Disconnection Anxiety

  Bad connection, I'm losing my mind,
  Ooh ooh ooh, won't you throw me a line?       The Crocodiles



   I regularly play online poker on the 888 and Pokerstars sites. My wife also plays, on 888 only. The reason that I first started playing on 888 is very simple. My first online poker site was Fulltilt. Then came 'Black Friday' when that site was shut down and the money I had on that site disappeared into cyberspace for quite a while. Eventually I got it back when Pokerstars bought out Fulltilt, but for a long time I thought it was just gone. So I went looking for the safest, most secure site I could find. My research into the security and reliability of various sites pointed to 888 as the best option. So I've been playing with them ever since, with no problem. That is, until this week.
   My wife sometimes gets up early in the morning to play some poker online. On Sunday morning she woke me up to tell me that the 888 program wasn't working. So I dragged myself out of bed to take a look. Sure enough, the program was just loading, and loading, and loading... So I checked out the 888poker website, but it wasn't there. You know how it goes: 'internet explorer cannot display this webpage'. I tried a bit of googling to find out what was going on, but couldn't find anything. Oh well, hopefully it was just a temporary glitch.

   As it happens, we were playing in our monthly Interclub Poker Tournament on that day, so off we went. During the course of the tournament one of the players at my table mentioned that 'they' had shut down the 888 site and that it was only New Zealand players that were affected. He didn't elaborate about how he knew this or who 'they' were. He also said that 888 had been down since Saturday and expressed some relief about not having any money on that site. I wasn't relieved at all as I had in excess of $US200 in my 888 account.
   On arriving home I checked out 888 again but the site was still down. I tried googling again but no matter what combination of keywords I tried there wasn't so much as a whisper about 888 being down. Of course the problem with the site being down is that there's no obvious way of finding alternative contact methods. After a lot of searching I eventually found a helpline number mentioned in someone's poker site comments. So I tried ringing them but couldn't get through. Then I realised that I would have a record of the customer support email address among my emails, from previous contacts. So I fired off an email and went to bed.
   On Monday morning before work I checked the site again. Still down. I tried another quick google search and this time came up with a result. There was a discussion thread on one of the poker sites among some players who were complaining about 888 being down. From what I could gather it was also down in Australia and Japan and some other Pacific nations. It was a relief to actually get some sort of information, no matter how sketchy. However I was getting increasingly worried about the security of my money and was getting an ominous feeling of deja vu.

   On my smoko (morning tea)  break I checked my emails and found one from 888 customer support. They said they were having some technical difficulties and were working on fixing the problem. Oh well, at least it wasn't another Fulltilt scenario. About 11am I got a call from my wife. The 888 site was working again!
   So what's the point of this little tale? Well it's got me thinking again about the security of my cash on poker sites. I've been pretty relaxed about it for a while now, especially after getting my Fulltilt money back through Pokerstars, and after finding how easy it is to withdraw money from 888. Up until now I've been happy to keep the equivalent of three cash game buy-ins (about 15% of my bankroll) sitting in each of my poker site accounts. But this little incident has driven me to reconsider. Call me paranoid, but I think it's better to err on the side of caution. After all, if my balance gets too low, I can reload my account literally in a matter of seconds. So from now on I'll be running a much lower balance in both my online accounts. Just in case.
  

Etiquette

      " You played that as bad as you can.
        Your career's finished.
          You're gone, gone, gone."        Tony G, obnoxious poker pro.

 I've recently been taking an interest in the rules of poker, mainly because I've been working towards starting a regular tournament at my home club. The rules of poker seem to fall into three categories: the basic rules that everyone has to comply with; rules that you are expected to follow, but for which there is no definite penalty; and the guidelines for expected behaviour, ie etiquette.
   The first group of rules are pretty straightforward, and are found in use across the board, from professionally run tournaments to casual home games. Things like the betting limits, the way the cards are dealt and what happens with misdeals are all spelled out clearly and generally followed without question.

  The second group of rules is a little trickier to define, especially for amateur games. These are the sort of things that you are not supposed to do and would probably be penalised for in a professionally run game. Things like misrepresenting your hand, abusive behaviour, using a cell phone at the table, talking about the contents of a hand, agreeing to check down a hand when another player is all-in,  excessive celebration and so on. There  are a lot of these sort of rules, some of which are specified in amateur games, but which usually don't incur any penalty unless there are repeated infringements. These rules are often referred to as 'poker etiquette' but don't really fall into this category at all. This is the sort of thing where, if you do it at the table, someone will give you a gentle reminder that it's not allowed.

