The Friday Nighter

   I've been playing in a live poker tournament nearly every Friday night since June of 2013. The only times I've missed this weekly event has been on the couple of Fridays over the Christmas period when it's not actually played, and a few days this year when missing the game was unavoidable (a wedding, a funeral, a holiday trip). Otherwise, my wife and I have a regular routine of playing in the Friday night poker tournament at the Onehunga Workingmen's Club.
   This is a $20 Texas Holdem tournament, with no re-buys or add-ons, that starts at 7 pm. The usual starting stack is 20,000, with the first blind level being 100/200. Although the organiser does change these around from week to week, the starting stack is usually in the range of 80 to 150 big blinds. The blind levels are usually 15 minutes long with a 10 minute break every hour. The organiser takes 10% out of the prizepool, and this money goes towards the OWMC I think, although this has never been made entirely clear to me. But 10% is a perfectly reasonable tournament fee, so I'm not particularly worried about where this money goes. There are usually between 18 and 40 players involved and between 5 and 7 players get paid. Last year player numbers were reaching the high thirties, but this year another club started their own Friday night tournament, and the numbers at the OWMC tourney dropped down into the twenties and that's pretty much where it's stayed in recent months.
   This tournament is very well run. 'B' and his partner, 'R' have been running it for years and have got it down to a fine art now. The club has a number of round poker table tops made of plywood covered in green felt and these are already set up by the time my wife and I arrive around 6.30 pm. Registration is open until 6.50 pm, and this is strictly enforced, giving B time to enter everyone's names into the tournament software before 7.00. They use 'Tournament Manager' with the display on a big TV screen in the corner. Players are assigned to tables, but not to particular seats, so I always try to get into a seat where I'm facing the screen. This gives me the chance to keep updated on important information like the blind levels, the number of players remaining, the time to the next level, the average stack etc. The organisers also play in the tourney and B always sits in the same seat, next to the computer, so he can keep updating player numbers.

   The Onehunga Workingmen's Club is a pretty good venue. It's basically one long room, with the dining area and the TAB/bar area at one end and the pool and snooker area at the other, with the dart boards beyond that, on the end wall. The poker is played in the darts area, with enough room available for about six tables if required (maybe seven at a squeeze). There's always a band playing on Friday night and quite a few people come up for that, or for the membership draw. There's also sports on the TV screens, the TAB (for betting on races), raffles, and of course, the pokies (slots). So if I get knocked out of the tournament, there's always something to do, whether it's playing a game of pool or just sitting back and watching the rugby on the big screen. Of course if my wife gets knocked out she heads straight to the pokies room, but that's not really my scene.
   I've discussed the style of play that's typical of this tourney in previous posts but to summarise; most of the participants are playing 'no-foldem'. In other words, there's an awful lot of 'limping in' with very little raising and a ridiculous amount of calling. It's not unusual to see the entire table (except me) just call the big blind pre-flop. What's more, many players will just limp in with hands like QQ, AQ, AK, sometimes even KK. There is one player in particular who is notorious for never raising, but even she will raise if she has AA. Post-flop, there is still an absurd amount of calling, even of big bets. Many players will call with nothing but an inside straight draw, a couple of overcards, or some kind of crazy back-door draw. This style of play is typical in the early stages, although it tends to get a bit tighter and more active in the later stages, when the stacks get shorter and the players with the stickiest fingers have been eliminated.
   Probably 75% of the field play this way, with the remainder being the ones to worry about. Some of these more active players are solid players who play tight and aggressive, but a few could better be categorised as 'maniacs'. These are the ones who raise a lot, both pre and post-flop, sometimes with a good hand, sometimes with nothing. There are maybe three or four of these sort of players and as a general rule, I try to stay out of their way. So the basic rule is: if a solid player raises, they have a good hand; if a 'calling station' raises, they have a MONSTER; if a maniac raises, they could have anything. And of course if a passive player calls, they could have anything. So, as a rule, I prefer to be up against one of the solid players; at least I'll have some sort of idea of where I'm at in the hand, and there's a decent possibility of pulling off a bluff.
   About ten of these players could be described as 'regulars'; people I've been playing with for the past 2 1/2 years. After all that time, you start to pick up a few clues on the way particular people play. I've already mentioned the player who'll only ever raise pre-flop with AA. Then there's the player who plays any two cards if they're suited, and always plays the very first hand. One player is famous for preferring to play small cards rather than big ones.  Another will call almost any pre-flop bet because he just has to see the flop. Another player also calls an awful lot, trying to hit something, then if he hits a big hand, he pushes all-in. Of course, not everyone is so obvious, but I've managed to categorise the playing style of quite a few of the regulars. However, there is a fairly constant turn-over among the occasional players and most nights there are one or two new faces added to the mix, just to keep me guessing.
   As far as my playing strategy goes, I've settled into a fairly straightforward pattern. Early on I'm playing Mr Foldalot while the other players chuck their chips about. Then I get more active as my stack gets shorter. Unlike the other players, I'm not happy to let my chip stack diminish down to nothing. I figure it's better to go out with a bang than a whimper, either doubling up and going deep, or having an early rest. This basic plan has served me quite well over the last few years. Looking at my results, I showed a 61% return on investment over my first 6 months of play in 2013. The next year was even better; I showed a whopping 89% ROI over 2014, coming close to doubling my money. This year, however, has not been so good. In the Summer season I actually showed a loss for the first time, in Autumn I came up with a very small win, and then in Winter I was back up again (41% ROI). Overall, I'm maybe $50 in the black for 2015 so far. Not a great result compared to previous years, but at least it's a profit. So it's a game that is both fun to play in, and also profitable.
   My aim at this tournament is to make the final table, which is the top ten. This is a good place to be for a number of reasons: it's close to the money (usually 6th place gets paid); there are points on offer; you get to play ten-handed instead of five-handed; and you get to play on what is probably the best poker table in New Zealand, maybe even the best table in Australasia. This table was built by the organiser and it's a thing of beauty. It's a ten-sided table top with a blue cloth surface, with polished wood margins and a polished wood rail. It takes two people to lift it onto its base but it is truly a joy to play on.
   The other incentive for making the final 10 is the points system. The organisers run four 'ten week challenges' each year. Players get points for each of these games. We get 1 point for playing, then the final table players get extra points. Tenth place gets 2 points, ninth gets 3 points and so on to the winner, who gets 11 points. After ten weeks the three players with the highest cumulative scores get cash prizes. I've won the top prize once, and come third a couple of times, so that's a nice little bonus. However, unlike some players, I don't get fixated on the points: I'm interested in winning first prize money in the game-at-hand, and if that means taking a risk and getting knocked out early- and missing out on some points- then so be it.
   The Friday nighter has now become a regular fixture for me and my wife and it really is something I look forward to all week. It's strange that I was playing pool for several years in the club down the road and never even knew that this tournament existed. I guess it must have been Onehunga's best kept secret.
  

