The Blinds

   We had one million bales of the best Sligo rags,
   We had two million barrels of stones,
   We had three million sides of old blind horses hides,
   We had four million barrels of bones.                              The Pogues

  Since I started playing tournament poker I've had a passing interest in different blind structures, but it's only recently, when I've been running a tournament of my own, that I've looked deeper into the way that poker tournaments are structured. When I started seriously considering the idea of running a tournament at my local club I started thinking about the way that the blinds worked in different games that I've been involved in over the years. I also spent some time looking at a number of websites that suggested various ways of structuring the blinds, usually for those intending to run home games. But in the end my conclusions on the perfect tournament structure were irrelevant as the final decision was based on practical considerations such as what the potential players were used to and the types of chips that were available.
   Nevertheless, for what it's worth, here are my conclusions about blind structures. As a general principal, the blinds should be going up by between 30% and 50% . This results in a reasonable amount of pressure on players' stacks without making thing move too quickly. So where do you start? Obviously, if you start with 1/2 (small blind 1/big blind 2) then you immediately run into trouble at the next level. Is it 1.5/3? You can't have half a chip. So what is the lowest level you can start on without running into this problem? It turns out to be 10/20. Then you can go to 15/30, 25/50. This is the way all 888 Poker tournaments and Pokerstars SitnGos start. Other online tourneys are similar to this, although Fulltilt has a more gentle progression.

   The next couple of levels usually pose a problem. If you go to 40/80 then the next logical step would be 60/120. While Fulltilt does this, most other sites can't resist having a 50/100 level. They achieve this by going from 25/50 to 50/100, a level where the blinds double. The result is that the blinds increase by about 50% for the first three levels, then double in the fourth level.  So players need to adjust to the fact that their stacks are halved in value at this point in the tournament. Personally, I don't have a problem with a blind structure that maintains a consistent rate of increase by missing the 50/100 level but, on the other hand, I can live with a single double up every once in a while, as long as know it's coming.
   When it comes to the live tournaments I've played in, things are a bit different. For some reason, local tournaments start their blinds at 100/200. There are the occasional exceptions that start at 50/100, but they are in the minority. And I've never seen one that starts at 10/20.  I have no idea why local organisers feel the need to add that extra zero. Possibly it has something to do with the type of chips that are available, or maybe someone started out that way and everyone has since followed their example. But this doesn't actually affect the blind/stack ratio because the stack sizes are also larger. So while an online tourney might have a starting stack of between 1500 and 3000, a local tourney might start out with 15,000 to 25,000 chips. So the end result is the same.
   Every Friday night I play in a live tournament that has the following blind structure:
 100/200,  200/400,  300/600,  400/800,  500/1000,  600/1200,  800/1600,  1k/2k,  2k/4k,  3k/6k...
The organiser tinkered with the blinds for a while and finally stuck with the above structure. It works pretty well except for one thing. The first double-up happens in the first level. So if you start with 20,000 chips, you initially have 100 big blinds. But after the first increase your effective stack size is 50 big blinds. I would avoid having such a sudden change in the early stages if it was up to me, but I've learned to adapt to this structure over time. Occasionally the organiser will set up a tournament where the starting stack is 15,000 and the blinds go 50/100,  100/200, 200/400... This starts out as a deep stack tournament, but then the blinds double twice in a row, making for a very interesting first three levels. Fortunately, we play the standard structure most of the time.
   An even more challenging blind structure was the one used in the North Island Clubs NZ Tournament (see 'Club Champs', 11/06/14). This one started out the same as the weekly tournament but after the 500/1000 level went:   1k/2k,  2k/4k,  3k/6k... Not only did it start with a double-up, but there were two consecutive double-ups in the 6th and 7th levels.  Tough. My Poker DIY software also has a number of blind formats pre-loaded, one of which is the WSOP 2010 structure, which goes like this:   25/25,  25/50,  50/100,  75/150,  100/200...  This one starts with two consecutive double-ups then settles down a bit. There are also a number of tournaments that add antes in the later stages, but that's another story altogether.
   Having looked at all these possible blind structures I finally decided that my ideal set of blinds would like like this:
 100/200,  150/300,  250/500,  400/800,  600/1200,  1000/2000,  1500/3000,  2500/5000...
In this structure the big blind increases by around 50% each time, with the largest increase being 67% at the 1k/2k level. I've used the 100/200 format here rather than the 10/20 simply because it suits the available chips. But it would work just as well if you knocked a zero off every number. I've omitted the 500/1000 level in order to keep the increases fairly uniform from level to level and thus avoid double-ups. However, the best theoretical blind structure is not necessarily the best blind structure in a particular situation, and I never got to trial this structure, although I did get close.

   The tournament that I ran this year was set up by a committee, and the structure we used was based on the chip set that was available and the type of format that the committee members and the players were used to playing in.  In the end we decided to use the same format as the Friday night tournament mentioned above as it was familiar to many of the potential players. I still held out hope of trialling different structures, provided that the tournament was successful enough to continue through the year. As it happens, this was not the case; I struggled to get enough players and by the end of the year I was ready to give the whole thing up. But for the last game I decided to do something a little different.
   Up to this point the tournament had been a standard buy-in event so I decided to try a re-buy and add-on format with a lower entry fee. And I figured that the blinds would need adjusting for the new format. If there were re-buys allowed during the first few periods and add-ons during the first break the blinds would have to be structured accordingly. I decided to start with a relatively short stack and to have a reasonably slow increase in the blinds until the first break. Then there would be a double-up after the break. That way the short stack would encourage more aggressive play and therefore re-buys, especially in the stages just before the break and the approach of the double-up stage would encourage players to add-on during the break. That was the theory anyway. So the blind structure I used went like this:
 100/200,  150/300,  250/500,  400/800,  500/1000, (break) 1000/2000,  1500/3000,  2500/5000...
   This was as close as I was ever going to get to my ideal structure. I had to insert the 500/1000 level to make it work, even though this slows down the rate of increase, and then make the next level a double-up, but I was pretty happy about the final format. Once the players adjusted to the different blind structure it all went quite well. Unfortunately, that was the last game because we just weren't getting the numbers but at least I got to try something a little different.
   Looking closely at blind structures has focused my attention on how tournaments work and how important it is to be aware of where you stand in relation to the blinds. I'm certainly very wary of playing in a tournament where there is inadequate information about the blind structure. I would rather play in a game that has a steady increase in the blinds rather than one with sudden increases at intervals, but the important thing is the ability to adjust to the structure of the tournament you are playing in. So although I'm not running tournaments anymore, I'm certainly playing in them and I think this diversion into blinds management has helped me in my overall game strategy. And maybe one day I'll get to run my perfect tourney.
  
  

Decisions, decisions

     Well a house of cards
     Was never built for shock,
     You could blow it down in any kind of weather       Dire Straits


