Sit and Go

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

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

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

  

Small Pockets

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

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

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

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

Club Champs 2015

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

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

The Big Dipper

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

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

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

Playing the Short Stack, Part 2

   The major difference between playing in a tournament and a cash game is the amount of time you have to play. In a cash game, where a typical buy-in is 40 to 100 big blinds, you usually have a deep stack and if you lose all your chips, you can just buy some more. Unlike in a tournament, you can sit back and wait for the right spot to play, because the blinds are never going to go up. I like to play in cash games whenever I can for this very reason; the luxury of being able to fold until I hit the right hand in the right circumstances. As far as I'm concerned, the whole point of playing in a cash game is having a deep stack.
   However, there are players who prefer to play in cash games with a short stack, and this requires a distinctly different strategy. The poker school online tutorials are divided into different sections: deep stack, medium stack and short stack strategies. In fact they recommend the short stack strategy for cash games because it is relatively simple and the claim is that if it is followed exactly, it is virtually unbeatable. What it amounts to is waiting for a big hand and then playing it very aggressively. The aim is to get all your chips into the middle on the flop. Apparently there are many 'short-stackers' playing online; multi-tabling and basically playing by the numbers. I'm not saying I would never try this strategy, but for now I'm happy to play in cash games with a deep stack.
   When it comes to playing in live 'cashies' however, I've run into a bit of  problem. The only live cash games I've been able to play in recently are those that spring up during a tournament, after a number of  players have been eliminated. These games have a rather peculiar structure. They are typically for a $20 buy-in, no more, no less, and you can only buy more chips if you have lost all of your stack. The blinds are usually 50c/$1, which means you are buying in for just 20 big blinds; what I would consider to be a very short stack. What usually happens is that players lose their starting stacks very early and end up reloading, often multiple times. As a result more and more chips accumulate on the table and the stack sizes become deeper as the game progresses.
   This is basically a strange hybrid between a cash game and a tournament. I can only assume that the games are played this way because the players come from a background of tournament play and have little or no understanding of how cash poker games work. Coming from a background of playing cash poker games, this is very strange to me, but if I try to suggest changes that would make the game more like a standard cashie, no-one is interested. There was one occasion when I succeeded in changing the blind structure to 50c/50c, resulting in a buy-in of 40BB, but that's about it.
   So I've had to learn to adapt to this short-stacked structure and I've done so quite successfully. Even from the first time I played in one of these games I realised that the optimal strategy was going to be quite different from that used in a deeper stacked game. My strategy was and is fairly straightforward: fold a lot and wait for a big pre-flop hand, then push very hard, raising at least 3/4 pot, usually more. Then, if I miss the flop, I fold. If I hit the flop, I'm usually pushing all-in. I'm also willing to limp in to big unraised pots pre-flop with hands with a lot of potential; suited aces, big suited connectors and small to medium pairs, hoping to hit a monster hand, or at least a monster draw. These games are typically ridiculously loose and passive so if I hit a big hand, I get paid off. Of course, if I lose all my chips in one of these hands, I just buy another short stack and start again. And if my stack starts to drop too low, I look for a good spot to go all-in. Eventually I end up with a stack that's big enough to give me the latitude to play a more standard game.
   Recently I decided to try to get a regular cash game going at my local club, the idea being to make it more of a deep stacked game. But I knew that the potential players for this game were likely to be almost exclusively from the ranks of tournament poker players. So I had to think long and hard about what structure I could use that would not put these people off playing. The minimum buy-in for a cash game is usually 40BB. I knew that most players don't like to play for such 'small stakes' as 50c, and that $1 blinds was probably the lowest I could get away with. But I also knew that, even though these players will reload $20 multiple times, they would probably baulk at paying $40 upfront to play in my cashie. So, what to do?
   As it happens, my wife and I went on one of our occasional trips to the Skycity Casino during this period. As I had about $100 to spend on any gambling activity, I decided to go and check out the 'Poker Zone', even though I suspected the games would be pretty expensive. It turns out that the blinds for the cash game were $2/$4, but the minimum buy-in was only $100 (25BB). So I decided to have a go at playing with a short stack, just for fun. It went pretty well. I folded a lot and when I finally hit a playable hand it was KK. I ended up all-in with this hand and in the end I doubled the size of my stack. This allowed me to play a few more hands and in the end, after a couple of hours, I walked away with $200 in my pocket.
   After seeing that the casino was offering games with a minimum buy-in of 25BB, I figured that I could probably do the same. So I set up my cashie with a buy-in of $25-$50. That way, the tourney players were able to buy in for their short stacks if they wanted to, and I was able to buy a medium sized stack. As it happened, most of them bought in for $30-$40 and the whole thing went off rather well. I've had a couple of these games since and I'm happy to be able to play in a cashie where I don't have to play the short stack.
   I still play regularly in live tournaments and occasionally get into the short stack cashies that are played afterwards. It's just a matter of adjusting my play to the circumstances. If I'm forced to play with a short stack, I play a short stack strategy. However, there are limits. A game that started up recently during a tournament had the following structure: dealers choice, Omaha or Holdem, buy-in $20, one $1 blind when playing Omaha, $1/$2 blinds for Holdem. This game was set up by K, who is a big fan of Omaha, so I guess it was devised to make Omaha the more attractive option. But it meant that you were playing with just 10BB when playing Texas Holdem. Playing a short stack is one thing, but that's just ridiculous.
  
