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Won't Let The Sun Go Down
Jul. 2nd, 2006 06:25 pmI could have entitled this "Around the blogs", but it might as well have been called "Around Vegas". It looks like some 50% of the people who write the blogs that I read are in LV at the moment. I'm afraid that I still draw the line at 110 degrees F. I think it's 116 at the moment, so, we'll have to wait until December.
I would have written this earlier, but I got stuck on Virgin again. I suppose that, when you play for long enough, everything will happen. I got back from $300 down to $150 down, which was progress, or sorts. Then the fish whom I had sworn to stay at the table with until he either went broke or left, left. You wouldn't think that it was possible for a person playing as badly as he did for five hours could possibly break even. But he did.
A motley crew of other tourists came and went -- some losing, some winning, and none of them putting the stuff in my direction. It's all happened before and will happen again. This time it wasn't the big pairs getting cracked, mainly because I didn't see AA or KK once in five hours at two tables. No, this time it was the nut flush draws failing to come in against six opponents, or someone else's draw always coming home on the river. These things happen.
I seem to have achieved my worst ever downswing on a single site, and in just three sessions lasting 10 hours. Yes, minus four figures is the swing on Virgin. And today was just $4-$8 and E3-E6!
++++++++++++
But, ahh, back to the blogs. I've got a newsletter to write as well, so I really shouldn't take too long. Five fucking hours that guy stayed on Virgin. Incredible.
21 Outs Twice (http://twentyoneoutstwice.blogspot.com/ Chris Fargis) had a great post. You can't help but like this guy. It ended with the conclusion:
Anyway if you're out here and feel like playing golf, give me a call. Oh also if you feel like giving me some cash for online money, let me know. I'm a little short now. Not so good to be short of cash on day 5 of the Series. Sigh.
Excellent. he also pondered on his bad fortune at Badugi, the same kind of pondering that I go through. Is it variance, or is there something I'm missing?
A sequence of other posters serve to remind you that the vast majority of tournament players do not make big scores. An interesting comment from Terrence Chan (http://terrencechan.livejournal.com/) touched on the point that I made about a player who limped in virtually every hand. Terrence was saying that he preferred the short-handed tourney because "Not just because you can play looser opening, but there is never an "early" position raise or limp that you might have to respect. But the field is definitely softer."
This line from skilled players that EV isn't everything seems common. Terrence wrote: "This event (the ring NL tourney) is probably much higher in ev than yesterday's event, but much lower in fun. 6-handed you get to play so many hands."
Roswell (http://roswell-42.livejournal.com/), too, who seems to be that rare breed, a degenerate action junkie who happens to be able to play the game well, wrote that:
The best game for me is the $5/$10 NL at the Wynn, but I keep getting bored and going back to the Rio. I guess because that's where the action is.
He continued: Had a decent win of about $2000 going today, and somehow managed to blow it. I was pretty much done with poker at 9 pm but forced myself to play on and lost everything I had won earlier. That's a bit upsetting.
I think the sooner that Russ Fox's "Why You Lose At poker" hits the streets, the better it will be for a large number of talented players. I wonder if Matusow will read it.
Hellmuth will probably read it and comment "but I don't care if I lose at poker. Look at the publicity!"
+++++++
Who else is doing their bollocks? Oh yes, Jan at 50 Outs Twice (http://50outs.blogs.com/poker/), over in LV with Katja.
The lineup (at a $30$60 game in Bellagio, waiting time, 5 hours!) was just about all you can ask for, 2-3 young players with sunglasses, 2-3 old rocks, 3 aggressive asians and the downstaring mob-like looking guy. The game was good right on and got only better later. "Good" means here that there was lots of action and people chasing any kind of hands for 2 or even 3 bets. Unfortunately, good here means not that I have won as I didn't. Again I lost many flopped straights and flushes and even one or two flopped or turned boats."
Must say that I love Jan's description of the game. Yep, that's the $30-$60 game at the Bellagio, OK. Almost made me wish I was there. Except, of course, I wouldn't have had the patience to wait five hours.