   A few of these minor transgressions have been known to occur at the Friday night tournament that I regularly play in. Splashing the pot happens quite a lot, with players chucking chips onto the table rather than just placing them. Another is the case where a player shows another what was in their hand. Someone usually says, 'show one, show all' when this happens and the offender has to show

everyone the contents of their hand. The most common of all is talking about a hand when it is in progress. I've never seen anyone get pulled up on this and it happens all the time. Players at this tourney routinely comment on the possibilities of a straight or flush as each card is revealed, make guesses about what other players may be holding and suggest which card would be really good to have at a particular point. This sort of behaviour is not supposed to be allowed because it is giving away free information about a hand.

   Another common 'free information' transgression is the 'doh!' moment. This is where a player slaps their head, groans, rolls their eyes or otherwise reacts when a card comes that would have given them a monster hand if they hadn't folded. This can seriously disadvantage a player who is still in the hand, because it gives away information about a card or cards that have been folded, and are therefore  no longer in play. I used to be guilty of this sort of behaviour myself in my early days of live poker play. At one stage I actually banged my head on the table to make sure everyone knew that the hand I just folded would have given me quads on the flop! Nowadays I can generally resist the temptation to react obviously to these missed opportunities. After all, if you can maintain a poker face when you are in the hand, surely you can do it when you're on the sidelines.

   Another 'minor rule' is the one that says you cannot agree with another player to check down a hand when a third player is all in. It's usually in both the active players' interests to just check to the river, because you have a better chance of eliminating the all-in player, but you can't actually say anything about this. So if both players are aware of this, they usually just check it down without saying anything. Unfortunately, many players don't get this and if someone bets into me in this situation, I find it hard to refrain from pointing out what the optimal strategy might have been. Pointing this out after the fact may not be strictly against the rules but it is probably bad etiquette.

   That brings me to what I would call the area of poker etiquette: the types of behaviour that don't break any actual rules but are considered 'bad form' in the poker world. There are a couple of things that are not restricted solely to the game of poker but which are generally frowned upon in the real world as well. Poor personal hygene is one. It's not much fun sitting in close proximity to someone who hasn't seen a shower for a while, especially if you are stuck in that same seat for hours on end. I always take care to ensure that I'm not the one causing this sort of discomfort to others at the table, but there are one or two people at the Friday tourney who are notorious for a lack of attention to this area.
   The second thing is rude or insulting behaviour. This is no more acceptable around the poker table than it is at other times. I haven't seen much of this in live games. Occasionally you get a bit of good natured ribbing, but that's a different thing altogether. Playing online is a completely different situation. When people are sitting alone in a dark room, thousands of kilometres away from their opponents they seem to think that they can be as obnoxious and insulting as they like. To be fair, the vast majority of players are perfectly civil or just don't communicate at all. But there is a small but outspoken group who just act like jerks. They will say things online that they would never dream of saying to someone face to face. The anonymity of the computer screen just seems to bring out the worst in some people.
   Another thing that can bug other players is slowing the game down. This can happen online when someone is multi-tabling and takes a lot of time to get around to acting on their hand because they're paying attention to other tables. Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do about this. Sometimes in live games you get someone who slows down the action. This is particularly annoying in

tournaments, because everyone wants to play as many hands as they can before the next blind level. The live tournaments I play in take place in clubs and the most frequent cause of delays in play is drunk players. Players who have had too much to drink often slow down the action because they get distracted and fail to pay attention to the game. The worst instance of this that I've encountered was a player who was so drunk that she couldn't count out her chips properly and other players ended up putting her bets in for her to stop the game from grinding to a halt. Fortunately, I've only seen this sort of situation a few times and things generally progress at a reasonable rate.
   Another example of poor poker etiquette is the bad winner. This is the person who gloats, crows, or generally makes an ass of themselves when they win a hand. Ok, so you're allowed to be happy about winning but there's no need to rub it in. The best thing a winner can do is to quietly rake in the chips and start stacking them up. We've all been on the losing side of a hand often enough to know that it's not much fun, especially if you've made a bad call. And the worst way anyone can win a hand is by slow-rolling. This is when you know that you have the winner but take your time to show your cards, allowing your opponent to believe that they're ahead. This is very bad form. I always make it a point to show my cards straight away when I think I have the best hand, even if I'm not that sure of whether or not I'm actually ahead.

