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Wo ho, lookin' forward to rappin' in 2011
Dec. 25th, 2010 01:28 pmAlthough, of course, it would have been nice not to have had four straight bad days on Stars leading up to it. However, I said to myself that I would do what it took to get to Supernova. It would have been nice to won a few quid along the way, rather than zooming to a position of being down 10 buy-ins. It was the same old storry -- AA gets beaten by KK with all the money in pre-flop -- a second-nut flush gets beaten by a nut flush, and from that point on you begin to doubt your own decision making, and more mistakes creep in.
I thought that it was all repeating itself early this morning, when there were a large number of "holiday players". This can be a bit of a problem for the regulars like me, because we are so used to playing other multi-tabling supernova players, that the appearance of standard fish forces us to remember what it was like playing live and how you had to play to win there. In efect, what this means is that you don't have to worry so much about playing non-exploitatively, because most of these guys just aren't paying attention. So you can play in a way that a good player could exploit, but which, if the opponent isn't good enough to exploit it, will win you more than would playing in a non-exploitative fashion.
Of course, you get to remember this fairly quickly, but it's still disconcerting.
I'm still puzzling about this hand where I got stacked off against a 47%/15% (50 hands or so) player who was clearly a holiday kind of guy.
NL Blinds 50c-$1
Villain (Button, $92)
Hero (Small Blind, $100): As Kh
Passed round to villain who raises to $3.
I reraise to $11.
Big blind folds.
Villain calls.
Pot is $23.
Flop comes Ad 8s 2d
I can realistically bet anywhere between $10 and $21 against this kind of player on this flop, although I prefer a range of $12 to $15. I chose $12 with a game plan of, if he calls, that puts $37 in the pot and leaves him with about $68 behind. I can then check-raise all-in the turn or, if he checks behind the turn, I can put in what looks like a weak bet on the river (say, 60% of the pot) which is, in fact, encouraging a bluff raise.
Hero bets $12.
Villain raises to $24.
Hmm. Well, much though he could have 88 or 22, his range includes a bundle of other hands, including KdQd, KdJd, KdTd, AKs, AKo, AxQd. If I balance other hands that are beating me (A2, A8, 82) with total bluffs that aren't, I think that I have a call here, but perhaps I should shove, given the range he has that's drawing.
This is actually a marginal decision (call/shove), because if I reraise here and Villain is on a diamond draw, he's basically got the odds to call, and this guy is unlikely to make a mistaken fold. A shove would also get rid of AxQd. If I call here and then shove the turn on a blank or a diamond, then he gets the opportunity to make a mistake that he might not otherwise make. Then again, a call gives him a "free" three outs to AQ.
This is a bit of a c ase of "don't lose your market". Against good players there's little point waiting for 85% on the turn when you have 60% on the flop. But against bad players there is an argument for such play, because these guys hate to fold.
But, since I was 12-tabling, I chose the shove. He called and flipped over A8o for two pair. No King for me on turn or river, and that was that for my stack.
Well, during the week, you aren't going to see the button raising and then calling a three-bet from the small blind with Ace-8 off. You might get a 4-bet once in a while, but nothing like that.
So, it seems to me that opponent has made his mistake pre-flop, and that for me to fold Top Pair Top Kicker subsequent to that is a mistake by me, no matter what, because going to a showdown will, in the long run, show a profit.
And yet, and yet.... Against holiday players, when this situation arises, they always seem to have either a set or two pair. Sure, they call too often, but when the money goes in, they tend to be good. Should I call and try to get to the end cheaply (but still not folding any bet?) That doesn't feel right.
I thought about this hand for far too long while I was still playing, because it wasn't one of those where I said to myself "You idiot, don't make that mistake again". It was one where I couldn't quite decide whether I had been right.
In the end, I decided that I was.
Which was kind of lucky, because near the end of the session (only a quick 80 minutes for 850 hands -- anything less than 1000 hands seems like a stroll in the park at the moment) up popped this hand on a different table.
$100.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Saturday, December 25
Seat 6 is the button
Seat 1: SivaOOv ( $100.00 USD )
Seat 2: Phil90_08 ( $109.10 USD )
Seat 3: kalmuka ( $100.00 USD )
Seat 4: annaparu ( $117.35 USD )
Seat 5: Hero ( $98.50 USD )
Seat 6: Villain ( $172.65 USD )
Seat 8: Zenzor ( $100.00 USD )
Seat 9: halfmoon08 ( $121.00 USD )
Zenzor posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
halfmoon08 posts big blind [$1.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ Q♣; A♣; ]
SivaOOv folds
Phil90_08 folds
kalmuka folds
annaparu folds
Hero raises [$3.00 USD]
Villain calls [$3.00 USD]
Zenzor raises [$12.50 USD]
halfmoon08 folds
Hero raises [$26.00 USD]
Villain calls [$26.00 USD]
Zenzor folds
AQs is a little bit light for a four-bet, but I know that the blind here is a regular who likes his squeeze plays. I try to run a percentage of 75% fold and 25% four-bet these days, although I throw in a call every so often with random hands (anything from 77 up to AA with all paired and non-paired hands in between).