  

Playing the Short Stack, Part 1

        You never count your money
         When you're sitting at the table,
         There'll be time enough for counting
         When the dealings done                        Kenny Rogers

   I have been aware for some time of the importance of stack size in poker tournaments. The number of big blinds that I have left is a critical factor for me in determining how to play (or whether to play) a particular hand. Of course there are other important factors in tournament play, but I think stack size is the dominant factor most of the time. Consult any book or article or tutorial on tournament strategy and you will usually find some variation on the following: play tight when the blinds are relatively small and conserve your chips, then as the blinds increase start playing more hands more aggressively. This is because the potential rewards become progressively larger as the blinds increase. It is because of this principal that I find myself frequently counting my chips at the table, and the deeper I go in the tournament, the more closely I will be monitoring my stack size.
   It is often stated that once your stack reaches a certain minimum size, then the aggression factor reaches the level of going all-in pre-flop. This stack size is the point where calling or raising becomes counter-productive and it is better to either fold or push. Basically, at this point any betting on a hand is likely to result in being pot-committed. If you have, say, ten big blinds (10BB) left and you make a minimum raise, that's already 20% of your stack committed to the hand. And what's going to happen post-flop? If you fold, you've given away chips that you couldn't afford to lose. If you bet or call, you've got at least 30% of your stack in the pot already with two more streets still to come. With a stack this short there's very little room for manoeuvre.
   But while a stack of 10BB is definitely a short stack, it still has considerable value as a single unit. In most cases where you are short-stacked there will be many other players with similar or only slightly larger stacks. Even a player with a stack of 20BB is going to think twice about calling an all-in bet that would commit half their stack to one hand. This is the principal of 'fold equity'. If you start pushing all-in with a decent-sized stack, then you can win in one of two different ways: you can get called and win the hand, or the other player(s) can fold and you win the pot uncontested. On the other hand, if you push with 5BB, you are far more likely to get called by the larger stacks and what's more, you're probably going to get more callers, which only reduces your chances of winning the hand.
   All of the above is standard poker tournament theory and I have been aware of many of these principals since I started getting serious about my poker play. It's about 5 years ago that I started putting the principal of short stack play into practise. This was when I used to play in a weekly Friday night tournament at the Phoenix Tavern. Right from the start I had a simple game plan: play my normal game (basically, play the same as a cash game) until I reach a stack of 10BB, then either fold pre-flop or go all-in. I would usually be shoving with any Ace, any pair, or any two picture cards (actually, I can't remember if I was risking my stack with a hand as weak as QJ, but I probably was). This strategy worked pretty well for me and I was well into profit by the time they stopped playing these games.
   My behaviour at these live tournaments was unusual; most of the other players weren't pushing pre-flop unless their stacks were very small. So most of the time they would get a lot of callers and get knocked out, or occasionally they'd get lucky and suddenly become the big stack. Online tournaments were and are somewhat different. Although I haven't played in multi-table tournaments much online, I've played in plenty of single-table tournaments (STTs). Even at the micro stakes level, the awareness of fold equity is considerably higher than in casual live tourneys. Players are far more inclined to push all-in with a decent sized stack in the later stages of the tournament. You still get some players who let their chips dribble away until they're almost down to nothing, but the majority have at least some idea of more aggressive short stack play. So, on the one hand it's trickier to negotiate the later stages of an online tourney, with more all-in shoves by the shorter stacks. On the other hand, I've found that these players are far more inclined to fold to an all-in bet and there are fewer 'hero calls' going on. So there are pros and cons to the different style of play found online.
