Sticky Fingers

   The basic principal that is at the heart of poker theory, the point at which all poker primers start, is the two types of poker hands: made hands and drawing hands. Pre-flop, any big pair is a made hand and I would also include any two big cards, although some might argue that these are only drawing hands. I include them because hands like AQ and AK are probably the best hand pre-flop and have the potential to make top pair on the flop. You should always raise hands like these for two reasons: for value and to isolate your opponents. So you are raising to get more chips in the pot while you are ahead and also to reduce the number of callers.
   The reason you want to reduce the number of callers is because these sorts of big pair hands are vulnerable to being drawn out on by players holding drawing hands. For example, if you have pocket aces and are up against one other player, the probability of having the winning hand on the river (against any random hand) is 85%. But against 8 other players, your aces have only a 35% chance of winning at showdown. This principal applies to any big hand and that is why it is vitally important to protect your big hands by raising pre-flop.
   Conversely, if you have a drawing hand (suited connectors, medium connectors, small pairs, small suited aces), you want to play in a  multi-way pot. This is because most of the time you are going to miss your straight, flush or 3 of a kind and end up folding. So when you do hit your monster hand you want a big pot with plenty of players involved so you can extract maximum value and recoup all those previous losses and then some. This is the basic strategy that is at the heart of every poker game. Players with big starting hands are trying to make it too expensive for others to chase their draws. And players with drawing hands are trying to get in as cheaply as possible so they can hit their monster hands.
     The live games that I play in are typically very very loose. Most players will call a pre-flop raise with a ridiculously wide range of hands and if they hit any kind of draw, or any part of the flop they will hang on like grim death and call all the way to the river. This makes it extremely difficult to protect big pair type hands, as many of these players will only be deterred from calling by an enormous raise. I'm now used to this kind of play and have resigned myself to the fact that I'll be sucked out on a lot. The thing is, the play at my Friday game seems to be getting even looser than usual. Maybe it's because some of the tighter players are no longer coming to the game, or maybe it's just my perception of the games, but those calling hands just seem to be getting more and more absurd. This has led me to take another look at my basic strategy to see if I can find a better way.
   I don't play ring games much these days but I have a basic pre-flop strategy for these games that is based on principals taught by Poker School Online. If I have a hand that's playable from early position I open raise to five times the big blind (5x BB). If I have a hand that I think is playable from middle position I raise 3x BB plus 1 BB for every player who has limped in to the pot. If I have a playable hand in late position I raise 2x BB plus 1 BB for every limper. This is a simple enough system that seems to work well enough in most situations, although it can always be modified to suit particular circumstances.
   In a ring game, if I was faced with a table full of  'no-foldem' players, I would adjust by increasing the size of my raises for premium hands. And in a situation like this, if I had top pair or an over-pair on the flop, I would bet half the pot or more to ensure that anyone with a draw didn't have the correct odds to call, even if that meant pushing most of my stack into the middle. The way I see it, in a cash game you make what you think is the correct move, even if it involves risking most or all of your stack. If you get drawn out on, then so be it; you either reload or go home in the knowledge that in the long term that was a profitable move and the next time, or the time after that, you will drag in all of some-ones chips. As long as you play the odds you will win in the long run, regardless of the results in one particular game.
   Maybe it's a mistake on my part, but I think of tournaments differently. To me, tournaments are all about survival. My strategy is to try and pick up enough chips in the early stages to keep ahead of the increasing blinds and then get more active and aggressive in the later stages to put myself in a position to make the money. Maybe this is the wrong approach, but it seems to work reasonably well so I'm sticking to it for now. The only time I'm willing to risk most or all of my chips is where I know I have a significant edge (for example pocket aces or kings pre-flop). I don't usually want to risk my tournament life on a move that has a  small positive expected value long term. In short, I'm much less inclined to risk my chips in a tournament than I would be in a ring game.
   In the early stages of a tournament, when the stacks are reasonably deep, I play a basic ring game strategy but with one exception; I don't  increase my bet sizing to compensate for the super-loose calling crew. So if I raise 5x BB in early position with KK and get 5 callers, then so be it. Or if 6 players limp in when I have AJ on the button, I raise to 8x BB and usually end up watching 3 or 4 people call. As a result, it's not unusual to see me raising pre-flop them checking or folding on the flop if my Ax misses or my medium pair is facing a flop full of big cards. And a continuation bet in a no-foldem game like this is just pointless; you're always going to get called, usually by multiple players.
   In the middle stages when the blinds are getting bigger I reduce the size of my pre-flop raises. I usually just bet a standard 3x BB regardless of position. As the blinds increase further I'll drop down to 2.5x BB raises or less. Even although this size raise is likely to be a significant proportion of a caller's stack at this point, I still find that there are multiple players who are apparently unable to let go of their hands. It's not until the final stages of the tournament when the blinds are really big and most of the players with sticky fingers have been eliminated that I start seeing folds to raises. However, there are usually a couple of 'loosies' who have amassed huge stacks and are happy to keep on calling with rags.

   The thing about playing in these super-loose tournaments is that one of the essential elements of the no limit game is diminished. The power of the pre-flop raise is severely compromised and post-flop play becomes much more important. The way that these games end up being played remind me of fixed limit games. I played in fixed limit ring games a few years back and found that I wasn't very good at them. It was virtually impossible to protect a big starting hand as it was so cheap to call a raise. These games were very much about what came on the flop and it took considerable skill to negotiate the intricacies of post-flop play where pushing an opponent off a hand was not an option.
   So why bother with pre-flop raises at all? There are a couple of players in the Friday game who are incredibly passive pre-flop and yet they have both done very well over-all, coming first and second on the yearly points table. In a game where pre-flop raises do not achieve the aim of isolating opponents, why bother with them? Well, the thing is, pre-flop raises still achieve the aim of getting chips in the middle. The way I see it, although all those callers greatly reduce my chances of winning the pot, big pairs still sometimes hold up against multiple callers, and they sometimes improve. And when they do, they win monster pots. So I still figure that all those times I end up raising pre-flop and then folding the flop are compensated for by the times when I rake in a huge pot that sets me up for the rest of the tournament.
   I guess you could say that the live tournaments I play in are hybrid games. Pre-flop play is much more like fixed limit than it is no limit; you just have to accept that you're going to have a lot of callers no matter what you do. However, you still have the ability to bet enough post-flop  to ensure that at least the first couple of players won't have the correct odds to call with their drawing cards. And when you reach the turn? Well, the pot will be so big that you'll probably end up all-in just to protect your hand. Then again, play is usually so passive that you could probably just check to the river and hope that no-one hits. But of course the problem with this is that you're probably already pot committed. At this point you have to just play the hand correctly and take your chances.
   One of the great things about poker is that there are so many different types of game and so many different playing styles within each game type. The most important thing is being able to adjust to these different styles. No-foldem games are no different. On balance, I think my strategy for these super-loose games makes some sort of sense.
   Playing no limit no-foldem is kind of like dancing your way through a minefield. On a roller coaster. Blindfolded. What fun.




  

