Week 2 With No HUD....Another $3,000

There are two brand new things to note about this week's results. The first is that I had a brief and unsuccessful venture in $2/4 where everything possible went wrong. Surprisingly, not once did I get in pre-flop less than a coin flip. Being that I have been short stack crushing $1/2 so hard and getting comfortable doing so, I decided that making the instant jump was adding on a level of stress that was not necessary at this point, so I have decided to just sprinkle in a few good $2/4 games here and there until I make the total transition.

The second point is that you will notice that I have decided that I will not be covering up my pre-flop stats anymore, for two good reasons. The first is that I want to shock and appall everyone with how tight I am yet still able to win at the rate of a strong, successful full stacker. In fact, Poker Listings currently has me ranked as the 50th tightest player in the world, a badge that I wear with honor.

The second reason I do this is because I am no longer concerned that anyone can read these stats and steal my game plan. Great short stack play is not a pre-flop shoving contest. It is about staying ahead of your opponents' ranges, finding +EV spots and risking your buy-in to grab them, and making the optimal plays post-flop.

In my next post, I will be introducing a revolutionary concept called the "Range Map" and how that ties in with what I call "Proper Play Theory." The range map is a term I am coining that allows me to consistently beat completely unknown players without the use of any prior statistics or knowledge of them. This is a concept that applies to both live and online play and is adaptable to changes in the future flow of the game and will thus always be relevant.

The Triple Lindy Magic Insult Hand

By keeping the chat off, I entertain myself by imagining what they are thinking.

Pre-flop

"I'm ahead! Just don't throw that ace!"

The Flop

"Ah fuck! Well, I still have a shot here..."

The Turn

"Shit! I'm dead to a chop..."

The River

"Ah, come on now! Was that shit really necessary?!"

Implied Odds in a Short Stacker/Full Stacker Scenario

This next entry is something that I had written in response to a post about short stack theory that I was reading on another player's blog. Even though it may be the height of egotism to quote myself, I thought that this concept was far too important not to mention here.

I wrote the following response at Poker Anon where the blog author (as a part time short stacker, mind you) recommended making an overcall vs. a shortstacker early open raise and nitty full stacker flat call with 44. Here is my take on the matter:

This is kind of a conundrum. I like the way in which you analyze hands and play, but your short stack theories are wildly inaccurate. I think this mainly comes from a misunderstanding of implied odds and how this applies to full stack play. I consider the concept of implied odds to be the greatest con ever pulled on the poker community at large.

I noticed that you said if you buy in full and a SSer raises 4x and a tight big stack calls, you should call with 44 to bust the big stack. Where to begin here?

The SS range up front is very tight, typically TT+, AQ-AK, and sometimes tighter (like myself). The nitty full stack is almost always re-raising the hands you are likely to bust him with, namely QQ-AA. However, look even further here. He is only likely to stack off with QQ and KK IF no ace hits the board. And given the effects of card removal because of the short stack, he is more likely to contain hands like AQ, AJs, 77-TT. The only way that these hands are likely to stack away against another full stack acting behind him is when he either flops 2 pair (still has 4 outs), pair + nut draw, nut straights, and bigger sets.

And now back to the (very) optimistic scenario that this guy was actually smart enough to cold call with QQ-AA. These hands are just as likely to flop a set as you and if they are going to stack away every time here, guess what? You are right back to being a 4:1 dog with your 44. And that doesn’t even factor in when the board comes really bad and you happen to get bluffed off your set.

In addition, the concept of flopping big and stacking someone is simply the wrong way of looking at things. If you assume that you play your 44 perfectly, you still need to look at what your AVERAGE profit for this scenario is. In a $1/2 game, I would say it would be VERY optimistic to assume that this situation will even net you $3 on average, but the variance you will be taking on to win this $3 is enormous. And yet again, it also ignores the negative psychological effects of missing your set an inordinate amount of time, flopping it and getting nothing in return, flopping it and losing to a higher set, flopping it and getting little because of scary boards, and the worst of all, flopping it, building a large pot and then getting bluffed off it.



As a foot note to my response, given the negative scenarios that can result even after flopping your set, the potential ensuing tilt probably makes this play neutral EV at best. In a round about way, what I am really trying to say here is that set mining in general is a bad policy and goes against basic good play which requires that YOU be the aggressor.