  Although the slow-roll is very bad poker etiquette, probably the worst thing a player can do is asking to see a folded hand at the showdown. Poker rules generally state that any player who is in a hand has the right to see a hand that someone has folded at the showdown. When playing online I often use the playback feature to see what another player folded. This provides very useful information about how people play particular types of hands. But I would never dream of doing this at a live table. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, all players want to limit the free information they give away and have every right to muck their hands if it's obvious that they're beaten. If you extend this courtesy to others then they will do the same for you. Secondly, and far more importantly, the reason that players have the right to see a folded hand is to guard against collusion. If you suspect that someone is soft-playing when up against another, maybe even folding the best hand, you can call them out. In other words, if you ask to see a folded hand, then you are implying that they are cheating. This is very bad.
   I guess what it all boils down to is showing proper respect for the other people sitting around the poker table with you. The idea is to try and take their money, but to do it with such grace and good humour that they don't mind. It's a good trick if you can manage it.

  

Club Champs

         The boys next door,
         The mums and dads,
         New weds and near-deads,
         Have you ever been had in Clubland?       Elvis Costello

I play a live poker tournament every Friday night at a local Workingmens Club. It's through my membership of this club that I discovered the Clubs New Zealand North Island Poker Championship. This event is held every year over Queen's Birthday Weekend (a three day weekend at the end of May). It's attended by members of Clubs New Zealand affiliated clubs from all over the North Island. The venue alternates between the southern end of the island, the middle of the island, and Auckland. This year it was played in Auckland, at the Manurewa Cosmopolitan Club. When my wife and I found out about this we cancelled our plans to play in the annual pool tournament that we usually attend at this time of year, paid our $40 entry fee, and waited in eager anticipation for Friday 30th May.

FRIDAY
   Although the main tourney was on Saturday and Sunday, there was also a separate $20 game being played on the Friday night. So I got my wife to pick me up after work so we could go straight there and avoid the worst of the Friday night rush hour.  On arrival we were pleasantly surprised to be given a gift bag containing a number of little gifts, as well as a copy of the tournament rules. The Manurewa  'Cossie' is a pretty flash club. It's very spacious, with a big pool/snooker area, a restaurant at one end, a bistro at the other and a fairly expansive dance floor. The poker tables were set up on the dance floor, with a big screen at one end for the tournament display.
   We'd heard that the club had failed to get a late licence for the Friday night and that it was due to close by midnight. As the tourney wasn't due to start until 7.15 pm, we figured it would be a speedy format. Sure enough, we were starting with just a stack of 10,000. With the opening blinds at 100/200, this amounted to a short stack of just 50 big blinds. So clearly, there was going to be plenty of action.
   My early hands were pretty poor but I knew I had to get active earlier rather than later. So I raised with KT on the button and got two callers. The flop was AAK so I bet and got called again. Getting nervous, I checked and so did the other two players. The river was a third spade and one player put in a big bet. The other player, 'B', one of the Friday night regulars, folded his hand and I reluctantly called.  My two pair lost to a flush. Then B revealed that he'd folded an Ace. Now that's what I call a disciplined fold. Knowing when you're beat is an important skill in poker.
   A little later, getting short-stacked, I limped in with 99, hoping to hit a 9 on the flop. I got my wish; a 9 hit but there were three spades on the board. Player 1 bet at it and I called. After a nothing turn player 1 bet again and I folded, wondering if I'd  made the right decision. Obligingly, my opponent showed his Ace-high flush. Now that's what I call a good fold.
   With about eight big blinds left I checked in the big blind with Q8. When a Queen hit the flop I pushed all-in and got called by someone with QT. I lost most of my stack and was left with 1 1/2 big blinds. So with Q2 in the small blind I pushed my last chip into the middle. After the cards were dealt out there was two pair on the board. My Q high was beaten by another player's K high. I'd played for about an hour and came around 70/76.  After that I hung around with some of the other also-rans and listened to their bad beat stories (everybody's got one, right?). We were keen to start up a cash game but there didn't seem to be any spare chips available. My wife was eliminated not long after me, so we decided to call it a night and go home.