Playing by the Rules, Part 2

   I play in two or three live poker tournaments every week. These games are played at pubs or clubs and all are run by amateurs who are usually also playing in the tournament themselves. In the last post I detailed how this situation can lead to controversies over the rules and the way that they are applied. And because these are amateur-run games there are often no actual written rules to refer to. In the end it comes down to common or accepted practice. And common practice in these situations can deviate a lot from what is considered to be standard practice in more formal games.
    The organisers of some of the games I regularly play in have recently adopted the Tournament Directors Association Rules as their standard, which is a step in the right direction. However, adopting these rules wholesale is not necessarily a good idea for relatively informal games, and there is a tendency to enforce some rules and not others. In other words, we are still essentially operating by the principal of: 'the rules are what the Tournament Director says they are'.
   In addition, because they are designed for use in tournaments that have professional dealers, the TDA rules don't cover the procedures for dealing or the responsibilities of dealers. For example, some of the clubs I play at have now introduced a 'no poking' rule. The normal procedure for player-dealt games is for the deck to be passed to the player on the dealer's right, and that person then cuts the cards, leaving  the cut card at the bottom. Up until recently what happened was that the dealer held out the deck, the other player then poked the cut card into the deck and the dealer then moved the top half to the bottom and proceeded to deal. Now we've been told that we have to place the deck and the cut card on the table and the 'cutter' then moves the top section of the deck onto the cut card, then the remainder of the deck, then passes the deck back to the dealer. Personally, I don't have a problem with poking, but if that's the way they want it done, that's okay. The only problem is, poking is standard practice at my Wednesday night game and if I place the deck on the table the cutter wonders what the hell I'm doing. I guess I just have to remember which game I'm at and whether it's okay to poke or not to poke.
   Another thing I occasionally come across that would never happen in a game with a professional dealer is the 'pot counter'. On my Wednesday night game there's a particular player who sometimes counts out the chips in the pot to see how much is in there. Presumably he does this to help him decide how much to bet. Now, the dealer (not the player) is actually allowed to do this in a pot limit game, but it's definitely not allowed in a no limit game. The most a dealer is allowed to do in no limit is to spread the chips out a bit so you can get a better view, but that's all. But the person who habitually does this also happens to be the game organiser, so there's not much point in complaining about it.
   Because of the informal nature of these games you tend to get a lot of hands in the pot. People usually take change out of the pot themselves, usually before the betting round is completed, which tends to lead to a certain amount of confusion when someone then raises. Then there's the 'pot tidier'; the player who just can't stand to see an untidy pile of chips and has to put them all into neat stacks. And of course, on the other end of the spectrum there's the 'pot splasher'; the player who, instead of placing his bet in front of him just chucks the chips in the general direction of the pot, leaving the other players to guess at how much has been bet.
   But the one thing that really gets to me in these types of games is the table talk. The rules of tournament poker are that you cannot say anything about a hand in progress, whether you are in the hand or not. You can't tell anyone what you folded, you can't suggest what the best hand might be, you can't make guesses about what another player is holding; you can't do anything that might influence the actions of another player. This rule is regularly and consistently flouted in the games I attend, and it can get pretty annoying. I have spoken up about it a few times when it's been particularly bad, but my complaints have fallen on deaf ears. Just last week I had a little hissy fit when someone insisted on pointing out that a player holding a 6 would have the nut straight. When I complained, the person involved couldn't understand why I should care about someone suggesting what I might be holding in my hand. So, the constant babble about the possibilities presented by the flop, or the hand someone would have had if they hadn't folded, goes on, and on, and on.
   Some of the irregular rules in these tournaments are the result of ignorance of the standard procedure that is followed elsewhere. For instance, in any professionally run tournament if a player has to be moved to a new table it is the player 'under the gun' (sitting to the left of the big blind) who is moved and they are then dealt in at the new table and take on whatever responsibilities their new seat carries, including paying the big blind. This is a very sensible system as it means that it is usually an advantage to be moved to another table and no-one has to sit out any hands.
   For some reason, all the local games run a different system. When someone needs to be moved, it is the player one position behind the dealer (or in some cases, two behind the dealer). But if they move into the blinds or the dealer position they have to sit out until the button passes them. So this sometimes means sitting out three hands. I ended up in this position once, coming into the big blind and having to sit out until the button passed. One of the other players was loudly complaining about how this gave me an unfair advantage. I was more of the opinion that sitting out a number of hands is a disadvantage. But either way, it's rather an odd way to do things. I suspect that this method originally comes from the National Pub Poker League games, as I know that they do things this way. But wherever it comes from, I'm going to try and get the Interclub competition to change to the 'under the gun' system and with a bit of luck it might spread to other games from there.
   Another example of ignorance of normal procedure is the raising rule. This is one that doesn't come up very often and when it does, it doesn't make an awful lot of difference to the game, but it illustrates how easy it is to end up following procedures that are not actually correct. All poker rules state that if you raise, it should be a minimum of twice the previous bet or raise. So if there is a bet of 200 and someone raises 200 to make it 400, then a re-raise would have to be to a minimum of 600; the previous player raised 200 on top of the original bet, so the new raise has to be 400 plus the original 200. Nobody does it this way in my local games. They always say that a raise has to be twice the total previous bet, so in this case it would be to 800. I've argued the point on this a couple of times but got no traction whatsoever, so now I just go with the flow and play by the 'double the last bet' rule.
   Another rule that I think comes from the NPPL is the forced check. If a player bets or raises out of turn, the players who had yet to act get their turn, then when the out of turn player's turn comes they cannot take aggressive action; they can only check or call. The standard rule is that the 'OOT' player's bet is binding unless the action has changed, in which case they can reconsider their original bet. This is completely different to the forced check rule. In one case the offending player cannot take the action they intended, in the other case they must take the action they intended. It's kind of like an instant penalty for acting out of turn, which seems unfair to me, especially in what is an otherwise pretty informal game structure.
   There are a couple of local rules that I've come across that I think are grossly unfair. One of these involves 'blinding out' an absent player. Normally if a player is not at the table their cards are folded and if they are in the blinds then those blinds are paid and go into the pot. But one of the clubs that I play at also rules that if a player is absent for one full circuit of the button, then they have to start paying the big blind  every hand. This seems very unfair to me. The absent player has paid the entry fee like everyone else and shouldn't be penalised any more than the normal payment of the blinds in turn. Even if someone leaves the tournament, then putting their big blind into the pot every hand gives that particular table an advantage over other tables. Even though it doesn't come into play that often, I really don't like seeing this rule being used.
   The worst of the lot is Bill's 'Big Blind Check' rule. This rule is only played at the Onehunga Workingmen's Club and although it only comes up rarely, it's just plain ridiculous. According to this rule, if a player in the big blind says, 'check' when there is a bet in front of them, it is ruled to be a call. So if you are in the big blind and you miss the fact that someone has raised and you check your option, you just called that raise. I cannot imagine any reasonable justification for having a rule like this. It just seems like a deliberate attempt to trap players into losing their chips.
   The creator of this rule, Bill, says that this very thing happened to him one night at the Auckland Casino, and that's why he uses it. All I can say is, if that did happen, then either the casino has a really stupid rule or one of the dealers made a stupid mistake. Either way, there's no good reason to adopt a game rule that is clearly unfair and could result in someone losing their entire stack because of a moment of inattention. Without exception, when visiting players are told about the BBC rule they are astonished. However, Bill refuses to give it up because 'they play it at the casino'.
   One of the most important things I've learned as a poker player is that you must be able to adapt. You have to adapt to the stack sizes, the number of players at the table, the betting limits, the type of players and a bunch of other thing. Adapting to the local rules is part of this process. You just have to check out what the local practices are and, like them or not, adapt your play to suit those conditions. So that's what I do. Occasionally I can get the locals to conform more to standard poker procedures but the rest of the time it's just a matter of being aware of what the unusual practices are and adapting to them.
   Just remember, if you ever play poker at the OWMC, pay attention when you're in the big blind.



 

Playing by the Rules, Part 1

   When I play poker online it's all very simple: no-one has to actually shuffle or deal cards, there can be no mistake about how much you are trying to bet, showdowns, folds and the awarding of the pot are all done automatically. But when I'm playing live games (which is most of the time) and dealing with real cards and real chips, things can sometimes get tricky. Even when playing at the casino, where the play is according to a standard set of rules and the cards are dealt by a professional dealer, there can be occasional disputes (see 'The Deep Stack Tournament', 26 Feb). And in the games I play most often, pub or club games where the players do the dealing and there is often no set rules other than a few that have been verbally stated, things can get very tricky indeed. Here are a few examples of what I mean:
The Missed Split
   A while back I was at a table where the dealer missed the fact that the best hand was actually 'on the board'. There had been substantial betting by two players and player 'A'  showed two pair versus the other player's lesser hand, and started raking in the pot. Then an observer who was watching the game pointed out that there was a straight on the board and it should be a split pot. An argument broke out which was fuelled by the fact that player A was also the tournament director. He was saying that the observer had no right to interfere in the hand as he wasn't involved and wasn't even sitting at the table. I think player A accepted that the pot should be split but he had a lot to say about players 'interfering' in the game, and even threatened to penalise the observer if he did it again.
   I had to put my 2 cents worth in here and point out that standard poker rules declare that players are obliged to point out errors in reading hands or in the awarding of a pot. I neglected to mention that the rules are referring to dealers and other players, and don't actually mention bystanders. But I figured that the intent of the rules is clear: any mistake in the awarding of a pot needs to be corrected, and if that correction comes from a 'railbird' then so be it. Strangely enough, a similar situation happened a few months later, involving both the same people. This time around 'player A' didn't complain so much, so I guess he had a change of heart.