A Quick Quiz...

What is wrong with this picture?

My First Week Without the HUD

Although I am not afraid to admit when I am running good, it is simply hard to imagine how my results could have been any better with some shitty device telling me that I can not trust my own observations....

My Case Aginst Using a HUD

As of this past Sunday, after much self-deliberation, I have decided to fully abandon my HUD permanently. Although I do not doubt that there are a few select players out there who can actually put these things to work, my final analysis is that they do far more harm than good for the vast majority of online grinders. Here is my case against it.

First of all, it is important to acknowledge why we actually use a HUD. Here is why: to inform us to make decisions by the use of past player statistics that we would not otherwise make were that information not available. In this regard, it is like a live tell. After all, a tell is only significant when it causes us to take an action that we were not otherwise going to do had we not seen it.

So now that I have defined what a HUD does, let's examine the underlying logic here. In the course of my career, I have played roughly 2,000,000 hands of online poker. Although the overall quality of play has certainly increased in this time frame, one major truth has emerged: most players generally adapt to each other and take on the same tendencies. In other words, if one player open raises by mashing the pot button with his decent hands in early position, most others will be doing the same thing. Likewise, if one player is min-raise opening his marginal hands in late position, I can expect that others who are opening for the minimum in late position are also doing it with marginal hands. And one more, if one person is limp-reraising only premium hands from early position, it is pretty safe to say that others are doing the same thing, a.k.a., they are NOT doing this with hands like 66.

While I could go on and on with a plethora of examples, I would say that the concept is clear here: I don't need stats on players in order to decipher these basic meanings, and reading stats to try and get deeper here could only accomplish one possible thing- to obscure what is already obvious. Be these extreme examples as they may be, most everything else follows suit to some degree or another. Observation is the key. A 6x open raise from early position is virtually always a premium hand, whether it is coming from a 9/6 or 30/20. Period.

So now that I have established that certain tendencies are visible through lone observation, we must now address the logic of using a device over our own observations. Exactly how does this make sense? We are using stats that are, at best, only 30 days old or less. These stats do not capture a person's mood or whether or not they are adjusting to current table conditions or following the meta-game. Ask yourself this: is a player with an “Attempt to Steal” stat of 60% who was just 3-bet off his hand three times in a row still just a 60% ATS guy this time around, or an angry or clever player holding QQ and now HOPING he will get 3-bet again?

By attempting to use these stats rather than our own good judgment, these little nuances are missed. Is the player who runs a 30/20 a real maniac, or is he just some min-betting fool looking to take the initiative in a lot of cheap flops? This information is not clear on its own, but with good observation and note taking skills should be readily apparent.

So I know what you must be thinking. “I am playing so many tables that I just don't have the chance to get this information on my own.” Here is my retort: how can it possibly be beneficial to be piling on more and more tables in exchange for lousy or non-existent information? And that is only assuming that the information that we are getting is accurate! I still have not even addressed the most dangerous aspect of using a HUD. When the information initially loads up, often times it is not correctly lined up with the appropriate player and you are looking at stats that could belong to another player. Further into your session, you will also find that sometimes a player leaves or goes busto and another player promptly sits down and “inherits” the first player's stats. Even though this can be avoided by making sure the names line up, a single slip up has a high price. And how much “good” information is necessary to make up for that single time you stacked away on one bad misread?

29 Days of Shortstack Madness

And the results have finally arrived! I decided to take it from the beginning of February until now because I was forced to take the first two days of last month off due to a vicious ice storm that terrorized all of Kentucky. However, I did get in 148 hours of play in since then and about 111,000 hands. The pictures from my data base can be found below.







In sum, in just under 148 hours of 12-tabling NL200 and a little NL400:

$4,932 in straight winnings
$2,353 in rakeback
$800 bonus for placing 14th in the raketherake rake race.

$56.60/hr

Total: $8,085.....$40 at a time!


So now to all the naysayers I simply ask, "how much did YOU make last month?" ;)

No Seriously, Turn That Shit Off!

The chat function. It is that tiny box in the bottom left hand corner of your screen that spouts worthless blather from bitter and low-minded opponents. Although some people leave it on for entertainment, or "tilt tells," I am about to list the reasons why any busy multi-tabler should leave it off, at all times.

