villain has squadoosh and calls to induce river bluffs
River: 2c and Villain leads for 3/4 pot, Hero snapcalls and gets shown 22
Hero says: "nh"
Villain says: "that's generally my strategy, make stupid plays and then get there"
...
So hopefully you guys won't have to listen to me whine for a while :)
Thursday, 25 March 2010
gg March
March can diagf afaic.
My month in a nutshell (over and over and over and over.............. again):
Poker Stars $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players - View hand 607219
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter
MP1: $82.10
MP2: $29.25
CO: $53.45
BTN: $45.25
SB: $63.25
BB: $67.65
UTG: $116.00
Hero (UTG+1): $50.00
UTG+2: $50.00
Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is UTG+1 with 8 8
UTG raises to $1.50, Hero calls $1.50, 5 folds, SB calls $1.25, BB calls $1
Flop: ($6.00) 6 8 9 (4 players)
SB checks, BB checks, UTG checks, Hero bets $4.50, SB folds, BB calls $4.50, UTG folds
Turn: ($15.00) 4 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $11, BB raises to $61.65 all in, Hero calls $33 all in
River: ($103.00) T (2 players - 2 are all in)
Final Pot: $103.00
BB shows Q J (a straight, Eight to Queen)
Hero shows 8 8 (three of a kind, Eights)
BB wins $100.00
(Rake: $3.00)
villain says "that's poker at its best!"
Added up every pot > 50bb and it's 2/3 this shit and 1/3 bad play due to tilt from this shit (if you count shoving 30%+ equity for 0EV bad play when you know they're never folding). Possibly my first losing month ever if things don't turn around fast. I think I've hit the "worse than you ever thought possible" because it's not possible to run worse than this imo - and I've had more than a few gross runs. $2k+ under EV plus unbelievable amounts of KK vs AA and set vs weird straight coolers between 2/3 50nl and 1/3 100nl for the month in only 75k hands.
Everyone on the forums wants to talk about ranges and playing peoples' ranges but I have a new improved plan: take your absolute hand strength and just +1 it to find out what they have. Oh and FYI people don't fold hands when they don't beat anything when I shove because they have an under pa--ooooohhhh shiny over there! ie. bottom-pair-no-draw is +1 of nut flush draw. Don't think about making that NFD either because they get their cards swapped out for a set that boats up when you hit your NFD.
My month in a nutshell (over and over and over and over.............. again):
Poker Stars $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players - View hand 607219
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter
MP1: $82.10
MP2: $29.25
CO: $53.45
BTN: $45.25
SB: $63.25
BB: $67.65
UTG: $116.00
Hero (UTG+1): $50.00
UTG+2: $50.00
Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is UTG+1 with 8
8UTG raises to $1.50, Hero calls $1.50, 5 folds, SB calls $1.25, BB calls $1
Flop: ($6.00) 6
8 9 (4 players)SB checks, BB checks, UTG checks, Hero bets $4.50, SB folds, BB calls $4.50, UTG folds
Turn: ($15.00) 4
(2 players)BB checks, Hero bets $11, BB raises to $61.65 all in, Hero calls $33 all in
River: ($103.00) T
(2 players - 2 are all in)Final Pot: $103.00
BB shows Q
J (a straight, Eight to Queen)Hero shows 8
8 (three of a kind, Eights)BB wins $100.00
(Rake: $3.00)
villain says "that's poker at its best!"
Added up every pot > 50bb and it's 2/3 this shit and 1/3 bad play due to tilt from this shit (if you count shoving 30%+ equity for 0EV bad play when you know they're never folding). Possibly my first losing month ever if things don't turn around fast. I think I've hit the "worse than you ever thought possible" because it's not possible to run worse than this imo - and I've had more than a few gross runs. $2k+ under EV plus unbelievable amounts of KK vs AA and set vs weird straight coolers between 2/3 50nl and 1/3 100nl for the month in only 75k hands.
Everyone on the forums wants to talk about ranges and playing peoples' ranges but I have a new improved plan: take your absolute hand strength and just +1 it to find out what they have. Oh and FYI people don't fold hands when they don't beat anything when I shove because they have an under pa--ooooohhhh shiny over there! ie. bottom-pair-no-draw is +1 of nut flush draw. Don't think about making that NFD either because they get their cards swapped out for a set that boats up when you hit your NFD.
Saturday, 20 March 2010
Multi-Tabling (or why not to)
Download PDF version of this article
I've had a few requests to write an article on multi-tabling and decided that might be fun so here it is. I'm certainly no expert on the topic but I'll share what I've tried and what works for me. This article is going to be fairly long because I think a lot of people underestimate just how drastic this issue is with regards to the advancement of their poker career (I should know). There's a link to download this as PDF at the top if you'd like to print or view offline.