The Muck Shuffler
   I was the dealer in this hand but, because of the situation, was unwilling to take control and ended up being an observer. I was playing in a tournament that was part of a poker league that I wasn't usually involved with. So I was playing in a room full of strangers and I wasn't aware of the usual procedures followed by this group. I was at an oblong table, sitting in the middle and I'd folded along with a number of other players. There were still two people in the hand and as I was dealing out the board cards the player opposite me pulled in all the folded cards and starting 'washing them' (moving them around) face down on the table. I thought this was an odd thing to do but, given the unfamiliar situation, I let it go. As the hand drew to a close one player threw his cards forward, thinking the other player had folded, only to find that he still had live cards. Then some of the muck cards, which were still being shuffled around on the table, touched the two folded cards. That's when the argument broke out.
   Most of the players at the table knew each other and were arguing back and forth about whether the folded cards were still live. Eventually they called over the tournament director (TD) who asked a number of people what happened and decided that the folded cards were dead because they'd touched the muck. The verdict seemed to be that he could still have played them if they hadn't touched the muck. No mention was made of the fact that it was actually the 'moving muck' that touched the folded cards. This was a very odd incident and my unwillingness to take control when the muck shuffling started only made it worse. The question of whether folded cards can be retrieved in some circumstances comes up quite often, as can be seen from the next two examples.
The Showdown Fold
   This incident happened when I was getting short-stacked in a tournament and pushed all-in. The player across the table from me was thinking of calling and all my attention was on him. Eventually he folded and, thinking I'd won the hand, I threw my cards into the muck. Someone called out that there was another player in the hand who was yet to act and, realising my mistake, I immediately grabbed my cards back. That's when the argument started. The discussion went on for some time before the TD was called over to make a ruling. After consulting another neutral player he finally ruled that my hand was dead and the last player in the hand was awarded all my chips, eliminating me from the tournament. I was not happy.

   I spent some time after this going through the Tournament Directors Association Rules to see what they had to say, but it seems to be a bit of  a grey area that is covered by several different contradictory rules. I did find a YouTube clip of a similar incident at the WSOP. In this case the TD ruled that the second player hadn't called the original bet so the all-in player got their stack back. However there seemed to be a lot of negative online feedback from players about this decision. I think that if I was the TD in this situation I would probably invoke rule 1 and make a decision based on the 'best interests of the game and fairness'. Provided that the mucked cards were '100% identifiable' (which they were), I would have allowed the all-in player to retrieve the cards and given the second player the option of calling or folding. But then again, maybe I'm biased.
The Face-up Fold
   One of our regular Friday night players got very upset when the decision went against him in a similar situation. I wasn't present but I heard about it later, at great length. Apparently 'S' was involved in a big pot and at showdown he misread his hand and, thinking he had lost, threw his cards face-up into the muck. Then someone pointed out that he had a bigger hand than he'd realised (I think it was a back-door straight). Now I didn't see what actually happened, so I don't know whether he initially tabled his cards or not, but I suspect that he didn't. So the question is, if the cards have gone into the muck, even though they are still clearly identifiable, can they still be played? Myself, I'd tend to go with the 'fairness' principle and allow the best hand to win the pot. But the TD ruled that once the cards were in the muck they were no longer live. The player involved didn't take it well and was vocal in his disagreement. In fact, he was still going on about it several weeks later.
The Premature Show
   A few weeks ago at my regular Wednesday night game there was a controversy over an all-in hand that occurred just before the break. There were 4 players in the hand when one went all-in. 'E' had a big stack and she now pushed all-in over the top. Then she flipped her cards over, even though there were two players yet to act. Apparently she was very keen to go outside and have a smoke, and didn't seem too concerned about giving the other two players free information about her hand (she had flopped a flush). Some people were saying that her hand should be ruled dead, as you are not allowed to show your cards while a hand is still active.
   This situation was made worse because our TD had gone home early, leaving one of the regulars in charge. He didn't really know what should be done and in the end he said the hand was still live. The other two players promptly folded. If she hadn't shown then maybe one or both of those players would have called and then been knocked out. If the hand had been ruled dead then one of the other players would have won the pot and who knows who would have been eliminated, if anyone. After the hand one of the other players asked me what I thought and I said that E's hand should have been declared dead. Later on, after consulting the rules, I realised that the hand should probably have been live, but that E should have been penalised. The problem with that is that you just don't see penalties being applied in these pub games. It just doesn't happen. So there's really nothing you can do about this sort of situation.
The Vague Bet
   Playing in a tournament a few months ago I saw a hand where the TD did actually consult the rules to decide what to do. Player 1, who was short-stacked, pushed all-in, then 'J' said 'I call you all-in'. The other players who were yet to act wanted to know if he was calling the relatively small all-in bet or putting his big stack all-in. J said his intention was to go all-in, but some of the others said it should be only a call. The TD was called over and he consulted the Tournament Directors Association Rules, which stated that non-standard bets that could have two possible meanings should be be interpreted as the lower amount. So J's bet was ruled to be a call, and play carried on.
   It just goes to show how simple things can be if you actually have a set of rules to play by. Of course, some of the earlier examples are actually a bit harder to resolve, even with a set of rules. But in my opinion, the most important rule is rule number 1: 'The best interests of the game and fairness are top priorities in decision making.' Sometimes you can get bogged down in technicalities and forget that the most important thing is fairness. But having a set of rules to settle issues in the first instance would certainly help.

 

  