   I now play regularly in a number of live tournaments, but it's important to remember that these are essentially 'pub tournaments' where most of the players are not particularly skilled and some of them are absolute beginners or gamblers, or drunk, or all of the above. There is not much knowledge of poker strategy to be found at these games, and this is particularly evident when it comes to the end game. I am constantly amazed at the number of players who will continue to limp in and call with very short stacks. If you have 10,000 in chips in front of you, it might sound a lot, but not if the big blind is 2,000. And yet I frequently see exactly this situation. By this stage I'm already either out of the tournament or a decent-sized stack. And this is because I don't wait around to get blinded out. Once I reach what I call the 'red zone' it's push or fold. If I push, there are three possible outcomes: everyone folds and I pick up enough chips to keep me going a little longer; I get called and win, which usually at least doubles my stack size; I get called and lose, which usually means I'm eliminated. Either one of these results is better than limping along with a micro stack and going out with a whimper.
   My current push-or-fold level is 12BB. I increased it from 10BB quite some time ago because I felt that trying to play a stack of 12 BB is pretty tricky, so I erred on the side of caution and expanded my red zone. My recent reading at www.pokerschoolonline.com has confirmed this for me. They recommend at least a 4X raise with premium hands and also say that if you're betting 1/3 of your stack you are pot committed and might as well go all-in. So if you have 12BB left, that's an automatic push. I've also tightened up the range of hands that I'm willing to push with. If there's a raise in front of me, all other things being equal, I'm probably folding everything but AK, AA, KK, QQ and JJ. With no raise I'm usually pushing with any Ace and any pair, and maybe KQ or KJ if the circumstances are right. This is not a hard and fast range of hands; the hands I'll play depend on a number of other factors. In fact, in recent months, I've become much more flexible on the boundaries of the red zone. Whether or not I push all-in now depends on my stack size, other players' stack sizes, my position and the number of callers in the pot.
  These days I am far less likely to push with A5 or 66 from middle  or early position. It's become increasingly apparent to me that if I get called with this sort of hand, I'll usually be facing a better hand. So position has become much more important. I'll push from early with the  raise-calling hands mentioned above (and maybe a few others) and then progressively widen my range as my position approaches the button. The ideal place for me to push from is the big blind. If there has been no raise, then I'm definitely shoving with any Ace, any pair, KQ, KJ, and maybe a few others.
   The other factor that I take into consideration these days is the number of chips in the pot. The more chips there are to win, the more likely I am to push all-in, especially in position. So if I'm sitting on the button, small blind or big blind, and a number of players limp in, then my all-in range suddenly becomes much wider. And conversely, if there are only a few chips in the middle, then I'm not so inclined to risk my stack for such a small reward.
   All this is based on the assumption that I have a reasonable sized stack; say 12BB-10BB. If I'm unfortunate enough for my stack size to drop below this, then my pushing range gets progressively wider. If at all possible, I never want to get below 5BB. I consider this to be my desperation level. If I have 4BB or less then, if I don't get a pushing hand by the time the big blind hits me, I'm almost certainly going all-in with any two cards. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't, but it's better to do something than just get blinded out. I was in a situation like this a few weeks ago and went all-in from the big blind with T6. When I was called by three other players, I thought it was all over. But I hit a 6 and no-one else hit anything. The look on the other players' faces: priceless. The only thing that may make me think twice about pushing in this situation is if one player has raised and one or more has called; in that case I'm only going in with something decent.
  So nowadays there are a lot of considerations that determine whether or not I push my chips into the middle. I am constantly re-evaluating my position as the stack sizes, the size of the pot, and my position changes. When I first started playing I had a fairly straightforward plan for playing a short stack in tournaments. But now it is much more subtle and when I'm at the table (or screen) my mind is a whirlpool of  constantly changing scenarios.
  
  
  
  

  

Last Year

   The calendar on your wall is ticking the days off,
   You've been reading some old letters,
   You smile to think how much you've changed      The The

JANUARY.  The year started off with me opening up a bank account specifically for my poker stake. Just to keep everything separate from my regular accounts, I went to a different bank. I'd been hoping to be able to do this for quite a while, and my bankroll had reached a point where I didn't want that amount of money lying around the house. Over the course of the year I've deposited a few times and never had to withdraw anything; so far so good.