The Micros

   The first time I played in an online no-limit ring game was back in February 2011. I'd just registered with Fulltilt Poker when I decided it would be a good idea to try the ring games. I played in the 10c/25c game, with a buy-in of US$25 on three separate occasions, and lost my entire buy-in on three separate occasions. The games were not what I expected. My poker reading had suggested that online tables were populated by vast schools of  fish (loose-passive players, also known as 'calling stations'). Far from it. The tables were in fact, pretty tight, and I guess the only fish was me.
   So I gave up on the online ring games for quite a while, finally returning to the no-limit version of the game in March of last year. As detailed previously, I tried out both 888 and Pokerstars and finally decided that the loosest games were to be found on 888 Poker. So I've been playing more or less one session per week on 888 ever since. I started out with a hiss and a roar, winning a significant amount in the Autumn season and showing a 61% profit. After that things went downhill a bit. I had a small win in the following Autumn and the rest of the seasons showed a negative net result. The upshot of it all is that I'm about US$40 in the red after playing in this game type for about a year and a half. A poor result but I guess it could have been worse.
   After that first winning season playing in the 10c/20c games (US$20 buy-in) I decided to start playing two tables at a time. But then, after a few months, as my results took a downturn, I figured I'd better go back to concentrating on a single table again. And then, as the decline continued, around March of this year  I dropped down to the next level, and I am still playing in these 5c/10c games. This is where I intend to stay at least until the end of the year. At that point it will be time to re-assess whether or not I want to continue playing in online cashies, given my less than inspiring results.
   When I first started playing online I'd been reading quite a few poker books, which led me to believe that there was an ocean full of poker fish out there, just waiting to donate their chips. But of course, most of these books were years out of date, and many of them were based on live poker games rather than online games. But after playing in the Fulltilt games and finding tables full of  TAG (tight and aggressive) players, I decided that it must have been because I started at too-high a level. Surely the micro-stakes games would be fish heaven? Reading up on poker strategy on various websites confirmed the generally-held belief that there were loose, fishy sites to be found, if you knew where to look. 888 poker was one of the sites that was frequently listed as being one of the loosest and 'juiciest'.

   Any poker book/site/expert will tell you that if you want to find the loosest tables, you need to pay attention to the table statistics that are listed in the site lobby. In particular, the vital stat is the 'percentage of players who see the flop', something that all poker sites list. The more players there are calling and seeing the flop, the looser (and by extension, the more profitable) the table is likely to be. So it makes sense to check out the game lobby and try and get into a game with a high 'players to the flop' figure. However, in the modern era, there is a catch. It seems that every semi-serious player in the world knows this vital fact, and they are all lining up to play in these potentially profitable games, even at the micro-stakes level. As a result, any cash game with a reasonably high PTF %age has a small line-up of players on the waiting list hoping to get in and feed on the fish.
   As mentioned previously ('Cashie', 6th March 2014), I tried both 888 and Pokerstars, and found that Stars was a much tougher (and tighter) site to play on. So I stuck with 888 in the end, trolling around, trying to find the loosest tables to play on. Even here, there were a lot of players putting themselves on the waiting lists for the loosest tables, but I could usually get into a reasonably loose game. But a 'loose game' these days is nothing like the sort of game they talk about in those old poker articles. Typically, there are 5 or 6 'sitters' who wait and wait and wait for some sort of hand to raise with pre-flop, and maybe a couple of loose players who do a lot of calling and/or raising. So I'd join the sitters and wait for a chance to get in on a decent hand with the loosies. But these opportunities were few and far between. Gone are the days of limping into an inflated pot from late position with a drawing hand. It's not very often that you have the odds for that sort of thing.
   A lot of the regular players in these games are multi-tabling. You only have to flip through the player lists for different tables to see the same names turning up time and again. At this level, I don't know how much profit a poker 'grinder' could possibly make, but there still seem to be plenty of them. The margins in these not-particularly-loose games can't be very good. I guess there are positives and negatives to this situation. On the minus side, these guys are not going to get involved in a pot unless they have a positive expectation. On the plus side, if they are multi-tabling, they can't be paying close attention to what's going on at every table, which presumably leaves some sort of opening available for those smart enough to exploit it.
   So far, I have not proved to be smart enough. In fact, in recent games I've played, there has been a disturbing pattern emerging. Often I will start out ok, but then get trapped in a situation where I have a very good hand and my opponent has a better one. This is a classic no-limit trapping scenario, except that my aim is to be the trapper, not the trappee. I usually end up losing most or all of my chips and then spend the next 3 or 4 hours crawling my way back up towards the break-even point. I think the main reason I get into these situations is this: after waiting a long time for what I consider to be a good playable hand I refuse to believe that someone else has started with a better hand, or worse still, out-flopped me. This is one disadvantage of playing tight on a single table. When you finally get a good hand you don't want to release it, even if you suspect that you are behind. It's the old I-can't-believe-he-flopped-two-pair-when-I-hit-top-pair-top-kicker syndrome.
   They say that your playing style should be the opposite of the table playing style. So at a loose table, play tight and at a tight table, play loose (or at least looser than the other players). I've been trying to follow this advice recently. I've taken to playing a much wider range of hands from late position and then, if I'm up against a TAG player, attempting to bluff him out of the pot. This strategy  works sometimes, but of course if your opponent hits, you can end up in a lot of trouble. So a certain amount of caution is required. Basically, I'm just looking for some kind of edge when I play against the 'tighties'.
   The more I look at it, the more I realise that I'm making a mistake in defining a particular table as 'tight' or 'loose' and then adjusting my playing style accordingly. What I should be doing is deciding what sort of player I'm up against and adjusting my playing style to that player. This became obvious to me a few weeks ago when I was in a game that contained one chronic calling station. This player was in nearly every hand and liked nothing more than to limp in to the pot from early position, get raised, and call with virtually any two cards. His play was so obvious that I was able to exploit his weak play and I ended up with most of his chips. Then a few days after that I read an article about the importance of finding the fishy individuals and playing against them as much as possible, preferably in position. So table selection is the first step, and the next step is player selection. This is where taking notes on players becomes so important.
   So now I am working on focusing on individual players and their tendencies. First I need to look for the loosest table available. Then I need to identify who the fish are AND who the tight players are. I figure that loosening up my starting hand range is actually the right thing to do against both of these player types. After all, a looser starting range is still going to be better than the loosies' range most of the time, and it's likely to give me opportunity to play back at the tighties when they miss their high cards. Then it's a matter of adjusting my play to suit the type of player that I'm up against.
   Meanwhile, I keep working on getting my live cashie up and running again. I've played in enough online ring games to know that there is a huge difference between them and live games. Even at the micro level online there are lot more players who know at least the basics of correct play than you will ever find at a live table (at least not at the live games I play in). So it's a matter of looking for that small edge in the online games.
   I fully intend to keep on playing in online ring games on a regular basis. I'm playing at a low enough level that a continued losing streak is not going to hurt my bankroll that much. And in the meantime, I'll keep trying different strategies to get ahead. I'll play in these games at least till the end of the year and then I'll reconsider what type of game I want to play online. The chances are, I'll be looking to play in a different game type, but you never know. Maybe my new plan will turn out to be the answer to cracking the micros.