A Week of It

   In a typical week I play in three live poker tournaments and one online tournament. Last week was a typical week. Here's how it went...
Wednesday
   I took my regular trip to the Landmark Bar for their Turbo Rebuy Poker Tournament. There are usually 15 to 20 players in this $20 buy-in event, but this time there were only 10 of us. At first there were just 9 players and we all squeezed onto a single table, then a late-comer turned up and we made two 5-player tables. I was playing the odd drawing hand at first but hitting nothing. I finally started hitting the odd decent hand towards the end of the first period.
   My first decent hand was K J which I raised pre-flop and immediately got re-raised. I had to bite the bullet and fold and was happy to see the 3-bettor show his pocket Kings at the end of the hand.
   Next up came A K, and another pre-flop raise, which was called by 'D'. I completely missed the flop but bet at it anyway. D thought about it for a while, but eventually folded. But D was to get his chips back, and then some...
   I had A 8 in the blind and the flop came 7 8 T. I bet the flop with my middle pair and D called. We both checked the turn. Then a 6 came on the river and I bet at it, trying to represent the straight. But D was the one with the straight (T 9) and he called and pulled in a decent proportion of my chip stack.
   After the break I was getting short-stacked. By this stage one player had been knocked out and had declined to re-buy, so we were back to one full table. I had T 6 in the small blind and, as there were lots of callers, I decided to take a punt on it. There were 3 clubs on the flop and everyone checked. The turn was another club and I held the 6 of clubs. When 'E' bet at it I decided that my 6 high flush was probably no good and folded. 'W' called and at the end I saw that he had a 4 of clubs and E had a 9. Good fold.
   My last hand of the night came when I was down to 15 big blinds. I raised with my pocket tens and got called by D. The flop came A x x and, knowing that D was likely to have called with a wide range of hands, I pushed all-in. 'D' insta-called and slammed his pocket aces down on the table. Oh well, another early night. I never re-buy in this game so I wandered over to the bar and watched the Karaoke for a bit before heading home. I'd played for about one hour and fifteen minutes.
Friday
   My wife and I set off to the $25 Tournament at the Onehunga Workingmen's Club. There was a typical turnout of eighteen players sitting around three tables. My table ended up being short-handed with just five players because one of the players booked his name down but didn't turn up.
   My biggest chip loss in the early stages came when I had A K. I put in a decent-sized raise and got three callers. The flop was A 2 7. I bet the flop and was called by 'J'. The turn was a 5: I bet and was called by J. When another 2 came on the river I bet my top pair again and J 3-bet me. After I reluctantly folded he showed his 5 2. Nice call mate.
   J and I had another interesting hand a little later. I had 8 3 in the big blind and, as usual, there were a lot of limpers. The flop was 5 6 7. J bet at it and I called with my straight draw. The turn was a 4. I realised that the 3 gave me a 7 high straight but completely missed the fact that my straight was actually 8 high. J bet some more and I called. The river was a 9. J bet again and I reluctantly called with what I thought was the 'idiot end ' of the straight. J showed K 8 for the 9 high straight. It took a moment. but I finally realised I also had an 8, so the pot was split.
   A little later the rag hands came through again when I limped into a 'family pot' with 7 4 in the small blind and flopped two pair. That chipped me up a bit.
   I got a chance to split another pot with J when I picked up A Q with about 10 BBs left. J raised and I pushed all-in. He called with A Q. Three diamonds on the flop gave J a flush draw but he missed it and it was another split.
   After the break I was living on the edge of the red zone (my push-or-fold level) most of the time. By the time we made the final table (the last 10 players) I had about 8 BBs left.
   With T T I went all-in and was called by K J. There was a King on the flop and another on the turn. That left me with a pitiful stack as we went into the second break.
   When I returned to the table I had 6,000 in chips with the blinds at 2,000/4,000. I was getting a succession of rag hands with the big blind rapidly approaching. So I shoved my 8 7 and got called by J T. Guess what? A Jack on the flop, a Jack on the turn. At least I got three hours of game time, and a few more 'Ten Week Challenge' points.
   Meanwhile, my wife was still in the game. In the end she got down to the final three and they split the prize pool. Nice effort.
Saturday
   The next day we were back at the OWMC for the $50 Tournament. My wife had won enough on Friday to be able to afford to play on the Saturday. The turnout was the same as the last time we played this game; we had ten players so we used the big table.
   I guess it was the mix of players involved, but the play was ridiculously loose, with an incredible amount of calling. We were starting with 250 BBs, so I was playing my standard cash game strategy. This involved putting in a substantial raise when there were multiple limpers, but this seemed to make no difference. Obviously the others saw the deep stack as a licence to call any-sized bet.
   One of my first pre-flop raising hands was K J. My darling wife then 3-bet me. Knowing my wife's normally passive playing style I figured it must be K K or A A, so I folded. She obligingly showed her pocket Kings. Strangely familiar.
   Next up I raised with A 9 and got several callers. The flop was T 2 x. I checked and 'R' put in a huge bet. Everyone folded, as did I. R then showed T 2. Nice call buddy. At least my table mates were saving me chips by telegraphing their big hands.
   My best pre-flop hand up to this point was A Q. I put in a decent raise and got five callers (that's right; five). The flop was all low cards, so I put in a continuation bet. 'K' called and everyone else folded. The turn was also a low card; I double-barrelled it with a decent-sized bet and K called again. On the river I checked and so did K. She turned over 5 2 for a rivered straight (kind of strange that she didn't bet it). Nice call sister. This hand made a big dent in my chip stack.
   The timing of this game was unfortunate, as it was played on the same evening as the Super rugby final between The Hurricanes and The Lions. This game got under way as we were playing and the organiser set up the TV screen to show the rugby, leaving the tournament clock on the small computer screen. As it happens, I'd drawn a seat that was facing away from the TV, so I couldn't see it, but I could hear what was going on. In any case, I was more interested in concentrating on the poker and winning some money.
   By the mid stages I was getting short stacked and getting very few playable hands. Much to my surprise, when I raised with K K and then saw a pretty safe-looking flop, I actually managed to win a few chips to keep me going.
   I was now in the push-or-fold stage of the tournament and was managing to survive with the occasional all-in bet. I was hovering at around 10 BBs but actually managed to knock out a couple of players with my all-ins.
   K had been running good with her rag hand calls but she was finally undone when she called my   A 8 push with 7 5.  She hit a 5 on the flop; I missed the turn but it gave me a flush draw; the third heart on the river gave me an Ace high flush.
   My wife had already been eliminated by this stage and we were down to four players, and in the money. Although my stack wasn't that big, it was big enough to allow me to play a little more freely. The two smaller stacks didn't last long and in the end it was just 'Z' and me. I'm pretty comfortable with heads-up play and we both had reasonable-sized stacks, so I was settling in for the long haul. Z and I discussed a deal, but we figured we'd keep playing at least to the end of the rugby match, and then reconsider.
   But then, a few hands later, Z decided that she wanted to watch the game, so I said 'What the hell' and we split the prizepool, getting $185 each. A good enough result. Not only that, but the Hurricanes won, the last of the five New Zealand franchises to win the Super Rugby title. Nice one.
Sunday
   My current favourite online tournament is the 888 poker $1200 Guaranteed Tournament that runs at 10.30 am each day. This costs $US8.00 to play and I logged in on Sunday to give it another shot. This tournament has a starting stack and blinds at 3,000/20, so there's no need to hurry early on.
   With Q J in middle position I put in a raise pre-flop and got called by the player on the button. I missed the flop but hit a Queen on the turn. My opposition called my bets all the way to the river and then showed K 8, having hit his King on the river. I lost about 500 chips on this one.
   But pocket Aces came to my rescue. Two players called my pre-flop raise and they both called my bets to the river before finally giving up, leaving me with 3,700 (90 BBs)
   With A 6 on the button I called a min-raise. The flop was K K 5. The opposition checked and I bet my A high, as is my habit these days; they called. A Queen on the turn and they checked, I bet and then they re-raised. Uh oh! Time to fold. Back down to 2,200 (22 BBs).
   Not long after this I crossed into the push-or-fold zone, but then 3 good hands in a row (K Q, A T, K Js)  got me back into the game. Then someone called my A A all-in push, and I was up to 7,300.
   Some time later, with a couple more all-ins I was up around 11,000 chips, which sounds good, but with the blinds up around 700, it's only about 15 BBs. It was around this point, after a couple of hours' play that I crossed the money bubble (27 players paid).
   When I pushed again with A 9s it looked like my tournament was over when I got called by A K. I needed a 9 or a diamond to fall on the river to stay alive. It was the 9 of diamonds. Sometimes you've just got to get lucky.
   With 18 BBs left I got to see a flop with J 5 in the big blind. I hit bottom pair on the flop, two pair on the turn and a flush on the river. My opponent had top pair on the flop, but hadn't bet enough to push me out, and I was up to 26,000 (26 BBs).
   Nearly three hours in, with two tables left, and I shot myself in the foot. In the big blind with T 6s, I got to see a flop with two others. The flop gave me a straight draw and I called a small bet. I hit my straight on the turn and put in a min-raise, which both players called. With a third diamond on the river, I checked and one player put in a pot-sized bet. Even though this bet was just screaming 'flush!', I called and they showed the Ace high flush. 7,400 chips left with the blinds at 600/1200.
   With about 6-8 BBs left, I managed to stay afloat with a couple of all-in bets. My last hand came when I shoved again with A 6 and got called by A 9. There was a 6 on the flop, but a 9 came on the river, and that was it. 12th out of 163 players. $US13.00 profit. Not bad.

So that was my week. Another seven days, another four poker tournaments. A few more dollars in the bank and, hopefully, a few more lessons learned. My plans for next week? I think I'll play some more poker.




  

