Summer Days

   Now I'm sitting here,
   Sipping at my ice  cold beer,
   Lazing on a sunny afternoon                  The Kinks

WARM-UP
   With the beginning of summer comes a change of game. I start playing No Limit Texas Holdem Tournaments online. When I can find them I play in tournaments with fields that are limited to a few hundred players. But most of the time I'm playing in $7 27 player SitnGo tournaments on Pokerstars, because these are readily available. I do OK in two of the larger tournaments that I enter in this period. I come 24/267 in one, just getting my money back, and 6/116 in the other, getting 5 times my buy-in back. But there are several others that I enter where I come nowhere, leaving me slightly ahead overall. All these tournaments are played on 888.
   Meanwhile, I'm also playing in the Pokerstars on-demand tourneys. These turn out to be tough nuts to crack. During the period leading up to Christmas I play in 6 of these and my best result is a 7th place finish (only the top 5 get paid). The play in these games is generally tighter than that on 888 and definitely less 'fishy'. Nevertheless, I'm just getting started in this game type and figure that I'll improve with time.
   As for the live Friday night tournaments, my recent poor form continues and I finish the last game of the year, on the 21st December, without cashing. This one is the 'Champion of Champions' game, where the top points-scorers from the previous year's tourneys play off for a trophy (and cash prizes of course).  On the positive side, after getting knocked out early in one of these games I enter a cash game with some of the other tournament casualties and leave with about $50 in my pocket.

HOLIDAYS
   With Christmas day on a Wednesday this year the holidays start late for me. Work doesn't finish until Christmas Eve, but then I can look forward to about 2 1/2 weeks off. Just to prove how much poker is taking over my life, my wife and I go over to her mate's place for a cash game on Christmas Day. It may be the season of giving, but I take about $70 home. Then on New Year's Eve the Workingmens Club holds another tournament. I go deep in this one, making it to 7th place out of 24, but still out of the money.
   Typically for this time of year the weather is patchy. We have some nice sunny days, but also quite a lot of wind, so I have some opportunity to play some online poker. I continue to play in the 27 player SitnGos but my results are very poor. Things are going so badly that I have to reload my Pokerstars account, the first time that I've had to do this. I fail to cash in 12 of these tourneys before finally getting a 1st place on the 11th of January, just before I'm due to go back to work. Then I get a 3rd place on the following Wednesday. Is this the start of a new trend?
   On Friday 10th I do something that I'd been meaning to do for a while. I get up early in the morning and start playing in Single Table SitnGos on 888. This is the start of my SitnGo Marathon All Day Session. The level I'm playing at means that I'd have to lose 7 games straight before I went over my buy-in limit. I play 7 games straight without winning a thing. Doh! So much for that idea.
   On the second Sunday of January my wife and I go to the Inter-club poker tournament. Although I'd previously decided not to play in these, my wife has joined the RSA team and intends to play every month. So I figure I'll go along too and just play it as a social game, not using my precious poker bankroll dollars. After getting knocked out I get into a cash game and come out of it with money in my pocket. So I'm hoping that there are more cash games going at these events in future.

SALAD DAYS
   As usual, the weather gets really good once everyone's back at work. At least with daylight savings there's plenty of daylight time after work. Despite all this, I still find time to play a fair bit of poker. I keep plugging away at the 27 player SitnGos on Pokerstars but my results are dismal. After playing a total of 18 games I have one win and one 4th place to show for all that effort. I'm doing so badly that I have to top up the cash in my Pokerstars account twice. These results may seem odd considering that my last post claimed that I'd figured out a good strategy for tournament play. But I still stick by my plan, which is based on pre-flop action. The trouble is, on Pokerstars at least, I'm getting out-played post-flop.
   By this stage I've settled into a routine of playing the small-field tourneys on Wednesday night and the larger 888 games on the weekend. I only manage to play three 888 tourneys in this period as the weekends are getting busy, finishing 64/118, 34/104 and 63/360.
   I do much better in the live Friday night tourneys, which have re-started by mid-January. In the first game of the year, in a small field of 22 players, I make 2nd place. Then in week two I come 1st out of 27, making for a nice collect. It looks like I've got my mojo back. Then I come 17/32, 12/33 and 28/30 in the following weeks. In this last result the following happens (just another bad beat story):
I push hard pre-flop with KK and get one caller. The flop is J T x and I bet 3/4 of the pot. My opponent pushes all-in and I call. He shows AJ. Then a Jack hits the turn and I'm crippled. The next hand, with 8 big blinds left I pick up AK and go all-in. I  get called by J9, a 9 hits the turn and it's goodbye and thanks for coming. That's poker. I'm still very happy with the results so far and hope to get some more deep runs in this tournament.

COOLER
   The mornings are getting cooler but during the day there's usually a choice between blazing sunshine or dark heat-cloud and energy-sapping humidity. Meanwhile, I continue to struggle with the online tournaments. Out of 27 players I reach the following places: 22, 11, 2, 7, 13, 13, 11, 19. I have one more Wednesday night session before the end of my summer season so I'm not too confident of a brilliant finish in this game type. On the other hand, on Friday night I make 1st place again in a field of 30. I have no business finishing well in this game but somehow manage to struggle onto the final table, limp across the bubble and drag myself into the big money.
   Overall, it's been a pretty enjoyable summer season. Online tournaments have left a lot to be desired but live tourneys and cash games have worked out very well. So it's swings and roundabouts, but my bankroll is still looking better now than it did at the beginning of the season. Now I wonder what Autumn will bring?


