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Oct. 21st, 2008 04:41 pmSo, William Hill dumped Cryptologic for Playtech (IPoker), which it has bought, and Cryptologic talks about consolidation in the Poker sector. The FT immediately assumes that this means Party Poker, and who am I to disagree?
There might be a backdoor route to Party Poker rakeback here, but I doubt it. They are far more likely to tell any Crypto players that the rakeback deal is being replaced by a super-duper new offer that is, in fact, anything but.
First it was Paradise that systematically destroyed its marrket-leading position, and now Party has done the same -- its market share is now down to about 8.5%.
There are probably too many poker sites (and definitely too many skins) to survive. If I was at lower stakes and a youngster with nothing better to do, I'd be destroying as many account-opening bonuses as I could while they were still around.
Once a year I do something extremely stupid, and this year is no exception on that front, although, on the plus side, it hasn't actually cost me any money.
Full Tilt offered me one of its $100 bonuses for free, so I grasped the opportunity to spunk away the $500 that they have given me this year. I chose as my vehicle 6-tabling at $50 buy-in. Thus far I have only succeeded in breaking even, rather than losing the lot. The bonus at $50 will take 6,000 hands and I get in about 350 hands an hour. Even breaking even at the tables makes this minus EV compared with my current expected earn when 4-tabling at $100, and it's about on a par with my current performance when three-tabling at $200 buy in.
This led me to thinking about the multi-table metagame. Try, for the moment, to cast aside your bricks and mortar preconceptions. Picture online poker at Full Tilt something else.
This "game" (let's not call it poker or a metagame; let's call it MOP) consists of about 60 tables (540 positions) and 90 players. some of these players are 12-tabling, some are 10-tabling, and a very few are either one or two-tabling. Let's suppose I am an average player, 6-tabling. I will be sitting with the same people at more than one table. IO may even be sitting with one person at five of the six tables. Clearly I am not playing five different games against this opponent. I am only playing one game against him, where only one of us can be the winner. And we are playing something like 300 hands an hour against each other.
We are also playing a large number of tables, which dictates a fairly tight ABC style. Subtle plays to the river are not really suited to heavy multi-tabling (save that for poker rather than MOP). Even if the EV is higher, the time expended in the hand negates the gain. We both know this.
So, this makes a big difference to the way we play each other. Something that would definitely be seen as a "cooler" in a live game or in a shoret-handed high-stakes game, is far less of a cooler in a game where you are playing 300 hands against each other every hour in an ABC fashion. If I have AA and put in a raise from UTG+1, and opponent reraises immediately behind me with KK, and I then put in another pre-flop raise, opponent should be thinking "how many times is he not going to have Aces"?
Now, if he's against an opponent who appears to be playing a single table, a fold is out of the question.
Take another example. With AJ you flop the top straight in the big blind and bet the flop. Opponent (12/5 preflop, 2.0 ag factor post flop) flat calls. Turn is a brick and you bet again. Opponent flat calls. River pairs the board and you check. Opponent bets the pot, leaving about a quarter of his stack behind. Your question here is not "God, I can't fold here". It should be "how many times will opponent make this bet without a full house?
But these are specific instances, which is not my main point. The major factor to consider is that you are not playing five games of poker against this opponent. When you multi-tabling in the afternoon then you are playing, in the main, mainly other multi-tablers. This is a single game of MOP that you are playing, where the seating and positions vary and individual opponents have varying "degrees of interest" in the whole game (from one seat to six seats). It's another variable along with stack size. And it isn't a closed game. While one opponent may be playing in five of your six games, you might be playing in five of his 12 games.
I think that it would be a useful strategy to have a list of the number of games that people tend to play. That should give you some idea of the extent to which they are likely to play ABC (at the very worst it would give you a positive correlation).
Of course, the definition of "ABC" can vary. One man's subtle play is another man's simplicity. But, as a general rule, I would define an ABC play as "something a player can do without having to ask himself ' is this the right thing to do'? because experience has taught him that it is the right thing to do"."
There might be a backdoor route to Party Poker rakeback here, but I doubt it. They are far more likely to tell any Crypto players that the rakeback deal is being replaced by a super-duper new offer that is, in fact, anything but.
First it was Paradise that systematically destroyed its marrket-leading position, and now Party has done the same -- its market share is now down to about 8.5%.
There are probably too many poker sites (and definitely too many skins) to survive. If I was at lower stakes and a youngster with nothing better to do, I'd be destroying as many account-opening bonuses as I could while they were still around.
Once a year I do something extremely stupid, and this year is no exception on that front, although, on the plus side, it hasn't actually cost me any money.
Full Tilt offered me one of its $100 bonuses for free, so I grasped the opportunity to spunk away the $500 that they have given me this year. I chose as my vehicle 6-tabling at $50 buy-in. Thus far I have only succeeded in breaking even, rather than losing the lot. The bonus at $50 will take 6,000 hands and I get in about 350 hands an hour. Even breaking even at the tables makes this minus EV compared with my current expected earn when 4-tabling at $100, and it's about on a par with my current performance when three-tabling at $200 buy in.
This led me to thinking about the multi-table metagame. Try, for the moment, to cast aside your bricks and mortar preconceptions. Picture online poker at Full Tilt something else.
This "game" (let's not call it poker or a metagame; let's call it MOP) consists of about 60 tables (540 positions) and 90 players. some of these players are 12-tabling, some are 10-tabling, and a very few are either one or two-tabling. Let's suppose I am an average player, 6-tabling. I will be sitting with the same people at more than one table. IO may even be sitting with one person at five of the six tables. Clearly I am not playing five different games against this opponent. I am only playing one game against him, where only one of us can be the winner. And we are playing something like 300 hands an hour against each other.
We are also playing a large number of tables, which dictates a fairly tight ABC style. Subtle plays to the river are not really suited to heavy multi-tabling (save that for poker rather than MOP). Even if the EV is higher, the time expended in the hand negates the gain. We both know this.
So, this makes a big difference to the way we play each other. Something that would definitely be seen as a "cooler" in a live game or in a shoret-handed high-stakes game, is far less of a cooler in a game where you are playing 300 hands against each other every hour in an ABC fashion. If I have AA and put in a raise from UTG+1, and opponent reraises immediately behind me with KK, and I then put in another pre-flop raise, opponent should be thinking "how many times is he not going to have Aces"?
Now, if he's against an opponent who appears to be playing a single table, a fold is out of the question.
Take another example. With AJ you flop the top straight in the big blind and bet the flop. Opponent (12/5 preflop, 2.0 ag factor post flop) flat calls. Turn is a brick and you bet again. Opponent flat calls. River pairs the board and you check. Opponent bets the pot, leaving about a quarter of his stack behind. Your question here is not "God, I can't fold here". It should be "how many times will opponent make this bet without a full house?
But these are specific instances, which is not my main point. The major factor to consider is that you are not playing five games of poker against this opponent. When you multi-tabling in the afternoon then you are playing, in the main, mainly other multi-tablers. This is a single game of MOP that you are playing, where the seating and positions vary and individual opponents have varying "degrees of interest" in the whole game (from one seat to six seats). It's another variable along with stack size. And it isn't a closed game. While one opponent may be playing in five of your six games, you might be playing in five of his 12 games.
I think that it would be a useful strategy to have a list of the number of games that people tend to play. That should give you some idea of the extent to which they are likely to play ABC (at the very worst it would give you a positive correlation).
Of course, the definition of "ABC" can vary. One man's subtle play is another man's simplicity. But, as a general rule, I would define an ABC play as "something a player can do without having to ask himself ' is this the right thing to do'? because experience has taught him that it is the right thing to do"."