The Big Weekend

 FRIDAY
  With Queen's Birthday weekend this year came what has become my annual pilgrimage to the Clubs New Zealand North Island Poker Championship. This year it was held in Napier, on the east coast of the island, about 6 hours drive from Auckland. Although most of the Auckland clubs attending this event flew down, the organiser for my club, the Onehunga Workingmen's Club, decided that we would hire a minibus and drive down. So on Friday morning twelve of us piled into the van and headed off into the great green yonder. The trip south was largely uneventful, consisting first of travelling through miles and miles of Waikato farmland, followed by miles and miles of high country plantation pine forest. We had a comfort stop early on at Lake Karapiro but after that our driver, Bill, had a rush of blood to the head and drove us straight through to Napier without another break. So we rolled into town tired, hungry and slightly grumpy.
   Once we settled into our motel rooms and took a quick trip down the road for some Chinese takeaways, we were ready to head off to the Taradale Club for the Friday night game. The club is only 5 minutes or so drive up the road from the motel so Bill dropped off those of us who were playing in the Friday night tournament. The club was pretty busy with plenty of locals there, not to mention a hundred or so out-of-town poker players. The tables were set up in a side room adjacent to the main bar area and they looked pretty good. There were about 20 brand new oval tables all lined up and ready to go. Unfortunately the organisers weren't ready to go, as they seemed to have only a couple of people to put out the chip stacks on all those tables. But eventually we got the call to find our seats and after a quick opening welcome speech from the Club Captain the tournament was ready to start.
   This tournament was a one-off, unrelated to the main games to be played on Saturday and Sunday and we had about 105 starters. It was $20 buy-in with $10 re-buys and add-ons for the same size stacks: pretty good value. Although the new tables were pretty nice I found that dealing from the end was a bit of a problem as the cloth was a little coarse. I ended up standing up to deal, just to make sure no-one's cards got flipped over. As far as the game goes, I wasn't hitting much in the way of playable hands but I managed to survive to the first break and topped up my dwindling stack. The only notable hand was my dumb-luck moment of the night: with a dangerously short stack I pushed all-in with K 3 suited and got called by pocket Kings, then I hit a flush on the river. But that was my last good result for the night and I got knocked out in around 30th place.
   What with the late start and all the extra chips from re-buys and add-ons it was already midnight by the time I finished playing. The other OWMC players were all out except for Cal, who was still going strong. So the rest of us hung around and eventually Cal was knocked out in 5th place, collecting $200 for his trouble. It was now 1.30 in the morning so we arranged a courtesy van to deliver us back to the motel and some much-needed sleep.
 SATURDAY
  Next morning we all headed back to the club for breakfast. It was a fine but cool Hawkes Bay morning, so we went and sat by the windows to soak up some sun and play a little pool while we waited for the tournament to start. We heard through the grapevine that the final four players from the previous night had split the prize pool and each pocketed $500. So Cal had just missed out on a bigger payout. One of our players, Clia, checked out the poker room and discovered that there was no seat allocation list posted; each player had a registration card which had been placed at their seat. Clia had obligingly checked out the 150-odd seats and identified where each of the OWMC players was seated. Then we got called in for the start and after about 15 minutes of other players wandering around trying to find their seats we were finally ready to play.
   The Saturday tournament is a qualifying event. The tournament runs until there are 54 players left and they qualify for the Main Event on Sunday. Then all those who missed the cut get to play in the Second Chance Tournament where 18 more players go through to the main Sunday game. We started out at 11 am with the blinds at 50/100 and a starting stack of 20,000. The players at my table were mostly pretty passive, with lots of calling going on. One exception was Sione, a player from the Mangere Cossie Club who I know from way back when I used to play poker at the Phoenix Tavern. He was playing quite aggressively. At one stage he raised pre-flop from the big blind and ended up winning a bit pot by showing down two pair. His hole cards were 7 2, which he declared to be his favourite hand.
   As for me, I was playing tight as usual with the size of my stack not moving much in either direction. At one stage I picked up A A in the big blind. As there was only one limper in the pot, I just checked. The flop was J 4 4; I checked, player 1 put in a small bet and I called. The turn was another J. I checked and so did player 1. With a river Q, I figured that I was probably good and put in a minimum bet. Player 1 called and turned over T T.  Apart from this exception, most of the time I was just  getting almost-playable hands in almost-playable position.
   As my stack got down to about 10 big blinds, I had a couple of interesting all-in moments. First I was all-in with pocket Queens and got called by pocket Kings. Uh oh! There was a Queen on the turn, then another on the river. Then, as I got short-stacked again I went all-in with A T suited and got called by- guess what? -K K. The flop was 6 8 9, then the 7 came on the turn, giving me the ten-high straight. Just call me King-slayer!
   With about 74 players left in the field and 8 big blinds in my stack, I had to make a decision: keep trying to double-up, or tighten up and try to coast across the bubble. I decided to tighten up and fold pretty much everything. But when I picked up A Q with just 6 BBs I figured I'd better take one more shot at trying to pick up some chips. I pushed all-in and everyone folded, leaving me to pick up 1 1/2 big blinds. It was just after this that I was moved to another table and then it was announced that we were only five eliminations away from qualifying and we were now playing hand for hand.
   Each time a hand was completed play would stop and the dealer would stand up. Then we'd have to wait until all other tables were finished before starting the next hand. With just 3 BBs left I was wavering between playing and folding. At one point I folded A 7 after another player raised. It turned out he had J J. Of course there was an Ace on the flop and another on the turn. But I finally resolved to just stick it out and fold everything. This was put to the test when I looked down at K K, but I stuck to my plan and folded. In the end, I stopped looking at my cards and just folded them blind. It seemed to take forever for players to be eliminated but eventually we were down to two places from the bubble. I was sitting two seats from the big blind with 8,500 in front of me and the blinds at 4,000/8,000 when the last player was knocked out and I qualified by the barest of margins. It was 4.30 pm and three other OWMC players, Jes, Ham and Cal, had made the cut.
   As I had only managed to grab a pie during one of the breaks, I was getting hungry so my wife and I visited the bistro while the organisers set up for the Second Chance Tournament. Then it was time for her and the other seven OWMC players to head back to the tables and try to qualify for the main event. Meanwhile, the Warriors were playing the Broncos on the big screen so I had plenty to occupy my time. Unbelievably, the Warriors actually won against one of the top-ranked teams, something many of us long-suffering fans had not expected. Meanwhile the tournament was grinding along and it was fast approaching the 'sudden death' stage. Some of us were loitering around the entrance to the tournament room, wondering about the possibility of a cash game starting up. Eventually someone suggested a $20 Sit 'n' Go tournament and one of the tournament directors organised some chips for us to play our single table tournament.
   So we started out with a smallish chip stack, the idea being that the timing for the blinds would follow that of the main tournament and that we would follow the same blind structure, starting at 100/200. Basically, we were making it up as we went along but, surprisingly, it all seemed to run quite smoothly. One of the players volunteered to do all the dealing and he was pretty good at it, keeping things moving at a brisk pace. Meanwhile, some of our club-mates were dropping out of the Second Chance Tournament, my wife included. In the end we got two more players through to the main event.
   I was doing ok in the Sit 'n' Go but somehow it got decided that we were only paying out two prizes and I was knocked out in third place by my club-mate Cal. A couple of other STTs had started and my wife was involved in one of them, so I wandered off in the general direction of the bar. She ended up splitting the prize pool with one other player, so at least one of us got some cash back. Not long after that Bill managed to round everyone up and we all piled back into the van and headed back to the motel.
SUNDAY
   We woke to another fine cold Hawkes Bay morning and, after a certain amount of texting back and forth between rooms, we gathered together in the yard, ready to set off, ready to continue our poker marathon. But first, we had to eat. As it happens, the Taradale RSA Club was right next door to our motel so we decided to go and check out their Sunday breakfast. It was a pretty good spread and, having fortified ourselves with bacon, sausages etc, we headed back to the club. The tournament room was set up for both the main event and the plate tournament, which were due to run at the same time, although the plate event had a smaller starting stack. They were still using the little name tags for seat allocation but they must have learned something from the Saturday game because this time the TD went from table to table announcing the names. Still not ideal, but better than the previous arrangements. Our club had six players in the Cup Tournament and six in the Plate Tournament.
   The Cup Tourney was starting with a 20k starting stack and the blinds at 50/100, so a deep stack of 200 BBs. There were a couple of aggressive players at the other end of my table, and not much happening at all at my end of the table. Fairly early on I managed to lose about a quarter of my stack by betting into another player with my top pair, only to find he'd flopped two pair. But apart from that I was not getting many playable hands. Lunch break came and went and when I returned to the table I had about 10 BBs left. Despite getting rag hand after rag hand I somehow managed to nurse my short stack through until late afternoon, at which point we were down to the last two tables. Ham and Jess and recently been eliminated, so Cal and I were the last of the Workies players left in the field. By the time I played my last hand I had just 3 BBs left. I went all-in with K Q suited and was called by pocket fours. There was a 4 on the flop and I was eliminated 14th out of 72 players. It was about 5.30 pm.
   I was still keen to keep the poker action going so I went to the front of the room to check out what was happening with the cash games. There were a number of cash tables running and they were all under the control of one of the local TDs. So I put my name down on the waiting list and hung around for a while, waiting for an opening. Eventually one of the tables had a vacancy so I paid my $20 to the man and got my $18 worth of chips ($2.00 is raked for the club).
   There was just a single $1.00 blind at this table, giving me a short starting stack of just 18 blinds. So I started out with my usual super-tight, super-aggressive pre-flop short-stack strategy. It didn't take me long to realise that a number of players at this table were pretty drunk, and as a result the game was progressing at a snail's pace. Players also kept wandering off to check out what was happening at the main event, or to get another drink, or whatever, so there were typically only about 5 players actually seated at the table at any one time. I ended up getting into an argument with one of the players over the proper procedure when a player is absent and misses the blinds. He wanted to just pay the absent player's blinds from their stack, like you do in a tournament. This is not the way it's done in a ring game but in the end I gave in and we did it his way, which at least had the advantage of keeping it simple.
   Meanwhile, there were just nine players left in the main Tournament, including my club-mate Cal. The organisers suspended the tournament while they set up the final table and bought the barbecue dinner out to feed all the guests. So our cash game was put on hold for a while so everyone could go and get something to eat. By the time the cashie got under way again with a handful of players I'd had enough. I went back to the organiser and asked if I could move to another table and he found me a spot at a different game straight away.
   To my surprise I discovered that I'd just sat down at a $1/$2 game with a stack of around $20: a super-short stack. But at least it was progressing at a normal pace and we had a full table of active players. As for the Cup Tournament, the final tablers had been waiting for about an hour before the game was restarted. They were paraded on the stage and introduced to the crowd before being seated. Meanwhile I discovered that when someone at our table lost all their chips they would buy a new stack from one of the other players 'under the table', in order to avoid the rake. I was just hanging on with a bit more than my starting stack when I finally hit the hand I'd been waiting for. I put in a substantial raise with my pocket Jacks, and got a ridiculous number of callers. The flop was something like 4 5 8. It looked pretty good to me so I pushed all-in with my last $23.00 and was called by my old mate Sione. Of course he had his favourite hand, 7 2, giving him an inside straight draw. His draw didn't come in and I finally had a reasonable-sized stack.