I thought no more about the hand because I was dealing with other tables and, with cascading, the hand in question is not in view until it comes back to your turn. If everyone folds to your raise, you never see it again! In this kind of situation the blind (a regular) is not going to flat call me. He will either fold or shove.
So it was with some surprise that I saw this situation when the flop came down. I had to think back quickly here. How could there possibly be $69 in the pot with me holding AQs and only one player behind me?
** Dealing Flop ** [ A♠, 7♡;, 5♣; ]
As with the example above (but a bit more extreme), once I have chosen to build up the pot, I can hardly fold when I hit my hand, no matter what opponent does. The question is, how can I get opponent's money in if we assume that I am in front?
Hero checks
Villain checks
I planned a mini check-raise and a push of whatever I had left on the turn, but opponent wouldn't play.
** Dealing Turn ** [ 4♡; ]
Hero bets [$35.00 USD]
I don't want to give opponent too cheap a card, but I want to let him think that a raise from him might get me off the hand. I was worried that this might be five bucks too high, but it wasn't.
Villain raises [$143.65 USD]
Hero calls [$34.50 USD]
Villain is returned $74.15 USD
** Dealing River ** [ 9♡; ]
Hero shows [Q♣;, A♣; ]
Villain shows [K♡;, T♠ ]
Hero wins $208.00 USD from main pot
So, got it all back.
+++++++++++
Last night I went back to Party Poker for the first time in about a month, having been focused on end-of-year offers from Stars and Full Tilt.
Fuck me! Where had all the players gone? I mean, it must have been down to 60% of what I remembered.
This finally led me to conclude that Party was no longer a viable home for me unless I was playing higher-stakes 6-max. I am getting increasingly worried about collusion everywhere (mainly because it's no longer easier to win honestly than it is to risk winning by cheating) and this could be a factor on Party, with its much reduced player-base. And of course I would have to "train-up" at 6-max from the $50 buy-in level.
Whatever, it meant that there was no reason for me to carry on having $15k on the site. I looked at withdrawal options, and the old "you can't withdraw to Neteller because you haven't made a deposit from Neteller in the past six months" rule came up. So I bunged a hundred bucks in from neteller to Party to restore the "connection" and I will wait for the New Year before reducing my stack down to $5k.
That will cut my online bankroll to $25k, but will have the added bonus of being what we in the trade call "a more efficient use of capital" - viz, bang the money into Cheltenham & Gloucester to bring the mortgage down by £6k. That's the equivalent of £30 a month less in repayments. I suppose that there's a marginal case for me counting all of that saved interest (which would increase to £150 a month) as poker winnings, in that it's interest accumulating from said winnings. But that's a bit of a cheat, isn't it?
The huge drop in traffic BTW seems to be a result of serious unreliability of connection in the past month. Added to that are the poor special offers and a really atrocious software upgrade that made it look as if the non-poker players are now in charge of the "gaming experience". This is what happened at Betfred, where the design team tried to make the "game" similar to that of playing a fruit machine (imagine the noise of six-tabling fruit machines...). Party Poker has added irrelevancies such as "Rabbit hunting" (see what card you would have got on the turn if you fold on the flop) and a "show one folded card, show both", option. This is clearly a "let's try to replicate the live experience" idea from some donk who has never played serious online poker. FFS, no proper online player wants to replicate the live experience. Many of them play online because they want to strip out all of that time-wasting nonsense.
Party Gaming is in merger talks with BWin and I am sure this is a major reason for the rakeback declining steadily through the year. My general impression is that they are looking to head down the Boss Media route, which means that Poker Stars and FullTilt will increase their stranglehold on the industry. It will also mean that I may soon be giving up the site entirely. On the plus side, these two (Stars and FTP) are now just fighting each other, so the rakeback deals are getting better (effectively, although the actual numbers are a bitch to work out) and the playing experience is getting smoother.
Two examples. The latest Stars upgrade makes sitting out of multiple tables (and then sitting back in again) much easier, with a single button at the top of each table that offers the option of either an immediate sit out at all tables or a sitout at the next Big Blind. That same button permits an immediate resumption, with the default being "wait for the big blind". This shows that the research has been done properly, because this is precisely the way it should be.
Full Tilt has added a "customisable" lobby feature that tells you in real time how many points you have accumulated towards the day's Iron Man, and how much cash you have at each table and in total. Other "mini-windows" can be added, depending on your specialty game (Muti-tabling sit'n'goers don't need to see the same information as multi-tabling cash players, for example).
