Saturday, 23 April 2016
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.
Friday, 26 February 2016
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...
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...
Wednesday, 10 February 2016
Sky Satellite
I've been playing in a few online satellites to the Aussie Millions over the past year. But I recently came to the conclusion that if I were to win a seat in this tournament it would involve a considerable expense for me to travel to Melbourne and stay for the time required to play. I decided that I'd be better off to play in satellites to local 'big events' like the ones that are occasionally played at Auckland's Sky City Casino. But there's a catch. Satellites to these live events are bound to be much more expensive to enter than the super-cheap online games. And I didn't want to play outside of my buy-in limits.
Then at the end of last year, I came into some money. The organisers of my regular Friday night tournament gave away some prizes to the top points scorers for the year. Although I had been told that there wouldn't be a third prize, that turned out to be wrong. So I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I had won $250 for coming in third. Although some of this money was used for other purposes, I also had some other cash from my Interclub Poker team prize, leaving me with a little pool of spare poker cash. I decided that this would become my 'shadow bankroll', to be used to buy in to a satellite tournament if I could find a suitable one.
I checked out the Sky City tournament schedule in December and found that there were a number of satellites to the $1500 buy-in 'Waitangi Weekend Deep Stack Tournament', running through December and January. But although I knew that Waitangi Day (New Zealand's national day) was on February 6th, there was no mention on the website of when exactly the target event was to be played. So I sent an email to the Sky City poker section and they replied with the information I needed.
The cheapest satellites available had a $70 buy-in with prizes consisting of tickets to the main event, tickets to the $350 'Mega Satellite' and tickets to other $70 satellites, depending on the number of entries. They also featured one re-buy for $30 and one add-on for $30. According to the website, the re-buys were available if a player had less than their starting stack. I'd never come across this format before: I'd call it a 'top-up' rather than a re-buy. There was also a 're-entry' for $70 if you lost all your chips (what I would call a re-buy). The starting stack was 10,000 with the blinds starting at 25/50.
These tournaments were playing on Thursday nights and Sunday afternoons, so I turned up on the Sunday and registered. I was careful to ask plenty of questions of the poker cashier first, as I'd had problems in the past with a lack of information provided by Sky City regarding their tournaments. After waiting around for quite a while I went back and asked what was happening and was told the tournament had been cancelled because there weren't enough entries. But the cashier told me that Thursday nights often had more people entering.
Thursday
Four days later I was back up at the casino, looking to play in the 7pm satellite tournament. I could see that there were already a few people registered when I got there, so I paid my money and got my cash chips for the expected re-buy and add-on. I nearly missed the start because I didn't realise I had to get a seat assignment, and I was still standing in line when the announcement was made to start dealing. But I found my seat and settled in at a table of 6 other players, in a field of 15. I was starting with 200 big blinds and the blinds changed every 15 minutes. I started out by familiarising myself with the chip colours. There were also 2 different coloured chips with letters on them. I asked my neighbour what they were for he told me they were the tokens to be used for the re-buy and add-on.
I started out by playing pretty tight and observing the play of my table-mates. I was surprised to see quite a lot of limping in and even limp-calling. Not at all what I expected. I'd originally decided to re-buy as soon as my stack dropped below the starting level, but no-one else seemed to be doing that so I thought I'd just hold off for a bit. Over the next hour or so there were more entries and we ended up with a total of 23 players. I lost a lot of chips in the following hand: I raised with J J and got called by a player who had position on me. The flop was K J x, giving me trips. I bet and got called. The turn was a 3, putting three hearts on the board. Hoping I was still good, I bet and got called. The river put a fourth heart out there. I knew if I checked my opponent would bet, whether he had the flush or not. So I put in the smallest bet I thought I could get away with. He called and showed the King of hearts with a Queen. I got some cash chips out and used my re-buy token. A little while later we reached the end of the third blind level and everyone added on.
Most stacks were around 20,000 at this point, with the blinds at 100/200. My stack was a bit shorter than that, but not too bad. There was not much action for me during this period and the number of players dropped down to five. I'd just got used to playing on a short-handed table when one more player was knocked out and we were down to a final table of ten. So I had to re-adjust to full table play. By this stage the prizes had been posted. First prize was a ticket to the main event, second was a ticket to the Mega Satellite, 3rd, 4th and 5th were all $70 satellite tickets, and sixth prize was $35.
There were a number of Mega Satellite games available, but I decided to play in the Saturday afternoon game. My wife dropped me off at the casino and I registered using my confirmation number. When we got started there were 15 players involved. This tournament had an even deeper stack than the previous one, starting at 15,000 with the blinds at 25/50, and the levels changing every 30 minutes. There were only 7 players at my table, so I was playing at a short-handed table with a 300 BB stack. Interesting. Looking around, I recognised a couple of faces from the stage 1 satellite, including the guy sitting at my table with the Macau Casino hat on.
After some thought I decided to just play the game the same way I would a ring game, at least until I was down to about 100 BB. There was a lot less limping in this time around, with more raising and folding pre-flop. One player in particular, sitting across from me (let's call him Agro Joe), was raising pretty frequently, and seemed to be a serial blind-defender. I had to fold to him a couple of times after initially raising and then getting re-raised. But I managed to get a few chips back off him once I realised he was raising light pre-flop, by betting in position post-flop. With late entries the total number of players climbed up to 17.
We had a little comic relief at our table when I folded my hand clumsily and my K 5 was exposed on the table. Then the flop was K 5 x. Someone suggested that the turn would be a King, but they were wrong. It was a 5. Ha ha. Apart from this I wasn't hitting much, but I managed to drag in a few pots without having to go to showdown. Meanwhile Agro Joe seemed to have quietened down a bit and wasn't playing many hands. Maybe he'd been trying to double-up early? Who knows. Once I dropped down to 100 BB I tightened up my range and started folding a lot.
When the organisers posted the prizes I saw that there were three $1500 tournament tickets up for grabs. Fourth prize was another $350 ticket and fifth was $250 in cash. With a few players eliminated my table dropped down to 6 players briefly, then another player dropped out and we were a final table of ten players. My stack was down to about 20 BB and I started looking for spots to push the action. With a small Ace in my hand I raised and got called by one player. The flop was K K x and I immediately pushed all-in. My opponent, sitting across the table from me and wearing big dark glasses was obviously thinking about calling. I tried to put on my best poker face, but he was sitting there looking at me for quite a while. They were showing the cricket, NZ vs Pakistan, on the big screen and I suddenly developed an intense interest in the match. Eventually he decided to fold and I let out a quiet sigh of relief.