  Not long after this one of the other players wanted to top up his depleted stack by buying some chips from me. I had to politely decline as I didn't want to play with a short stack if I could help it. In the Cup Tournament the players were steadily getting knocked out but Cal was still there, moving up the payout scale. It was getting late but there were still quite a few people standing around the final table, watching the action, and also a few cash games still running. After a while we heard a round of applause coming from the tournament table, and it was all over. I heard that Cal had come in second place, winning $1000. A pretty profitable weekend for him!
   I figured it must be time to head home so I left my cashie, selling a new player some of my chips on the quiet and cashing out the rest through the proper channels. Most of the other Workies players had already left but we found one of our lot, Mol, playing on the slots. Then we booked ourselves a courtesy van. It was going to take a while, so we had time for 'one for the road' while we watched the karaoke. The bar was closing but there were still quite a few poker players hanging around, especially the die-hards from Mangere Cossie Club. Our ride turned up so Cal, Mol, my wife and I got into the courtesy van and headed back to the motel.
MONDAY
   It was a fairly late start the next morning. Apparently the boys had a late drinking session after Cal got back. By all accounts, Cal was making sure everyone knew that he was the winner and that they most certainly were not. Eventually we were all ready to head off and took our places back in the van. This time our driver was more accommodating and we stopped at a café for breakfast up in the mountains. Then it was back on the road for the long haul back to Auckland.
   This is the third time my wife and I have been to this event and once again, a good time was had by all. I'm pretty happy with qualifying for the main event for the third time in a row, as well as going fairly deep into the tournament once again. Next year it'll be hosted by the Weymouth Cossie Club in Auckland, so no need to travel out of town. My goal, of course, will be to make the money bubble, ideally to do one better than Cal. Time will tell.

  

  

The Perfect Game

   At the beginning of this year I decided that if my bankroll reached a high enough level that I'd move up to a bigger buy-in Friday night tournament. I'd been playing in the same $20 Friday-nighter for a couple of years and was hoping to move up to the $20 buy-in, $20 re-buy, $20 add-on game at the Weymouth Cosmopolitan Club. I figured that I could consider this to be a $40 game, consisting of the buy-in plus either one re-buy or one add-on. But at the time I didn't have the bankroll balance to justify the move up. I thought that if I was able to do well in my regular games I might be able to move up to this game around the middle of the year. As it happens I did pretty well over the next few months and actually reached the threshold level in March.
   So my wife and I headed off to check out the Weymouth game a few weeks ago. As expected, the Friday night traffic on the motorway was pretty bad and we crawled along, taking 55 minutes for what should have been a 20 minute trip to the Weymouth Cossie. The game was pretty good, with about 30 players in attendance, and although neither of us won anything, we had an enjoyable evening. But my wife was seriously put off by the traffic and didn't really want to go back. As it happens, our regular game was cancelled the following week so we went back to Weymouth again anyway. This time we tried a different route and we actually got there in 35 minutes, which is much better. But my wife was still not keen on going out there every week and playing for $40 plus, and as we are a one vehicle family, I gave the idea away. Using public transport was not an option because of the late finish time for the tourney and in the end I just couldn't figure out a way to make it work.

  All this got me thinking about what it takes to make a good poker game. It used to be that I had little if any choice in what live games I played, but these days there seem to be a lot more games around and I have a number of options available to me. My search for the perfect game involves the following criteria (in no particular order):
   1. Convenience. Both the location and the time need to be right. There are certain evenings that are more convenient than others and of course, I'm looking for a game that's easy to get to.
   2. Structure. For tournaments, I want to know what the blind/stack ratio is, whether it's a rebuy or add-on, how quickly the blinds increase and so on. For ring games, the size of the starting stack and the betting limits are of particular interest.
   3. The Rake. Tournaments usually have a fee on top of the buy-in. 10 % is pretty standard and I don't want to be paying more than that if I can help it.
   4. The Buy-in. I have maximum amounts for tournament and ring game buy-ins. I don't want to exceed these limits but I also don't want the buy-in to be too low.
   5. Fishiness. Can I beat this game?  I'm looking for a game with lots of poor players in it. I don't want to be playing against sharks.
THE GAMES I PLAY
   I regularly play in three live tournaments and one online tournament at the moment. The one I play on Wednesday night is pretty good (see The Rebuy Tournament, 01/10/2015). Wednesday is good for me because it's the night my wife usually goes out and the venue is just a couple of kilometers down the road. It's a turbo tournament but because of the unusual rebuy structure, which tends to inflate the prize-pool, it actually works out pretty well for me. I don't rebuy, so it's only $20 to play and there is no money taken out of the prize-pool. What's more, the management throws in a couple of bar tabs  on top of the cash prizes. This is probably the easiest game of all those that I usually play so all in all, it ticks all the boxes.
   The Friday night tournament (The Friday-nighter, 05/11/2015) is also pretty good overall. Even though it's on a Friday night it's across town so the traffic is fine and it's not too far to go. Although the organiser likes to change the starting stacks (and sometimes the starting blinds) from week to week it's basically a mid to deep stacked freeze-out tournament with a $25 buy-in. The players are generally loose/passive, with the odd exception, and this game has been quite profitable for me over the last three years of play.
   The only problem with this game (and one factor in my decision to change games earlier this year) is the tournament fee. It used to be a $20 buy-in with  10% taken out of the prize-pool, which works out to about 11% on top. But this year the buy-in has been increased to $25 with an 18% rake. This actually works out to about a 22% fee on top. That's pretty steep. But there's a complicating factor. As well as having four ten-week points tables with cash prizes for the highest point scorers, the organiser has added a yearly points table with some serious prizes. This is the main reason for the increased rake. First prize is $1000, second is $500 and third is $250. So although  the rake is very high, there is the opportunity to get some of that cash back at the end of the year, provided you keep turning up regularly. But the organiser hasn't posted the yearly points table yet, so I don't know if I have a realistic chance of taking out the big prize. Once I see where I stand on the table I'll be able to make an informed decision on this game.
   The one online game I currently play is on at 12.30 pm each day on 888 Poker. I play most weeks on a Saturday or Sunday and this game has a lot going for it. Obviously access is no problem and the rake is a comfortable 10% on top. The structure is good, the buy-in is very low (due to my super-cautious approach to online games) and the standard of play is generally fairly poor. So all in all, a very good game to play.
   Once a month I play in the Auckland Interclub Tournament (Interclub, 22/11/2015). This is held on a Sunday at a different venue each month. Most of the aspects of this game are pretty good except for one thing: about 25% of the prize-pool is not paid out. This money goes towards the end-of-year prizes. It is that factor, coupled with the fact that it is a team game where collusion between team-mates is allowed, that has led me to play this game strictly as a non-bankroll event. So, even though I don't consider this to be a good game to play under normal circumstances, I continue to play in it more as a social event than anything else, and I don't play with my poker bankroll. So this is the poker game I play when I'm not playing a poker game.
GAMES I WON'T PLAY
   There are some games that have one or more aspects to them that push them off my list of playable games. I won't play in any National Pub Poker League games (Increasing the Luck Factor, 13/07/2012) for a variety of reasons, mostly to do with the poor payout. There is also a cash game organised by the Poker Meetup Group that somehow manages to tick all the wrong boxes: it's played on a Friday night, which is no good for me; it's mostly Omaha, which I don't like to play; and the standard of play is quite high, and I don't want to be the fish.
   Then there are the Sky City Casino tournaments. The one factor that puts me off these games is the size of the rake. At the buy-in level that I can afford the tournament fees are ridiculously high. The $60 game allocates $45 to the prize-pool and $15 goes to the casino. That's 33% on top. I've checked out some of the other tournaments that Sky City offers and I see that the higher the buy-in gets, the lower the fees are. If I could afford to play in the $550 tournament, I'd only be paying 10%. But I'm a long, long way off being able to play at that level.