FEBRUARY.  This month I had my third cash and my second first place in the Friday night tournament. At this point, things were looking very good, and these sorts of results continued through most of the year. In the end I was looking at about a 90% Return On Investment for this game type. I also won first place in one of the four 'ten week challenge' prize pools and I had more first placings than anyone else. I like the Friday night game.

MARCH.  With the start of the Autumn season I started playing online no-limit cash games. They started out very well with me winning a fair bit in the first couple of months, but after that my win rate slowed down dramatically. By the end of the year I was still ahead in this game type even though the Winter and Spring results were negative. I've decided to continue playing online cashies this year, although I'm prepared to drop down a level if the results continue on their downward trend.

APRIL.  Even this early in the year it was becoming apparent that I'd lost my SitNGo mojo. My ROI in this game type was -19% for the Autumn season, my worst result ever. By the end of the year I was sitting at around -17% over-all for online SitNGos. I really don't know why I've been doing so badly in a game type in which I've had reasonable success in the past. But I'm going to keep plugging away at them and searching for the secret to SitNGo success.

MAY.  I attended my first Clubs NZ North Island tournament at the end of this month. This was a terrific event that I thoroughly enjoyed playing in. And actually making the main tournament final table was the icing on the cake. It's great fun being part of a big poker event that involves a lot of players. This event is being held down in Wellington this year and my wife and I have been invited to play for the OWMC team. Can't wait.

JUNE.  Six months in and I'd played in six Inter-club poker events. My wife and I both play in these tournaments, held on the second Sunday of every month at various different Auckland clubs. This is strictly a fun game for me as I don't use my poker bankroll to play. It's nice to go to different venues and play in a game with fifty or more players. I cashed once last year, coming in second, which isn't bad considering there are only ten games in the year.

JULY.  I started playing in satellite games to live events this month. These games are available on Pokerstars and are satellites to Australia New Zealand Poker Tour events. I've played in satellites to games in Melbourne and Auckland, generally playing one each month. These are turbo events, often with multiple re-buys, so a big change in game strategy is required. I haven't got past the first level yet (there are usually three levels). Although it's a big long shot, I'll keep playing these games, although I'll have to give the ones in Perth a miss; it's too expensive to fly to the other side of Australia.

AUGUST.  This is the month when I started running occasional Saturday afternoon tournaments at my local club. They were not a raging success. I just couldn't get enough people interested and by the end of the year the games had fizzled out. In fact we only had five players for the December game, so we played a cash game instead. This turned out to be good for me, as I did very well in the cashie. Although the poker organiser has made some noises about playing again this year, I think she'd be flogging a dead horse. Oh well. It was worth a try.

SEPTEMBER.    This is when I decided I needed to find a 'fishier' poker site than the ones I was playing on. I actually had a lot of trouble trying to see the games on offer on the different sites I tried. I didn't figure out that it had to do with the lobby view that I was using until after I'd registered with Bet365. But all I was able to find on Bet365 was 6 max games (short-handed tables). I couldn't find any 9-player cash games at the level I wanted to play. So in the end, I just went back to 888poker.

OCTOBER.  This is the month of the TV coverage of the  World Series of Poker main event. In previous years ESPN has shown delayed coverage of this event leading up to the final table in November. This time, it was a bit patchy. They didn't start showing the early  stages until quite late, skipping the first couple of days altogether. Then coverage jumped from the final 18 to the final 6. Then when it got down to the last three players, they showed it live, but there was no edited highlights. So the whole thing was a bit of a shambles as far as TV coverage goes. Thank God for YouTube.

NOVEMBER.  As this is the end of Autumn, it marks the last month of my poker year. I played nearly 600 hours of poker over the year and showed a 16% ROI overall. My best profits were from live tournaments, then online cash games, then live cash games. The 27-player online tournies I played last Summer were bad for my bottom line, and the SitNGos have been very disappointing. I'm going to keep playing these SitNGos but I'll also be looking for more live tournaments to play in this year. The idea is to play to my strengths.

DECEMBER.  Looking back over the year two things stand out: my continuing good form in the Friday night tournament and the decline in form for online SitNGos. Obviously, I need to do something about the SitNGos and I am intending to gather more information about the games I play in and start reviewing some of my poker sessions. But the year overall has been pretty good both in terms of results and the satisfaction I get from playing poker. So now I am looking forward to another year and whatever challenges it may bring. Meanwhile, it's damn hot outside, so I think I'll have a beer...