Know why you're multi-tabling and why you shouldn't be. There are a few factors that go into deciding how many tables you should play. A lot of them are connected and seem to contradict each other in some cases. They also generally boil down to 2 main issues:
Skill and Hourly.
The first thing most people think about when multi-tabling is increasing their hourly rate, which isn't a terrible thing because it is the primary reason to multi-table. Simply factoring winrate on a given number of tables at a certain stake vs another combination of winrate and tables and stakes is one way of deciding.
Experience
Your skill level is going to be the first indicator of whether or not you can add more tables. Skill comes from experience and experience in a wide range of situations against a wide range of opponents is going to tell you what the "standard" play is in almost any given situation. This allows you to free up thought process resources for the non-standard situations.
For example: If you are a new player where you know the standard play in 60% of situations and you play 10 tables, you need to think about 4 decisions and autopilot 6 decisions at any given time. Now if you add another 10 tables, you need to think about 8 decisions and autopilot 12 decisions in the same amount of time.
If you are an experienced player (who I'll call the pro) with a million quality hands under your belt and you know the standard in 95% of situations, on 10 tables you need to think about 0.5 decisions at any moment, while 20 tabling you need to think about 1 decision.
At 60 hands/hour the new player will have to think about 240 vs 480 hands when picking between 10 and 20 tables while the pro looks at a range of 30 vs 60 hands. You can clearly see that the increase in tables does not affect the pro nearly as much in regards to decisions per hour compared to the new player. It's still a 100% increase, but in terms of decisions/hour it's a huge difference. In order for the new player to attain the same level of focus as the 10 tabling pro (30 hands requiring thought process per hour), he should be playing no more than 1 table for 24 hands requiring thought process per hour. 2 tables would be about the equivalent of a 20 tabling pro.
Improve and Move Up vs Mass Table Autopilot
But playing a couple million hands and adding tables in the process once you've seen everything there is to see is not all there is to it. There is a point in mass tabling where focus levels drop to the point that it is hard to work on improving and you simply end up autopiloting.
There are 2 types of autopiloting:
a) clicking buttons based on 1st level absolute hand strength
b) making automatic decisions based on experience and a solid grasp of ranges and hand reading.
Option b is obviously the better option. In order to do that however, we need to again work on experience and improving, which means playing less tables to free up thought process.
We also have to consider our poker endgame and opportunity cost. The ultimate goal of the game for any serious player is simply to make money in the most profitable and efficient manner possible. So figure out how much you want to ultimately make per hour and then figure out what kind of winrate, number of tables and stakes will get you there. Everything in between where you are now and that ultimate goal is just a journey and an effort towards the end goal. A lot of players - myself included - fall into the trap of mass tabling now for short term benefit. This is simply an unecessary detour on the path to your ultimate goal.
Hourly
Lets take two identical players who have the same winrates (4 ptBB/100 on 8 full ring tables for $9.60/hour) and play the same stakes (25NL) and same amount of time (20 hours/week) and send them down different paths.
Player A instantly jumps to 24 tables of 25NL for a 2.5 ptBB/100 winrate and doubles his hourly to $18/hour. He progresses very slowly and finally moves up to 50NL and continues to 24 table there 6 months later and for the rest of the year at 1.5 ptBB/100 and $21.60/hour. After a year he's won $20,592.
Player B continues down the 8 table ($9.60) path and progresses faster, being able to analyze situations and learn. In 3 months he moves up to 50NL and wins at 3 ptBB/100 ($14.40). After another 4 months he moves up to 100NL and wins at 2 ptBB/100 ($19.20). After a year he's won $16,128.
This obviously looks like an argument for mass tabling. But lets take a closer look at Player B's situation. He's still only playing 8 tables at higher stakes and making less per hour. But he's primed to play higher stakes on more tables now. What happens if he decides to increase to 12 tables at 1.8 ptBB/100 ($25.92) or 18 tables at 1.5 ptBB/100 ($32.40) or 24 tables at 1.3 ptBB/100 ($37.44)? Maybe he continues to improve to the point where he can 24 table at 2 ptBB/100 ($57.60)
Or continues to move up and then add tables? Or a combination of both? He has a lot of options as to how he wants to increase his hourly rate, whereas Player A has artificially capped his hourly rate because he hasn't developed the skillset to play higher stakes and he's maxed out on tables.