My rakeback has also come through consistently since I finally got the thing set up. FTP uses any excuse to reduce that rakeback, but the net effect is still a fraction more than 30%.
_____________
I thought that it was all repeating itself early this morning, when there were a large number of "holiday players". This can be a bit of a problem for the regulars like me, because we are so used to playing other multi-tabling supernova players, that the appearance of standard fish forces us to remember what it was like playing live and how you had to play to win there. In efect, what this means is that you don't have to worry so much about playing non-exploitatively, because most of these guys just aren't paying attention. So you can play in a way that a good player could exploit, but which, if the opponent isn't good enough to exploit it, will win you more than would playing in a non-exploitative fashion.
Of course, you get to remember this fairly quickly, but it's still disconcerting.
I'm still puzzling about this hand where I got stacked off against a 47%/15% (50 hands or so) player who was clearly a holiday kind of guy.
NL Blinds 50c-$1
Villain (Button, $92)
Hero (Small Blind, $100): As Kh
Passed round to villain who raises to $3.
I reraise to $11.
Big blind folds.
Villain calls.
Pot is $23.
Flop comes Ad 8s 2d
I can realistically bet anywhere between $10 and $21 against this kind of player on this flop, although I prefer a range of $12 to $15. I chose $12 with a game plan of, if he calls, that puts $37 in the pot and leaves him with about $68 behind. I can then check-raise all-in the turn or, if he checks behind the turn, I can put in what looks like a weak bet on the river (say, 60% of the pot) which is, in fact, encouraging a bluff raise.
Hero bets $12.
Villain raises to $24.
Hmm. Well, much though he could have 88 or 22, his range includes a bundle of other hands, including KdQd, KdJd, KdTd, AKs, AKo, AxQd. If I balance other hands that are beating me (A2, A8, 82) with total bluffs that aren't, I think that I have a call here, but perhaps I should shove, given the range he has that's drawing.
This is actually a marginal decision (call/shove), because if I reraise here and Villain is on a diamond draw, he's basically got the odds to call, and this guy is unlikely to make a mistaken fold. A shove would also get rid of AxQd. If I call here and then shove the turn on a blank or a diamond, then he gets the opportunity to make a mistake that he might not otherwise make. Then again, a call gives him a "free" three outs to AQ.
This is a bit of a c ase of "don't lose your market". Against good players there's little point waiting for 85% on the turn when you have 60% on the flop. But against bad players there is an argument for such play, because these guys hate to fold.
But, since I was 12-tabling, I chose the shove. He called and flipped over A8o for two pair. No King for me on turn or river, and that was that for my stack.
Well, during the week, you aren't going to see the button raising and then calling a three-bet from the small blind with Ace-8 off. You might get a 4-bet once in a while, but nothing like that.
So, it seems to me that opponent has made his mistake pre-flop, and that for me to fold Top Pair Top Kicker subsequent to that is a mistake by me, no matter what, because going to a showdown will, in the long run, show a profit.
And yet, and yet.... Against holiday players, when this situation arises, they always seem to have either a set or two pair. Sure, they call too often, but when the money goes in, they tend to be good. Should I call and try to get to the end cheaply (but still not folding any bet?) That doesn't feel right.
I thought about this hand for far too long while I was still playing, because it wasn't one of those where I said to myself "You idiot, don't make that mistake again". It was one where I couldn't quite decide whether I had been right.
In the end, I decided that I was.
Which was kind of lucky, because near the end of the session (only a quick 80 minutes for 850 hands -- anything less than 1000 hands seems like a stroll in the park at the moment) up popped this hand on a different table.
$100.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Saturday, December 25
Seat 6 is the button
Seat 1: SivaOOv ( $100.00 USD )
Seat 2: Phil90_08 ( $109.10 USD )
Seat 3: kalmuka ( $100.00 USD )
Seat 4: annaparu ( $117.35 USD )
Seat 5: Hero ( $98.50 USD )
Seat 6: Villain ( $172.65 USD )
Seat 8: Zenzor ( $100.00 USD )
Seat 9: halfmoon08 ( $121.00 USD )
Zenzor posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
halfmoon08 posts big blind [$1.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ Q♣; A♣; ]
SivaOOv folds
Phil90_08 folds
kalmuka folds
annaparu folds
Hero raises [$3.00 USD]
Villain calls [$3.00 USD]
Zenzor raises [$12.50 USD]
halfmoon08 folds
Hero raises [$26.00 USD]
Villain calls [$26.00 USD]
Zenzor folds
AQs is a little bit light for a four-bet, but I know that the blind here is a regular who likes his squeeze plays. I try to run a percentage of 75% fold and 25% four-bet these days, although I throw in a call every so often with random hands (anything from 77 up to AA with all paired and non-paired hands in between).