After 4 hours of play it was time for our second 10 minute break, so I rushed off to the Bistro on the other side of the casino to get something to eat and drink. With one 10 minute break every 2 hours, you don't have much time to take care of bodily needs. But I managed to get back to the table with my pie and beer just in time for the start of blind level five. At this point we were approaching the bubble. I was getting short-stacked so I decided to take a punt and in the face of a minimum raise I pushed all-in with J Ts.. I was called by K Q. Not good. There was a King on the flop, then a Queen on the turn, then an Ace on the river, giving me a straight. Now that's lucky! This elimination put us across the bubble.
After playing for a while my stack was dropping down again, and I was down to about 7 BB. Mr Macau Hat pushed all-in and I looked down at Q J. With such a short stack, I was running out of options. What's more, I didn't want to win fourth prize and find myself having to play in another one of these Mega Satellites. Even though I suspected that I was behind, I figured that I was better off to try and double-up and go for the top prize, or bust out and go home with $250 cash. So I called and Macau Hat showed A J. My hand was dominated. Neither one of us hit the flop or the turn and I was looking for one of three remaining Queens to turn up on the river. The river was a Queen. Mr Macau was knocked out and he was not happy. Sometimes you just have to get lucky.
Despite my chip-up, I was still a reasonably short stack, so I just continued in push or fold mode, and tried to stay out of trouble. After a short period of play the smallest stack was eliminated, leaving just three of us at the table. The other two players started congratulating each other and it took me a moment to realise that I'd just won a $1500 ticket to the Waitangi Weekend Deep Stack Tournament. Not bad for my first attempt at a big game satellite. I wandered over to the cashier and picked up my ticket. Yes, this time I actually got a printed ticket confirmation. I was told that I'd be playing on day 1A, next Friday night. After 6 hours of play I decided that I deserved a couple of celebratory drinks at the bar before heading back home to share the good news.
Then at the end of last year, I came into some money. The organisers of my regular Friday night tournament gave away some prizes to the top points scorers for the year. Although I had been told that there wouldn't be a third prize, that turned out to be wrong. So I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I had won $250 for coming in third. Although some of this money was used for other purposes, I also had some other cash from my Interclub Poker team prize, leaving me with a little pool of spare poker cash. I decided that this would become my 'shadow bankroll', to be used to buy in to a satellite tournament if I could find a suitable one.
I checked out the Sky City tournament schedule in December and found that there were a number of satellites to the $1500 buy-in 'Waitangi Weekend Deep Stack Tournament', running through December and January. But although I knew that Waitangi Day (New Zealand's national day) was on February 6th, there was no mention on the website of when exactly the target event was to be played. So I sent an email to the Sky City poker section and they replied with the information I needed.
These tournaments were playing on Thursday nights and Sunday afternoons, so I turned up on the Sunday and registered. I was careful to ask plenty of questions of the poker cashier first, as I'd had problems in the past with a lack of information provided by Sky City regarding their tournaments. After waiting around for quite a while I went back and asked what was happening and was told the tournament had been cancelled because there weren't enough entries. But the cashier told me that Thursday nights often had more people entering.
Thursday
Four days later I was back up at the casino, looking to play in the 7pm satellite tournament. I could see that there were already a few people registered when I got there, so I paid my money and got my cash chips for the expected re-buy and add-on. I nearly missed the start because I didn't realise I had to get a seat assignment, and I was still standing in line when the announcement was made to start dealing. But I found my seat and settled in at a table of 6 other players, in a field of 15. I was starting with 200 big blinds and the blinds changed every 15 minutes. I started out by familiarising myself with the chip colours. There were also 2 different coloured chips with letters on them. I asked my neighbour what they were for he told me they were the tokens to be used for the re-buy and add-on.
I started out by playing pretty tight and observing the play of my table-mates. I was surprised to see quite a lot of limping in and even limp-calling. Not at all what I expected. I'd originally decided to re-buy as soon as my stack dropped below the starting level, but no-one else seemed to be doing that so I thought I'd just hold off for a bit. Over the next hour or so there were more entries and we ended up with a total of 23 players. I lost a lot of chips in the following hand: I raised with J J and got called by a player who had position on me. The flop was K J x, giving me trips. I bet and got called. The turn was a 3, putting three hearts on the board. Hoping I was still good, I bet and got called. The river put a fourth heart out there. I knew if I checked my opponent would bet, whether he had the flush or not. So I put in the smallest bet I thought I could get away with. He called and showed the King of hearts with a Queen. I got some cash chips out and used my re-buy token. A little while later we reached the end of the third blind level and everyone added on.
Most stacks were around 20,000 at this point, with the blinds at 100/200. My stack was a bit shorter than that, but not too bad. There was not much action for me during this period and the number of players dropped down to five. I'd just got used to playing on a short-handed table when one more player was knocked out and we were down to a final table of ten. So I had to re-adjust to full table play. By this stage the prizes had been posted. First prize was a ticket to the main event, second was a ticket to the Mega Satellite, 3rd, 4th and 5th were all $70 satellite tickets, and sixth prize was $35.
As it got later my stack got shorter and I ended up reaching the push or fold level. I lost a lot of chips early in this stage in a coin flip versus a shorter-stacked player. Then, a while later, I got most of my chips back in another coin flip against the same player. As it got later the other players' stacks diminished and it became an all-in fest. I was mostly just keeping out of the way, but I was always looking for the right spot to get my chips in the middle, constantly checking my stack size and the progress of the clock. At some point we crossed the bubble, but I didn't want another $70 ticket, I wanted the big prize. Some time after the second break we were down to three players, myself, a young woman in her twenties, and a man older even than me who was knocking back quite a few beers, which appeared to have no obvious effect on him. At this point he offered us a deal, but I had no idea how you would split a prize that consists of tournament tickets, so I declined, as did the other player.
At this point the woman had the big stack, but we all had at least 20 big blinds each. Despite these reasonable stack sizes, the other two just wanted to play push or fold. Mostly I just stayed out of their way, as I wasn't hitting much, but I lost a few chips by raising pre-flop and then having to fold to an all-in shove. But eventually the other two settled down a bit and we actually started playing some hands. The man seemed to have a talent for hitting flops and the woman started making some questionable calls, what she called 'spite calls'. His stack got bigger and hers smaller and eventually she was eliminated.
With two of us left, my opponent offered me a deal. I realised that what he was proposing was that the winner agree to pay the second place-getter $200. It was basically an insurance proposition. Even if I had the money to spare, I wasn't really interested, and declined the offer. Even though I was the short stack I figured I still had a decent chance at winning the top prize. But the cards were not good to me. I couldn't seem to hit anything. In the end I pushed all-in with K Q and got called by A K and that was it. Although I didn't win the big ticket, I was still pretty happy to win entry to the second-level satellite. So I went over to the cashier's counter, expecting to get some sort of ticket or confirmation of my qualifying. Instead, he wrote my name and phone number down on a scrap of paper, and that was it. Really? It was 12.30. I'd been playing for about 5 hours and I was pretty happy with the result. So I took a taxi home. Just before I went to bed I got a text message from Sky City confirming my entry in the Mega Satellite event.