The basic reasoning here is that it is an unnecessary distraction. Any casual observation should reveal that this is obvious. However, most competent poker players feel that this type of advice only applies to others and not themselves. Here is my list of reasons for leaving it on and my objections to these reasons:

Reason: The chat they provide gives me good information.

Objection: This happens only rarely. When players banter back and forth about who was holding what, they will almost always tell you whatever best serves their agenda. Cowardly little poker players hiding behind their monitors and anonymity feel they can be whatever and whoever they want to be. Don't let them. Their play alone and how they deviate from it will let you know more accurately if they are on tilt or not.

Reason: I never participate, but I still want whatever extra information they give out.

Objection: This is what I would sometimes do. The problem here is that even if you are made of steel, at some point in time someone will say something that draws you into a conversation for some reason or another. Specifically to me, I get a lot of shit for short-stacking. I go busto many times over the course of the day but my detractors don't really understand that this is normal and doesn't particularly bother me. Naturally, the dumber the comment, the more likely I am to say something, if nothing more than to make them feel stupid. That might be okay if it just ended there but I have this personality defect that compels me to always seek the last word. I suspect than many of you have this same defect. If the conversation goes on long enough, pretty soon the cards will speak and one of you will do something to look stupid and will now feel the need to justify the play or call, furthering you down the spiral of tilt.

Reason: I find it entertaining.

Objection: This goes straight back to the last point. Eventually it will bring out the brat in all of us and we will feel compelled to needle someone. Often times, someone else will jump to the defense of the needled one and now you are battling your ego against two or more foes, which further distracts you from what you are here to do: make money.

My friend Travis leaves it on for this very reason and I am urging him to turn it off because nothing good ever comes from it and just the fact that he won't do it, tilts me! Even though in the outside world, he is far more level-headed than myself, there comes a time every so often where he tells me what some idiot said to needle him and how it managed to bother him for ahwile, sometimes well into the next day. If this ever happens to you, you have been manipulated!!

Players will often try and tilt you by saying something completely assinine. The will claim up and down about how awful and lucky you are because you hit some 12 out draw where you had more than enough odds to play it out. Often times, these players are perfectly aware that you did nothing wrong, but if they can manage to make you believe that they believe this nonsense, it is liable to piss you off anyway, and if they do piss you off, they have won.

Reason: I want to chat with my friends.

Objection: These whiny, miserable little shits are NOT your friends. You are trying to take each other's money and they can turn on you faster than a $500 a night hooker as soon as you crack their aces with A5s.


So what is the value of that extra attention worth anyway? After all, it only takes a few seconds to read it, so how important could it really be anyway? Well, just earlier today Travis was shorting some NL100 and had managed to double his stack. He was dealt K8o in the SB while talking with his son (in person). He meant to fold but somehow open shoved it over the BB! 95% of the time they would just fold here but the guy happened to wake up with pocket kings! It had a happy ending though, as Travis managed to catch runner-runner straight.

Point taken!

Money and the Limits of Happiness

In reading MyTurn2Raise's “Shortstacker Illuminati” thread on 2+2, he lays down some certain strategy points for short-stacking. He also has to field the typical complaints of short-stacker etiquette (some of which I have already addressed) and also the common sense approach as to why he was engaging in it. When someone had piped in the quip that anyone knowledgeable and skillful enough to show a large profit short-stacking should be buying full anyway, his response was even more illuminating than the advice he gave. In a nutshell, he said that playing poker for a living was never really about the money, but rather about not having to get a traditional job out in the “real world.” And besides, he added, relieving himself of the stress of full-stacking is more likely to add years on his life than making a few extra bones in his time on this planet.

Think about this for a minute. A long minute....

So now as a mental exercise, I pose two possibilities before you. Would you rather make

A) $400,000 a year for the rest of your life or
B) $600,000 a year for the rest of your life?

Even those non-materialistic charitable types would certainly choose option B, if nothing more than for the reason that they would have an extra $200,000 a year to do good works with. But wait! There's a catch, of course....

To earn $400,000 a year you would have to work (or play) the normal 40 hour work week. To get the $600,000 you would have to work 59.5 hours a week. The payback ratio here is slightly skewed in favor of option B, but is getting a good ROE (return-on-effort) really worth sacrificing all of that extra time?