SATURDAY
   On Saturday there are two tournaments played. They both offer cash prizes but they are also qualifying events for the main tournament on Sunday. If you make the top 48 in the morning tourney, you qualify for Sunday. If not, you play in the second tourney and you qualify if you make it into the top 16. My wife and I arrived in plenty of time for the start of the first qualifying tournament which was due to start at 10.30. On arrival we learned that R, one of the Friday night regulars, had won the previous night's tournament. Saturday's tournament started out with a much better starting stack size of 100 BB (20,000/200). However it soon became apparent that the blind structure was somewhat challenging. It was structured like this: 100/200, 200/400, 300/600, 400/800, 500/1000, 1000/2000, 2000/4000....  So you start out with a doubling in the blind levels, then it's quite gentle for three rounds before you hit two double-ups in a row. It was obviously going to get very interesting after the first couple of hours. With 120 players seated on the dance floor the tournament got under way.
   With all the out-of towners in the tourney, I ended up sitting at a table full of Auckland Inter-club regulars. I'd thought a bit about how to approach this kind of tournament but in the end decided to just play my natural game without thinking too much about trying to limp across the qualifying threshold. Things started out pretty slowly. I was getting a few big hands early on, things like AJ,  AQ,  AT suited etc, but couldn't seem to hit anything on the board. So I was sitting on a stack of around 17,000 for quite a while. Just before lunch I nearly got busted out and ended up with one 500 chip left, with the big blind at 2000. It was not looking good at all. The only good news was that the organiser was chipping up. So all the 500 chips were getting taken out of play, which meant I would get bumped up to 1000. The bad news was that the blind levels would be 2000/4000 after the break. So I'd still have just 1/4 of a minimum bet.
   After lunch, on returning to the table, I was in the 'under-the-gun' position (first to act) so I went all-in without looking at my hand. There were two callers and one went all-in on the flop, the other folded and I turned over 89 of hearts. I was up against a made hand and needed a ten for a straight. The turn was a heart so now I needed a ten or a heart. The river was a ten, a perfect result for me as I now had one big blind! I was in the big blind next anyway, putting me automatically all-in. It was a nothing hand and I hit nothing, busting me out after sitting back down for about five minutes. I finished 75/120.
   There were a couple of cash games going on but I didn't want to play in those as the 'second chance' qualifier was due to start at about 2 pm. While I was waiting B told me (and anyone else who would listen) his bad beat story. It went something like this:
  'I have pocket Kings so I raise and get one caller. The flop is [something like] K 8 5. I push all-in with my trip Kings, the stone-cold nuts. The other player has QT. Absolutely nothing. No draw, no pair, nothing. Why would you call? The turn is a 9, then a J hits the river, giving him a straight. Can you believe that?' 
   I have to admit, it's a pretty good bad beat story.
   My wife got knocked out before qualifying as well so we both entered the afternoon tourney. This was held in a room adjacent to the dance floor area, and once again, it was a short stack tournament. I was playing pretty conservatively at first, just looking for a good spot, but not much was happening. With just 20 BBs left I started looking for a chance to push the action but I was card-dead for a while. Once I got down to 10 BBs I started pushing all-in with any half decent hand. I managed to pick up the blinds a couple of times before finally doubling-up and bouncing back up to 20 BBs. It was at this stage that I realised that there were only 25 players left, putting me nine places away from the qualifying mark. I changed tack and decided to try and fold my way to the 'bubble'.
   Even though I'd vowed to fold even Aces, I just couldn't resist playing AT suited in position and ended up losing some chips when I missed the flop. So I closed up shop again and played the waiting game. The player to my left was in a worse position than me, with just 1 BB left. When someone went all-in on the bubble on the other table he went over to watch, along with a couple of others. One of those players was eliminated and I passed the qualifying mark with just 3 BBs. Then I decided to go all out for the win, but it was too late for a last minute charge. I ended up all-in with A6s against JJ and lost. I finished 10/62.  Never mind; at least I qualified.
   The first tournament was still going, but there were only four players left at this stage. I went over to take a look and witnessed the following play:
   Player 1 is all-in, player 2 is all-in and player 3 is considering whether or not to call. The board reads A A T T J. After thinking for a while, she calls and shows 44. WTF? What could she possibly think they were going all-in with? Did she really think they were just playing the board? Player 1 had a ten and player 2 had an Ace, so there you go. In the end the players that came first and second were both Friday night regulars; another good result. There were some cash games going and some entertainment due to start later, but my wife and I both decided to pike out and go home and get some rest.