SaturdayThere were a number of Mega Satellite games available, but I decided to play in the Saturday afternoon game. My wife dropped me off at the casino and I registered using my confirmation number. When we got started there were 15 players involved. This tournament had an even deeper stack than the previous one, starting at 15,000 with the blinds at 25/50, and the levels changing every 30 minutes. There were only 7 players at my table, so I was playing at a short-handed table with a 300 BB stack. Interesting. Looking around, I recognised a couple of faces from the stage 1 satellite, including the guy sitting at my table with the Macau Casino hat on.
After some thought I decided to just play the game the same way I would a ring game, at least until I was down to about 100 BB. There was a lot less limping in this time around, with more raising and folding pre-flop. One player in particular, sitting across from me (let's call him Agro Joe), was raising pretty frequently, and seemed to be a serial blind-defender. I had to fold to him a couple of times after initially raising and then getting re-raised. But I managed to get a few chips back off him once I realised he was raising light pre-flop, by betting in position post-flop. With late entries the total number of players climbed up to 17.
We had a little comic relief at our table when I folded my hand clumsily and my K 5 was exposed on the table. Then the flop was K 5 x. Someone suggested that the turn would be a King, but they were wrong. It was a 5. Ha ha. Apart from this I wasn't hitting much, but I managed to drag in a few pots without having to go to showdown. Meanwhile Agro Joe seemed to have quietened down a bit and wasn't playing many hands. Maybe he'd been trying to double-up early? Who knows. Once I dropped down to 100 BB I tightened up my range and started folding a lot.
When the organisers posted the prizes I saw that there were three $1500 tournament tickets up for grabs. Fourth prize was another $350 ticket and fifth was $250 in cash. With a few players eliminated my table dropped down to 6 players briefly, then another player dropped out and we were a final table of ten players. My stack was down to about 20 BB and I started looking for spots to push the action. With a small Ace in my hand I raised and got called by one player. The flop was K K x and I immediately pushed all-in. My opponent, sitting across the table from me and wearing big dark glasses was obviously thinking about calling. I tried to put on my best poker face, but he was sitting there looking at me for quite a while. They were showing the cricket, NZ vs Pakistan, on the big screen and I suddenly developed an intense interest in the match. Eventually he decided to fold and I let out a quiet sigh of relief.
After 4 hours of play it was time for our second 10 minute break, so I rushed off to the Bistro on the other side of the casino to get something to eat and drink. With one 10 minute break every 2 hours, you don't have much time to take care of bodily needs. But I managed to get back to the table with my pie and beer just in time for the start of blind level five. At this point we were approaching the bubble. I was getting short-stacked so I decided to take a punt and in the face of a minimum raise I pushed all-in with J Ts.. I was called by K Q. Not good. There was a King on the flop, then a Queen on the turn, then an Ace on the river, giving me a straight. Now that's lucky! This elimination put us across the bubble.
After playing for a while my stack was dropping down again, and I was down to about 7 BB. Mr Macau Hat pushed all-in and I looked down at Q J. With such a short stack, I was running out of options. What's more, I didn't want to win fourth prize and find myself having to play in another one of these Mega Satellites. Even though I suspected that I was behind, I figured that I was better off to try and double-up and go for the top prize, or bust out and go home with $250 cash. So I called and Macau Hat showed A J. My hand was dominated. Neither one of us hit the flop or the turn and I was looking for one of three remaining Queens to turn up on the river. The river was a Queen. Mr Macau was knocked out and he was not happy. Sometimes you just have to get lucky.
Despite my chip-up, I was still a reasonably short stack, so I just continued in push or fold mode, and tried to stay out of trouble. After a short period of play the smallest stack was eliminated, leaving just three of us at the table. The other two players started congratulating each other and it took me a moment to realise that I'd just won a $1500 ticket to the Waitangi Weekend Deep Stack Tournament. Not bad for my first attempt at a big game satellite. I wandered over to the cashier and picked up my ticket. Yes, this time I actually got a printed ticket confirmation. I was told that I'd be playing on day 1A, next Friday night. After 6 hours of play I decided that I deserved a couple of celebratory drinks at the bar before heading back home to share the good news.
Sunday, 31 January 2016
Collusion
Collusion is when two or more players at the same table work together as a team to help each other and therefore gain an unfair advantage over the other players.
Dictionary and Glossary of Poker terms
www.pokerdictionary.net
In all the time that I've been playing poker, I've been accused of collusion twice, and both of these times involved online games. The first time was when I was playing a tournament on Fulltilt Poker. This was a few years ago now but I can recall the basic details. I'd been in a couple of big hands with 'Player A', and ended up losing chips each time. Then, when I found myself once again folding to a big bet on the river from this player, I typed a joking comment into the chat box, something like, 'just trying to chip you up mate'. There were two other players from Germany at the table and they immediately started chatting back and forth in German. Then one of them said something like, 'this is not right, you can't do that'. I told him it was just a joke but he kept on complaining about my 'cheating' and said he was going to report the incident. After that I just kept my mouth shut and eventually I eliminated Player A. I don't know if the complainer reported me to the site, but I never heard any more about it. After that, I never made a joke of this type again.
The second incident happened just last year, on 888 Poker. I got involved in a big hand against 'Player 1', putting in big bets, which he kept calling. Then on the river I put in a small bet because I had a very good hand and was hoping for a call. Player 1 then folded. Player 2 then made a comment to Player 1, something like, 'doing a bit of chip dumping?'. At first I took no notice of this comment, but then I decided to go to Google to find out what 'chip dumping' was. That's when I discovered that it was a practice used by colluding players to pass chips to each other. I was somewhat surprised to discover that I'd just been accused of cheating. So that's what I said on returning to the table: '' did you just accuse me of cheating?'. He replied that it looked suspicious to him, Player 1 folding in the face of such a small bet, with so much in the pot. I didn't take this accusation well. I was absolutely seething and pretty much played the rest of the SitNGo on tilt. I spent the rest of the game trying to knock out my accuser and ended up playing heads-up with him, but in the end I didn't get my revenge, finishing in second place.