GAMES I COULD PLAY
   There are a lot more poker tournaments available now than there were when I first started playing and quite a few of these are games that I could play in, if the circumstances were right. Obviously, the Weymouth game is one of these, and although I haven't completely given up on being able to play in this tournament, it's dropped off the top of the list for now.
   Another possibility is the Thursday tourney at the Clare Inn. There's no rake on this game and the location is Ok but Thursday night is not ideal for me. But the biggest thing is that there is just one prize paid out, winner takes all. I don't think I like this structure; I'd prefer to have the chance to win something if I go deep in a tournament without actually having to make the top spot. Another Thursday game is played at the Mangere Cosmopolitan Club. The location is not too bad if I wanted to play on a Thursday. But I've heard a few unflattering revues of this game and would rather not take a chance on it.
   One game type that I have been playing in but have now backed off from somewhat is the casual ring games that sometimes pop up during and after tournaments. I've been giving these games some thought and have decided to only play when the circumstances are in my favour. These are invariably short-stacked games and I've realised that trying to play Omaha short-stacked is a very bad idea. So I'll only play if it's Texas Holdem and even then, only if I have enough time to give me some chance of coming out ahead.
   Another possibility is the Avengers League tournaments. The Avengers are a new group that has sprung up recently and is running poker tournaments at a number of bars around Auckland (www.meetup.com/Auckland-Central-Poker/). I've looked into these games and there is no rake taken out of the prize-pool and they are usually re-buy tourneys with total buy-ins between $40 and $60. I've been flirting with the idea of trying out one of these games in addition to the games I'm currently playing. There are a number of different venues and there are games being played on every day of the week except Sunday and Monday, so there are plenty of options.

   If I want to continue my pursuit of the perfect game then I need to consider my position regarding the Friday-nighter. I'm waiting to get a look at the yearly points table to see where I stand. If I'm in a position to make a run at the big prize (which I think I should be) then I'll continue playing in the OWMC tourney at least until the end of the year. However, if I'm languishing at the bottom of the table, then I'm probably better off looking for a game that doesn't take so much out of the pool. That would give me good reason to check out one of the Avengers games.
   All this game analysis started with my long term plan for moving up to a higher buy-in level. As it turns out, the games I'm currently playing in are the best options available, so I'm sticking to this relatively low buy-in level for now. But that doesn't stop me from considering my future options. I've been thinking about what games I might be able to play if my bankroll continues to grow. One possible option is the Texas Holdem ring game at the Sky City Casino. This is a $2/$4 no-limit game. I figure that I could get away with buying in for 50 big blinds, or $200. But the one major concern with this game is the high rake. The casino rakes 10% of every pot, with a cap of $20. This is a very high rake for a ring game and I'm not even sure that I could win in the long run with so much coming out of each pot. But there aren't many options available for live games at the higher levels, so it's a game I would definitely want to have a go at.
   However, my bankroll would have to grow by at least 50% from where it is currently for me to even contemplate making this move. So that's part of the long term plan, and only assuming that I can keep my bankroll moving in an upward direction. Meanwhile. I'll keep on playing in my regular games. While they may not be perfect, they're the best games I can find for now.


  

  

Love you Live

  
When I first started writing this blog I fully expected that it would be mostly about playing online poker. At the time I had just started playing online and a vast smorgasbord of poker games had been opened up to me. I expected that I would be playing online poker far into the future. I had been previously playing in a regular live tournament but that had dried up and there didn't seem to be any other reasonably priced live games available. So I launched myself into the online poker world, playing in tournaments, Sit and Gos, Texas Holdem  ring games (no limit and fixed limit), Omaha ring games and God knows what else.
   Then a couple of years ago I discovered a local live tournament and got back into the live poker scene. It was great to be back in a poker game sitting around a real table with real people. But I was still playing online regularly, so I had a good balance of game types going. Playing in this new game introduced me to a few other live games that were played at various Auckland clubs, so that increased my options even more. Now, a few years later, I'm playing in live tournaments twice a week, sometimes more, and I usually play in just one online session, sometimes not even that. Things have changed somewhat.
   A clue to this change in behaviour lies in my results over the last few years. For my first three years of online poker my bankroll balance was in the red almost all of the time, apart from a couple of minor peaks. In the fourth year I was playing Sit and Gos online and started playing in the live tournaments halfway through the year. My bankroll balance was positive throughout this year, climbing to an all-time high before dropping back down a bit. I made a profit in both game types, making the most money from the Sit and Gos and the highest Return On Investment from the live tourneys. In the following year (2014) live tournaments yielded the most cash and also the highest ROI. In 2015 live ring games yielded the best results, with live tourneys being the only other profitable game type. Finally, in the three years since I've been playing in live games my bankroll has shown a spectacular increase, then a sharp decline that lasted about 4 months, then back to a spectacular increase again, currently sitting at an all-time high.
   All of this is pointing to one inescapable conclusion: I can't beat online poker games. Ok, so let's qualify that slightly: I can't beat most online games. This is why I've been playing as many live games as I can and limiting my online play to one low buy-in tournament per week. All this is contrary to the conventional wisdom that online poker games are typically populated by poor poker players lining up to throw their chips away. That may have been true once but I don't think it is anymore. Maybe there are some super-fishy games at the very lowest micro levels, but I don't play at that level. Even though I now only play a few steps up from that, the games are just not that loose/passive, at least not in my experience.
   I'm not saying that the lower level games are swarming with poker geniuses; just that the standard of play is significantly higher than might otherwise be expected, and certainly higher than that at a typical pub or club tournament. The way I see it, even the simple act of downloading a poker site's software is a sign of an interest in poker that goes beyond just buying in to a game at the local pub. And once a player is online there is a huge volume of information on poker play that is no more than a mouse click away. Add to that the many tools that are available online and the gap between online and live games widens further. Online players can review their hand histories, check out other players on Sharkscope and use poker tracking software that provides heads-up displays detailing each player's game stats. And on top of that, because the games are faster, online players are probably playing twice as many hands as they might be in a live game, and thus accumulating poker experience faster.
   I know from my own experiences playing online that there are many people playing multiple tables. This is especially true of the ring games where there are many 'grinders' playing in multiple games and moving from table to table trying to take chips from the inexperienced players. But it also happens to some extent in tournaments. Even at the micro levels there are grinders playing many tables and basically just playing by the numbers.
   I guess what it boils down to is this. On a typical online table you might see 3 'fishy' players, 4 competent players and maybe 2 good players. On a typical live table there's more likely to be 5 fish, 3 competent players and 1 good player. Obviously this is a wild generalisation but what I'm getting at is that the standard of play is generally higher online. So if I consider myself to be a competent player, I want to be playing with the little fish and, as far as possible, avoiding the sharks. In other words, I want to maximise any advantage I might have.
   I've come to the conclusion that the best place to play is the real world because it is potentially much more profitable. If I play in a live game I have a much greater win expectation than I would playing online. And live games have other advantages. Playing around a real table with people who are physically there in the room is a much more enjoyable experience. Because the games I play in are usually at clubs, they are fun social events, where I get to interact with other people. The pace of the games may be glacial compared to playing online, but that doesn't actually bother me. Maybe that's because I started out playing in live games and then moved into the online world later. And the one major advantage that online games used to have, that of being inexpensive, is no longer a factor I need to consider. My poker bankroll has now reached a level where I can comfortably afford to play in the currently available live games. In fact I'm about to change my regular Friday night game because I want to play at a higher buy-in level.
   Having said all that, I'm not abandoning online play altogether. I still play once a week in a $5 tournament on 888 poker. My summer season results for this tournament were encouraging, showing a 55% ROI. So the plan is to continue playing at this level and if I show a significant profit in the autumn season then I'll consider moving up a level. But I'm definitely proceeding with caution. The last thing I want to do is find myself swimming with the sharks.
   I think that if I wanted to, I could become a grinder. I could get all the fancy software, learn, about the Independent Chip Model, watch all the YouTube tutorials and brush up on probability theory. But that's too much like hard work. The main reason that I play poker is because I enjoy it. Sure I want to win. But not if that means becoming a multi-tabling percentage player. Where's the fun in that? Playing live, I can win a decent amount of the time and still have fun along the way. Sounds like a winning formula to me.
  