  
  

Tourney Plan

    The plan that you make,
    that's the one that you rely on,
    The bed that you make,
    that's the one you gotta lie on             Dire Straits

   I've played little else but tournament poker since the beginning of December, and prior to that I played in at least one live tourney every week for the last half of the year. This may be a guaranteed way to jinx my results but I'm beginning to have the feeling that I'm learning how to play effectively in poker tournaments. Although there are a lot of important factors involved in deciding how to play, I believe that the most important thing of all is stack size. By stack size I mean the ratio between my chip stack and the size of the big blind. In other words, the number of big blinds (BBs) in my stack.
   I always think in terms of the number of big blinds when I consider the starting stack in a tournament. It doesn't matter to me whether the starting stack is 2,000 or 50,000; what matters is how this number compares to the size of the blinds. So a 50K stack may look like a lot, but not if the starting BB is 1000; that amounts to a starting stack of just 50BB. In comparison, a starting stack of 2K with blinds at 20 gives you 100BB to start with. This should be blindingly obvious to anyone but I am constantly amazed by how often people in live games simply can't see the connection. I always prefer to play in a tourney with at least a starting stack of 100BB, preferably more.

   I think of tournaments in terms of stages, which are defined almost entirely by the number of big blinds that I have. In the early stages, when I am deep stacked and the blinds are low, I play pretty tight. I'll fold a lot and only play premium hands, or drawing hands if I can limp in with them from late position. In other words, what is generally considered to be 'ABC poker' ; a basic cash game strategy. With the big cards or big pairs I'll generally raise, but not too much, and be prepared to fold if the flop doesn't help me. With small or medium pairs, suited connectors or Ax suited I'll try to limp in, hoping to hit trips, a straight or a flush. I will even call a small raise with one of these types of hands, although I'm becoming increasingly disenchanted with the winning potential of suited connectors.
  Another important part of my strategy involves  adjusting my play to the type of table. If the table is populated by loose passive players (typical of the Friday night live tournament) then I'll limp in with more marginal hands and from earlier position than normal, hoping to flop a monster. If I hit AA or KK then I'll push hard, very hard (see 'The OMG Hand'). I'll do this for the first couple of levels, while the blinds are still low, then tighten up a bit. If I'm at a tight table, with players who are capable of folding, then I'll look out for opportunities to steal the blinds by raising from late position. But I won't take this too far, the idea being to maintain a reasonably tight table image.
   This is essentially the way I'll play for much of the tournament, as long as I've got 20BB or more. If I end up with a big stack then I'll generally tighten up even more. I'm well aware of the possibility of getting too cocky with a big stack and blowing off a lot of chips unnecessarily. If I get down to 20BB, that's when I'll look to get more active, especially if I'm approaching a big increase in the blinds. The idea is to stay above my 'red line' stack size of  12BB. So I'll try to limp in more, try to steal more, and be more inclined to push big hands from late position  depending, of course, on the circumstances.
   If I get down to 12BB, that's my 'all-in or fold' level. At that stack size, I'm folding everything until I hit a pre-flop hand good enough to go all-in with. Which hands I'm willing to push with depends on the circumstances; how many blinds I have left, my position, how many players are already in the pot, whether the pot has been raised and so on. As a general rule of thumb, in good circumstances I'll push all-in with any Ace and any pair. Obviously, if the situation gets more desperate then my pushing range will get wider. I've noticed that, especially in the live games, many players will try to hang on towards the end even though their stacks are getting shorter and shorter. Although it's tempting to try and limp in and see a flop, I don't do this for one simple reason; fold equity. If you have, say 4BB left and go all-in, you have no fold equity; medium to large stacks are not going to be afraid of calling 4BB. But with a larger stack, you have a much better chance of winning the pot uncontested.
   The exception to my 12BB rule is when everyone is short stacked. Sometimes as you approach the end of a tournament the average stack size can actually be 12BB or less. If I'm still above the average despite my short stack  and we are near the end then I'm inclined to just play a tight game, try and limp in to a few big pots, maybe even steal the blinds from late position if I think I can get away with it. In general I'll try to pick up a few chips here and there and let the other short stacks fight it out.
   If I make it into the money then I tend to just wing it. Or to put it more correctly, I don't play with a set plan; I let the circumstances dictate my style of play. Nevertheless I keep in mind my position regarding stack size compared to other players and also in terms of the number of big blinds that I have. I am also constantly aware of the way that the value of starting hands change as the number of players at the table reduces.
   Essentially, I approach tournaments in the same way that I approach cash games, and if I end up with a short stack then I adjust to that circumstance as far as it's possible to do so. I'm not inclined to panic if my stack size drops below the critical level. In fact, at that point the pressure comes off because the all-in-or-fold stage is pretty simple to navigate. And if I manage to double up then it puts me well and truly back in the game. One thing that I found particularly relevant from my recent tournament strategy study was the idea that you can't win the tournament in the first hour, but you can lose it. Another was the principal that you are not playing the whole field, but the players at your table. So that's the way I look at my position in a tournament these days. It's not about where you stand in relation to the whole field, it's about the table you're sitting at and how many big blinds you have to play with. In other words, keep it simple.