  
  
  
  
  

The Rebuy Tournament

   Unlike some people I know, I have nothing against rebuy tournaments. Up until recently I've played very few rebuys, but this has nothing to do with the format of this tourney type. In fact, my first couple of years playing in live Texas Holdem tournaments was almost exclusively in rebuys. I used to play most Friday nights at a local pub that held a $10 rebuy poker game; that is, $10 entry, $10 rebuy. After playing in this for the better part of a year I actually started winning a few games and by the time that this event closed down I'd even managed to make a bit of a profit. By this stage I was pretty comfortable with the rebuy format.
   Since then, I've been playing in a different Friday night Texas Holdem tournament but this is usually a standard tourney with no rebuys. There are a couple of other live rebuy tourneys around at the moment but I don't play in them for one very simple reason: they are too expensive. Although these games feature a $20 buy-in, just like my current regular Friday-nighter, they also have a $20 rebuy and a $20 add-on. In other words, they could cost up to $60 to play in; a little too steep for me. However there is a $20 buy-in/$20 rebuy (no add-on) tournament played on a Wednesday night at a local pub, and I've been going to that for the past few months. I actually checked this game out last year ('Winter Bulletin', Tues 02/09/14) but wasn't impressed. The tournament organisation at the time was shambolic and it had a rather odd structure, but things have improved markedly since then.