Jan has a picture of a Wynn room. Wow. I think that I've decided on two of my three weeks in LV. Poker rate for one week in Bellagio and poker rate for one week in the Wynn. Perhaps I'll throw in a week at the Imperial Palace at the start, if the Poker Bloggers tourney is going to be there. See how the other half lives, and the like. (Or is that downtown?)
++++++++++++
Not so much in the doing your bollocks mode, because tourney players never risk more than a cab fare home for their buy-in, Andy Ward (http://www.secretsoftheamateurs.blogspot.com/) reports on the $200 tourney at the Orleans and comments (as felicia noted earlier) that there might actually be a tournament that is too slow for the buy-in. Then again, I remember when I was just starting over again (say, 1999), I would have welcomed the chance to play a slow-structured, deep-stacked tourney that matched my limited bankroll. These days I look at 15-minute levels online and say to myself "too slow".
I think that I agree with what Andy writes: At least there's a good old crapshoot tonight. 20 minute levels that's the ticket. I think I should have at least as good an expectation in that, and it only takes a third as long. In fact, the antes start in the 7 pm tournament before they do in the 12 noon ! Should suit me better. All yin !
I think that the experienced tourney player can really rip up these short level tournaments, because your fold equity remains significant, and also because the chances are that you will have accumulated enough chips to be able to get it wrong once (and, in these tourneys, once is the usual maximum and twice is normally the absolute maximum). I remember playing one tourney in LV (one of the early eveing ones that started at 6 and ended by 8.30 at the latest) when it had all gone tits up. The blinds were 250-500 with a 50 ante. I had 1,000 left in MP1 of seven players and I put my collection 100 and 25 chips into the middle with great deliberation.
Everyone folded. and I more than doubled through without seeing a flop.
+++++++++++++++
Dutch Boyd is big chip leader in a tourney. I hope that, if he wins it, one of the defeated players says to ESPN "I'm sure there will be a great number of people at the cashout desk waiting to congratulate him on his win".
+++
I still haven't got round to watching the High Stakes series two episodes sitting on the computer. Apparently episode four is a good one. Don't spoil it for me.
+++++++
When I read Simon Trumper's journal entries (http://simontrumper.livejournal.com/) I just, well, I just don't know. You feel like saying: "forget it, Simon. It isn't going to happen". But then, hell, anyone can win these days, right?
Although Simon says that the final hand is the point of the diary (and it's an Omaha hand, so I'll forbear commenting on it), I think that a more interesting part is on how Simon's stack moved during the day (this was the £1000 PLO at the Vic).
In the end it clearly wasn't my day but some positives came from it , mainly my discipline , i picked up garbage for 3 hours and missed every flop bar one where i flopped top set against a made flush but didn't improve v Scott Fischman , my 10,000 blinded away to 1400 and i hadn't won a single hand , average was now 13,000 , i managed to get it all in twice with AA xx and got back up to 10,000 then during the 150 300 level i dropped back to 7,000 , the final hand is the point of this diary .
+++++++++++++
Anyway, one person who does not seem to be doing his pieces in LV is Eric ThreeBet (http://threebet33.blogspot.com/), mainly because he's sticking to the NL games online.
++++++++++++++++
Pauly linked to a blog that I hadn't seen before, Eric Lynch's http://rizenpoker.blogspot.com/
"Rizen" is a tournament player and came third in Event 3 of this year's WSOP. Most of what he writes is about tournaments, and so is not of specific interest to me. However, as with the Harrington books, you can often transfer principles from both tournaments and from No Limit to your metagame and (sometimes) to specific parts of the limit cash game.
I was very impressed by what Rizen wrote. I don't often lift entire posts, but this one is good enough, because it shows a depper understanding of the No Limit tournament game than virtually any of the stuff that I have read from "name" players. Why? Because Rizen understands that the best style depends intrinsically on the kind of person you are.