 Now that we're into December I've had a chance to take a look at my poker stats for the past year, and it makes interesting reading. Without going into too much detail, what it boils down to is this:
  I've had a profitable year over-all, clocking up a 16% return on investment (ROI);
  I've done very well in live games, and especially in live tournaments where I've come close to doubling my money;
  despite having a poor few months recently, online Texas Holdem ring games are showing a decent profit;
  other online games continue to be a problem, with the biggest loss coming from 9 player SitnGos.
   So in line with my recent decision to concentrate my efforts on one game type (see 'Fish finder', 29th September) I've been weighing up my options for the coming year.  Live games are not a problem; I'll just keep playing in my current games and keep looking for more of the same. You don't fix it if it ain't broke.
   As for online poker, it should be blindingly obvious that I need to concentrate on my most successful game: No limit Texas Holdem ring games. But I've been having some doubts about this. For starters, although I'm in profit over-all, my recent results in this game type have been pretty poor. I've only come out ahead in two of the last six sessions and my ROI has gone from positive in the first quarter to slightly negative in the second quarter to a significant loss in the third. In other words, my results in this game type have been getting worse. The problem is I haven't played enough sessions to know whether my early good results were a lucky streak or whether the over-all profit is a true measure of my ability in this game.
   On the other hand, SitNGos have been pretty consistently bad, although I almost scraped into positive territory in the last three months. The thing is, I really enjoy playing in this game type and I can't help the feeling that I'm on the edge of figuring out how to play them successfully. What's more, I've had reasonable success with these games in the past but somehow I've lost my SitNGo mojo in the last year or so. The other favourable aspect of these games is that they are so convenient. They are available at almost any time and typically take an hour to play if you make it to the end.
   The other online game type that I might consider pursuing is multi-table tournaments. Although I haven't played these much recently, I have had moderate success in past seasons. Unfortunately  I've had some pretty bad results playing in on-demand (27 player) tournaments, which are the most convenient type to play. So if I did play tournaments this year it would have to be the regular multi-table tourneys, which are not necessarily available at the most convenient times. But I can't really justify playing in a game type that I've hardly played in and not done well in recently.
  In the final analysis, I need to play to my strengths. This means persevering with the online ring games. But I only want to play in 'cashies' if I have a reasonable amount of time available. I wouldn't normally play in one of these games unless I was able to play for at least four hours, preferably five. The whole point of ring games is that you have time to wait for the good spots, so playing them for an hour two defeats the purpose. I guess that means that I'll be continuing to play in at least one ring game session each week, on my regular poker night. I'll keep plugging away at the same level and I guess by this time next year I'll have a pretty good idea of my ability in online cashies.
   Meanwhile, I'll continue playing SitNGos when I have a few hours to spare here and there. I think I need to stick to one site and stay at the same level all year. If at the end of the year I'm still in the red, then I'll know for sure that my SitNGo mojo has gone forever. So it's goodbye to my mission to try every possible poker variant and back to the basics. It's time to stick to the KISS principal: Keep It Simple, Stupid!
  
   

Decisions

     The pleasure is to play,
     Makes no difference what you say,
     I don't share your greed,
     The only card I need is the Ace of Spades      Motorhead


 It's often been said that the way to win at poker is to make correct decisions. Every time that you play you are exposed to the element of chance and even the best hand can get busted. But if you consistently make good decisions then you will come out ahead in the long run. A good player makes money off the mistakes of others. So the goal in any game is to be the player who makes the fewest mistakes. I've been aware of this principal for a long time but I played in a hand recently that really got me thinking about  how correct some of my decisions are. It's important to remember that the most useful question to ask yourself after a hand, win or lose, is 'did I make the right decision?' Of course we are far more likely to ask ourselves this question after a losing hand rather than a winning one, which is why I've recently been thinking about this whole issue.
   The hand in question has led me to think about some of the other hands I've been involved in recently. So what follows is my analysis of some big hands that had a major influence on my progress in particular games.

   First up comes a hand I played a couple of weeks ago in my regular Friday night live tournament. This was actually the very first hand of the tournament. There were a couple of players limping in, as per usual and I had A T. I put in my standard 3xBB raise and got two callers. This was pretty much standard play for this tournament. People don't fold much. I have to say it was a dream flop for me. Laid out on the table was (something like) T 7 4, giving me top pair, top kicker. Player one checked to me and, after doing a quick assessment of the size of the pot, I put in a decent sized bet, around 2/3 of the pot. Player two called and player one folded. At this point I figured player two (B) had hit a piece of the flop or had a flush draw, as there were two suited cards out there. The turn was an Ace.  Now I had top two pair;  a very nice hand. I was first to act, so I put in another bet, about 1/2 the value of the pot. B then pushed all-in. After a brief pause, I called.

 It's not unusual for this particular player to push all-in in the face of a raise. I've seen him do it a number of times, although I haven't seen what cards he was playing very often. I have the impression that he usually does it with a reasonably strong hand. Initially I thought he'd called my flop bet with a flush draw, but the possible flush didn't come on the turn, so that now seemed unlikely. So I figured he must have something like A 7 or A 4, maybe even A T. To be fair, my call was more gut feeling

than in-depth analysis. It just felt like I had the best hand.
   I turned over my cards and B showed A 2. I was somewhat surprised. The river made no difference to B's hand (nothing could have) and I doubled my stack in the first hand of the tournament. Looking at it from B's perspective, he could have thought I was betting on the Ten and his Ace was good, except for one thing. He's played with me enough to know that I routinely raise with big hands pre-flop. So, if I had a Ten, what was my other card? A T and T T were both very bad for him. Was I raising with K T? I don't think so. So it was his mistake and a good call from me. But even if the turn and river had been 2 2 or 3 5 it would still have been a good call.

   Next comes a hand that I played a few hours later, in fact my last hand of the same tournament. With just six players at the table, the player to my right, who had more chips than me, pushed all-in. I was looking at A A, so I called. The other player turned over J J, which means that I was an 80% favourite to win and become the monster stack at the table. A Jack came on the flop, giving my opponent trips. No Ace came on later streets so I was eliminated. On the face of it this call was an absolute no-brainer and it was just bad luck that the other hand improved. However, I've left out a few important details that make this situation a little trickier than it might otherwise seem.

   This was the final table and I was on the bubble: the top five were in the money and there were six players left. The lowest payouts were two or three times the buy-in, but first and second prizes were significantly higher, with first being nearly twice as high as second. I had the second highest stack at the table and there were several quite small stacks there, some with as few as five or six big blinds left. So if I'd wanted to I probably could have folded my way into third or fourth place.
   I've come across discussions of situations where it makes sense to fold pocket Aces. This is usually a scenario where a big stack has Aces on the bubble and three other smaller stacks are already all-in. So the big stack is guaranteed to make the money by folding and might even jump two places up the prize ladder. But this is a bit different to the situation I found myself in. However, if the circumstances were slightly different, I could see myself folding. For instance, if this was a big money tournament, let's say one where I'd gained a seat by winning a satellite tournament, and I was on the edge of a big boost to my bankroll, I would almost certainly have folded. But this was just my weekly $20 tourney. Limping across the bubble would have got me $30. But doubling my stack would have put me in pole position to take out first place. And even before I saw those Jacks I knew I had about a 4-1 chance of doubling up.
   Of course, if I'd won that hand, I wouldn't be writing this. It was losing on the bubble that really kept bugging me and had me questioning the wisdom of my call. But after a lot of thought I came to the conclusion that it was indeed the right decision, and if the same situation arose again, I'd still do the same thing. For most of the 18 months or so that I've been playing in this tournament I've had one goal: to win. Not to come second, not to make the money, but to win first prize. If this means getting busted out early sometimes, or even getting busted on the bubble, then so be it. This strategy has served me well so far in this tournament, and there's really no reason to change. So, good call, bad luck.

   This next hand also took place in a live tournament. This was in the monthly Sunday game that I play in, where the standard of play is generally a bit better than in the Friday nighter. Once again, I had A T. I put in my standard raise and got two callers. Deja vu. The flop comes A J J, giving me two pair. It looked pretty good to me, as long as no-one had a Jack in their hand. I put in a bet of about 1/2 the pot. Player 1 then put in a raise and player 2 called. Now this was a definite problem. I'd played enough with player 1 (L) to know that she was a pretty solid player and I also knew that player 2 (M) was a notoriously passive calling station. So M could be calling with any Ace, or a small pocket pair, or could even have called with a Jack in hand. And I figured that L must have at least an Ace to have raised it. Even though most players will check or call if they hit trips on the flop, the more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed that L must have a Jack. If she had A J that would be a monster and she'd be sure to just call, so I was thinking maybe K J. So I folded.
   Of course, an Ace hit the flop, which would have given me full on Aces. I resisted the urge to moan out loud and bang my head on the table and watched the action. L bet the turn and M called. Then L bet the river and M called again. At showdown L turned over K J and then M showed...   A T! So M and I had the same hand but played it rather differently. Seeing L's K J was a good thing and a bad thing. Bad because I realised that I folded what was ultimately the winning hand. Good because I'd made a good read of L's likely hand on the flop and had make the right decision to fold. The fact that the Ace came on the turn is beside the point. Folding was the right decision at the time. So I made a good fold and missed out on a big pot, and M made a bad call with the same hand and raked in a lot of chips. That's the way it works.