The most serious case of collusion that I've ever come across happened a few years ago at a live tournament I used to play in every Friday night. A family group started turning up each week: mum, dad and a few of their kids. It became increasingly obvious that there was something odd going on during the game. The betting patterns seemed to change depending on who was involved in the pot. Often there would be big raises from one of the family until all the outsiders had dropped out, then things would quieten down and get much more friendly. There were dark mutterings from the locals about this situation, but as far as I know, no one ever confronted the family about their teamwork. It's a lot harder to accuse someone of cheating face to face than it is by typing something into a chat box. I don't know why, but the family eventually stopped coming to the game. Maybe they sensed the hostility of the locals, or maybe somebody did talk to them, or maybe they just moved on. In any case, we locals were all glad to see the back of this particular group.
Although I haven't actually seen it myself, I've heard of a possible case of collusion at a local game. A player I know told me that he went to one of these games and gained the distinct impression that he was playing against a team. In fact, at one point one of the locals said something like, 'what makes you think you can come here and take our money?' Although this is the only time I've heard some doubts raised about this game, I have heard one player from this club make comments that suggest that she is not unfamiliar with signals that might be used by colluding players to communicate with each other. On the strength of this, I think I will avoid playing at this particular game. There are other similar games available which I haven't heard any bad reports about, so I think I'll err on the side of caution and stay away from a game where the odds may well be stacked against me.
I play in a tournament every week on a Friday night and it's here that I sometimes encounter a milder version of collusion. A lot of the people who play in this tournament are regulars, and many are related to each other in one way or another. There are husbands and wives, sons, brothers, nieces, cousins and any number of relationships going on among these players. Although the organiser always tries to put spouses on different tables, he can only juggle the names to a certain extent, and there is nearly always a couple of people with some sort of connection on each table. It's not unusual to see a certain amount of soft playing going on between these people, especially if they're the only two in the hand. It's not unusual to see a hand get checked down in this situation. Although this kind of behaviour is at the mild end of the collusion spectrum, it still has the potential to affect the outcome of the game, and it really shouldn't be allowed. But in an amateur game, played among friends and club-mates, what can you do? I don't really want to be the one who starts complaining about people not playing hard enough against their girlfriends/sons/brothers or whatever.
Sometimes I find myself in this kind of spot when I'm at the same table as my wife. We've had a number of discussions about the fact that I raise a lot, and she calls a lot. She is a pretty passive player and comes from a background of friendly games where players typically just bet the minimum or call and hands are often checked to the showdown. So she sometimes takes exception to me raising her, especially if we're the only two in the hand. But I've made it clear that I'm playing the same way against everyone, and if I bet or raise, it's because I have a good hand, so she should just fold. However, although I only bluff occasionally against other players, I never bluff against my wife, so I guess you could say that I'm guilty of collusion too.
There seems to be a fairly relaxed attitude to partner-play at these local live games. This may be in part due to the Inter-Club tournament that many of us participate in. This is a teams competition that actually encourages collusion among team-mates, something that flies in the face of the basic principal of poker as an individual game. But I've also seen enough of these players' behaviour to realise it may actually be a more deep-seated attitude. I had a conversation with one player, S, a nice guy who I get on with well, who told me about a game he played in where his friend failed to carry out his plan to play as partners. He didn't seem to see anything wrong with this and treated the whole story as a bit of a joke. I've also been in a situation where I was in the final three with a father and son, both of whom I also get on with well, who were 'joking' about playing to knock me out and split the top two prizes between them.
So in my regular live tournaments, I keep my eyes and ears open. There's not much I can do about the low-grade collusion, but I'm always aware of the possibility of serious cheating going on. It's funny how poker works. Deception is at the very heart of the game, at a number of different levels. It's perfectly acceptable for an individual to lie through their teeth in so many ways, as long as they don't do it in tandem. In short, poker is not a team game.
Dictionary and Glossary of Poker terms
www.pokerdictionary.net
In all the time that I've been playing poker, I've been accused of collusion twice, and both of these times involved online games. The first time was when I was playing a tournament on Fulltilt Poker. This was a few years ago now but I can recall the basic details. I'd been in a couple of big hands with 'Player A', and ended up losing chips each time. Then, when I found myself once again folding to a big bet on the river from this player, I typed a joking comment into the chat box, something like, 'just trying to chip you up mate'. There were two other players from Germany at the table and they immediately started chatting back and forth in German. Then one of them said something like, 'this is not right, you can't do that'. I told him it was just a joke but he kept on complaining about my 'cheating' and said he was going to report the incident. After that I just kept my mouth shut and eventually I eliminated Player A. I don't know if the complainer reported me to the site, but I never heard any more about it. After that, I never made a joke of this type again.
The second incident happened just last year, on 888 Poker. I got involved in a big hand against 'Player 1', putting in big bets, which he kept calling. Then on the river I put in a small bet because I had a very good hand and was hoping for a call. Player 1 then folded. Player 2 then made a comment to Player 1, something like, 'doing a bit of chip dumping?'. At first I took no notice of this comment, but then I decided to go to Google to find out what 'chip dumping' was. That's when I discovered that it was a practice used by colluding players to pass chips to each other. I was somewhat surprised to discover that I'd just been accused of cheating. So that's what I said on returning to the table: '' did you just accuse me of cheating?'. He replied that it looked suspicious to him, Player 1 folding in the face of such a small bet, with so much in the pot. I didn't take this accusation well. I was absolutely seething and pretty much played the rest of the SitNGo on tilt. I spent the rest of the game trying to knock out my accuser and ended up playing heads-up with him, but in the end I didn't get my revenge, finishing in second place.
The most serious case of collusion that I've ever come across happened a few years ago at a live tournament I used to play in every Friday night. A family group started turning up each week: mum, dad and a few of their kids. It became increasingly obvious that there was something odd going on during the game. The betting patterns seemed to change depending on who was involved in the pot. Often there would be big raises from one of the family until all the outsiders had dropped out, then things would quieten down and get much more friendly. There were dark mutterings from the locals about this situation, but as far as I know, no one ever confronted the family about their teamwork. It's a lot harder to accuse someone of cheating face to face than it is by typing something into a chat box. I don't know why, but the family eventually stopped coming to the game. Maybe they sensed the hostility of the locals, or maybe somebody did talk to them, or maybe they just moved on. In any case, we locals were all glad to see the back of this particular group.
Although I haven't actually seen it myself, I've heard of a possible case of collusion at a local game. A player I know told me that he went to one of these games and gained the distinct impression that he was playing against a team. In fact, at one point one of the locals said something like, 'what makes you think you can come here and take our money?' Although this is the only time I've heard some doubts raised about this game, I have heard one player from this club make comments that suggest that she is not unfamiliar with signals that might be used by colluding players to communicate with each other. On the strength of this, I think I will avoid playing at this particular game. There are other similar games available which I haven't heard any bad reports about, so I think I'll err on the side of caution and stay away from a game where the odds may well be stacked against me.