Now I know that they say that money isn't happiness, but that doesn't entirely support the facts. The first thing that needs to be addressed is “what is money really good for?” Here is the short list, in the order in which they are satisfied:

1)Fulfilling basic needs
2)Security
3)Recreation and materialistic wealth
4)Status

I would say that money that covers your basic needs “buys” the most possible happiness. While the extra money to cover security issues might not buy you more happiness directly, it frees you of certain burdens that will allow you to enjoy happiness that comes from other endeavors more intensely. Recreation is obviously important, but the manner in which it is enjoyed and consumed may or may not be directly tied in with your income. After these first three facets are filled, the value of any extra money you make rapidly begins to decline according to The Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility. Even though the creation of extra wealth may gain you status, that status is relative to the wealth and prestige of those around you and many other factors. After all, making $600,000 a year may make you a big timer in the world of poker but your wife or girlfriend that you have been habitually ignoring is probably not all that impressed.

So back to short-stacking...

I do this for the same reason that MyTurn2Raise does. It prevents stress and gives me a solid income. By relieving myself of normal poker-related stress, I have more energy, sleep less, eat healthier, and generally am more pleasant to be around. These things are no small matter and could not possibly be bought for an extra $10 an hour.

A Great Quote

Poker has us all by the balls. The fortunate thing is we get to adjust the grip.  - Kyle "Cottonseed" Hendon

Two Simple Thoughts...

I don't always have to get deep....

"Give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach a man to bum hunt and feed him for a lifetime."

To all of you rakeback "pros":  GET A FUCKING JOB!!

Leaks in Poker, Leaks in Life

"No decision is ever too small." - Dusty "Leatherass" Schmidt

Until recently, I had often wondered why I have always been tremendous at managing my poker money yet have failed to translate that approach to my off-line finances. Having averaged about $6,000 or more a month or for the past couple of years, I have always been baffled at the fact that I had no money left over after paying my living and recreational costs and yet the debt kept managing to pile up. After reading The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, this is a mystery no more.

You see, when playing poker, I would always treat every single dollar at stake with care. If someone were to point out to me that I had some minor leak that was costing me $5 a day, that would be completely unacceptable. I've always treated that minor edge with value and I had hoped that I always gave some thought before making that little call or tiny bluff. Truth be told, if you examine the win rates of the absolute best winners at the $1/2 NL stake, you will see that they are winning about $12 per 100 hands, or 3ptBB/100. That's about $9.50 per hour at a full ring table. Some of you might be surprised to find that edge is so small, but what that translates into is that one extra pot they stole or that one small opponent value bet that they failed to pay off.

As for my off-line life: I was sloppy to the extreme. After all, if I don't pay my utility bill on time they only clip me an extra $5. An overdraft fee is $33, but paying that is easier than getting off my fat ass to go deposit some money or asking a friend for a short term loan. Paying late fees on movie rentals is more convenient than driving out of my way to return them. Leaving the lights on in the house at all times probably only costs a few extra bucks a month, so who cares, right? I probably have about a dozen of these careless leaks, and truth be told, they were probably costing me about $20 or so- a DAY! All of this is rather embarrassing in retrospect and I am working to fix them all right now. We need to treat every single dollar like it matters. But there is also something that goes along with that that few people have ever considered...

I read a brilliant passage once in an investment guide. The author wrote that the dollars you save have more value than the dollars you earn. The reason? The dollars we earn are taxed but the ones we save are not. The ones we make might be worth about 75% of that, but we get a 100% ROI on the ones we don't spend. It's like rakeback. For those who are not very high volume players, Poker Stars players are pissing their money away. They should be playing at Cake Poker, where the savvy player can get back 35% of their contribution on top of beating up on shitty competition. Compare that to the lousy 12% or so return that the casual player or aspiring pro will get back at Stars. I tell people about this all the time and the fact that they simply do not care tells me that they do not have the mind set of the professional. They are making the comfortable decision to stay where they are rather than having to go through the trouble of re-depositing at another site. And believe me, I don't give a shit about how great their comp program is. All those pretty gadgets are subsidized by the rake you are giving them and getting a "free" PS3 might seem cool, but you'd still have to hawk it at a discount to pay your car loan.