   The last hand to consider was played online and was over pretty quickly. This also involved A A vs J J but with a different twist. This was in an online SitNGo tournament in the very early stages. With the blinds at 10/20 I was on the button With J J. There were five players limping in before it was my turn to act. With more than 100 in the pot I raised to 100 with the aim of narrowing down the number of callers to go up against my big pocket pair. Much to my surprise, one of the early limpers then re-raised all-in. I certainly didn't expect that. The obvious question was, if they had a better hand than mine, why hadn't they raised, rather than just limping in? It didn't make any sense to me, and it was way too early in the game for me to pick up any clues about this player's style of play.
    I know that players will sometimes put in a big raise when there are a lot of limpers in the pot in order to steal their blinds. But this almost always happens from the button or the blinds. I've never seen someone do that after first limping in from early position. I had to figure that they had some sort of hand, but what? What do you limp in with and then re-raise all-in with? A small pocket pair? A K? I also know that you sometimes come across players who limp in with monster hands like A A. But only rarely. In the end I refused to believe that someone had done something like that. So even though I had only committed a fraction of my stack and the tournament was in its early stages, I called. The raiser then showed A A and I was eliminated.
   In this case, I never should have called. A A, K K and Q Q were always a possibility and I had only about a 50/50 chance against A K, A Q or even K Q. More importantly, it was far too early in the tournament to be risking my entire stack on a mediocre hand. I definitely should have folded. Bad call, bad result.

   I've found this sort of hand analysis to be very useful. Having my Aces cracked has been  good for me in this case. Just as long as it doesn't happen too often. But why would it? As long as I can manage to make the right decisions the odds are in my favour. In the long run.

  

Fish Finder

      The winner takes it all,
      The loser has to fall,
      It's simple and it's plain,
      Why should I complain?           Abba

  They say that the three most important things in poker are position, position and position. If that's true then the fourth thing must be game selection.  Most of the time when I play I remember the first three things, but I think I've forgotten about the importance of game selection in recent times.
   Ever since I started playing online games I've had a basic plan that dictated the types of games I played in. Live games are reasonably simple because there aren't many suitable ones available. So I just play in any live games that I can find. On the other hand online games are far more numerous, so I can pick and choose. During the main part of each year I've played in two online game types: my most successful game from the previous year, and a new game type that I haven't tried before. Then in the summer season I play in a third game type, usually something that I've played in before, in previous years. But my recent results have made me reconsider my 'game plan'.

   It's really my appallingly bad Sit'n'Go results that have led me to this point. I'm playing online Sit'n'Gos this year because they were my best game last year, and I played them last year for the same reason. But over the years my results in this game have been a bit of roller-coaster ride. I've played this game type mainly on 888poker and if I do well for a while I'll move up to a higher level, and if I do poorly I'll drop a level. I started out playing in $3 games and eventually moved up to the $8.80 level. Then I went into a bit of a decline and ended up back down at the lower levels. Then things got better again and I rose back up to $8.80 games again before this years' downturn, which has bought me back down to the $3 level again. Looking back at my recent results, I haven't had a positive result in any Sit'n'Go season since February 2013.
   Since dropping down to the lower levels on 888 I've discovered that the $3 games are often slow to fill up. So I've been playing a lot more in the Pokerstars $3.50 games, which are generally a bit tougher to play in. As mentioned in a previous post, I'm trying to play these games in accordance with the Poker School Online guidelines in a desperate attempt to stop the rot. So the plan is to keep playing this way until the end of November, and then to reconsider my options.

   Meanwhile, the other online game I've been playing in this year has been Texas Holdem cash games. I was employing game selection principles when I started out in this game type. I spent a month playing on Pokerstars, then a month on 888 to see which site had the easier games. 888 was the obvious choice so I've  been playing cash games on this site ever since. I started out pretty well but my results have dropped off a bit in the last couple of months. I'm still ahead overall, but a few bad sessions recently have made me start thinking about the nature of these games.
   888 is generally considered to be one of the easiest or 'fishiest' sites to play on, but after playing cash games on 888 for a while I'm not so sure that this is true. Most of the players that I've encountered so far have been pretty tight and it's unusual to see players limping in before the flop, or to see more than three players seeing the flop. It seems the days of finding tables full of loose, inexperienced poker players are in the past. This state of affairs concerned me so much that I went looking for a fishier poker site. After checking out some site comparisons I decided that Titan Poker, Bet365 and Party Poker were worth a look. Unfortunately, my fish-finder mission didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped (more on this later) and although I'm now registered with Bet365, I'm not holding out much hope of finding a loose online cash game.

  I've played in enough of these new game types over the years to know how important it is to start at low buy-in levels to minimise any losses. Having started at the 10c/20c level, my patchy results have not led me to consider moving up a level, although I might consider playing two tables at this level if my results improve significantly. Meanwhile I'll keep plugging away until the end of November.
   The one game type that I'm really happy with at the moment is live tournaments. These are the games that have been keeping my poker bankroll balance moving forward. It's hardly surprising that these club tournaments are typically incredibly loose and passive. Pre-flop raising is pretty rare, pre-flop calling is standard practice and minimum betting into large pots goes on all the time. These are exactly the sorts of games that I've been looking for online, and I'm always on the look-out for similar games.
   The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that I'm spreading myself too thin. It's all very well trying different poker variants, but this makes it harder to concentrate on optimal strategies, and harder to shift gears when changing from one game to another. I haven't had much success in playing new game types over the years and I'm beginning to think that doing this is only diverting my attention away from the profitable game types. So I've decided that my mission to try every possible poker variant is ultimately counterproductive. I think I'm much better off

concentrating on a single online game type, and it's probably best to do it over a reasonably extended time period, to smooth out the bumps.
   With all this in mind, I have a new poker plan. I'll keep playing in the usual way until the start of the summer season. Then I'll take a good long look at my game results and decide which game type I want to pursue. From there on I'll be concentrating on one game type and working on becoming the best possible player I can be in that particular version of poker. That's not to say that I wont be changing my preferred online game at some point, but I'm going to give one game a good long trial first. Being a profitable player is all about finding some sort of edge, and I'm determined to find one in my online games.
  

Winter Bulletin

          Tired of lying in the sunshine,
          Staying home to watch the rain,
          You are young and life is long,
          And there is time to kill today.            Pink Floyd


SIT 'N' GOS
   I've just finished totalling my results for the last 3 months and have confirmed what had been pretty obvious to me already: I'm  doing rather poorly in online Sit'n'Go games. I've been playing this game type for quite a while now but by the start of winter my poor results had already moved me to drop from the $8.80 level down to the $3.00 level on 888poker. Unfortunately the $3.00 games are not as heavily patronised as the higher level ones, so I've found myself playing a lot in the Pokerstars $3.50 games, which are more readily available. These games are usually tougher to play in than the 888 ones, which has only added to my difficulties. I really don't know why my results have been so poor in this game type but I'm looking in to it...

FRIDAYS
   I've been playing tournament poker at the OWMC every Friday night for over a year now and am thoroughly enjoying it. It's become a weekly ritual for my wife and I: once we arrive and pay our game fees, she goes off to play on the pokies while I grab a handle of Steinlager and go hang out with the other players and wait for my order of nachos to be ready. We start at 7pm and there are usually 22 to 35 players involved. Regardless of the results it's always a fun night. I haven't cashed much recently but my finishes have been high enough to put me near the top of the ten-week leader board, so there may be some bonus cash coming my way in a few weeks. Earlier in the year I worked out what it would cost me to play in these games for the whole year. I'd actually won this amount by the middle of May and I've had a few small cashes since then, so anything I win for the rest of the year is pure profit. It's always nice to know that you're free-rolling.

RING GAMES
   This has been my second quarter playing in online Texas Holdem ring games. I play on 888 now, at low stakes. It's been quite an enjoyable experience, although I've still got a long way to go to find the optimal strategy to play this game. The winter season started out pretty well but I've had a few losses recently and I ended up with a small overall loss. I have no intention of changing the level that I'm playing at for now however, if I manage to post a string of positive results, I'll consider moving to playing two tables at a time. Meanwhile, I'll keep calculating the odds and set mining and trying not to get sucked out on (again).

INTERCLUB
    As mentioned in previous posts, I play in the Auckland Interclub poker tournament once a month. This is a teams game and I play in it as a bit of a diversion rather than as a serious poker tourney. I don't use my poker bankroll to play in this tourney, mainly because of the big chunk of change that comes out of the prize pool. I haven't cashed in this tourney since about this time last year. This may be due to my relaxed attitude at these events, or the larger fields (typically over 60 players), or just the fact that I've only played in about ten of them so far. Or a combination of these factors. Anyway, it's just a bit of fun, and I still manage to outlast the other members of my team most of the time. And there's always the possibility of a cash game starting up if I do get knocked out early. That's when I get serious.