Annulus asked me about rebuy tournaments in a comment. I try and address the items brought up in my comments as much as I can, although I'm sure I've missed a few. Again, I'll reiterate like the first entry in this blog says, I've never really intended for this blog to become any sort of teaching tool. I hope everyone gets something out of it, but that's not necessarily my intent.
For those of you that haven't seen, to sum up Annulus's question he asked me what kind of emphasis I put on building a big stack during the rebuy period as well as how many times I rebuy.
This actually has a lot to do with my previous post. If you watch some of the top rebuy players play, you'll notice they spend tons of money and play VERY aggressively in order to build a huge stack early on. The thing is, while this strategy may work very well for THEM, it might not work for you. Most of the players that do this are the kinds of players who know how to expertly play their large stack once the rebuy period ends, so spending $210-300 on a $30 rebuy can be quite profitable for them. If you're the kind of person who can consistently use your large stack to propel yourself to the final table, then this strategy might work for you.
For most people though I really think the best strategy is to plan on average spending about 5x the buy in. This means you plan on paying the entry + immediate rebuy + add on. I say 5x because on average with everyone playing aggresive you may have to double rebuy once if you go broke early. Many times I spend $90-$120 in the Dise 30r, but every once in a while I end up with a $240-$300 when all my good hands get sucked out on.
I don't particularly aim for any particular stack size at the break because I believe that if you say 'okay, I'm going to get to 8k by the break' you may get to 8k and then not take advantage of opportunities to build an even bigger stack because you're happy at 8k. I almost hesitate to give #s, but typically I end the first hour of both the 30r on Paradise and the 10r on Stars with 6-8k in chips before the add on. That's not the goal though, my goal is to make the most +cEV plays as possible, and if I end up with only 3k at the break, I'm perfectly comfortable with that. Sometimes I end up with 3k, sometimes 20k, but on average it's probably 6-8k before I take the add on.
Also keep in mind that a lot of this has to do with your table. If your table is pushing a whole lot of hands you have to loosen your calling requirements to accumulate chips (and accordingly, you will probably spend a little more money). At the same time, if your table is playing like it's the first hour of the WSOP main event, open pushing is just a no-no unless you're doing it with 24o and then showing it to try and loosen the table up.
Read that key sentence. "My goal is to make the most +EV plays as possible".
Write it on the wall.
++++++++++++
I would have written this earlier, but I got stuck on Virgin again. I suppose that, when you play for long enough, everything will happen. I got back from $300 down to $150 down, which was progress, or sorts. Then the fish whom I had sworn to stay at the table with until he either went broke or left, left. You wouldn't think that it was possible for a person playing as badly as he did for five hours could possibly break even. But he did.
A motley crew of other tourists came and went -- some losing, some winning, and none of them putting the stuff in my direction. It's all happened before and will happen again. This time it wasn't the big pairs getting cracked, mainly because I didn't see AA or KK once in five hours at two tables. No, this time it was the nut flush draws failing to come in against six opponents, or someone else's draw always coming home on the river. These things happen.
I seem to have achieved my worst ever downswing on a single site, and in just three sessions lasting 10 hours. Yes, minus four figures is the swing on Virgin. And today was just $4-$8 and E3-E6!
++++++++++++
But, ahh, back to the blogs. I've got a newsletter to write as well, so I really shouldn't take too long. Five fucking hours that guy stayed on Virgin. Incredible.
21 Outs Twice (http://twentyoneoutstwice.blogspot.com/ Chris Fargis) had a great post. You can't help but like this guy. It ended with the conclusion:
Anyway if you're out here and feel like playing golf, give me a call. Oh also if you feel like giving me some cash for online money, let me know. I'm a little short now. Not so good to be short of cash on day 5 of the Series. Sigh.
Excellent. he also pondered on his bad fortune at Badugi, the same kind of pondering that I go through. Is it variance, or is there something I'm missing?
A sequence of other posters serve to remind you that the vast majority of tournament players do not make big scores. An interesting comment from Terrence Chan (http://terrencechan.livejournal.com/) touched on the point that I made about a player who limped in virtually every hand. Terrence was saying that he preferred the short-handed tourney because "Not just because you can play looser opening, but there is never an "early" position raise or limp that you might have to respect. But the field is definitely softer."