Player A has also played more hands, which one would think means more experience. But the value in that experience is going to be drastically diminished due to less focus. Experience therefore is defined as a qualitative term rather than quantitative.
Adding Tables
Player B now wants to start adding tables. The best way I've found to do this is to add 25% to your table load. If you play 4 tables, add 1. If you play 8 tables, add 2. 12 tables, add 3. A good indicator of too many tables is timing out. If you start timing out, scale it back a table or two.
I strongly suggest that this is fluid (just as I believe many things in poker should be) because your focus is going to be better for some sessions than others and if you normally play 12 but are feeling rushed or taking longer for decisions there's nothing wrong with cutting it back to 8 for today.
Layout
Belok has already done a great post on 24 tabling like a pro so I won't go much into this.
Here's the 6x2 layout I generally use. I can have up to 4 layers stacked on top of this for 24 tables. I have a 25" widescreen at 1920x1080 that I play on, and I use a second 21" widescreen for the lobby and HEM, which helps for table selection while playing so your lobby doesn't constantly have tables popping over top. A 30" would be ideal for less overlap.
I also use a stacked layout with an AHK table mover if I'm mass tabling. Typically, tiled tables are better for note taking but I find if you have a way of moving tables out of the stack to focus on them, this method is better for notes because the note should never get covered by another table popping up.
So don't be Player A - aka me. Play fewer tables, work on your game and move up. Once you've reached a stake where your ultimate hourly rate is possible, start thinking about mass tabling. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to cut this short... my 24 tables keep stealing keyboard focus from this post and that annoying timer alarm is going again.
I've had a few requests to write an article on multi-tabling and decided that might be fun so here it is. I'm certainly no expert on the topic but I'll share what I've tried and what works for me. This article is going to be fairly long because I think a lot of people underestimate just how drastic this issue is with regards to the advancement of their poker career (I should know). There's a link to download this as PDF at the top if you'd like to print or view offline.
Know why you're multi-tabling and why you shouldn't be. There are a few factors that go into deciding how many tables you should play. A lot of them are connected and seem to contradict each other in some cases. They also generally boil down to 2 main issues:
Skill and Hourly.
The first thing most people think about when multi-tabling is increasing their hourly rate, which isn't a terrible thing because it is the primary reason to multi-table. Simply factoring winrate on a given number of tables at a certain stake vs another combination of winrate and tables and stakes is one way of deciding.
Experience
Your skill level is going to be the first indicator of whether or not you can add more tables. Skill comes from experience and experience in a wide range of situations against a wide range of opponents is going to tell you what the "standard" play is in almost any given situation. This allows you to free up thought process resources for the non-standard situations.
For example: If you are a new player where you know the standard play in 60% of situations and you play 10 tables, you need to think about 4 decisions and autopilot 6 decisions at any given time. Now if you add another 10 tables, you need to think about 8 decisions and autopilot 12 decisions in the same amount of time.
If you are an experienced player (who I'll call the pro) with a million quality hands under your belt and you know the standard in 95% of situations, on 10 tables you need to think about 0.5 decisions at any moment, while 20 tabling you need to think about 1 decision.
At 60 hands/hour the new player will have to think about 240 vs 480 hands when picking between 10 and 20 tables while the pro looks at a range of 30 vs 60 hands. You can clearly see that the increase in tables does not affect the pro nearly as much in regards to decisions per hour compared to the new player. It's still a 100% increase, but in terms of decisions/hour it's a huge difference. In order for the new player to attain the same level of focus as the 10 tabling pro (30 hands requiring thought process per hour), he should be playing no more than 1 table for 24 hands requiring thought process per hour. 2 tables would be about the equivalent of a 20 tabling pro.
Improve and Move Up vs Mass Table Autopilot
But playing a couple million hands and adding tables in the process once you've seen everything there is to see is not all there is to it. There is a point in mass tabling where focus levels drop to the point that it is hard to work on improving and you simply end up autopiloting.
There are 2 types of autopiloting:
a) clicking buttons based on 1st level absolute hand strength
b) making automatic decisions based on experience and a solid grasp of ranges and hand reading.
Option b is obviously the better option. In order to do that however, we need to again work on experience and improving, which means playing less tables to free up thought process.
We also have to consider our poker endgame and opportunity cost. The ultimate goal of the game for any serious player is simply to make money in the most profitable and efficient manner possible. So figure out how much you want to ultimately make per hour and then figure out what kind of winrate, number of tables and stakes will get you there. Everything in between where you are now and that ultimate goal is just a journey and an effort towards the end goal. A lot of players - myself included - fall into the trap of mass tabling now for short term benefit. This is simply an unecessary detour on the path to your ultimate goal.