POKER SCHOOL
   Some time ago I decided to try some of the courses on Pokerstars' Poker School (www.pokerschoolonline.com). I started out with the cash games course, but when I realised how badly my Sit'n'Gos were progressing, I switched to the Single Table Tournament course. I've taken copious notes on the lessons and worked my way through all the exercises. Now I have to apply it. I've decided to play my Sit'n'Go games according to these guidelines from now on. However, the lessons are pretty complex, detailing the recommended way to play for each tournament stage, and covering a multitude of different situations. So I've tried to distill them down to some basic principals and have started by applying them to the early and middle stages at first: one step at a time. I've only played a couple of sessions this way but so far the games have played out the same way. The Early Stage starting hand criteria are so tight that you end up reaching the fourth blind level with about 10-15 big blinds left and from there it's a matter of all-in or fold. Not the most exciting way to play but at this point I'm willing to try anything.

THE LOCAL GAME
   There used to be a weekly cash tournament at a local pub a couple of years ago. A few weeks back I noticed that they had a blackboard outside advertising a $20 poker tournament. So my wife and I went and checked it out last week. It turned out to be a $20 buy-in with $20 rebuys. This is a bit above my buy-in limit but as we were there we thought we'd give it a try. The organisation of this game was not very good. For starters, I was given the wrong start time and 10 minutes in I didn't even realise that the tourney had already begun. There were only about 15 players involved and I had some difficulty keeping abreast of when the blinds were changing, as the tournament was being run by someone on the other table using an app on her phone. The rebuy rules were a bit strange too; the $20 fee bought only a half-sized stack. On top of this, I was told that when the blinds reached a certain level they stopped increasing; something I'd never come across in a tournament before.
   A lot of the players who got knocked out ended up rebuying, some of them multiple times. I managed to hang on without a rebuy and ended up on the final table. Then, after we'd reached the 'no-more-increases' level (and after I'd adjusted my play to suit this structure) the organiser decided that it was getting late and the blinds would be increasing after all. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that both the organisers had been knocked out of the game. My levels of surprise increased further when we crossed the bubble and one of the organisers asked me, as the big stack, how I wanted the prize pool distributed! I pointed out that this was usually considered to be the tournament organiser's job. As if this wasn't enough, when were down to four players it was announced that the blinds would be increased with every round. Obviously someone wanted to go home. It didn't take long for us to be down to two players, so we decided to split the money. Although I was the shorter stack by this stage the other player didn't seem worried about getting a bigger cut, so we went 50/50. I came out with $200 in my pocket, but despite this good result I won't be back. Apart from the buy-in being a bit steep, the organisation of this tourney can at best be described as chaotic; I like to know where I stand with poker tournaments.

SATELLITE
   I've never been a fan of satellite tournaments; I figure that the chance of winning two or three tournaments in a row are vanishingly small. However I also figure that if I wait till I can afford to play in a big tournament then I'll be older than Doyle Brunson is now (if I'm lucky). So I thought I'd take a shot at playing once a month in a  Pokerstars satellite game to ANZPT (Australia New Zealand Poker Tour) events. The first one I tried had only 8 players in the first stage and I actually made it into 2nd place before getting eliminated. At least I came out with a few dollars to offset my entry fee. The second game involved a smaller buy-in and had quite a few more players, and I got knocked out after about 30 minutes. It was only after talking to a workmate about the games that he plays
 on Pokerstars that I realised that I might have enough FPPs (Frequent Player Points) for a satellite buy-in. Once I worked out how to find my FPP tally, I realised that I had over 600 points; enough for maybe half a dozen games. So my third game of this type was a turbo rebuy event with a 20 FPP buy-in. I had to adjust to a turbo game with unlimited buy-ins, but I think I worked out a reasonable strategy. I ended up spending 100 FPPs before reaching the point where further rebuys became pointless. I'm looking forward to the middle of this month and taking another shot at it. I don't know what happens when I run out of points.

SATURDAY ARVO
   The NPPL no longer plays tournaments at my local RSA club (see 'Increasing the Luck Factor', 13 July 2012). On learning this I went to the club manager and suggested we run our own poker game on Saturday afternoons. To cut a long story short, I ended up on the ORSA Cards Section Committee and started work on a new poker tourney for the club. After some negotiation we decided on a $20 buy-in game with a $10 add-on for a half stack, to be played every second Saturday. One of our committee was also an organiser for the NPPL and she had a couple of old tables and a whole pile of NPPL 'merchandise chips' (whatever they are) so we didn't need to buy much to get started. I was nominated to run the first game. The only thing we didn't have was tournament management software so I started a search for some free programs to download. I found a suitable program at www.pokerdiy.com and it didn't take too long to work out how to use it.
   On game day I arrived plenty early to set up a couple of tables but in the end the turn-out was pretty poor. The tournament went ahead anyway and I found that running a tournament and also playing in it was not that hard after all. It all went pretty smoothly, even though I got knocked out in 4th place after trying to bluff one of my Interclub team-mates out of her hand with 7-2, when she had trips. Oops. I ended up running the next game (not the original plan) and it was still only a single table tourney but once again, the organising side of it was easy enough and actually quite enjoyable. I also managed to grab 2nd prize, which was a nice bonus. I've got another one coming up this weekend and I've been advertising it as much as I can. Hopefully there'll be a few more players this time.

POKER TV
   They've started showing poker programs on Sunday nights again on ESPN. We've had episodes of Aussie Millions, High Roller Tournaments, the Big One for One Drop and a few others. I presume that this is leading up to the WSOP Main Event, which should be coming up soon. I really enjoy watching these shows and can't wait for the start of the Main Event.

Is poker taking over my life?  It looks that way.


  

Disconnection Anxiety

  Bad connection, I'm losing my mind,
  Ooh ooh ooh, won't you throw me a line?       The Crocodiles



   I regularly play online poker on the 888 and Pokerstars sites. My wife also plays, on 888 only. The reason that I first started playing on 888 is very simple. My first online poker site was Fulltilt. Then came 'Black Friday' when that site was shut down and the money I had on that site disappeared into cyberspace for quite a while. Eventually I got it back when Pokerstars bought out Fulltilt, but for a long time I thought it was just gone. So I went looking for the safest, most secure site I could find. My research into the security and reliability of various sites pointed to 888 as the best option. So I've been playing with them ever since, with no problem. That is, until this week.
   My wife sometimes gets up early in the morning to play some poker online. On Sunday morning she woke me up to tell me that the 888 program wasn't working. So I dragged myself out of bed to take a look. Sure enough, the program was just loading, and loading, and loading... So I checked out the 888poker website, but it wasn't there. You know how it goes: 'internet explorer cannot display this webpage'. I tried a bit of googling to find out what was going on, but couldn't find anything. Oh well, hopefully it was just a temporary glitch.

   As it happens, we were playing in our monthly Interclub Poker Tournament on that day, so off we went. During the course of the tournament one of the players at my table mentioned that 'they' had shut down the 888 site and that it was only New Zealand players that were affected. He didn't elaborate about how he knew this or who 'they' were. He also said that 888 had been down since Saturday and expressed some relief about not having any money on that site. I wasn't relieved at all as I had in excess of $US200 in my 888 account.
   On arriving home I checked out 888 again but the site was still down. I tried googling again but no matter what combination of keywords I tried there wasn't so much as a whisper about 888 being down. Of course the problem with the site being down is that there's no obvious way of finding alternative contact methods. After a lot of searching I eventually found a helpline number mentioned in someone's poker site comments. So I tried ringing them but couldn't get through. Then I realised that I would have a record of the customer support email address among my emails, from previous contacts. So I fired off an email and went to bed.
   On Monday morning before work I checked the site again. Still down. I tried another quick google search and this time came up with a result. There was a discussion thread on one of the poker sites among some players who were complaining about 888 being down. From what I could gather it was also down in Australia and Japan and some other Pacific nations. It was a relief to actually get some sort of information, no matter how sketchy. However I was getting increasingly worried about the security of my money and was getting an ominous feeling of deja vu.