 So after vowing never to go back to the Landmark Bar tournament, why did I change my mind? Well, I came to an important realisation a while ago; that I'd been neglecting the absolutely vital matter of game selection. After looking back at my poker history I realised that I needed to concentrate more on playing live games, because that's where my best results lie. Add to that the fact that Wednesday is my most convenient night for playing poker and that the venue is a five minute bus ride (or a 45 minute walk) down the road and I had to bite the bullet and give the game another shot. As it turns out, this tournament is now being run in a much more professional way and I've realised that some of the peculiarities of the tourney structure may actually be to my advantage. So I'm down there on most Wednesday evenings.
   The Panmure Hotel has been through a few changes over the years, and a few years back was divided into a 'sports bar' and a 'bistro bar' called the Landmark. Then the Panmure RSA (Returned Servicemen's Association) moved out of their old clubrooms and into the Landmark. I'm not sure exactly how this arrangement works, but Wednesday night appears to be RSA club night. This is the night when all the RSA members turn up, and there is karaoke, raffle draws, occasional pool or darts competitions and, of course, poker. The game is usually played at a couple of tables involving 13 to 16 players, and goes on until quite late, if you make it through to the end.
   The game itself is essentially a turbo. For $20 you get 4000 in chips, with the blinds starting at 25/50 (you start with 80 big blinds). After half an hour the blinds increase to 50/100 and this level is followed by a break. After the break the blind period drops down to 15 minutes and the blinds go 100/200, 200/400, 300/600, 400/800. So after the second break the blinds have hit the 500/1000 level, the equivalent of 1/4 of the original starting stack. Clearly, with a relatively short starting stack and the big blind doubling three times in a row this is a structure that promotes action and encourages players to rebuy.
   As for the rebuy, it costs another $20 for a stack of 2,500 chips. I've never seen a rebuy tourney before where the rebuy stack is smaller than the starting stack and this makes for an interesting dynamic. A lot of players like to rebuy but they come back into the game with a significantly short stack. Anyone rebuying at the start of the second period comes back into the game with only 12 1/2 big blinds. And if you come back in at the start of the third period, you have just 2 1/2 BBs ! Amazingly, some players actually do this. The organiser allows multiple rebuys until the prize pool reaches $500. This is the upper limit that is legally allowed for a game of this type and the prize pool usually reaches this level. So the combination of the turbo structure and the short-stack rebuy combines to push up the value of the prize pool.
   It was always my intention when I started playing in this tourney that I wouldn't rebuy. Paying $40 or more is a little over my buy-in limit so I figured that I'd just play with my starting stack and take my chances. As it turns out, I think the unusual structure of this game plays to my advantage. It means that the players who are rebuying are bloating the size of the prize pool and coming back into the game at a distinct disadvantage because of the short rebuy stack. In the long run I think that this is the best possible tournament structure for someone like myself who doesn't want to rebuy.
   The players in this tournament are fairly typical of the pub/club poker tournaments that I've been involved with over the years. There are probably five or six regulars, most of whom have a reasonable idea of basic poker play. The remainder are casual players with little or no idea of how to play well. There are often one or two absolute beginners involved as well. The game usually involves lots of calling, especially pre-flop, and very little raising. If the pot does get raised, many of these loose-passive players will then call any size bet, just to see a flop. The result is lots of very big pots and numerous rapidly diminishing stacks. In other words, a typical 'no-foldem' game (see 'The OMG Hand', 21/09/13).
   The way that this rebuy game plays out is not that much different from any other tournament. After all, the rebuy is simply adding more players to the game, and of course, more chips to the tables. And because I'm not rebuying anyway, I just play it the way I would a 'straight-up' tournament. But on the odd occasion when I do play in a rebuy, the only difference in strategy comes as the end of the rebuy period approaches. That's when I have to decide whether it would be better to push all-in in an attempt double up or whether it would be better to hold on to my current stack. This is something that I generally have worked out before I start, so it's not that much different from a regular game. But as I don't rebuy in this tourney, it's academic anyway.
   The real adjustment that I need to make when I play in this game is to the turbo-style blind structure. With the 80 big blind starting stack and the three level double-up (not to mention the shortening up of the blind period) things move pretty quickly. This means it quickly becomes an action game where you are forced into the position of making a move. But it doesn't mean I'm changing my basic strategy. I still play tight early on and then get looser as my stack/blind ratio increases. The difference with this tournament is that I reach the 'action zone' earlier than I would in a slower-paced game. So typically I'm folding a lot in the earlier stages; mostly just sitting pretty and watching the action. Generally I reach the 'push-or-fold' zone some time after the first break. And then I'm either doubling my stack, giving me a bit more room to manoeuvre, or I'm knocked out, giving me 7 days to figure out where I went wrong.
   My recent results in this game have not been great, but it's way too early to panic. It's in the nature of turbo-type games that luck plays a big part, and all you can do is keep playing the best game that you can. I had a couple of cashes earlier in the year, but the money has dried up since, and I just recently dropped below the break-even point. Nevertheless, I'm reasonably confidant that the results will come in the long run if I keep working at it. I certainly intend to keep playing at least until the end of the year and probably well past that, regardless of the results. Even if I don't get the good results, there's always the karaoke.
  Yeah right.
  
  

  

Sit and Go

   I started playing online poker back in 2011 and one of the very first games I played was a Sit and Go tournament on Fulltilt Poker. According to my records, it was a $US22 tournament and I came second, making a tidy profit of $US32. My fortunes in Sit and Gos (SNGs) since then have been patchy to say the least but I'm still plugging away at them. I have no idea how many hours I've spent playing in this game type in the last four years but it must be a pretty big number by now. And the reason I keep playing these games is very simple: I just love Sit and Gos.
   Probably the best thing about online SNGs is the convenience. There are games of this type available at just about any time of the day or night on the bigger poker sites. And the typical 9-player game usually takes about an hour to complete (if you go all the way to the end) so you don't have to invest too much time. The other great thing about these types of tournament is the pay-out structure. In typical multi-table tournaments the top 10% of players get paid. If this rate applied to a 9-player game then only one player would win anything. But it is usually 3 players who get paid, amounting to a top 30% pay-out. You've got to love those odds.

   To be clear, when I use the term Sit and Go I mean a single-table on-demand poker tournament. Technically, you can get SNGs in any multiple of players. There are 18 player SNGs, 27 player SNGs, and other on-demand tournaments with many more participants. But the games I like to play in are the single table SNGs that involve 9 players. So, properly speaking, I'm talking about Single Table Tournaments, but let's not get bogged down in details. I did try my hand at the 27-player SNGs a while back but it turned out to be a bit of a disaster. And I prefer not to play in the 6-player version simply because of the reduced payout. By and large I've been playing in 9-player SNGs for the last four years, but unfortunately my enjoyment of this game format has not been matched by good results.
   I neglected to mention that after playing that first online $22 SNG I played in another. I came 9th in that game. I guess that's when I decided that I was playing at too high a level.  My next session was a set of five $5.50 games. I only played SNGs sporadically after that and by June of 2011 my last Fulltilt session was a $2.20 game. After that I switched to 888 Poker, starting out with $2.90 games and moving on to $5.50s. From October on I was playing in one or more SNG sessions per week, some $5.50s and some $8.80s. By the end of the year I was marginally ahead on my SNG results; so far, so good.
   In 2012 I played two or three sessions per week, all on 888 Poker. This was a mixture of $2.90, $5.50 and $8.80 games and by the end of the year, after all that play, I was very slightly in the red.   
  2013 was considerably better. It was a real mixed bag of games; I started at 5.50/8.80 games then stuck to 8.80s only, then back to5.50/8.80s again. I also started playing in $7.00 games on Pokerstars in this period before going back to 888 only at the end of the year. During this time I played between two and four sessions per week and by the end of the year I was showing a 17% Return on Investment (ROI) and a $600 profit. This was my best SNG year by far.
   I played very few SNG sessions in early 2014, but from March onwards I was back in the saddle, once more playing in a mix of games on both sites. I was playing two or three sessions per week. but my returns were not good. By June I'd dropped down to the $3.00/$3.50 level. I stopped playing in the 888 Poker $3.00 games by the end of the year, probably because these lower buy-in games are not as heavily patronised on 888. By the end of the year I was showing a -17% ROI, an exact reversal of the previous year's results. But not quite. Because I'd played fewer games and at lower levels, my loss for the year was less than half the profit made in 2013.
   The bumpy ride has continued this year. In summer I went back to the $5.50 games and racked up a 30% loss. In autumn I actually managed a small profit playing in the next level down. By the end of winter I was playing exclusively in Pokerstars $3.50 games and showed a 10% loss. By that point I was down another $180 and not feeling very confident in my ability to play SNGs. The funny thing is, taken overall, I'm still in profit for this game type. This is largely due to my good results when playing my mixed bag of sessions in 2013. However I think my decision to drop to a lower level and minimise my losses has helped to keep the results in the black. It could have been a lot worse. The question is: what was I doing right in 2013 and what was I doing wrong in 2014/15? This is something I'm still trying to work out.
   Although my go-to site for SNGs has been 888 Poker for a long time, I'm now playing on Pokerstars only. This is due to a change in tournament structure. One of the things I didn't like about Pokerstars (apart from my belief that the players on this site are harder to beat) was their use of antes. Having antes as well as blinds means that your chip stack is eaten away faster, making the game more like a turbo. Up until recently 888 hasn't used antes in their structure but that changed earlier this year. It took me a while playing the new 888 games with antes before I realised that the tournament structure had also changed. Instead of going: 10/20, 15/30, 25/50, 50/100
                                      the blinds were now: 10/20, 20/40, 30/60, 50/100. So instead of having the double-up at level 4, it was now happening at level 2. The overall effect of this, combined with the antes, was to make the game play more like a turbo.
    Then, when I took a closer look at the Pokerstars structure I realised that the blind levels on Stars were actually longer; 10 minutes as opposed to 8 minutes on 888. What it all adds up to is:           after 15 minutes 888 is at 20/40/5 while Stars is at 15/30/4
 after 30 minutes 888 is at 50/100/10 while Stars is at 25/50/6
  after 45 minutes 888 is at 100/200/20 while Stars is at 60/120/15. 
Pokerstars now has a slower blind structure than 888 Poker. I've never liked playing in turbo tournaments so I now play my SNGs on Pokerstars.