I play in a tournament every week on a Friday night and it's here that I sometimes encounter a milder version of collusion. A lot of the people who play in this tournament are regulars, and many are related to each other in one way or another. There are husbands and wives, sons, brothers, nieces, cousins and any number of relationships going on among these players. Although the organiser always tries to put spouses on different tables, he can only juggle the names to a certain extent, and there is nearly always a couple of people with some sort of connection on each table. It's not unusual to see a certain amount of soft playing going on between these people, especially if they're the only two in the hand. It's not unusual to see a hand get checked down in this situation. Although this kind of behaviour is at the mild end of the collusion spectrum, it still has the potential to affect the outcome of the game, and it really shouldn't be allowed. But in an amateur game, played among friends and club-mates, what can you do? I don't really want to be the one who starts complaining about people not playing hard enough against their girlfriends/sons/brothers or whatever.
Sometimes I find myself in this kind of spot when I'm at the same table as my wife. We've had a number of discussions about the fact that I raise a lot, and she calls a lot. She is a pretty passive player and comes from a background of friendly games where players typically just bet the minimum or call and hands are often checked to the showdown. So she sometimes takes exception to me raising her, especially if we're the only two in the hand. But I've made it clear that I'm playing the same way against everyone, and if I bet or raise, it's because I have a good hand, so she should just fold. However, although I only bluff occasionally against other players, I never bluff against my wife, so I guess you could say that I'm guilty of collusion too.
There seems to be a fairly relaxed attitude to partner-play at these local live games. This may be in part due to the Inter-Club tournament that many of us participate in. This is a teams competition that actually encourages collusion among team-mates, something that flies in the face of the basic principal of poker as an individual game. But I've also seen enough of these players' behaviour to realise it may actually be a more deep-seated attitude. I had a conversation with one player, S, a nice guy who I get on with well, who told me about a game he played in where his friend failed to carry out his plan to play as partners. He didn't seem to see anything wrong with this and treated the whole story as a bit of a joke. I've also been in a situation where I was in the final three with a father and son, both of whom I also get on with well, who were 'joking' about playing to knock me out and split the top two prizes between them.
So in my regular live tournaments, I keep my eyes and ears open. There's not much I can do about the low-grade collusion, but I'm always aware of the possibility of serious cheating going on. It's funny how poker works. Deception is at the very heart of the game, at a number of different levels. It's perfectly acceptable for an individual to lie through their teeth in so many ways, as long as they don't do it in tandem. In short, poker is not a team game.
Saturday, 12 December 2015
Christmas Wrap-up
I've spent the last three months writing about the five main poker games I've been playing in over the last year or more. Meanwhile, Christmas has nearly arrived and various other things have been going on in my poker world. Such as...
The World Series of Poker
After much anticipation, the Main Event finally turned up on ESPN and I tuned in every week to see the thousands of players get whittled down to the November Nine. Actually, the coverage started when the money bubble had already burst and there were only a few hundred players left. It was still pretty entertaining to watch, although neither my wife nor I are quite as enthralled by it all as we were when we first started watching this event four or five years ago. The most interesting thing for me was to watch Daniel Negreanu go deep in this tournament again. He's the only one of the old guard of poker professionals to consistently do well in this massive tournament. In the end he just missed the final table, coming 11th for the second time in recent years.
I saw the start of the final table and then, because it was being played every day, I missed an episode or two and caught up again when there were only three players left. It was pretty obvious that Joe McKeehen, with his massive chip advantage, was going to win. The fact that he kept hitting good hands didn't hurt either. I was rooting for Neil Blumenfield to win, partly because he's an amateur, partly because he's an old bugger like me, but mostly because I liked his hat. But in the end he had no chance and only collected about $3 million for third place. How sad.
PokerNZ
For a while now I've been considering the possibility of starting up a poker website that would be a resource for Auckland and/or New Zealand poker players. I've been keeping an eye out for a site that provides information for local players for quite a while, but have seen nothing. I was even planning to check out web design courses in the new year. Then I discovered a new website: www.pokerNZ.co.nz . This site features a New Zealand map with flags pinpointing local tournaments and showing details of each game. I had a bit of trouble using this site at first, due to my habit of not allowing websites to know my location. It turns out that keeping your location private means that you don't get to see the location of games on the map. But having sorted this out, I had a look at the site and found it to be very interesting.
There were quite a few games listed in places like Tauranga and Rotorua, but nothing in Auckland, other than the Sky City Casino. It turns out that the site organiser lives in Tauranga, so most of the listings come from that area. So I registered with the site and set about rectifying this state of affairs. I started by listing some of the club tournaments that I'm familiar with. Then I listed a few pub tournaments that I'd seen advertised. With Christmas coming up I've given it a rest for a few weeks, but will continue after the new year. There are still a few more club games to list and then I'll probably start with the National Pub Poker League games. The way I see it, the more games I list, the more likely it is that this site becomes a useful resource for poker players. And the more players that use the site, the more likely it is that some of them will also start listing games. This is my cunning plan for finding more live poker games.
The Verdict
With December comes my annual summary of the year's results. To put it into a nutshell: it could have been worse. I ended the year with a slightly lower bankroll balance than I began with, showing a 2% loss for the year. Looking at the individual game types, I showed a 17% loss for both the online game types; the micro ring games and the single table Sit 'n' Gos. At least I'm consistent. Once again it was the live games that saved the day. In live tournaments I showed a 16% return on investment, not nearly as good as previous years, but a positive result nevertheless. Live ring games showed the best results of all, at 49% ROI, but unfortunately I haven't spent as much on these games during the year, simply because there haven't been that many available. As a result, it wasn't enough to bring me back into the black overall. These results only go to confirm a trend that has been obvious for a while: I do much better in live poker games than I do at online games. So I will continue to try and find live games to play in, especially cashies.
Interclub
After building up the final Interclub Tournament as the big decider (see the previous post), it turned into a bit of a fizzer. Without going into too much detail, we ended up trialling a new format at the end-of-year game, which meant that there were no more points to be had at that session. The results remained the same as they stood at the end of the November round, which means that my team finished in second place, netting $720 between the 11 of us. Better than a slap in the face with a damp haddock I guess. One of our team-mates also came third in the individual points for the year and got some prize money. It turns out that I finished in fifth place overall, which I was pleased to hear. I also placed in the top ten last year so it's good to see I'm showing some consistency.
As for the venue; it was the first time we'd been to the Tuakau Cossie Club. It turned out to be a pretty nice place and a good time was had by all. I even managed to get a ring game going, although I showed a small loss this time. Meanwhile there's a lot of talk about whether the competition will continue with 8-player teams or whether we're moving to 5-player teams. The decision is yet to be made but either way my wife and I will continue playing next year. It looks like we're hooked.