   On my smoko (morning tea)  break I checked my emails and found one from 888 customer support. They said they were having some technical difficulties and were working on fixing the problem. Oh well, at least it wasn't another Fulltilt scenario. About 11am I got a call from my wife. The 888 site was working again!
   So what's the point of this little tale? Well it's got me thinking again about the security of my cash on poker sites. I've been pretty relaxed about it for a while now, especially after getting my Fulltilt money back through Pokerstars, and after finding how easy it is to withdraw money from 888. Up until now I've been happy to keep the equivalent of three cash game buy-ins (about 15% of my bankroll) sitting in each of my poker site accounts. But this little incident has driven me to reconsider. Call me paranoid, but I think it's better to err on the side of caution. After all, if my balance gets too low, I can reload my account literally in a matter of seconds. So from now on I'll be running a much lower balance in both my online accounts. Just in case.
  

Etiquette

      " You played that as bad as you can.
        Your career's finished.
          You're gone, gone, gone."        Tony G, obnoxious poker pro.

 I've recently been taking an interest in the rules of poker, mainly because I've been working towards starting a regular tournament at my home club. The rules of poker seem to fall into three categories: the basic rules that everyone has to comply with; rules that you are expected to follow, but for which there is no definite penalty; and the guidelines for expected behaviour, ie etiquette.
   The first group of rules are pretty straightforward, and are found in use across the board, from professionally run tournaments to casual home games. Things like the betting limits, the way the cards are dealt and what happens with misdeals are all spelled out clearly and generally followed without question.

  The second group of rules is a little trickier to define, especially for amateur games. These are the sort of things that you are not supposed to do and would probably be penalised for in a professionally run game. Things like misrepresenting your hand, abusive behaviour, using a cell phone at the table, talking about the contents of a hand, agreeing to check down a hand when another player is all-in,  excessive celebration and so on. There  are a lot of these sort of rules, some of which are specified in amateur games, but which usually don't incur any penalty unless there are repeated infringements. These rules are often referred to as 'poker etiquette' but don't really fall into this category at all. This is the sort of thing where, if you do it at the table, someone will give you a gentle reminder that it's not allowed.

   A few of these minor transgressions have been known to occur at the Friday night tournament that I regularly play in. Splashing the pot happens quite a lot, with players chucking chips onto the table rather than just placing them. Another is the case where a player shows another what was in their hand. Someone usually says, 'show one, show all' when this happens and the offender has to show

everyone the contents of their hand. The most common of all is talking about a hand when it is in progress. I've never seen anyone get pulled up on this and it happens all the time. Players at this tourney routinely comment on the possibilities of a straight or flush as each card is revealed, make guesses about what other players may be holding and suggest which card would be really good to have at a particular point. This sort of behaviour is not supposed to be allowed because it is giving away free information about a hand.

   Another common 'free information' transgression is the 'doh!' moment. This is where a player slaps their head, groans, rolls their eyes or otherwise reacts when a card comes that would have given them a monster hand if they hadn't folded. This can seriously disadvantage a player who is still in the hand, because it gives away information about a card or cards that have been folded, and are therefore  no longer in play. I used to be guilty of this sort of behaviour myself in my early days of live poker play. At one stage I actually banged my head on the table to make sure everyone knew that the hand I just folded would have given me quads on the flop! Nowadays I can generally resist the temptation to react obviously to these missed opportunities. After all, if you can maintain a poker face when you are in the hand, surely you can do it when you're on the sidelines.

   Another 'minor rule' is the one that says you cannot agree with another player to check down a hand when a third player is all in. It's usually in both the active players' interests to just check to the river, because you have a better chance of eliminating the all-in player, but you can't actually say anything about this. So if both players are aware of this, they usually just check it down without saying anything. Unfortunately, many players don't get this and if someone bets into me in this situation, I find it hard to refrain from pointing out what the optimal strategy might have been. Pointing this out after the fact may not be strictly against the rules but it is probably bad etiquette.

   That brings me to what I would call the area of poker etiquette: the types of behaviour that don't break any actual rules but are considered 'bad form' in the poker world. There are a couple of things that are not restricted solely to the game of poker but which are generally frowned upon in the real world as well. Poor personal hygene is one. It's not much fun sitting in close proximity to someone who hasn't seen a shower for a while, especially if you are stuck in that same seat for hours on end. I always take care to ensure that I'm not the one causing this sort of discomfort to others at the table, but there are one or two people at the Friday tourney who are notorious for a lack of attention to this area.
   The second thing is rude or insulting behaviour. This is no more acceptable around the poker table than it is at other times. I haven't seen much of this in live games. Occasionally you get a bit of good natured ribbing, but that's a different thing altogether. Playing online is a completely different situation. When people are sitting alone in a dark room, thousands of kilometres away from their opponents they seem to think that they can be as obnoxious and insulting as they like. To be fair, the vast majority of players are perfectly civil or just don't communicate at all. But there is a small but outspoken group who just act like jerks. They will say things online that they would never dream of saying to someone face to face. The anonymity of the computer screen just seems to bring out the worst in some people.
   Another thing that can bug other players is slowing the game down. This can happen online when someone is multi-tabling and takes a lot of time to get around to acting on their hand because they're paying attention to other tables. Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do about this. Sometimes in live games you get someone who slows down the action. This is particularly annoying in

tournaments, because everyone wants to play as many hands as they can before the next blind level. The live tournaments I play in take place in clubs and the most frequent cause of delays in play is drunk players. Players who have had too much to drink often slow down the action because they get distracted and fail to pay attention to the game. The worst instance of this that I've encountered was a player who was so drunk that she couldn't count out her chips properly and other players ended up putting her bets in for her to stop the game from grinding to a halt. Fortunately, I've only seen this sort of situation a few times and things generally progress at a reasonable rate.
   Another example of poor poker etiquette is the bad winner. This is the person who gloats, crows, or generally makes an ass of themselves when they win a hand. Ok, so you're allowed to be happy about winning but there's no need to rub it in. The best thing a winner can do is to quietly rake in the chips and start stacking them up. We've all been on the losing side of a hand often enough to know that it's not much fun, especially if you've made a bad call. And the worst way anyone can win a hand is by slow-rolling. This is when you know that you have the winner but take your time to show your cards, allowing your opponent to believe that they're ahead. This is very bad form. I always make it a point to show my cards straight away when I think I have the best hand, even if I'm not that sure of whether or not I'm actually ahead.

  Although the slow-roll is very bad poker etiquette, probably the worst thing a player can do is asking to see a folded hand at the showdown. Poker rules generally state that any player who is in a hand has the right to see a hand that someone has folded at the showdown. When playing online I often use the playback feature to see what another player folded. This provides very useful information about how people play particular types of hands. But I would never dream of doing this at a live table. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, all players want to limit the free information they give away and have every right to muck their hands if it's obvious that they're beaten. If you extend this courtesy to others then they will do the same for you. Secondly, and far more importantly, the reason that players have the right to see a folded hand is to guard against collusion. If you suspect that someone is soft-playing when up against another, maybe even folding the best hand, you can call them out. In other words, if you ask to see a folded hand, then you are implying that they are cheating. This is very bad.
   I guess what it all boils down to is showing proper respect for the other people sitting around the poker table with you. The idea is to try and take their money, but to do it with such grace and good humour that they don't mind. It's a good trick if you can manage it.

  

Club Champs

         The boys next door,
         The mums and dads,
         New weds and near-deads,
         Have you ever been had in Clubland?       Elvis Costello

I play a live poker tournament every Friday night at a local Workingmens Club. It's through my membership of this club that I discovered the Clubs New Zealand North Island Poker Championship. This event is held every year over Queen's Birthday Weekend (a three day weekend at the end of May). It's attended by members of Clubs New Zealand affiliated clubs from all over the North Island. The venue alternates between the southern end of the island, the middle of the island, and Auckland. This year it was played in Auckland, at the Manurewa Cosmopolitan Club. When my wife and I found out about this we cancelled our plans to play in the annual pool tournament that we usually attend at this time of year, paid our $40 entry fee, and waited in eager anticipation for Friday 30th May.