   Despite the change in preferred site and the addition of antes, my basic SNG strategy remains the same. It is essentially the same as the way that I play Multi-table Tournaments, and it is the strategy that is usually recommended by the experts. I just play a tight game in the early stages when the blinds are low, playing only premium hands. Then as the stack/blind ratio gets higher I start getting more active, looking for good spots to chip up. Although this basic strategy hasn't been working for me recently, I still think it is the best way to go and I intend to persevere with it for now at least.
   Although No Limit Ring Games are my primary online poker game at the moment, I still manage to squeeze a few SNG sessions in from time to time. Most weekends I can manage a session of two to three hours, often on a Sunday afternoon. I usually play three games, and if I'm behind at that stage, I end the session. On the odd occasions that I'm ahead, I might play another game or two. I figure that I'll keep plugging away at the Pokerstars $3.50 Sit and Gos at least till the end of the year and then decide where to go from there.
   Regardless of the results in the upcoming months I can't see myself giving up on playing SNGs. I just enjoy them too much. But if my results turn out to be really bad, then I'll probably have to re-think my strategy. There is no shortage of websites that offer advice on the best way to play these types of tournaments and if necessary, I'll try adopting one of these plans. I took a lot of notes on SNGs from www.pokerprofessor.com a while back, so that might be a good place to start. But for now, I'm just going to keep trying to get back some of that 2013 SNG mojo.
  

  

Small Pockets

   I've been posting to my poker blog for a while now and I've got into the habit of making a note of any poker topic that I want to write about whenever it occurs to me. One possible post title that's been sitting in the back of my notebook for a few years now is 'What's the use of small pocket pairs?' For years I struggled with working out how to play small pocket pairs in Texas Holdem and was almost at the point of just folding them whenever they turned up. But I think that I've finally figured out how to play these tricky hands, hence the revised title. Okay, let's not get carried away; I've developed a much better appreciation of how to play small pocket pairs than I previously had.

Let's start by defining what I mean by 'small pocket pair'. I think it's fair to say that anything from  7 7 down falls into this category. After all, with 13 card ranks, there are more pairs higher than pocket sevens than there are lower. I'm equally sure that Q Q and better are big pairs. That leaves 88, 9 9, T T and J J. There was a time when I considered eights to be a reasonably big pair but I'm increasingly of the opinion that they belong at the other end of the spectrum. Pocket nines are also difficult to categorise. I know that many hand ranking charts put them high on the list, but I'm not at all convinced. And anyone who's  played any poker at all knows how notoriously difficult it is to play Jacks. So I'll call these four hands medium pairs. But medium pairs tend to be situational hands. By this I mean that they behave in different ways depending on the situation. Eights and nines are more likely to behave like small pairs, while tens and Jacks usually have the opposite tendency. But any one of these hands can flip-flop, changing their behaviour in the blink of an eye. Let's call this the 'quantum theory of pocket pairs'. So when I talk about small pocket pairs I definitely mean 2 2 - 7 7, I usually mean 8 8 and 9 9, sometimes T T is included, occasionally even J J.
   The way I see it, if you have a pair in the hole before the flop, especially in an un-raised pot,  you usually have the best hand. It doesn't matter if someone else has A K suited; at that point it's still just a drawing hand. But after the flop, things can change quickly. They say it's hard to make a pair in Holdem, but in my experience, people hit overcards on the flop and beyond with monotonous regularity. This is probably more a matter of perception than reality, but the fact is, with one or two overcards on the board, it's hard to know where you stand with your pocket sixes. Then if another overcard hits the turn or river, your little pocket pair becomes increasingly difficult to play. I've watched the big poker games on TV often enough, and marvel at the ability of good players to hold their nerve in the face of multiple overcards and other players' raises and turn over their small pocket pair at showdown and take the pot. I guess what it comes down to is that I'm not a good enough player to play these  kinds of hands post-flop. The important thing is that I've recognised this fact and have adjusted my game accordingly.