Woop woop woop, 'Pull up, pull up!'
As detailed in previous posts, my summer poker season was disastrous in terms of results. I showed a loss in every single game type and lost a big chunk of my poker bankroll. Since then, I've been gradually crawling my way back up towards my previous bankroll level. It's been a long slow climb, but I've recovered nearly half of the money I lost. Looking back at these results, it's pretty clear that the reason I lost during this period is that I had a losing season for live games. And the reason that I've been able to claw back some of those losses is that my live poker games have got back on the winning track. So the way ahead is clear: play as often as possible in live poker games (especially ring games), and minimise the damage in online games. This may seem to be something of a defeatist attitude when it comes to online poker, but I consider it to be a case of facing reality. My online games have shown a negative ROI in three out of four seasons this year. So in future games I will be playing at the micro level to minimise my losses.
The Holiday Project
Regardless of the pending decision over whether to play 5-player or 8-player teams in the Interclub Tournament my wife and I will continue to play for the Onehunga RSA. With this in mind, I volunteered to make some poker table-tops for the club. The hosting club needs at least 9 tables to accommodate the players in this tournament, and the RSA has only three (these table-tops were left over from a few years ago when the NPPL used to host games there). So we have to borrow tables from the club just up the street, which is less than ideal. Our team leader didn't seem too bothered about this embarrassing situation, so I put my hand up to sort the problem out.
So I've bought some plywood, which I had delivered to my workplace, and I'm in the process of cutting it into six table-tops. I'm going to make four of them octagonal and two round tables. I figure that the round tables can seat nine people which could be useful for the tournament and also for use as a ring game table (I still haven't given up hope of getting a cashie started). Next I have to find some felt or card table cloth. There's a local supplier that has 'speed cloth' for sale but it's pretty expensive, working out at about $50 per table. So I'm checking out possible sources of supply next week, while I knock the table-tops into shape. I've got about three weeks holiday over Christmas so that will be my holiday project. My club is hosting the first tournament in mid-January, so there's no time for messing about.
Game Plan
As usual at this time of year I've been thinking about what sort of poker game(s) I want to play in the coming year. I'm talking about online games here as I will continue playing in any available live games that are within my buy-in limits. Looking at my results for both online Sit 'n' Gos and online ring games, I can't really see myself continuing in these game types, at least not in the short term so, where to next? Well, I think it's time to return to playing tournaments online. I've played in these types of game in the past, with mixed results, but I figure that it's the game type that's most likely to have weak players, especially at the micro level. So for the next year at least I'll be playing in multi table no limit holdem tournaments on 888Poker. In particular, I want to play in games with no re-buys or add-ons. I've identified a couple of tournaments that are played mid-afternoon on weekends and I plan to make that my regular weekly online game. They are also quite cheap tournaments, well below my maximum buy-in level, which means I'm limiting the risk of losing a lot of cash on yet another online game shambles.
December
I've had a couple of good wins in the last week. I came first in the Wednesday night tournament and then my wife and I finished in the top two on Friday night, splitting first and second prize between us. That's the first time we've ever been in the money together. So that's given my bankroll a nice boost. There's been a lot of friendly rivalry on Friday nights as players try to win the big yearly prize of $1000 for the best overall points-scorer of the year. I was sitting in third place but in the end the two front-runners were too far ahead for me to catch up. I believe that there's prize money for first and second so I just missed out on a Christmas bonus. Nevermind.
My wife and I are off on holiday for a week over Christmas so I'll have to somehow survive a week without any poker games. Actually, it'll be nice to have a break from poker for a short time. We're planning to return to Auckland on New Year's Eve, and I'm hoping to find a live game to play that evening. What better way is there to see in the New Year?
The World Series of Poker
After much anticipation, the Main Event finally turned up on ESPN and I tuned in every week to see the thousands of players get whittled down to the November Nine. Actually, the coverage started when the money bubble had already burst and there were only a few hundred players left. It was still pretty entertaining to watch, although neither my wife nor I are quite as enthralled by it all as we were when we first started watching this event four or five years ago. The most interesting thing for me was to watch Daniel Negreanu go deep in this tournament again. He's the only one of the old guard of poker professionals to consistently do well in this massive tournament. In the end he just missed the final table, coming 11th for the second time in recent years.
I saw the start of the final table and then, because it was being played every day, I missed an episode or two and caught up again when there were only three players left. It was pretty obvious that Joe McKeehen, with his massive chip advantage, was going to win. The fact that he kept hitting good hands didn't hurt either. I was rooting for Neil Blumenfield to win, partly because he's an amateur, partly because he's an old bugger like me, but mostly because I liked his hat. But in the end he had no chance and only collected about $3 million for third place. How sad.
PokerNZ
For a while now I've been considering the possibility of starting up a poker website that would be a resource for Auckland and/or New Zealand poker players. I've been keeping an eye out for a site that provides information for local players for quite a while, but have seen nothing. I was even planning to check out web design courses in the new year. Then I discovered a new website: www.pokerNZ.co.nz . This site features a New Zealand map with flags pinpointing local tournaments and showing details of each game. I had a bit of trouble using this site at first, due to my habit of not allowing websites to know my location. It turns out that keeping your location private means that you don't get to see the location of games on the map. But having sorted this out, I had a look at the site and found it to be very interesting.
There were quite a few games listed in places like Tauranga and Rotorua, but nothing in Auckland, other than the Sky City Casino. It turns out that the site organiser lives in Tauranga, so most of the listings come from that area. So I registered with the site and set about rectifying this state of affairs. I started by listing some of the club tournaments that I'm familiar with. Then I listed a few pub tournaments that I'd seen advertised. With Christmas coming up I've given it a rest for a few weeks, but will continue after the new year. There are still a few more club games to list and then I'll probably start with the National Pub Poker League games. The way I see it, the more games I list, the more likely it is that this site becomes a useful resource for poker players. And the more players that use the site, the more likely it is that some of them will also start listing games. This is my cunning plan for finding more live poker games.
The Verdict
With December comes my annual summary of the year's results. To put it into a nutshell: it could have been worse. I ended the year with a slightly lower bankroll balance than I began with, showing a 2% loss for the year. Looking at the individual game types, I showed a 17% loss for both the online game types; the micro ring games and the single table Sit 'n' Gos. At least I'm consistent. Once again it was the live games that saved the day. In live tournaments I showed a 16% return on investment, not nearly as good as previous years, but a positive result nevertheless. Live ring games showed the best results of all, at 49% ROI, but unfortunately I haven't spent as much on these games during the year, simply because there haven't been that many available. As a result, it wasn't enough to bring me back into the black overall. These results only go to confirm a trend that has been obvious for a while: I do much better in live poker games than I do at online games. So I will continue to try and find live games to play in, especially cashies.
