Maybe Tomorrow

[peterbirks]

A brief(ish) post, mainly because I have some other writing to do and I have told myself that I must do it tonight. And the ironing, and the hoovering, and putting out the rubbish. Because if you don't put out the rubbish at exactly the right time these days, everyone knows that you can go to jail for nine months, or something like that.

The final month's figures will make rather horrific reading, but one has to publish the bad with the good. On the plus side, I got back that last "bad" loss of $280, so things have been slightly on the mend. The new strategy in the Big Blind has had the odd effect of making me look forward to that particular hand on every circuit. On the downside, my major metagame fault -- assuming that other people are thinking like I am -- has made me want to be more cautious when raising from the cut off or the button. I must force myself to maintain my previous aggression there (in fact, I ought to be stepping it up, to something like 30% from the current 27%).

With the bonus worked off at Full Tilt, I can give the site a rest for a month (apart from the freeroll) and see what impact that has on the overall figures. It's good to leave sites for a while, because this can trigger marketing flags and special offers "to tempt you back".

I still haven't decided on things long-term. If the Blind-playing experiment works, then short-handed becomes a bit tempting. Alternatively I could just admit that my best talent is as a bonus whore, and carry on in that fashion ("stick to what you are good at"). Thirdly, I could bite the bullet and try NL, although this would be a big gamble that the games would remain OK, and working against it is that I don't really enjoy NL or PL. Mr Young, who nine months ago said that I was overrating the opposition and that I should just imagine them playing while masturbating to child porn on another screen, is now saying that he's quit NL online because there are too many good players.

That leaves PLO, which should still be good at the American-accepting sites because most PLO players from the US are absolutely fucking abysmal. Even I can see that. Or Razz, which I happen to find attractive as a game and at which I suspect I could get reasonably competent. And Badugi is magic, but I somehow doubt that it will ever get a deep player base.

Right, dammit, fiction calls.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

When did the Youngster say this? And on what sites?

gl

dd

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

The first comment was made over a lunch; the second was made in an e-mail. If you are thinking of writing anything on this, Dave, the normal journalistic ruse is to consult the source. We're cunning like that.

Needless to say, David isn't saying that he couldn't beat the NL online; merely that the PLO was much more profitable. I think that David's parameters for enjoyment collude at a ratio close to 100% with the question "how profitable are they per hour?"


For us less dedicated types, the fact that I don't particularly enjoy a game/ stake structure can mitigate against it, even though it might be quite profitable.

PJ

[(Anonymous)]

Writing? When can I be bothered :)

I was wondering on the timing because I thought the NL games were ridiculously soft up to about 5-10 until they pulled the plug on the US. This lead to the insanity of Crypot self-cannibalising. PLO does look soft now, if only because a lot of NL folk are hitting the game looking for action.

cheers

Dave

[(Anonymous)]

Actually Peter, it was getting to the point where I wasn't beating the NL games online. That could be down to bad play on my part of course. But the contrast between the games I've played online, where much of the action was heads up, and the games at the Vic, where pots are often played five or six handed even if raised preflop, is so wide that I wondered what the point was.

Online PLO seems a better value and it lends itself better to playing three tables at once.

DY

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Hi David:

I think that this comes back to a previous point where you were commenting on someone putting in large raises pre-flop at the Vic. I said that, in such deep-stack games, you had to put in raises like that to stop giving other players the implied odds. it would appear that Vic players are throwing in online-type raises (3 to 4 times the big blind?) which gives anyone with something like 86s the odds to call, given that they are still only putting in about half a per cent of their stack to see more than 70% of their final hand. I'm sure that the good doctor is a great fan of these smallish raises with speculative hands, because he is looking to stack off a mug who couldn't believe that anyone would put in a raise with 75s.

Online, the shorter stacks remove the implied odds, hence the smaller number of players seeing the flop.

I feel quite uncomfortable in multiway pots these days, since I've been playing 90% of hands heads up or three-way at most on the flop for a good couple of years.

I certainly think if I was playing at the Vic that some of my raises would be considered "big", thus causing multitudnous moans from the MOGs. But, if they are moaning, the "big" raiser must be doing something right. Is it that you want to get in, hit a big one, and stack off someone with an 80% edge going to the river? Because even I know that this kind of game is a fiction online.

However, if you fancy the $1-$100 spread limit game at the Bellagio, you might well be accommodated. :-)

PJ