SUNDAY
   We arrived fresh and eager on Sunday morning. Some others were not looking so fresh. Apparently some of the cash games went on till quite late the previous night and some others took a trip into the city to check out the casino. Many had opted to have breakfast at the club but we just hung out over by the courtyard and waited for the action to start.  There were two tournaments to be played that day; the main event and a consolation tournament for those who didn't qualify. These tourneys were set to run at the same time and were both set up in the dance floor area. My wife hadn't qualified so she was playing in one and I was in the other.
   There were 64 players in the main game and we started with a 100 BB starting stack. As usual I started out playing fairly conservatively and managed to pick up some chips here and there. My best result was when I was doing a little 'set mining'; limping in with 77 and hoping to flop another 7. When I flopped my set I called big bets on the flop and turn, then raised on the river and got paid off by someone who was over-valuing her top pair. That was a big chip-up.
   After the lunch break, having gone through the roughest part of that brutal blind structure, I was starting to get short-stacked. Having seen three players lose badly with AQ so far, I figured it was time that hand paid off, so I went all-in with AQ. My AQ held up against A9, winning with A high. This tripled my stack and put me in a much more comfortable position. By this time my wife had been knocked out of the other tourney and was playing in a cash game off to the side. When she came over to have a look she was most impressed by my big stacks of 1k chips. Actually it looked better than it really was - I'd ended up with a lot of  'small change' while many other players had smaller stacks that were made up of 5k chips.
   As the number of players diminished I was down to about 10 BB again, but actually still above the average stack, so extreme caution was required. We were sitting at eight-player tables so with just two tables left we were down to playing five-handed and the blinds were coming around real fast. Finally one more player was eliminated and we were on to the final table. At this stage I had 190k in chips with the blinds at 20k/40k. A seriously short stack. B had bought his fancy ten-sided polished wood poker table for the final, so there were nine players and the tournament organiser, who was doing the dealing. But we had to take a break while the final table was set up.
   They had the area roped off and there were quite a few onlookers standing around the edges. R, one of the Friday night regulars, had also made the final table. As we waited to be seated I made the comment to her that, after all that build-up, it would be funny if I got knocked out in the first hand. We drew for seats and I was in the big blind. One player limped in and I checked my option with KT. The highest card on the flop was a King so I immediately went all-in and was immediately called. The caller had AK so I was drawing very thin. The miracle card didn't come and it was all over. Having hardly sat down, I got back up and was greeted by a round of applause from the spectators. It must have been ironic applause surely. So I slunk off to the bar to get a beer and then went to check out the cash games.
   My wife and I played in a cash game for a while as the final table played on. There were now quite a few railbirds over there. The cashie was a fun game but it trailed off after a while. By this stage we'd had enough poker for a while so we headed off home without waiting to see who would collect the $2000 first prize and championship cup. We found out later that R had made the money in 5th place (the top six got paid) and that the winner was one of the Auckland Inter-club regulars.
   I was pretty impressed with this whole event which was very well run and at a terrific venue. My wife and I had a very enjoyable time and I'm pretty happy about qualifying and going deep in the main event. It was a fun social event and there was plenty of poker to be played. The only regret is not staying on Saturday night and getting into those cash games (and also taking my camera three days in a row and never using it). Next year it's being held at Lower Hutt, down Wellington way and we will definitely be headed south to have another crack at it. Only 50 weeks to go.
  
  

Cashie

        Yes there are two paths you can go by,
         but in the long run,
        There's still time to change the road you're on      Led Zeppelin

 When I first started playing poker online (four years ago) I began by playing Texas holdem no limit cash games (ring games) on Fulltilt Poker. This was in the days when I didn't have a proper bankroll management plan and I jumped into the 10c/25c games and bought in for $US25. I played in these games three times in a row, losing my buy-in each time within a matter of a few hours. After that I decided that 'cashies' were not for me and moved on to playing tournament poker. The cash games at this level were a lot tighter than I had expected, with a lot of hands being decided pre-flop. After that the only cash games I played online were fixed limit poker variants and pot limit Omaha.
   But now, after getting plenty of poker playing experience under my belt, I've started playing no limit holdem cashies again. Once again I'm playing at the same level as before, but this time $25 is well within my buy-in range. I could have started at a lower level but I felt confident enough in my abilities to have a crack at the 10c/25c games. I figured I'd just start out nice and slow, playing cautiously and feeling my way. As I mentioned previously, I have accounts with both 888poker and Pokerstars, so I thought I'd play one site for a month, then the other, and see how they compare.