FRIDAY
   Although the main tourney was on Saturday and Sunday, there was also a separate $20 game being played on the Friday night. So I got my wife to pick me up after work so we could go straight there and avoid the worst of the Friday night rush hour.  On arrival we were pleasantly surprised to be given a gift bag containing a number of little gifts, as well as a copy of the tournament rules. The Manurewa  'Cossie' is a pretty flash club. It's very spacious, with a big pool/snooker area, a restaurant at one end, a bistro at the other and a fairly expansive dance floor. The poker tables were set up on the dance floor, with a big screen at one end for the tournament display.
   We'd heard that the club had failed to get a late licence for the Friday night and that it was due to close by midnight. As the tourney wasn't due to start until 7.15 pm, we figured it would be a speedy format. Sure enough, we were starting with just a stack of 10,000. With the opening blinds at 100/200, this amounted to a short stack of just 50 big blinds. So clearly, there was going to be plenty of action.
   My early hands were pretty poor but I knew I had to get active earlier rather than later. So I raised with KT on the button and got two callers. The flop was AAK so I bet and got called again. Getting nervous, I checked and so did the other two players. The river was a third spade and one player put in a big bet. The other player, 'B', one of the Friday night regulars, folded his hand and I reluctantly called.  My two pair lost to a flush. Then B revealed that he'd folded an Ace. Now that's what I call a disciplined fold. Knowing when you're beat is an important skill in poker.
   A little later, getting short-stacked, I limped in with 99, hoping to hit a 9 on the flop. I got my wish; a 9 hit but there were three spades on the board. Player 1 bet at it and I called. After a nothing turn player 1 bet again and I folded, wondering if I'd  made the right decision. Obligingly, my opponent showed his Ace-high flush. Now that's what I call a good fold.
   With about eight big blinds left I checked in the big blind with Q8. When a Queen hit the flop I pushed all-in and got called by someone with QT. I lost most of my stack and was left with 1 1/2 big blinds. So with Q2 in the small blind I pushed my last chip into the middle. After the cards were dealt out there was two pair on the board. My Q high was beaten by another player's K high. I'd played for about an hour and came around 70/76.  After that I hung around with some of the other also-rans and listened to their bad beat stories (everybody's got one, right?). We were keen to start up a cash game but there didn't seem to be any spare chips available. My wife was eliminated not long after me, so we decided to call it a night and go home.

SATURDAY
   On Saturday there are two tournaments played. They both offer cash prizes but they are also qualifying events for the main tournament on Sunday. If you make the top 48 in the morning tourney, you qualify for Sunday. If not, you play in the second tourney and you qualify if you make it into the top 16. My wife and I arrived in plenty of time for the start of the first qualifying tournament which was due to start at 10.30. On arrival we learned that R, one of the Friday night regulars, had won the previous night's tournament. Saturday's tournament started out with a much better starting stack size of 100 BB (20,000/200). However it soon became apparent that the blind structure was somewhat challenging. It was structured like this: 100/200, 200/400, 300/600, 400/800, 500/1000, 1000/2000, 2000/4000....  So you start out with a doubling in the blind levels, then it's quite gentle for three rounds before you hit two double-ups in a row. It was obviously going to get very interesting after the first couple of hours. With 120 players seated on the dance floor the tournament got under way.
   With all the out-of towners in the tourney, I ended up sitting at a table full of Auckland Inter-club regulars. I'd thought a bit about how to approach this kind of tournament but in the end decided to just play my natural game without thinking too much about trying to limp across the qualifying threshold. Things started out pretty slowly. I was getting a few big hands early on, things like AJ,  AQ,  AT suited etc, but couldn't seem to hit anything on the board. So I was sitting on a stack of around 17,000 for quite a while. Just before lunch I nearly got busted out and ended up with one 500 chip left, with the big blind at 2000. It was not looking good at all. The only good news was that the organiser was chipping up. So all the 500 chips were getting taken out of play, which meant I would get bumped up to 1000. The bad news was that the blind levels would be 2000/4000 after the break. So I'd still have just 1/4 of a minimum bet.
   After lunch, on returning to the table, I was in the 'under-the-gun' position (first to act) so I went all-in without looking at my hand. There were two callers and one went all-in on the flop, the other folded and I turned over 89 of hearts. I was up against a made hand and needed a ten for a straight. The turn was a heart so now I needed a ten or a heart. The river was a ten, a perfect result for me as I now had one big blind! I was in the big blind next anyway, putting me automatically all-in. It was a nothing hand and I hit nothing, busting me out after sitting back down for about five minutes. I finished 75/120.
   There were a couple of cash games going on but I didn't want to play in those as the 'second chance' qualifier was due to start at about 2 pm. While I was waiting B told me (and anyone else who would listen) his bad beat story. It went something like this:
  'I have pocket Kings so I raise and get one caller. The flop is [something like] K 8 5. I push all-in with my trip Kings, the stone-cold nuts. The other player has QT. Absolutely nothing. No draw, no pair, nothing. Why would you call? The turn is a 9, then a J hits the river, giving him a straight. Can you believe that?' 
   I have to admit, it's a pretty good bad beat story.
   My wife got knocked out before qualifying as well so we both entered the afternoon tourney. This was held in a room adjacent to the dance floor area, and once again, it was a short stack tournament. I was playing pretty conservatively at first, just looking for a good spot, but not much was happening. With just 20 BBs left I started looking for a chance to push the action but I was card-dead for a while. Once I got down to 10 BBs I started pushing all-in with any half decent hand. I managed to pick up the blinds a couple of times before finally doubling-up and bouncing back up to 20 BBs. It was at this stage that I realised that there were only 25 players left, putting me nine places away from the qualifying mark. I changed tack and decided to try and fold my way to the 'bubble'.
   Even though I'd vowed to fold even Aces, I just couldn't resist playing AT suited in position and ended up losing some chips when I missed the flop. So I closed up shop again and played the waiting game. The player to my left was in a worse position than me, with just 1 BB left. When someone went all-in on the bubble on the other table he went over to watch, along with a couple of others. One of those players was eliminated and I passed the qualifying mark with just 3 BBs. Then I decided to go all out for the win, but it was too late for a last minute charge. I ended up all-in with A6s against JJ and lost. I finished 10/62.  Never mind; at least I qualified.
   The first tournament was still going, but there were only four players left at this stage. I went over to take a look and witnessed the following play:
   Player 1 is all-in, player 2 is all-in and player 3 is considering whether or not to call. The board reads A A T T J. After thinking for a while, she calls and shows 44. WTF? What could she possibly think they were going all-in with? Did she really think they were just playing the board? Player 1 had a ten and player 2 had an Ace, so there you go. In the end the players that came first and second were both Friday night regulars; another good result. There were some cash games going and some entertainment due to start later, but my wife and I both decided to pike out and go home and get some rest.