   So if I find myself looking at a small pocket pair I'm not expecting to play it unless it improves on the flop (unless of course, the other players check and give me a free card). What I'm hoping for is to hit a set (three-of-a-kind, 2 in the hand and 1 on the board). This is called 'set mining' and is a common pastime among poker players, especially in ring games (cash games). Ideally, I'll just limp in and if I miss the flop and someone bets, I'm just folding. Occasionally, if the bet is small and the pot is big I might take a look at the turn, but that's about as far as I'm prepared chase my draw.
   After all, the odds of improving to a set on the flop are around 8-1 against. So you can expect to be folding your small pocket pair eight times out of nine. But if you hit, you've got a monster hand that is very well hidden. You've got a good chance of raking in a big pile of chips. But a big collect in this situation is by no means guaranteed. You could put out a smallish bet and find all your potential callers folding. Or worse, you could check or min-bet and find your opponent has drawn to a bigger hand. In fact, it's a bit of a balancing act; on the one hand you want your opponent to hit a big enough hand to call your bets, on the other hand you don't want them too hit a hand that has you beat. Then you could be the one losing all your chips.
   It's for these reasons that you need your opponent to have a decent-sized stack to justify calling a pre-flop bet with small pocket pairs. If I'm playing in a ring game I follow the 'rule of twenty' as recommended by Poker School Online (www.pokerschoolonline.com/articles/NLHE-cash-pre-flop-essentials).  The principal is that you need a potential pot of 20 times the current bet or better to justify a set mining call. That way, the potential winnings make up for the times you miss the flop, the times you get no callers, and the times that you get outdrawn. And this refers to 'effective stack' size; there's no point in calling someone who has 20 times the bet or more if you yourself have only 10 times the bet available in your stack. So if I'm sitting on a small pocket pair and there's a bet in front of me, the first thing I'm doing is checking out the opposition's stack size to see if it's worth a call. If it's not, then most of the time I have the discipline to just fold. Most of the time.
   My set mining strategy for tournaments is a little different. While you can play according to the long-term odds of hitting your hand in ring games, you have to consider other factors in tournaments. Protecting your chip stack is one of these factors. So I'm probably going to call a pre-flop raise with my pair of fours in the early stages, when the stacks are still deep, but as the tournament progresses I'm less and less likely to get involved in chasing a set. In the middle stages of a tournament my play gets significantly tighter and I'm likely to just fold my small pockets unless I'm allowed to just limp in with them. The way I play a tourney, the value of little pairs changes depending on the stage. They start out with significant value but then that value declines into the middle stages. But towards the end of the tournament, the value of these hands starts to increase again.
   There are two main ways for a small pair to win at showdown: improving on the flop, or through face value. If you're playing in a multi-way pot your hand really needs to improve to win, but in a heads-up (2-way) pot, face value becomes much more important. The classic example of this is the coin-flip; where a small pocket pair is up against two over-cards (eg, 5 5 vs A Q). In this case the pocket pair is marginally ahead, with a  slightly more than 50% chance of winning. This fact comes into play in the later stages of a tournament when stacks are getting shorter and shorter. If you push all-in with small pockets, unless you're unlucky enough to get called by a bigger pair, then you're at least a 50/50 chance of doubling your stack. Of course this is entirely dependant on having a big enough stack to scare off the majority of callers. The value of this kind of move is in limiting the number of players that can draw out on you. So you need to raise big (usually all-in) to get to that head-to-head coin flip.

While the coin-flip is a useful strategy when short-stacked in a tournament, I really don't see any value in it when playing a ring game. The only exception might be when playing a short-stack strategy, but that's not something that really appeals to me. There are players who like to call all-in bets with small pockets in cash games, but I'm not one of them. As far as I'm concerned, I'm playing the long game, waiting for that hand that improves enough on the flop to rake in someone's entire stack, with the odds seriously in my favour. Going for the 50/50 result in a ring game is ultimately pointless.
   To sum up, in ring games I'm set mining with my small pairs. If I don't hit the flop, most of the time I'm folding. When it comes to tournaments, I'll play more or less the same way in the early stages, but the value of pockets is in their shoving potential in the later stages. Of course I'm not blind to the fact that small pockets can sometimes win unimproved at showdown, even in multi-way pots. Most of us remember playing in pots where everyone checks to the river and then a pocket pair of threes wins the pot. But this sort of thing is memorable because it's so unusual. For the most part I'm looking to improve my pockets in multi-way pots or take a 50/50 chance heads-up when the situation requires it. And that's the way I play my small pocket pairs.
   However, having said that, I'm considering tinkering with the way I play these types of hands. At the moment I try to limp in with small pairs in the hopes of flopping a set. But the problem with this, especially in a ring game, is that it makes the kind of hand I'm holding obvious. With other kinds of pre-flop hands I'm almost invariably raising and, in general, the earlier the position, the bigger the raise. So anyone who's been paying attention is going to know that if I'm limping in, I'm almost certainly set mining. This could prove to be problematic, as the great thing about flopping a set is that your monster hand is so well hidden. I don't want to be telegraphing the kind of hand I'm holding to anyone who's interested.
   So I've considered playing these hands pre-flop in a more standardised way in an effort to deceive. If I put in a big raise with 5 5 from early position the way I would with, say, K K then no-ones going to see my set coming when the flop is 2-5-9. Even if I've missed the flop, the opposition is likely to have been whittled down to the point where I'm actually a slight favourite to win at showdown. But the trouble with this brilliant plan is twofold. Firstly, sometimes I'm going to be called by a big pocket pair, and then I'm in real trouble. Secondly, if I miss the flop, I'm stuck with playing a marginal hand out of position; a recipe for disaster. So for now at least, I'm sticking with the Keep-It-Simple-Stupid principal. I've finally reached a point where I usually know what to do with small pocket pairs, and I'm happy with that.
   'What's the use of pocket pairs?' is a question I no longer ask.
  