This line from skilled players that EV isn't everything seems common. Terrence wrote: "This event (the ring NL tourney) is probably much higher in ev than yesterday's event, but much lower in fun. 6-handed you get to play so many hands."
Roswell (http://roswell-42.livejournal.com/), too, who seems to be that rare breed, a degenerate action junkie who happens to be able to play the game well, wrote that:
The best game for me is the $5/$10 NL at the Wynn, but I keep getting bored and going back to the Rio. I guess because that's where the action is.
He continued: Had a decent win of about $2000 going today, and somehow managed to blow it. I was pretty much done with poker at 9 pm but forced myself to play on and lost everything I had won earlier. That's a bit upsetting.
I think the sooner that Russ Fox's "Why You Lose At poker" hits the streets, the better it will be for a large number of talented players. I wonder if Matusow will read it.
Hellmuth will probably read it and comment "but I don't care if I lose at poker. Look at the publicity!"
+++++++
Who else is doing their bollocks? Oh yes, Jan at 50 Outs Twice (http://50outs.blogs.com/poker/), over in LV with Katja.
The lineup (at a $30$60 game in Bellagio, waiting time, 5 hours!) was just about all you can ask for, 2-3 young players with sunglasses, 2-3 old rocks, 3 aggressive asians and the downstaring mob-like looking guy. The game was good right on and got only better later. "Good" means here that there was lots of action and people chasing any kind of hands for 2 or even 3 bets. Unfortunately, good here means not that I have won as I didn't. Again I lost many flopped straights and flushes and even one or two flopped or turned boats."
Must say that I love Jan's description of the game. Yep, that's the $30-$60 game at the Bellagio, OK. Almost made me wish I was there. Except, of course, I wouldn't have had the patience to wait five hours.
Jan has a picture of a Wynn room. Wow. I think that I've decided on two of my three weeks in LV. Poker rate for one week in Bellagio and poker rate for one week in the Wynn. Perhaps I'll throw in a week at the Imperial Palace at the start, if the Poker Bloggers tourney is going to be there. See how the other half lives, and the like. (Or is that downtown?)
++++++++++++
Not so much in the doing your bollocks mode, because tourney players never risk more than a cab fare home for their buy-in, Andy Ward (http://www.secretsoftheamateurs.blogspot.com/) reports on the $200 tourney at the Orleans and comments (as felicia noted earlier) that there might actually be a tournament that is too slow for the buy-in. Then again, I remember when I was just starting over again (say, 1999), I would have welcomed the chance to play a slow-structured, deep-stacked tourney that matched my limited bankroll. These days I look at 15-minute levels online and say to myself "too slow".
I think that I agree with what Andy writes: At least there's a good old crapshoot tonight. 20 minute levels that's the ticket. I think I should have at least as good an expectation in that, and it only takes a third as long. In fact, the antes start in the 7 pm tournament before they do in the 12 noon ! Should suit me better. All yin !
I think that the experienced tourney player can really rip up these short level tournaments, because your fold equity remains significant, and also because the chances are that you will have accumulated enough chips to be able to get it wrong once (and, in these tourneys, once is the usual maximum and twice is normally the absolute maximum). I remember playing one tourney in LV (one of the early eveing ones that started at 6 and ended by 8.30 at the latest) when it had all gone tits up. The blinds were 250-500 with a 50 ante. I had 1,000 left in MP1 of seven players and I put my collection 100 and 25 chips into the middle with great deliberation.
Everyone folded. and I more than doubled through without seeing a flop.
+++++++++++++++
Dutch Boyd is big chip leader in a tourney. I hope that, if he wins it, one of the defeated players says to ESPN "I'm sure there will be a great number of people at the cashout desk waiting to congratulate him on his win".
+++
I still haven't got round to watching the High Stakes series two episodes sitting on the computer. Apparently episode four is a good one. Don't spoil it for me.