SUNDAY
   We arrived fresh and eager on Sunday morning. Some others were not looking so fresh. Apparently some of the cash games went on till quite late the previous night and some others took a trip into the city to check out the casino. Many had opted to have breakfast at the club but we just hung out over by the courtyard and waited for the action to start.  There were two tournaments to be played that day; the main event and a consolation tournament for those who didn't qualify. These tourneys were set to run at the same time and were both set up in the dance floor area. My wife hadn't qualified so she was playing in one and I was in the other.
   There were 64 players in the main game and we started with a 100 BB starting stack. As usual I started out playing fairly conservatively and managed to pick up some chips here and there. My best result was when I was doing a little 'set mining'; limping in with 77 and hoping to flop another 7. When I flopped my set I called big bets on the flop and turn, then raised on the river and got paid off by someone who was over-valuing her top pair. That was a big chip-up.
   After the lunch break, having gone through the roughest part of that brutal blind structure, I was starting to get short-stacked. Having seen three players lose badly with AQ so far, I figured it was time that hand paid off, so I went all-in with AQ. My AQ held up against A9, winning with A high. This tripled my stack and put me in a much more comfortable position. By this time my wife had been knocked out of the other tourney and was playing in a cash game off to the side. When she came over to have a look she was most impressed by my big stacks of 1k chips. Actually it looked better than it really was - I'd ended up with a lot of  'small change' while many other players had smaller stacks that were made up of 5k chips.
   As the number of players diminished I was down to about 10 BB again, but actually still above the average stack, so extreme caution was required. We were sitting at eight-player tables so with just two tables left we were down to playing five-handed and the blinds were coming around real fast. Finally one more player was eliminated and we were on to the final table. At this stage I had 190k in chips with the blinds at 20k/40k. A seriously short stack. B had bought his fancy ten-sided polished wood poker table for the final, so there were nine players and the tournament organiser, who was doing the dealing. But we had to take a break while the final table was set up.
   They had the area roped off and there were quite a few onlookers standing around the edges. R, one of the Friday night regulars, had also made the final table. As we waited to be seated I made the comment to her that, after all that build-up, it would be funny if I got knocked out in the first hand. We drew for seats and I was in the big blind. One player limped in and I checked my option with KT. The highest card on the flop was a King so I immediately went all-in and was immediately called. The caller had AK so I was drawing very thin. The miracle card didn't come and it was all over. Having hardly sat down, I got back up and was greeted by a round of applause from the spectators. It must have been ironic applause surely. So I slunk off to the bar to get a beer and then went to check out the cash games.
   My wife and I played in a cash game for a while as the final table played on. There were now quite a few railbirds over there. The cashie was a fun game but it trailed off after a while. By this stage we'd had enough poker for a while so we headed off home without waiting to see who would collect the $2000 first prize and championship cup. We found out later that R had made the money in 5th place (the top six got paid) and that the winner was one of the Auckland Inter-club regulars.
   I was pretty impressed with this whole event which was very well run and at a terrific venue. My wife and I had a very enjoyable time and I'm pretty happy about qualifying and going deep in the main event. It was a fun social event and there was plenty of poker to be played. The only regret is not staying on Saturday night and getting into those cash games (and also taking my camera three days in a row and never using it). Next year it's being held at Lower Hutt, down Wellington way and we will definitely be headed south to have another crack at it. Only 50 weeks to go.
  
  

Cashie

        Yes there are two paths you can go by,
         but in the long run,
        There's still time to change the road you're on      Led Zeppelin

 When I first started playing poker online (four years ago) I began by playing Texas holdem no limit cash games (ring games) on Fulltilt Poker. This was in the days when I didn't have a proper bankroll management plan and I jumped into the 10c/25c games and bought in for $US25. I played in these games three times in a row, losing my buy-in each time within a matter of a few hours. After that I decided that 'cashies' were not for me and moved on to playing tournament poker. The cash games at this level were a lot tighter than I had expected, with a lot of hands being decided pre-flop. After that the only cash games I played online were fixed limit poker variants and pot limit Omaha.
   But now, after getting plenty of poker playing experience under my belt, I've started playing no limit holdem cashies again. Once again I'm playing at the same level as before, but this time $25 is well within my buy-in range. I could have started at a lower level but I felt confident enough in my abilities to have a crack at the 10c/25c games. I figured I'd just start out nice and slow, playing cautiously and feeling my way. As I mentioned previously, I have accounts with both 888poker and Pokerstars, so I thought I'd play one site for a month, then the other, and see how they compare.

   I went into the games on 888 knowing that they had a reputation for being loose games and also that the rake on the game is pretty high. So I was interested to see whether the looseness of the games would compensate for the high rake. The games on 888 are actually 10c/20c games, so I bought in for the maximum of $US20. There are generally just a couple of games available at this level, and sometimes only the one. I found the games to be tighter than tournament games but generally moderately loose, with three or more people typically seeing the flop and quite a lot of 'limping in'. I had some success playing in these games; in fact I came out ahead in all four of the sessions I played in, making a tidy $160 profit. So I entered the Pokerstars month with some optimism.
   To say that Pokerstars was a 'different kettle of fish' would be misleading, because fish are actually hard to find on this site. At the 10c/25c level there are a large number of games available, probably in excess of twenty (I didn't bother to count them) with a lot of players moving from table to table or playing multiple tables. One of the features on Pokerstars is the 'find this player' tab, which allows you to see if a player is also playing on other tables. But there is also a 'hide' function that allows you to prevent others from conducting such a search. Nearly every player I checked out was hiding other tables but I moved around enough to see the same names cropping up over and over on table after table. So there is clearly a lot of multi-tabling going on. As for me, I just stuck to one table.
   These tables are a lot tighter. Typically in these games hands get folded around to the button, there is very little limping in, and hands often end without anyone seeing the flop. I didn't do nearly as well in these games. There is also a lot more raising and re-raising pre-flop. Although I kept my head and avoided most difficult situations, I always seemed to get caught out playing big bets with very good hands up against monster hands. So I would win a few small pots here and there and then lose one big one. I played five games on Pokerstars: I lost two, won two and barely broke even in the other. In the end I came out $14 ahead.
   Finding the right table to play on is quite a challenge on Pokerstars. In the game lobby there is a list of games which includes information on the percentage of players who see the flop. This is generally a good indication of the looseness of the table: the higher the percentage, the fishier the table. The players-to-the-flop percentages on 888 are typically anywhere between 15% and 40%. On Pokerstars, the percentages range between 5% and 25%. But tables over 20% are rare and most of them are under 15%. Like me, there are a lot of players looking for the loosest tables. So the higher the players-to-the-flop percentage, the more players there are on the waiting list. A table with over 20% might have as many as seven players waiting to get in on the action. So you essentially have a bunch of sharks circling the fish ponds. Of course, as soon as a couple of the tight players make it on to the table the percentages go down. If you're number five on the waiting list you're going to find yourself on a table full of sharks with a 5%  average.
   Nevertheless, I managed to find tables within a decent range of 10-15% and kept an eye on the stats for my current table. You just have to be ready to jump ship from time to time to stay in the right zone. Now and then I would see a particularly fishy player at my table, and they would usually find themselves busted out in fairly short order. It's clear to me that there are a lot of 'grinders' multi-tabling at this level. As a result, the competition is pretty tough.
   After two months of play my decision was easy; I'll be playing on 888poker from now on. Ideally, I'd like to play on a site with a few more games available, but that consideration is outweighed by the easier, more profitable games. So I'll be playing 888 over the next few weeks, one table at first, and then I'll take a shot at playing two tables, provided that they are available. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up the good results.
    I reckon a little research goes a long way.

  

Deception

          Would I lie to you?
          Would I lie to you honey?
          Now would I say something that wasn't true?       The Eurythmics

   As we all know, deception plays an important role in the game of poker. In the game itself you can gain an edge over your opponents by disguising the strength of your hand. If you have a strong hand you want others to believe that you are weak so you can lure them into the pot. And if your holdings are weak, the only way you're going to win the pot is if you make the others believe that you have a monster hand.
   Of course, at the lower levels of the game, a lot of players are fairly transparent. Typically they will check or call with drawing hands and bet out when they hit something good. I've been playing at this level long enough to know that when a player calls your big bets to the turn and then decides to put in a big bet when a possible flush or obvious straight appears, they've almost certainly hit the hand that they were chasing. OK, so it's always possible that they're just representing a big hand, but most of the time it's not a bluff (I've called enough of these kinds of bets to know). But the thing that really mystifies me is the kind of player who pushes all-in when they hit their monster hand. I just don't get this. Surely the best strategy is to put in a smallish bet that might win you a few more chips. What's the point of chasing that big hand if you just scare off all the callers when you finally hit it? In other words, a certain amount of subtlety is required if you're going fishing.
   As for bluffing, that can be a bit of a problem at the lower levels. As the old saying goes, 'you can't bluff a donkey'. However, very passive players CAN be bluffed out of a pot with a little perseverance, provided that the conditions are right. Even the most passive player, after first checking, will think twice about calling a big bet when a scare card hits the board. The trick is to not do it too often and to avoid trying to bluff a group of 'fishy' players. Like they say, 'you can't bluff the table'. However, trying to represent a big hand when someone has hit the board can get pretty expensive. That's just one of the reasons why position is so important.