Club Champs 2015

   Last year I discovered the Clubs New Zealand North Island Texas Holdem Championship, which is played annually, on Queen's Birthday weekend. It was played at an Auckland club last year and this year it was held at the Upper Hutt Cossie Club, north of Wellington. My wife and I both went as part of the Onehunga Workingmens Club team. There were seven of us from the OWMC and a total of about 50 players from Auckland who made the trip down. I took the day off work so we could fly down on Friday afternoon. On arrival, a courtesy van from the Upper Hutt Cossie was waiting to take us to our motel, and then a little later they ferried us to the club for the Friday night tournament, which was due to start at 7pm. I was most impressed with the UHCC. It is a huge club with a long horseshoe bar running down the centre, a TAB area (for betting on races), a separate snooker room, a bistro and  a restaurant, along with all the usual facilities. It turns out that they were hosting the Clubs NZ Pool Nationals as well, with about a dozen pool tables set up in another room, so it was a full house.

FRIDAY
   The Friday night tournament is a stand-alone event with a buy-in of $20 and re-buys and add-ons available. The blind structure for all the tourneys is the same. It goes: 50/100, 100/200, 200/400, 300/600, 400/800, 500/1000, 1k/2k...., so there is a doubling of the blinds in the first two levels. There were about 100 players involved. By the time they finished the welcome speeches and went over the rules we didn't start till about 7.30pm. . The starting stack was 15,000. It took a while to get used to the different coloured chips, as they didn't have denominations on them, although each player was provided with a little card that showed the chip values.
   I found myself sitting at a table with five Auckland players (three of them from the same club) with one local from Petone and one other out-of-towner from Te Kuiti.  I lost about half my chips in the first hand when I had KT and another player had KQ and the flop came KKQ. Fortunately, I was able to chip up a bit when I raised with AJ, got called by Kx, and Ace high won at the showdown. Then I had a double-up when I made a bad decision but got a good result. I'd limped in from late position with A3s and a flush draw came on the flop. Another player put in a big bet, so I didn't have the odds to call; but I called anyway and got lucky when my flush came on the turn. My chip-stack approaching the break was big enough that I didn't need to push the action in a 'double-up or re-buy move'. But I did add-on for another $20 when the break came.
   A lot of players had taken the add-on so there were plenty of big stacks around. My stack got gradually whittled down and then the next period of 'double the blind' levels started. As if that wasn't bad enough, the organisers realised that they under-estimated the effect of re-buys and add-ons to the tournament structure, and announced that they were reducing the period of the blinds. I ended up with just a handful of big blinds (BBs) left so I went all-in on the big blind without looking at my cards. I got called by A6 and I had J7. I got lucky when two Jacks were turned up and I dragged in a few more chips. My final push came with QJ and about 5 BBs left. I got called by AK and was eliminated in about 40th place. My wife was also out so we went and checked out the band for a while before catching the courtesy van to the motel. We didn't want to stay too late as it was an early start for the next day.
SATURDAY
   We were due to start at 11am so we got into the club early enough to have breakfast at the restaurant. It was good to see a lot of poker players there supporting the host club. The Saturday tournament is a qualifier for the main tourney on Sunday. The top 48 players qualify and then all those that miss out have a chance to play in the 'second chance' tournament where the top 16 make it through to the next day. We were starting with a stack of 20,000 and blinds at 50/100.
   I did quite well early on but then dropped down a bit and was down to 10k by the lunch break with the blinds at 200/400. My worst hand in this period was one where I had a straight and my opponent had a higher straight. Very hard to get away from. I noted some very passive play from some players. I saw people putting in minimum raises with both AA and KK, and another just limping in with QQ. By the second break I'd built back up to around 25k, with the blinds at 500/1000. Unfortunately my 25 BBs would become 12 BBs after the break. I had no great hands in the next period and played cautiously, stealing a little here and there, occasionally showing down a medium pair to win a small pot.
    As we approached the bubble I was getting short stacked and had to do a lot of thinking about the correct strategy to pursue. I pushed all-in a couple of times to keep my head above water and then, with fifty-five players left and sitting on a stack of 5 BBs, I decided to close up shop. A lot of other players were doing the same. For example: at my table player 1 limps in with AK and then the flop is A K 6;  he bets at it and player 2 re-raises all-in; player 1 folds his top two pair; player 2 reveals he has AK also. Now that's tight bubble play!  At this point I was just folding without even looking at my cards, hoping to limp my way across the bubble. Finally a big cheer erupted in the room as the 49th player was eliminated.  My joy was somewhat diminished when I turned around to see that it was my wife who was the bubble girl. So I qualified for the main tournament with just 2 BBs left.
   But the tournament carried on. Although most of the prize pool was to be paid out on Sunday, there were still cash prizes for the top three in this event. With just 2 BBs left I was forced to push all-in a lot. Some shoves were with fairly decent hands and one was an outright steal but I managed to build my stack up again. Then I pushed once too often when my A6 came up against KK. After this crippling blow I chipped up again when my pocket threes improved to trips. Then the roller-coaster went downhill again when my AT lost to QJ. With just 1 BB left I was all-in again with 66 and lost the last of my chips with about 30 players left in the game.
    Apart from me, one other OWMC player had qualified in the first stage. The others, my wife included, were now in the second chance event. While they played on, I checked out the two cash game tables. To my disappointment I found that these were both dealer's choice games, Holdem and Omaha. As far as I could tell, they were mostly playing Omaha or, as I prefer to call it, 4-card Bingo. So I hung around for a while, hoping for a Texas Holdem game to start, but it didn't happen. One by one, the other workies players were eliminated, with no-one else qualifying for the main event. And my wife went out on the bubble again. Most of us piled into a courtesy van at this stage to go back to the motel for some beauty sleep, although a couple of die-hards decided to party on into the night.
SUNDAY
   Another early start, another breakfast at the club. There are two tournies on Sunday: the main event and the consolation tournament, which costs players another $20 to join. Both tournaments start at the same time, 11am. But first, we had a delegates meeting to discuss this event and future events. My club had put in a bid to host the 2017 event, but we lost out to the Weymouth Cosmopolitan Club. Oh well, back to the game.
   There were two of us from OWMC in a field of 64, while the other five were playing in the consolation event. I was playing pretty tight during the first period, and had boosted my 20k starting stack to about 25k by the first break. In the second period my stack initially climbed to 30k before the beginning of a long, slow decline. The other OWMC player was knocked out during this stage and by the second break I was getting short-stacked. After the break I was sitting on 8 BBs. There followed a period of careful stack management, stealing the blinds occasionally and looking for a chance to double up. But the chance didn't come until one of the Aucklanders at my table raised when I held 99. I figured it was now or never so I pushed all-in and she eventually called with KJ. So it was more or less 50/50 but she flopped a King and it was all over. I made it about halfway through the field. I was glad to hear later that she put my chips to good use and made the money. Most of the other OWMC players were also out and in the end none of us came anywhere.
   After two and a half days of poker I was now ready to play some more and went looking for a cash game. They were now running a dealer's choice table and a Holdem table, so I put my name down on the waiting list. Unfortunately, it was a long wait and when it was finally my turn they had reached their $500 prize pool limit (as required under New Zealand's gambling law), so there were no more new players allowed. By then it was time for the evening barbecue put on by the host club, followed by speeches and prize presentations. It was one of the Auckland Interclub players who won the main tournament, taking home a trophy and $2,000. Nice.
   After the clean-up some more cashies got started and this time I managed to get into a game. These were the typical short stack games that tournament players seem to love. The blinds were $1/$1 and the buy in was $20. I'm used to these kinds of game now and was doing OK until one the Auckland players, a young excitable fellow, had a bit of a brain melt-down when one of the other players fell foul of one of the local rules. He was a bit of a pain about the whole thing and all the other players ended up cashing out of the game. It was around this time that most of the others headed back to the motel, but I hung around and eventually got into another game. Once again, I was doing OK until my AQ hit two pair on the flop and my opponent's AK hit a better two pair on the turn. It was one of those surely-he-can't-have-AK (but what else could he be calling my big bets with?) moments. Oh well. I'm still learning to recognise when I'm behind. The tables closed down at about 10.30pm. Most of the poker players were now in the upstairs room enjoying the karaoke. Fortunately, it was a sound-proof room. Time to go.
  