Hourly
Lets take two identical players who have the same winrates (4 ptBB/100 on 8 full ring tables for $9.60/hour) and play the same stakes (25NL) and same amount of time (20 hours/week) and send them down different paths.
Player A instantly jumps to 24 tables of 25NL for a 2.5 ptBB/100 winrate and doubles his hourly to $18/hour. He progresses very slowly and finally moves up to 50NL and continues to 24 table there 6 months later and for the rest of the year at 1.5 ptBB/100 and $21.60/hour. After a year he's won $20,592.
Player B continues down the 8 table ($9.60) path and progresses faster, being able to analyze situations and learn. In 3 months he moves up to 50NL and wins at 3 ptBB/100 ($14.40). After another 4 months he moves up to 100NL and wins at 2 ptBB/100 ($19.20). After a year he's won $16,128.
This obviously looks like an argument for mass tabling. But lets take a closer look at Player B's situation. He's still only playing 8 tables at higher stakes and making less per hour. But he's primed to play higher stakes on more tables now. What happens if he decides to increase to 12 tables at 1.8 ptBB/100 ($25.92) or 18 tables at 1.5 ptBB/100 ($32.40) or 24 tables at 1.3 ptBB/100 ($37.44)? Maybe he continues to improve to the point where he can 24 table at 2 ptBB/100 ($57.60)
Or continues to move up and then add tables? Or a combination of both? He has a lot of options as to how he wants to increase his hourly rate, whereas Player A has artificially capped his hourly rate because he hasn't developed the skillset to play higher stakes and he's maxed out on tables.
Player A has also played more hands, which one would think means more experience. But the value in that experience is going to be drastically diminished due to less focus. Experience therefore is defined as a qualitative term rather than quantitative.
Adding Tables
Player B now wants to start adding tables. The best way I've found to do this is to add 25% to your table load. If you play 4 tables, add 1. If you play 8 tables, add 2. 12 tables, add 3. A good indicator of too many tables is timing out. If you start timing out, scale it back a table or two.
I strongly suggest that this is fluid (just as I believe many things in poker should be) because your focus is going to be better for some sessions than others and if you normally play 12 but are feeling rushed or taking longer for decisions there's nothing wrong with cutting it back to 8 for today.
Layout
Belok has already done a great post on 24 tabling like a pro so I won't go much into this.
Here's the 6x2 layout I generally use. I can have up to 4 layers stacked on top of this for 24 tables. I have a 25" widescreen at 1920x1080 that I play on, and I use a second 21" widescreen for the lobby and HEM, which helps for table selection while playing so your lobby doesn't constantly have tables popping over top. A 30" would be ideal for less overlap.
I also use a stacked layout with an AHK table mover if I'm mass tabling. Typically, tiled tables are better for note taking but I find if you have a way of moving tables out of the stack to focus on them, this method is better for notes because the note should never get covered by another table popping up.
So don't be Player A - aka me. Play fewer tables, work on your game and move up. Once you've reached a stake where your ultimate hourly rate is possible, start thinking about mass tabling. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to cut this short... my 24 tables keep stealing keyboard focus from this post and that annoying timer alarm is going again.
Thursday, 4 March 2010
Whine ITP
** Warning: Beat Post ** Cliffnotes for those that don't like reading about beats
ugh. You can basically take my last post and invert it (graph and all) over the past 5 days.
There's something to be said about spiralling downswings. Beats + Tilt leads to Bad Play. Bad Play means not picking up enough value to outweigh the Beats. So the solution then, is to cut out the Tilt so that the equation can not be completed and perpetuated.
The first 2 days were pure monkey tilt. Sets and AA/KK/QQ (always running into 1 pair bigger -- for those that do not know: KK>QQ, AA>KK, 22>AA) were my biggest losers and I was sum-negative with all of these. Big Pots = Big Variance. The 3rd day was just plain slow-bleed frustration. The last 2 days have been no better variance-wise, but my thought process is right back on track and I'm theoretically crushing again in an alternate universe where Sklansky runs the FED. It is encouraging to know that my bad play game is EV neutral so that's a positive.
The bet/bet/check-fold trend continues vs everyone from 10/8 to 72/5 as the most innocuous boards continue to run out 4 flush/straight. I'm all for a rule change stating flushes must use both holecards aside from the fact that when fish call off their stack vs my flop shove with As4h on AhKs3h9hQh and think they've made a brilliant psychic play which is apparent by my "nh" followed by a simple "ty" -- they are typically still level 0 even after cards are flipped up.