  This is a basic part of any poker game but at another level you have table image. The number of times a player raises, the number of hands they play, the types of hand they play; all this goes to create a particular pattern of play. Although a lot of players pay little or no attention to this sort of thing and just play their hands, there are players around in low level games who take note of the way others are playing. This seems to be especially true in live games where people tend to play each other on a regular basis and get to know each other's games. I've found that my playing style in the weekly tournaments helps to maintain a certain level of deception. I usually play tight in the early stages, and I am usually showing down big hands. I keep bluffing to a minimum and on the occasion when everyone folds to my big bet when I have a monster, I'll sometimes show it, just to maintain the image. Then, when I start to loosen up in the later stages, people are more likely to believe that I have it when I bet big, even if I don't.
   Some of the articles I've read have suggested that the way a player dresses and behaves, even the way that they stack their chips, can offer clues to their playing styles. Personally I think that is taking things a bit far, although I think that the amount a player is drinking might well be a useful clue to how loose and/or reckless they might be. But some players are actually keen to tell you about their playing styles or to share their poker philosophy. While rank amateurs are easy enough to spot, there are many other more experienced players who will go out of their way to demonstrate how much knowledge they have of the game, analyse and discuss hands that have been played and generally give you a good idea of their level of experience. This can be quite useful information.
   On the flip side of this, I've found myself being very careful about the amount of information I volunteer since I started playing regular live games. I try to avoid talking about playing online, I avoid demonstrating knowledge of the finer points of the game, I never talk about pot odds or use poker jargon, and on occasion where there's been some dispute about a hand, I stay right out of it. In other words, I play dumb. The fact that I'm actually pretty clumsy when it comes to shuffling and still haven't figured out how to separate out side-pots helps to reinforce this general image.
   By contrast, there's a player in my regular live tournament who seems to be doing just the opposite. I'd only known this man for a short while when I heard him announce to the table that he was a professional poker player. Since then I've often  heard him give other players advise on how they should play, talk frequently about being given the odds to call, offer endless analysis both during and after his own and other people's hands, and crow about how good he is at the game. Now I don't know if this guy is in fact a professional player, but I seriously doubt it. For a start, what's he doing playing in a $20 tournament? But apart from this, would a professional really behave in this way, announcing to all and sundry the level of his poker expertise?
   You can't play with the same group of people on a regular basis and not come to know and like a good many of them, especially in a social environment like my regular Friday night tournament. But at the same time, I'm in the game to win it, and giving away too much information is likely to reduce my chances of achieving that. Everyone accepts lying as part and parcel of poker play. And I'm not actually lying to my fellow players about what I do or don't know; merely choosing to be economical about certain facts. When we play poker, we are expected to be deceptive. In the real world, we are expected to be truthful. The question is, where does the game end?

Good, Bad, Ugly

   Live Tournament. In early position I have K Q. As the table is pretty passive I decide to limp and see what the flop brings. In late position, player R raises. If it was anyone else I would fold but R is a notoriously aggressive player. She could have anything. So I call. I flop a full house: K Q Q. I check and R immediately puts in a big bet. Trying to look reluctant, I call. I check the turn, hoping that R will continue to bet. When she does I put in my best Oscar winning performance and then call. I have no interest in what comes on the river. I'm just wondering whether she will bet again if I check. Rather than take the risk of it being checked back, I put in a minimum bet. I figure she must be getting suspicious by now. She instantly calls and shows Q x. After seeing my monster hand she says she thought I might have A K. As she had trips I guess I could have bet a lot more on the river. After this the other players enter into an analysis of the size of my river bet. Everyone's an expert after the fact.

   Live Tournament. At a very passive table I limp in with K Q again (no, I don't usually make a habit of this but when the play is so passive, it's hard to resist). The flop is K x x. Player T checks, as do I.  Player G bets and we both call. The turn is an Ace. Now T, who is usually more passive than a jellyfish, puts up a decent-sized bet. I figure if he's betting, he must have the Ace, so I fold. G calls. After the river T shows down K Q and G has K 4! I guess T is not as predictable as I thought.

   Online SitnGo. With A K suited, I put in a standard 3x raise and get 3 callers. The flop is A A 7. I check my trips, not wishing to scare anyone off, and they all do likewise. The turn is another 7, giving me a full house. I check again, hoping that one of the others hits a decent hand on the river so I can extract some chips from them. I get my wish. The river is an Ace, putting a full house on the board and giving me quads. Player 1 bets half the pot. He's obviously trying to steal the pot by representing the other Ace. This is a dream result for me. The other two players both now fold, which is quite surprising. I re-raise and p1, who obviously thinks I'm trying to re-steal, calls with 8 9s. The only way this could have worked out better would have been if his bluff had been an all-in push.

   Online ring game (10c/20c). I'm in the big blind with 4 2. There is one limper in the pot. The flop is 3 5 7. I bet at it, assuming that the other player also missed a flop like that. They call. The turn is a King. I decide that this might be a scare card for my opposition, so I bet about 3/4 pot and get called again. With bets being called twice, you'd think I'd get the message by now, but when a 2 comes on the river I decide to bet at it again. After all, in the big blind, I could have anything: 2 2, K 5, 4 6. So I bet about half the pot and get re-raised. So I do what I should have done two betting rounds ago; fold.

   Online ring game (10c/20c). With A J in the BB there are several limpers and I just check it. I don't want to be raising with this hand from such a poor position and am looking for a pretty flop. The flop is about as pretty as it can get; T Q K, giving me the nuts. I figure it's time to go fishing and check. One player puts in a small bet and I call. The turn is an Ace, which is not great for me; anyone with a Jack now also has an Ace high straight and anyone without a Jack is going to be pretty wary of a bet. Player 1 checks, p2 bets $1.60 and I immediately re-raise them. To my surprise I get two callers.  The river is a 7, and now there are 3 hearts on the board. P1 checks, p2 bets and, wary of a possible flush, I just call. P1 then check-raises to $25. Even though I know I have the best possible hand short of a flush, I just can't bring myself to call such a huge bet. Getting drawn out on when the river hits is pretty routine for me, so I reluctantly fold. P2 calls and shows 2 pair. P1 has J 2 for an Ace high straight. A very bad fold. I guess I should have raised pre-flop after all. Coulda, woulda, shoulda.

   Online ring game (10c/20c). With J 9 in the BB I call a minimum raise from one other player. The flop is 5 8 J. With top pair I put in a bet of 3/4 pot and get called. The 9 on the turn gives me top 2 pair, so I bet again. My opponent now puts in a big re-raise. This player had just recently suffered a bad beat from a worse hand and now had a short stack. I figure he's on tilt so I push hard. He calls me all-in and shows 6 7; he has a straight. Oops. The river is another 9, giving me a full house. I collect a very healthy-sized pot and the other player has another bad beat tale to tell.

   Online SitnGo. Early in the tournament I have A Q in the small blind. One player raises x3 and I call. I miss the flop completely; 3 4 8. Noting that the other player is short-stacked, I decide to take a stab at it and push all-in. I figure it will be very hard for him to call without something really good. He calls with K J. He hits nothing and, just to cap it off, I hit an Ace on the river. I love it when a plan comes together.

   Live tournament. Mid-way through the tournament, with the blinds at 1200 (they started at 200), I look down at A 2. I limp in and so does player B. The flop is A K 2.  I check it and B bets 2400. So I re-raise to 4800 with my 2 pair and get called. The turn is a 9. I figure B must have an Ace, so as long as it's not A K or A 9 I should be OK. I bet 4800 again and he calls. The river is a 2, giving me a full house. Trying to disguise the strength of my hand, I bet the same amount again. B has a good long think about this, staring at me and muttering about what I might have, but eventually he calls. I declare that I have a full house and throw my cards down. To my horror I see that I have A 3, not A 2. Oh no! Then, to my amazement, B turns over K 5. I still win with my baby Ace. I can't believe that B would keep calling those bets with second pair. I also can't believe that I mis-read my hand. It could have been a disaster. In fact, it should have been.

   Live tournament. 2 1/2 hours into the tournament and I'm short-stacked. At this stage I'm just looking for a good hand to go all-in with. I push all-in with about 13 BBs left with pocket sixes. I get called by an even shorter stack with T 6. So my opponent has only 3 outs. They hit one of those tens and I'm left with only a handful of chips. A few hands later I go all-in again with 9 9. I get called by A 5 (only one over-card again).  There's an Ace in the window (first card exposed on the flop) and I lose again. My last desperate move with just 5 BBs left and I push again with pocket fours. This time my opponent has 6 outs with K 9. There's a 9 on the flop, then another on the turn and that's it. So my pocket pairs lose three times in a row within 30 minutes. Oh well. That's poker.