   In the end it was a great poker holiday. The host club did a terrific job and the venue was fabulous. The fact that I came nowhere in the tournaments doesn't matter. It's hard enough cashing in a 20 player event let alone an event involving 60 players or more. I guess the only disappointment was the cash games. At last year's event I went home early on Saturday, only to hear all about the late night cashie marathon the following day. So I was looking forward to lots of post-tourney poker action but it didn't really happen. But this is just nit-picking.  It was a great weekend that I thoroughly enjoyed. Now I'm looking forward to Taradale next year.

The Big Dipper

   When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide,
   And I stop and I turn and I go for a ride,
   And I get to the bottom and I see you again       U2 (The Beatles)

   Dealing with poker downswings has been a bit of a problem for me in the past. Looking through my previous posts, there are periods of anguished self-doubt whenever my bankroll has taken a bit of a dive. I've had periodic drops in my bankroll over the years, some of them quite prolonged. The most notable recent dips happened from July to October 2012, and in two separate periods in 2013.
 It was during the first of the 2013 poker downswings that I decided to take a month-long break from poker (see 'Time Out'). This break worked very well and since then I've been stressing a lot less than I have in the past when facing a downswing.

   It's just as well really as the most recent drop in my bankroll has been a real white-knuckle ride. In the four months following October 2014 my balance decreased by about 40%. In the summer season I had an overall loss in every single type of poker game I played. The worst results in terms of actual cash lost were from online cash games, followed closely by online SitNGos. Even my normally reliable live tournaments let me down, showing an over-all loss of $10 over that 3 month period.
   The difference has been in my response to this most recent poker downswing. Although a drop of this size is of some concern, there has been no breast-beating or obsessive number-crunching this time round. I am aware that ups and downs are a part of the game of poker and I've remained quietly confident that the results would eventually turn around. And sure enough, since the end of February, the numbers have started to look a little more encouraging. Although there's a long way to go to make up the lost ground, any upward movement of the graph is better than nothing.
   That's not to say that I've just ignored the poor results and carried on regardless. I spent a considerable amount of time checking out online advice on dealing with poker downswings. Most of the advice boiled down to the same thing: DON'T PANIC. While a few sites suggested taking some time off, I've been down that road before and felt that I would be better off to try to play through it. But I did take some of the advice and took time to look at my game and see if I could find any obvious faults. The thing is, I spend a certain amount of time trying to improve my game anyway, so it wasn't exactly a revolutionary change in the way I approach things. But I did back off from playing so frequently and spent a little more time looking for holes in my game.
   The thing is, there are always ups and downs in poker, but if you come to the conclusion that the latest downswing is due to bad play and change your game strategy, you can end up actually making things worse. There is a very good chance that the dip in bank balance is due to natural variance and there's nothing drastically wrong with the way you are playing. So I resisted the temptation to make wholesale changes and just did a bit of tinkering with my game plan. It was really just a matter of stepping back a little, taking a deep breath and trying to see things from a slightly different angle.
   The most obvious cause of my change in fortunes has been the lack of good results from my regular Friday night live tournament. Although my results from online SitNGos and cashies have been patchy for a while, I've always been able to rely on the Friday tournies to keep things ticking over. But, after nearly doubling my money in this game last year, I just can't seem to get into the groove this year. For a while there I became convinced that I needed to become more aggressive in the later stages of  these tournaments. But I  realised that I was already the most 'pushy' player in the competition and this change was making no real difference. So I went back to my original game plan and kept plugging away at it.
   Despite the fact that I was showing a loss in every single game type for the summer season, I was not too concerned and found that I was handling this downswing much better than I had on previous occasions. As it turns out, my results seem to have turned a corner without any drastic moves on my part. Without getting too carried away with a few weeks in the black, I am reasonably confident that my results are back on track. The good thing about all this is the change in attitude compared to previous poker downswings. It looks like I've turned a corner in more ways than one.