Interclub
After building up the final Interclub Tournament as the big decider (see the previous post), it turned into a bit of a fizzer. Without going into too much detail, we ended up trialling a new format at the end-of-year game, which meant that there were no more points to be had at that session. The results remained the same as they stood at the end of the November round, which means that my team finished in second place, netting $720 between the 11 of us. Better than a slap in the face with a damp haddock I guess. One of our team-mates also came third in the individual points for the year and got some prize money. It turns out that I finished in fifth place overall, which I was pleased to hear. I also placed in the top ten last year so it's good to see I'm showing some consistency.
As for the venue; it was the first time we'd been to the Tuakau Cossie Club. It turned out to be a pretty nice place and a good time was had by all. I even managed to get a ring game going, although I showed a small loss this time. Meanwhile there's a lot of talk about whether the competition will continue with 8-player teams or whether we're moving to 5-player teams. The decision is yet to be made but either way my wife and I will continue playing next year. It looks like we're hooked.
Woop woop woop, 'Pull up, pull up!'
As detailed in previous posts, my summer poker season was disastrous in terms of results. I showed a loss in every single game type and lost a big chunk of my poker bankroll. Since then, I've been gradually crawling my way back up towards my previous bankroll level. It's been a long slow climb, but I've recovered nearly half of the money I lost. Looking back at these results, it's pretty clear that the reason I lost during this period is that I had a losing season for live games. And the reason that I've been able to claw back some of those losses is that my live poker games have got back on the winning track. So the way ahead is clear: play as often as possible in live poker games (especially ring games), and minimise the damage in online games. This may seem to be something of a defeatist attitude when it comes to online poker, but I consider it to be a case of facing reality. My online games have shown a negative ROI in three out of four seasons this year. So in future games I will be playing at the micro level to minimise my losses.
The Holiday Project
Regardless of the pending decision over whether to play 5-player or 8-player teams in the Interclub Tournament my wife and I will continue to play for the Onehunga RSA. With this in mind, I volunteered to make some poker table-tops for the club. The hosting club needs at least 9 tables to accommodate the players in this tournament, and the RSA has only three (these table-tops were left over from a few years ago when the NPPL used to host games there). So we have to borrow tables from the club just up the street, which is less than ideal. Our team leader didn't seem too bothered about this embarrassing situation, so I put my hand up to sort the problem out.
So I've bought some plywood, which I had delivered to my workplace, and I'm in the process of cutting it into six table-tops. I'm going to make four of them octagonal and two round tables. I figure that the round tables can seat nine people which could be useful for the tournament and also for use as a ring game table (I still haven't given up hope of getting a cashie started). Next I have to find some felt or card table cloth. There's a local supplier that has 'speed cloth' for sale but it's pretty expensive, working out at about $50 per table. So I'm checking out possible sources of supply next week, while I knock the table-tops into shape. I've got about three weeks holiday over Christmas so that will be my holiday project. My club is hosting the first tournament in mid-January, so there's no time for messing about.
Game Plan
As usual at this time of year I've been thinking about what sort of poker game(s) I want to play in the coming year. I'm talking about online games here as I will continue playing in any available live games that are within my buy-in limits. Looking at my results for both online Sit 'n' Gos and online ring games, I can't really see myself continuing in these game types, at least not in the short term so, where to next? Well, I think it's time to return to playing tournaments online. I've played in these types of game in the past, with mixed results, but I figure that it's the game type that's most likely to have weak players, especially at the micro level. So for the next year at least I'll be playing in multi table no limit holdem tournaments on 888Poker. In particular, I want to play in games with no re-buys or add-ons. I've identified a couple of tournaments that are played mid-afternoon on weekends and I plan to make that my regular weekly online game. They are also quite cheap tournaments, well below my maximum buy-in level, which means I'm limiting the risk of losing a lot of cash on yet another online game shambles.
December
I've had a couple of good wins in the last week. I came first in the Wednesday night tournament and then my wife and I finished in the top two on Friday night, splitting first and second prize between us. That's the first time we've ever been in the money together. So that's given my bankroll a nice boost. There's been a lot of friendly rivalry on Friday nights as players try to win the big yearly prize of $1000 for the best overall points-scorer of the year. I was sitting in third place but in the end the two front-runners were too far ahead for me to catch up. I believe that there's prize money for first and second so I just missed out on a Christmas bonus. Nevermind.
My wife and I are off on holiday for a week over Christmas so I'll have to somehow survive a week without any poker games. Actually, it'll be nice to have a break from poker for a short time. We're planning to return to Auckland on New Year's Eve, and I'm hoping to find a live game to play that evening. What better way is there to see in the New Year?
Sunday, 22 November 2015
Interclub
Apart from the weekly 'Friday Nighter' and the regular Wednesday night tournament, I play in one other live poker tourney on a regular basis. This is the monthly Interclub tournament. But this game is
significantly different from the others. Here's how it works. There are seven clubs involved, and each one fields a team of eight players. In addition, any club can enter additional players who play as individuals rather than as team members. It's a twenty \dollar buy-in tournament with cash prizes and the team players also earn points based on their finishing positions. I think the extra points start with the player who finishes in 50th position; they get 2 points. The 49th finisher gets 3 points, 48th place gets 4 points, and so on. These points accumulate over the course of the year. The teams with the highest total scores at the end of the year get cash prizes (1st, 2nd and 3rd, I think). There are also prizes for the highest individual points-scorers. This end-of-year prize money comes out of the prize-pools of each of the monthly tournaments. I don't know the exact details but something like 25% comes out of the prize-pool each month.
It is primarily because of the amount that comes out of the prize-pool that I don't use my poker bankroll to play in this tournament. I treat it as a fun day out and just play using my regular spending money. Another good reason for not treating this as a 'bankroll game' is the team factor. The expectation is that team-mates help each other out in this tourney. Although you usually start out on a table full of players from other clubs, as the day progresses and tables get broken down, you are likely to end up with one or more of your fellow team members on
your table. This is where it starts to get tricky. The general idea seems to be that you soft-play when in a hand with your team-mates. So if your opponent has a good hand and raises, you can call but not re-raise, and then the two of you just check it down. That's the theory anyway. But if a player from another team is also involved in the hand it starts getting more complicated. I don't know about other teams but our team has never got together and discussed strategy. This becomes particularly hard to work out when you start getting short-stacked. When a team-mate pushes all-in and you are sitting there with 10 big blinds left and pocket nines, what do you do? The answer? When I was in this position I called and eliminated my team-mate, who had AJ. He didn't seem to mind in this instance, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of my other team-mates objected to this type of play .There are lots of difficult decisions of this type in the later stages of the tournament.