I thought no more about the hand because I was dealing with other tables and, with cascading, the hand in question is not in view until it comes back to your turn. If everyone folds to your raise, you never see it again! In this kind of situation the blind (a regular) is not going to flat call me. He will either fold or shove.
So it was with some surprise that I saw this situation when the flop came down. I had to think back quickly here. How could there possibly be $69 in the pot with me holding AQs and only one player behind me?
** Dealing Flop ** [ A♠, 7♡;, 5♣; ]
As with the example above (but a bit more extreme), once I have chosen to build up the pot, I can hardly fold when I hit my hand, no matter what opponent does. The question is, how can I get opponent's money in if we assume that I am in front?
Hero checks
Villain checks
I planned a mini check-raise and a push of whatever I had left on the turn, but opponent wouldn't play.
** Dealing Turn ** [ 4♡; ]
Hero bets [$35.00 USD]
I don't want to give opponent too cheap a card, but I want to let him think that a raise from him might get me off the hand. I was worried that this might be five bucks too high, but it wasn't.
Villain raises [$143.65 USD]
Hero calls [$34.50 USD]
Villain is returned $74.15 USD
** Dealing River ** [ 9♡; ]
Hero shows [Q♣;, A♣; ]
Villain shows [K♡;, T♠ ]
Hero wins $208.00 USD from main pot
So, got it all back.
+++++++++++
Last night I went back to Party Poker for the first time in about a month, having been focused on end-of-year offers from Stars and Full Tilt.
Fuck me! Where had all the players gone? I mean, it must have been down to 60% of what I remembered.
This finally led me to conclude that Party was no longer a viable home for me unless I was playing higher-stakes 6-max. I am getting increasingly worried about collusion everywhere (mainly because it's no longer easier to win honestly than it is to risk winning by cheating) and this could be a factor on Party, with its much reduced player-base. And of course I would have to "train-up" at 6-max from the $50 buy-in level.
Whatever, it meant that there was no reason for me to carry on having $15k on the site. I looked at withdrawal options, and the old "you can't withdraw to Neteller because you haven't made a deposit from Neteller in the past six months" rule came up. So I bunged a hundred bucks in from neteller to Party to restore the "connection" and I will wait for the New Year before reducing my stack down to $5k.
That will cut my online bankroll to $25k, but will have the added bonus of being what we in the trade call "a more efficient use of capital" - viz, bang the money into Cheltenham & Gloucester to bring the mortgage down by £6k. That's the equivalent of £30 a month less in repayments. I suppose that there's a marginal case for me counting all of that saved interest (which would increase to £150 a month) as poker winnings, in that it's interest accumulating from said winnings. But that's a bit of a cheat, isn't it?
The huge drop in traffic BTW seems to be a result of serious unreliability of connection in the past month. Added to that are the poor special offers and a really atrocious software upgrade that made it look as if the non-poker players are now in charge of the "gaming experience". This is what happened at Betfred, where the design team tried to make the "game" similar to that of playing a fruit machine (imagine the noise of six-tabling fruit machines...). Party Poker has added irrelevancies such as "Rabbit hunting" (see what card you would have got on the turn if you fold on the flop) and a "show one folded card, show both", option. This is clearly a "let's try to replicate the live experience" idea from some donk who has never played serious online poker. FFS, no proper online player wants to replicate the live experience. Many of them play online because they want to strip out all of that time-wasting nonsense.
Party Gaming is in merger talks with BWin and I am sure this is a major reason for the rakeback declining steadily through the year. My general impression is that they are looking to head down the Boss Media route, which means that Poker Stars and FullTilt will increase their stranglehold on the industry. It will also mean that I may soon be giving up the site entirely. On the plus side, these two (Stars and FTP) are now just fighting each other, so the rakeback deals are getting better (effectively, although the actual numbers are a bitch to work out) and the playing experience is getting smoother.
Two examples. The latest Stars upgrade makes sitting out of multiple tables (and then sitting back in again) much easier, with a single button at the top of each table that offers the option of either an immediate sit out at all tables or a sitout at the next Big Blind. That same button permits an immediate resumption, with the default being "wait for the big blind". This shows that the research has been done properly, because this is precisely the way it should be.
Full Tilt has added a "customisable" lobby feature that tells you in real time how many points you have accumulated towards the day's Iron Man, and how much cash you have at each table and in total. Other "mini-windows" can be added, depending on your specialty game (Muti-tabling sit'n'goers don't need to see the same information as multi-tabling cash players, for example).
My rakeback has also come through consistently since I finally got the thing set up. FTP uses any excuse to reduce that rakeback, but the net effect is still a fraction more than 30%.
_____________