   I went into the games on 888 knowing that they had a reputation for being loose games and also that the rake on the game is pretty high. So I was interested to see whether the looseness of the games would compensate for the high rake. The games on 888 are actually 10c/20c games, so I bought in for the maximum of $US20. There are generally just a couple of games available at this level, and sometimes only the one. I found the games to be tighter than tournament games but generally moderately loose, with three or more people typically seeing the flop and quite a lot of 'limping in'. I had some success playing in these games; in fact I came out ahead in all four of the sessions I played in, making a tidy $160 profit. So I entered the Pokerstars month with some optimism.
   To say that Pokerstars was a 'different kettle of fish' would be misleading, because fish are actually hard to find on this site. At the 10c/25c level there are a large number of games available, probably in excess of twenty (I didn't bother to count them) with a lot of players moving from table to table or playing multiple tables. One of the features on Pokerstars is the 'find this player' tab, which allows you to see if a player is also playing on other tables. But there is also a 'hide' function that allows you to prevent others from conducting such a search. Nearly every player I checked out was hiding other tables but I moved around enough to see the same names cropping up over and over on table after table. So there is clearly a lot of multi-tabling going on. As for me, I just stuck to one table.
   These tables are a lot tighter. Typically in these games hands get folded around to the button, there is very little limping in, and hands often end without anyone seeing the flop. I didn't do nearly as well in these games. There is also a lot more raising and re-raising pre-flop. Although I kept my head and avoided most difficult situations, I always seemed to get caught out playing big bets with very good hands up against monster hands. So I would win a few small pots here and there and then lose one big one. I played five games on Pokerstars: I lost two, won two and barely broke even in the other. In the end I came out $14 ahead.
   Finding the right table to play on is quite a challenge on Pokerstars. In the game lobby there is a list of games which includes information on the percentage of players who see the flop. This is generally a good indication of the looseness of the table: the higher the percentage, the fishier the table. The players-to-the-flop percentages on 888 are typically anywhere between 15% and 40%. On Pokerstars, the percentages range between 5% and 25%. But tables over 20% are rare and most of them are under 15%. Like me, there are a lot of players looking for the loosest tables. So the higher the players-to-the-flop percentage, the more players there are on the waiting list. A table with over 20% might have as many as seven players waiting to get in on the action. So you essentially have a bunch of sharks circling the fish ponds. Of course, as soon as a couple of the tight players make it on to the table the percentages go down. If you're number five on the waiting list you're going to find yourself on a table full of sharks with a 5%  average.
   Nevertheless, I managed to find tables within a decent range of 10-15% and kept an eye on the stats for my current table. You just have to be ready to jump ship from time to time to stay in the right zone. Now and then I would see a particularly fishy player at my table, and they would usually find themselves busted out in fairly short order. It's clear to me that there are a lot of 'grinders' multi-tabling at this level. As a result, the competition is pretty tough.
   After two months of play my decision was easy; I'll be playing on 888poker from now on. Ideally, I'd like to play on a site with a few more games available, but that consideration is outweighed by the easier, more profitable games. So I'll be playing 888 over the next few weeks, one table at first, and then I'll take a shot at playing two tables, provided that they are available. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up the good results.
    I reckon a little research goes a long way.

  

Deception

          Would I lie to you?
          Would I lie to you honey?
          Now would I say something that wasn't true?       The Eurythmics

   As we all know, deception plays an important role in the game of poker. In the game itself you can gain an edge over your opponents by disguising the strength of your hand. If you have a strong hand you want others to believe that you are weak so you can lure them into the pot. And if your holdings are weak, the only way you're going to win the pot is if you make the others believe that you have a monster hand.
   Of course, at the lower levels of the game, a lot of players are fairly transparent. Typically they will check or call with drawing hands and bet out when they hit something good. I've been playing at this level long enough to know that when a player calls your big bets to the turn and then decides to put in a big bet when a possible flush or obvious straight appears, they've almost certainly hit the hand that they were chasing. OK, so it's always possible that they're just representing a big hand, but most of the time it's not a bluff (I've called enough of these kinds of bets to know). But the thing that really mystifies me is the kind of player who pushes all-in when they hit their monster hand. I just don't get this. Surely the best strategy is to put in a smallish bet that might win you a few more chips. What's the point of chasing that big hand if you just scare off all the callers when you finally hit it? In other words, a certain amount of subtlety is required if you're going fishing.
   As for bluffing, that can be a bit of a problem at the lower levels. As the old saying goes, 'you can't bluff a donkey'. However, very passive players CAN be bluffed out of a pot with a little perseverance, provided that the conditions are right. Even the most passive player, after first checking, will think twice about calling a big bet when a scare card hits the board. The trick is to not do it too often and to avoid trying to bluff a group of 'fishy' players. Like they say, 'you can't bluff the table'. However, trying to represent a big hand when someone has hit the board can get pretty expensive. That's just one of the reasons why position is so important.