+++++++
When I read Simon Trumper's journal entries (http://simontrumper.livejournal.com/) I just, well, I just don't know. You feel like saying: "forget it, Simon. It isn't going to happen". But then, hell, anyone can win these days, right?
Although Simon says that the final hand is the point of the diary (and it's an Omaha hand, so I'll forbear commenting on it), I think that a more interesting part is on how Simon's stack moved during the day (this was the £1000 PLO at the Vic).
In the end it clearly wasn't my day but some positives came from it , mainly my discipline , i picked up garbage for 3 hours and missed every flop bar one where i flopped top set against a made flush but didn't improve v Scott Fischman , my 10,000 blinded away to 1400 and i hadn't won a single hand , average was now 13,000 , i managed to get it all in twice with AA xx and got back up to 10,000 then during the 150 300 level i dropped back to 7,000 , the final hand is the point of this diary .
+++++++++++++
Anyway, one person who does not seem to be doing his pieces in LV is Eric ThreeBet (http://threebet33.blogspot.com/), mainly because he's sticking to the NL games online.
++++++++++++++++
Pauly linked to a blog that I hadn't seen before, Eric Lynch's http://rizenpoker.blogspot.com/
"Rizen" is a tournament player and came third in Event 3 of this year's WSOP. Most of what he writes is about tournaments, and so is not of specific interest to me. However, as with the Harrington books, you can often transfer principles from both tournaments and from No Limit to your metagame and (sometimes) to specific parts of the limit cash game.
I was very impressed by what Rizen wrote. I don't often lift entire posts, but this one is good enough, because it shows a depper understanding of the No Limit tournament game than virtually any of the stuff that I have read from "name" players. Why? Because Rizen understands that the best style depends intrinsically on the kind of person you are.
Annulus asked me about rebuy tournaments in a comment. I try and address the items brought up in my comments as much as I can, although I'm sure I've missed a few. Again, I'll reiterate like the first entry in this blog says, I've never really intended for this blog to become any sort of teaching tool. I hope everyone gets something out of it, but that's not necessarily my intent.
For those of you that haven't seen, to sum up Annulus's question he asked me what kind of emphasis I put on building a big stack during the rebuy period as well as how many times I rebuy.
This actually has a lot to do with my previous post. If you watch some of the top rebuy players play, you'll notice they spend tons of money and play VERY aggressively in order to build a huge stack early on. The thing is, while this strategy may work very well for THEM, it might not work for you. Most of the players that do this are the kinds of players who know how to expertly play their large stack once the rebuy period ends, so spending $210-300 on a $30 rebuy can be quite profitable for them. If you're the kind of person who can consistently use your large stack to propel yourself to the final table, then this strategy might work for you.
For most people though I really think the best strategy is to plan on average spending about 5x the buy in. This means you plan on paying the entry + immediate rebuy + add on. I say 5x because on average with everyone playing aggresive you may have to double rebuy once if you go broke early. Many times I spend $90-$120 in the Dise 30r, but every once in a while I end up with a $240-$300 when all my good hands get sucked out on.
I don't particularly aim for any particular stack size at the break because I believe that if you say 'okay, I'm going to get to 8k by the break' you may get to 8k and then not take advantage of opportunities to build an even bigger stack because you're happy at 8k. I almost hesitate to give #s, but typically I end the first hour of both the 30r on Paradise and the 10r on Stars with 6-8k in chips before the add on. That's not the goal though, my goal is to make the most +cEV plays as possible, and if I end up with only 3k at the break, I'm perfectly comfortable with that. Sometimes I end up with 3k, sometimes 20k, but on average it's probably 6-8k before I take the add on.
Also keep in mind that a lot of this has to do with your table. If your table is pushing a whole lot of hands you have to loosen your calling requirements to accumulate chips (and accordingly, you will probably spend a little more money). At the same time, if your table is playing like it's the first hour of the WSOP main event, open pushing is just a no-no unless you're doing it with 24o and then showing it to try and loosen the table up.
Read that key sentence. "My goal is to make the most +EV plays as possible".
Write it on the wall.
++++++++++++