The Deep Stack Tournament

Friday
 Having  won a ticket to the Skycity Casino Deep Stack Tournament on Saturday night, I had to wait almost a week for my first time playing in a big buy-in tournament ($1500 may be petty cash to some people, but it's big money to me). But Friday finally rolled around and I headed off to the casino for the fourth time in so many weeks. Somehow my planning went awry and I arrived later than expected, giving me no time to get anything to eat. It was pretty much a case of just checking in and getting seated. The tournament tables were on one side of the 'poker room' (really just an open bar area), with quite a few other games going on at the other tables. It looked like a busy night for poker games.
   The starting stack was 25,000 with the blinds starting at 25/50, which adds up to a starting stack of 500 big blinds; definitely a big stack! What's more, the blinds changed every hour, with a 10 minute break every two hours. It looked like it was going to be a long night. I'd never played with such a deep stack before but had already decided that as long as I had 100 BB or more I'd play the same way that I would in a ring game. It turns out the chips were different colours to those in the satellite games, so I had to get used to that. We started out with an eight-handed table but with late entries it soon became a ten-player game.
   Surprisingly, there was still quite a lot of limping in and limp-calling in this game, but also a certain amount of re-raising (3-betting). During the first couple of hours I had very few playable hands and had to fold a couple of times after being 3-bet. My best result came when I called a raise with AQ and hit top pair/top kicker on the flop and ended raking in a moderate sized pot. The only other really good starting hand I had was KK, but everyone folded to my early position raise. Finally the first break came and I had just enough time to get up to the bar and get myself a coffee.
   There were quite a few Australians around at the bar, some of them wearing Rugby League jerseys. Obviously they were in town for the NRL Nines which was playing on the weekend. On sitting back down the blinds were at 75/150 and I still had a pretty deep stack. We had started out with just 16 players in the tournament but eventually the number of entrants climbed to 42. There had been some talk among the players about when Day 1a might actually end, but nobody knew for sure what the time frame was and there had been no indication of this from the organisers. Meanwhile I was moved to a different table and had to start my observations of my table-mates' playing styles all over again. I had plenty of time for observation as I was card dead and not playing many hands. I did manage to scoop a few pots by bluffing in position but that was pretty much it.
   When the second break came I rushed over to the bistro, which is on the other side of the casino, to get myself something to eat. I still hadn't learned how to manage meals in this style of game and ended up wolfing down a pie at the counter and then rushing back to the Poker Zone in time for the next stage. We were now at a stage where the blinds were 100/200 with antes of 25. This was a first for me, never having played a live game with antes before. By this stage my stack was below 100 BB and I had to tighten up my starting hand range. But this made very little actual difference to the number of hands I was playing as I'd never had a chance to play a looser-style deep stack game because of the 'rags' I was being dealt.
   We had a number of  controversies at our table, one of which centred around me. I made a loose call in position but one of the chips I put in was the wrong denomination. On realising my mistake I pulled back the big chip and replaced it with the one I'd meant to put in. A young Chinese guy across the table from me (let's call him 'YC') took exception to that, whereupon several other people ventured their opinion. The dealer didn't seem to know what to do and I didn't want to display my ignorance any more than I already had so I just waited for the dealer to make a decision. Eventually YC insisted that the tournament director should come over and he ruled that it was a raise, whether that was what I'd intended or not. Of course I missed the flop and had to fold when the player in front of me put in a bet.
   Then on another occasion, when one player was facing a raise and asked the other 'Do you have it?' before folding, YC chimed in again. He decided that, as these two players were sitting next to each other and had talked to each other occasionally that they were friends and the question amounted to collusion. He went on at some length about this to everybody at the table. Then later, when two other players spoke to each other in Chinese and they were asked to stop by the tournament director (TD), he argued that it was acceptable as long as they weren't in a hand together. In his opinion the TD was wrong and he let everyone know it. Then when the TD told him not to use his cell phone at the table he started arguing the point once again. He clearly considered himself to be an expert on the rules and etiquette of poker. I had to smile when he ended one of his expositions by saying, 'I'm not trying to be a dick' and I heard one of the other players say, 'Well, you're failing'.
   Apart from these diversions there wasn't much else happening for me. By the time the blinds and antes reached 150/300/50 it was after midnight and I was still looking down at some of the ugliest hole cards ever. At this point the average stack was 30k but I had 9k, amounting to about 30BB. I'd already decided that, with antes in play, 30BB or less was the 'yellow zone' where I need to start pushing the action a bit and look for good spots to try and steal a little. At one point one of the other players complained that 'every time she hit a set it was a draw-heavy board so she couldn't get maximum value from it'. I was sitting there thinking 'I DREAM of hitting a set'. Although actually, at that point I would have been happy to hit anything.
   As the sixth blind level was approaching the end it was announced that Day 1a would be over at the end of the round.  Then, with ten minutes to go, the TD conducted a draw to decide how many more hands would be played. So we were to play four more hands, with all the remaining tables playing hand for hand. With less than 30 BB left, I decided to just fold, unless I hit a monster hand. I was just hoping for a better run on Day 2. Just to keep things interesting, on the penultimate hand of the night, two players ended up all-in pre-flop. One had KK and the other had QQ. Then a low straight was dealt to the board and they split the pot.
   The last card was dealt at about 1.20 on Saturday morning. There were 32 players left out of  42 total entrants and I had a rather meagre stack of 8,200. The dealers handed out zip-up bags to everyone for their chips. This was all new to me: I had to fill in a card with my name and the number of chips, get it checked, and then the bag was sealed up for use on Day 2. I checked with the organiser about check-in time for Monday and he told me I didn't need any documentation on that day; just my name and ID. The casino was still pretty busy as I left to look for a taxi. I knew that I was heading into Day 2 with a short stack and probably wouldn't last long. But I didn't care. I'd made Day 2 of a big buy-in tournament. What a buzz.
Monday
   Day 1b and 1c  of the Sky City Deep Stack Poker Tournament were held on Saturday 6th and Sunday 7th, and Day 2 was played on the Monday, which was a public holiday. Play was due to start at 12.30 pm, so I turned up at the casino in time to check out what the check-in procedure was. They had the names of all the players and their seat assignments on a list posted on the wall. It was in fairly small print and I had to get someone to read it for me because I hadn't brought my glasses. I discovered what my seat assignment was and also found that I had the second-smallest stack among the remaining players. Of the 105 players who entered there were now 66 left.
   On sitting down at the table I was asked for ID by the dealer and then handed my chip pouch. I broke the seal and emptied out a sad little stack of 8,200 chips. The largest stack at my table was 77,000 (about 200BB), and the smallest stack in the tournament was also there (about 6,000 chips). On looking around I recognised a few players from Day 1. The blinds were starting at 200/400 with antes of 75.
   With about 20 big blinds in my stack and antes in play I decided that I'd better just go into push or fold mode. I managed to pick up a few decent pre-flop hands and on each occasion everyone folded to my all-in push. So I managed to pick up a few chips to keep me in the game. Then the shortest stack pushed all-in. He only had about 1/3 of my stack by this stage and I had A 6: not a great calling hand but I decided to take a chance. I called and he showed KT. My Ace was good and that gave me a few more chips to play with.
   At this stage I was trying to figure out my 'zones of play'. In an ordinary game I consider 12BB or less to be my red zone (the push or fold level), and in an ante game it's 15BB or less. But I'd already realised that the antes were higher than I was used to in this game. I calculated that with the blinds at 200/400/75 I was losing about 4BB every round. So I decided to play super-cautiously and set my red zone at 25 BB. With my topped-up stack I was able to play a few hands for about 20 minutes or so before dropping back into the danger zone.
   We had one notable 'big decision' hand at our table, which went like this: player 1 raises, player 2 calls and the Big Blind calls. The flop is J 6 4. The BB checks, P1 checks, P2 bets, BB folds, then P1 pushes all-in. Player 2 then spends a long time trying to figure whether he is ahead or behind. He tells the table that if he folds, it'll be a big fold, then apologises for taking so long to make a decision. Eventually he folds his hand but can't really let go of it. He tells everyone he had pocket Kings and keeps fishing for information from Player 1. I guess he'll never know whether it was a good fold or not.
   After two hours of play we had our first break. I rushed off to the bistro to pick up some sandwiches (I'd decided that these were the best option for meals on the run) and got back in time to grab a beer from the bar. There were now 53 players left and the blinds were 400/800/100. I had a stack of 15,000, giving me about 20 BB. In the first hand I was in the big blind and folded to a raise. In the second hand I was small blind with A T off-suit. The first player put in a minimum raise, player 2 called and I pushed all-in. I was called by player 1, who showed A Q. The flop was Q T x, neither of us improved any further on the turn or river and my tournament was over. So I retired to a nearby barstool and finished my sandwich and beer.  That was end of my first big buy-in poker tournament, lasting 2 hours into Day 2 and finishing 53rd out of 105 entrants.
   They were showing the Super Bowl on the big screen but I had no interest in that, so I wandered off into the main gaming room and had a go at a bit of roulette. After throwing away a little cash at the roulette table, and a little more at the bar, I headed home. It was still only late afternoon, so at least I didn't have to take a taxi home. The following day I Googled the tournament and  found a report in 'The Herald'. Apparently the tournament had ended at 8 am on Tuesday morning. The winner got $41,000. A long night but not a bad payday.
   Looking back at the tournament, I'm pretty happy with how it went. Although the standard of play was generally better than I usually encounter, I don't think I was out of my depth at any point. The one thing I think I could have done better is the decision about zones of play. I think I panicked a bit there, giving too much weight to the influence of the antes. If I ever play in a big tournament, I'll take a look at the structure in advance, rather than trying to make decisions on the run. Over-all, it was an enjoyable experience. I already have some 'shadow bankroll ' cash put aside, and there's a High Roller Tournament with satellites being played next month. Maybe I'll have a go...