  This is a basic part of any poker game but at another level you have table image. The number of times a player raises, the number of hands they play, the types of hand they play; all this goes to create a particular pattern of play. Although a lot of players pay little or no attention to this sort of thing and just play their hands, there are players around in low level games who take note of the way others are playing. This seems to be especially true in live games where people tend to play each other on a regular basis and get to know each other's games. I've found that my playing style in the weekly tournaments helps to maintain a certain level of deception. I usually play tight in the early stages, and I am usually showing down big hands. I keep bluffing to a minimum and on the occasion when everyone folds to my big bet when I have a monster, I'll sometimes show it, just to maintain the image. Then, when I start to loosen up in the later stages, people are more likely to believe that I have it when I bet big, even if I don't.
   Some of the articles I've read have suggested that the way a player dresses and behaves, even the way that they stack their chips, can offer clues to their playing styles. Personally I think that is taking things a bit far, although I think that the amount a player is drinking might well be a useful clue to how loose and/or reckless they might be. But some players are actually keen to tell you about their playing styles or to share their poker philosophy. While rank amateurs are easy enough to spot, there are many other more experienced players who will go out of their way to demonstrate how much knowledge they have of the game, analyse and discuss hands that have been played and generally give you a good idea of their level of experience. This can be quite useful information.
   On the flip side of this, I've found myself being very careful about the amount of information I volunteer since I started playing regular live games. I try to avoid talking about playing online, I avoid demonstrating knowledge of the finer points of the game, I never talk about pot odds or use poker jargon, and on occasion where there's been some dispute about a hand, I stay right out of it. In other words, I play dumb. The fact that I'm actually pretty clumsy when it comes to shuffling and still haven't figured out how to separate out side-pots helps to reinforce this general image.
   By contrast, there's a player in my regular live tournament who seems to be doing just the opposite. I'd only known this man for a short while when I heard him announce to the table that he was a professional poker player. Since then I've often  heard him give other players advise on how they should play, talk frequently about being given the odds to call, offer endless analysis both during and after his own and other people's hands, and crow about how good he is at the game. Now I don't know if this guy is in fact a professional player, but I seriously doubt it. For a start, what's he doing playing in a $20 tournament? But apart from this, would a professional really behave in this way, announcing to all and sundry the level of his poker expertise?
   You can't play with the same group of people on a regular basis and not come to know and like a good many of them, especially in a social environment like my regular Friday night tournament. But at the same time, I'm in the game to win it, and giving away too much information is likely to reduce my chances of achieving that. Everyone accepts lying as part and parcel of poker play. And I'm not actually lying to my fellow players about what I do or don't know; merely choosing to be economical about certain facts. When we play poker, we are expected to be deceptive. In the real world, we are expected to be truthful. The question is, where does the game end?

Good, Bad, Ugly

   Live Tournament. In early position I have K Q. As the table is pretty passive I decide to limp and see what the flop brings. In late position, player R raises. If it was anyone else I would fold but R is a notoriously aggressive player. She could have anything. So I call. I flop a full house: K Q Q. I check and R immediately puts in a big bet. Trying to look reluctant, I call. I check the turn, hoping that R will continue to bet. When she does I put in my best Oscar winning performance and then call. I have no interest in what comes on the river. I'm just wondering whether she will bet again if I check. Rather than take the risk of it being checked back, I put in a minimum bet. I figure she must be getting suspicious by now. She instantly calls and shows Q x. After seeing my monster hand she says she thought I might have A K. As she had trips I guess I could have bet a lot more on the river. After this the other players enter into an analysis of the size of my river bet. Everyone's an expert after the fact.

   Live Tournament. At a very passive table I limp in with K Q again (no, I don't usually make a habit of this but when the play is so passive, it's hard to resist). The flop is K x x. Player T checks, as do I.  Player G bets and we both call. The turn is an Ace. Now T, who is usually more passive than a jellyfish, puts up a decent-sized bet. I figure if he's betting, he must have the Ace, so I fold. G calls. After the river T shows down K Q and G has K 4! I guess T is not as predictable as I thought.