Cliffnotes:
Standard runbad in big pots
Nominate Sklansky to chair the FED
4 flush is the bane of my existence
Brilliant psychic fish
Sorry for the whine, I hope it was at least entertaining. Here's to hoping the long run pops his head in here any minute now...
ugh. You can basically take my last post and invert it (graph and all) over the past 5 days.
There's something to be said about spiralling downswings. Beats + Tilt leads to Bad Play. Bad Play means not picking up enough value to outweigh the Beats. So the solution then, is to cut out the Tilt so that the equation can not be completed and perpetuated.
The first 2 days were pure monkey tilt. Sets and AA/KK/QQ (always running into 1 pair bigger -- for those that do not know: KK>QQ, AA>KK, 22>AA) were my biggest losers and I was sum-negative with all of these. Big Pots = Big Variance. The 3rd day was just plain slow-bleed frustration. The last 2 days have been no better variance-wise, but my thought process is right back on track and I'm theoretically crushing again in an alternate universe where Sklansky runs the FED. It is encouraging to know that my bad play game is EV neutral so that's a positive.
The bet/bet/check-fold trend continues vs everyone from 10/8 to 72/5 as the most innocuous boards continue to run out 4 flush/straight. I'm all for a rule change stating flushes must use both holecards aside from the fact that when fish call off their stack vs my flop shove with As4h on AhKs3h9hQh and think they've made a brilliant psychic play which is apparent by my "nh" followed by a simple "ty" -- they are typically still level 0 even after cards are flipped up.
Cliffnotes:
Standard runbad in big pots
Nominate Sklansky to chair the FED
4 flush is the bane of my existence
Brilliant psychic fish
Sorry for the whine, I hope it was at least entertaining. Here's to hoping the long run pops his head in here any minute now...
Saturday, 27 February 2010
Best day everER
A while ago (my last post lol - I did not actually fall down a well), I posted that I had my best day ever.
That is no longer true. Today is my new best day ever! And oddly enough it came at 50nl. Yes, I broke my resolution. The first half of the month got off to a rough start at 100nl, mostly 5 buyin swongs every day. I got sick of that and said ok lets make some money for once and dropped to 50nl to work on some things.
So I played 50nl for a few days and got my confidence back and moved back up quickly to 100nl and some 200nl and haven't looked back for the rest of the month. My graph is basically a 60 degree ruler starting on the 17th and oddly enough it's going to be my best month ever even though I was breakeven the first 2 weeks. The implications for this are obviously exciting!
Last night I couldn't sleep so I fired up some tables. 100nl was pretty dead so 24 tabling 50nl looked appetizing enough. Ran insanely hot and played my best game ever. Seriously. EVER. I then decided it would be fun to top the PTR winner's list for 50nl for today and continued to play that. 3 sessions later and 7500 hands and I'm +20 buyins. That's about 12 ptBB/100 -- while 24 tabling. I'm about 3 buyins ahead of EV too and didn't actually get into a lot of set vs. overpair or any set vs. set situations so I'm going to take the credit and say that I maxed the shit out of value with mid strength hands and picked some sick spots to shove people off their hands in big pots.
Cliffnotes:
Feeling good
Running good
Playing A+ game that makes my old A game look like a C game
Today's 50nl graph:
That is no longer true. Today is my new best day ever! And oddly enough it came at 50nl. Yes, I broke my resolution. The first half of the month got off to a rough start at 100nl, mostly 5 buyin swongs every day. I got sick of that and said ok lets make some money for once and dropped to 50nl to work on some things.
So I played 50nl for a few days and got my confidence back and moved back up quickly to 100nl and some 200nl and haven't looked back for the rest of the month. My graph is basically a 60 degree ruler starting on the 17th and oddly enough it's going to be my best month ever even though I was breakeven the first 2 weeks. The implications for this are obviously exciting!
Last night I couldn't sleep so I fired up some tables. 100nl was pretty dead so 24 tabling 50nl looked appetizing enough. Ran insanely hot and played my best game ever. Seriously. EVER. I then decided it would be fun to top the PTR winner's list for 50nl for today and continued to play that. 3 sessions later and 7500 hands and I'm +20 buyins. That's about 12 ptBB/100 -- while 24 tabling. I'm about 3 buyins ahead of EV too and didn't actually get into a lot of set vs. overpair or any set vs. set situations so I'm going to take the credit and say that I maxed the shit out of value with mid strength hands and picked some sick spots to shove people off their hands in big pots.
Cliffnotes:
Feeling good
Running good
Playing A+ game that makes my old A game look like a C game
Today's 50nl graph:
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