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.