   Online SitnGo. With A K suited, I put in a standard 3x raise and get 3 callers. The flop is A A 7. I check my trips, not wishing to scare anyone off, and they all do likewise. The turn is another 7, giving me a full house. I check again, hoping that one of the others hits a decent hand on the river so I can extract some chips from them. I get my wish. The river is an Ace, putting a full house on the board and giving me quads. Player 1 bets half the pot. He's obviously trying to steal the pot by representing the other Ace. This is a dream result for me. The other two players both now fold, which is quite surprising. I re-raise and p1, who obviously thinks I'm trying to re-steal, calls with 8 9s. The only way this could have worked out better would have been if his bluff had been an all-in push.

   Online ring game (10c/20c). I'm in the big blind with 4 2. There is one limper in the pot. The flop is 3 5 7. I bet at it, assuming that the other player also missed a flop like that. They call. The turn is a King. I decide that this might be a scare card for my opposition, so I bet about 3/4 pot and get called again. With bets being called twice, you'd think I'd get the message by now, but when a 2 comes on the river I decide to bet at it again. After all, in the big blind, I could have anything: 2 2, K 5, 4 6. So I bet about half the pot and get re-raised. So I do what I should have done two betting rounds ago; fold.

   Online ring game (10c/20c). With A J in the BB there are several limpers and I just check it. I don't want to be raising with this hand from such a poor position and am looking for a pretty flop. The flop is about as pretty as it can get; T Q K, giving me the nuts. I figure it's time to go fishing and check. One player puts in a small bet and I call. The turn is an Ace, which is not great for me; anyone with a Jack now also has an Ace high straight and anyone without a Jack is going to be pretty wary of a bet. Player 1 checks, p2 bets $1.60 and I immediately re-raise them. To my surprise I get two callers.  The river is a 7, and now there are 3 hearts on the board. P1 checks, p2 bets and, wary of a possible flush, I just call. P1 then check-raises to $25. Even though I know I have the best possible hand short of a flush, I just can't bring myself to call such a huge bet. Getting drawn out on when the river hits is pretty routine for me, so I reluctantly fold. P2 calls and shows 2 pair. P1 has J 2 for an Ace high straight. A very bad fold. I guess I should have raised pre-flop after all. Coulda, woulda, shoulda.

   Online ring game (10c/20c). With J 9 in the BB I call a minimum raise from one other player. The flop is 5 8 J. With top pair I put in a bet of 3/4 pot and get called. The 9 on the turn gives me top 2 pair, so I bet again. My opponent now puts in a big re-raise. This player had just recently suffered a bad beat from a worse hand and now had a short stack. I figure he's on tilt so I push hard. He calls me all-in and shows 6 7; he has a straight. Oops. The river is another 9, giving me a full house. I collect a very healthy-sized pot and the other player has another bad beat tale to tell.

   Online SitnGo. Early in the tournament I have A Q in the small blind. One player raises x3 and I call. I miss the flop completely; 3 4 8. Noting that the other player is short-stacked, I decide to take a stab at it and push all-in. I figure it will be very hard for him to call without something really good. He calls with K J. He hits nothing and, just to cap it off, I hit an Ace on the river. I love it when a plan comes together.

   Live tournament. Mid-way through the tournament, with the blinds at 1200 (they started at 200), I look down at A 2. I limp in and so does player B. The flop is A K 2.  I check it and B bets 2400. So I re-raise to 4800 with my 2 pair and get called. The turn is a 9. I figure B must have an Ace, so as long as it's not A K or A 9 I should be OK. I bet 4800 again and he calls. The river is a 2, giving me a full house. Trying to disguise the strength of my hand, I bet the same amount again. B has a good long think about this, staring at me and muttering about what I might have, but eventually he calls. I declare that I have a full house and throw my cards down. To my horror I see that I have A 3, not A 2. Oh no! Then, to my amazement, B turns over K 5. I still win with my baby Ace. I can't believe that B would keep calling those bets with second pair. I also can't believe that I mis-read my hand. It could have been a disaster. In fact, it should have been.

   Live tournament. 2 1/2 hours into the tournament and I'm short-stacked. At this stage I'm just looking for a good hand to go all-in with. I push all-in with about 13 BBs left with pocket sixes. I get called by an even shorter stack with T 6. So my opponent has only 3 outs. They hit one of those tens and I'm left with only a handful of chips. A few hands later I go all-in again with 9 9. I get called by A 5 (only one over-card again).  There's an Ace in the window (first card exposed on the flop) and I lose again. My last desperate move with just 5 BBs left and I push again with pocket fours. This time my opponent has 6 outs with K 9. There's a 9 on the flop, then another on the turn and that's it. So my pocket pairs lose three times in a row within 30 minutes. Oh well. That's poker.

  

  

  

Summer Days

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

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

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

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

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