If you are playing as part of a team and also as an individual there is always going to be conflict between actions that are likely to get you closer to the money, and actions that might benefit the team. As a rule I tend to come down on the side of increasing my chance of cashing. After all, I pay my entry fee, not the team, so I figure I should be trying to get some return on my investment. But in recent months my team has actually been doing quite well and it has become increasingly important for our players to all go deep in the tournament and rack up the team points. So the conflict between individual and team progress has become even more pronounced. We've got one more of these events coming up before the end of the year and our team is currently in second place overall. So I guess the pressure is on.
I was reluctant to get involved in this tourney, mainly because of the diminished prize-pool. But my wife was keen to play and eventually I got my arm twisted enough to join in. So I joined the team and started turning up on a regular basis. The tourney is hosted by each of the seven clubs in turn, so you get to go to a different venue each month. There are usually 60 or more players involved and it goes on from 11 am through to about 6 pm (with a lunch break included). The starting stack is 20,000, and it's usually after the second break, when the big blind jumps from 2,000 to 4,000 that a lot of players start dropping out. I usually go reasonably deep in these tournaments, having finished in the top three a couple of times and cashed on one other occasion, although I've never been able to take out first place. But even if I get knocked out early there's usually a cash game going among the other eliminated players. Although I don't play the tourney with my bankroll cash, I always take some along for the cashie, as this is a straight-up un-raked game. In fact, truth be told, I look forward to playing in the cashie more than I do playing in the tournament.
That's not to say that I don't give it my best when I'm playing the tourney. Although I'm more inclined to drink during this game than I am during other sessions, I still take it seriously, and I follow pretty much the same tourney strategy that I would elsewhere. As a rule, the standard of play in this tourney is better than in the other games I play. This is not surprising, as I assume it's the keenest poker players that turn up to these events, rather than just casual 'walk-ins'. There are still quite a few loose-passive 'fish' about but there are also plenty of good solid players. It's just a matter of differentiating one from the other and playing accordingly. And of course, remembering not to bet into your team-mates.
The next interclub tournament is to be held this coming weekend at the venue of the club that just joined the competition this year. So this will be the first time any of us have been to the Tuakau club. This is the prize-giving event, when the points are finally tallied up and and the prizes awarded. The hosting club is situated in Tuakau, a town about 50 km south of Auckland. It should be a fun end-of-year trip, as long as we don't get lost.
significantly different from the others. Here's how it works. There are seven clubs involved, and each one fields a team of eight players. In addition, any club can enter additional players who play as individuals rather than as team members. It's a twenty \dollar buy-in tournament with cash prizes and the team players also earn points based on their finishing positions. I think the extra points start with the player who finishes in 50th position; they get 2 points. The 49th finisher gets 3 points, 48th place gets 4 points, and so on. These points accumulate over the course of the year. The teams with the highest total scores at the end of the year get cash prizes (1st, 2nd and 3rd, I think). There are also prizes for the highest individual points-scorers. This end-of-year prize money comes out of the prize-pools of each of the monthly tournaments. I don't know the exact details but something like 25% comes out of the prize-pool each month.
It is primarily because of the amount that comes out of the prize-pool that I don't use my poker bankroll to play in this tournament. I treat it as a fun day out and just play using my regular spending money. Another good reason for not treating this as a 'bankroll game' is the team factor. The expectation is that team-mates help each other out in this tourney. Although you usually start out on a table full of players from other clubs, as the day progresses and tables get broken down, you are likely to end up with one or more of your fellow team members on your table. This is where it starts to get tricky. The general idea seems to be that you soft-play when in a hand with your team-mates. So if your opponent has a good hand and raises, you can call but not re-raise, and then the two of you just check it down. That's the theory anyway. But if a player from another team is also involved in the hand it starts getting more complicated. I don't know about other teams but our team has never got together and discussed strategy. This becomes particularly hard to work out when you start getting short-stacked. When a team-mate pushes all-in and you are sitting there with 10 big blinds left and pocket nines, what do you do? The answer? When I was in this position I called and eliminated my team-mate, who had AJ. He didn't seem to mind in this instance, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of my other team-mates objected to this type of play .There are lots of difficult decisions of this type in the later stages of the tournament.
If you are playing as part of a team and also as an individual there is always going to be conflict between actions that are likely to get you closer to the money, and actions that might benefit the team. As a rule I tend to come down on the side of increasing my chance of cashing. After all, I pay my entry fee, not the team, so I figure I should be trying to get some return on my investment. But in recent months my team has actually been doing quite well and it has become increasingly important for our players to all go deep in the tournament and rack up the team points. So the conflict between individual and team progress has become even more pronounced. We've got one more of these events coming up before the end of the year and our team is currently in second place overall. So I guess the pressure is on. I was reluctant to get involved in this tourney, mainly because of the diminished prize-pool. But my wife was keen to play and eventually I got my arm twisted enough to join in. So I joined the team and started turning up on a regular basis. The tourney is hosted by each of the seven clubs in turn, so you get to go to a different venue each month. There are usually 60 or more players involved and it goes on from 11 am through to about 6 pm (with a lunch break included). The starting stack is 20,000, and it's usually after the second break, when the big blind jumps from 2,000 to 4,000 that a lot of players start dropping out. I usually go reasonably deep in these tournaments, having finished in the top three a couple of times and cashed on one other occasion, although I've never been able to take out first place. But even if I get knocked out early there's usually a cash game going among the other eliminated players. Although I don't play the tourney with my bankroll cash, I always take some along for the cashie, as this is a straight-up un-raked game. In fact, truth be told, I look forward to playing in the cashie more than I do playing in the tournament.That's not to say that I don't give it my best when I'm playing the tourney. Although I'm more inclined to drink during this game than I am during other sessions, I still take it seriously, and I follow pretty much the same tourney strategy that I would elsewhere. As a rule, the standard of play in this tourney is better than in the other games I play. This is not surprising, as I assume it's the keenest poker players that turn up to these events, rather than just casual 'walk-ins'. There are still quite a few loose-passive 'fish' about but there are also plenty of good solid players. It's just a matter of differentiating one from the other and playing accordingly. And of course, remembering not to bet into your team-mates.
The next interclub tournament is to be held this coming weekend at the venue of the club that just joined the competition this year. So this will be the first time any of us have been to the Tuakau club. This is the prize-giving event, when the points are finally tallied up and and the prizes awarded. The hosting club is situated in Tuakau, a town about 50 km south of Auckland. It should be a fun end-of-year trip, as long as we don't get lost.
Thursday, 5 November 2015
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.
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.
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