I often like to tell people that the easiest thing about being a professional poker player is knowing to how win at the game. Your typical pro is by no means a baller; he is more akin to a coupon clipping deal seeker. He is constantly looking for that tiny edge- that 6:5 favorite on a coin-flip. If you are giving away those tiny edges, pretty soon you will be looking at the wrong side of that coin and an empty ewallet account.

The Shortstack Results

Ok, so my record keeping is far from perfect, but it should be damn close.  Since October 17th to the present day at Full Tilt, Cake Poker, and Bodog, here are the numbers:

At approximately 9 tables played simulaneously at stakes from $0.5/1- $5/10 (about 75% from $1/2 and 20% $2/4 with only tiny samples in the outlying limits)

161:33 Hours played

Total Winnings: $4,526

Win Rate: $28.02/hr*

With rakeback, add an additional ~$15/hr, bringing the total to about $43/hr.

That being said, I should add two things:

1)  All of these winnings came from Cake Poker, the total actually being $4,753 in 106:25 hours, with the win rate at that particular site being $44.66/hr!  Now the main reason for this is that a HUD is not allowable at this site.  Until I really have started to learn using one the right way recently, I have found that it has always had a negative impact on my play.  Furthermore, sites that do not allow HUDs will necessarily attract worse competition because many multi-tabling sharks simply can not function without them. 

2)  Although not the largest of sample sizes (approx. 100,000 hands), this should be enough to show that there can be good money made from short-stacking when it is applied well.  Currently, I do not know anyone else personally who can say that they make $40/hr+, so this type of money is nothing to scoff at.

In conclusion, I will give the detractors one thing- this type of play is NOT particularly rewarding.  However, it is a great thing to do if you have other activities to attend to that require excess brain power or you do not feel like you are at your peak in a given day.  In a previous post, I stated that I would not be publishing my strategy, though I am considering offering a seminar to teach this strategy, which I feel can be learned in less than 2 days.  If anyone is interested, you know where to find me!

And Now For Something Completely Different!

Yes, I will be stealing someone else's thunder for this one. This was conceived by 2 time WSOP bracelet holder Bill Chen (though actually written by Steve Badger) who also co-authored the book The Mathematics of Poker. I wish I could have claimed this one...

The Chen Coin Flip

Winning poker is all about the application and reapplication of advantages over a long period of time. If you play better than your opponents to a degree that overcomes the rake, you win. A problem with this that plagues many otherwise good players, especially those that play in very live games regularly, is that when they hit losing streaks or when bad luck hits them extra hard, they seemingly lose touch with the process of what is occurring when they win.

One specific example comes up a lot. Some "good" players insist games of a table full of maniacs can't be beaten. This "good" player complains that AA doesn't "stand up" in a ramming and jamming Holdem game where eight people commonly take the flop. He somehow seems to think that AA should be winning more than half the time, and needs to be winning more than half the time for him to be making money. Simple math should tell him that a hand that wins 40% (or 35% or 25%) of the time against seven players is enormously profitable. He should be welcoming those 60% (or 65% or 75%) of the times he does not win! You need to expect to lose most of the time to win in the long run.

This carries over on an hourly and session basis too. You can't expect to win every hour or every day. Income in poker is not made in a linear, regular way. There is deviation. Sometimes you get unlucky.

Bad luck not only destroys some players because they play too high for their bankroll, it destroys their game mentally because they can't stand losing to weaker players. A lot of above average players simply need a more reasonable idea about how their edge makes them their money.

On the rec.gambling.poker newsgroup, two-time 2006 World Series of Poker bracelet winner William Chen posted the following excellent bit of advice (used by permission here):

"When we sit down at a table, every hour we're essentially doing a coin toss for a rack of chips. Now if you're a skilled player you may have an overlay of half a stack (assuming 100 chips in a rack and 20 in a stack). So if you're a skilled $3-6 player, it's like flipping a coin and getting $120 if you win and losing $100 if you lose or if you're a 15-30 player it's $600 if you win, $500 if you lose. Now this is a pretty huge edge when compared to blackjack on a per-hand basis but we shouldn't be too surprised at all if we get on a bad streak and lose $3000. How easy is it to flip tails 6 times a row? It's bound to happen if you flip coins all the time -- now 10 or 15 in a row is a little unlucky but nothing too phenomenal."

The way to win is to focus on playing your best to get that 6-to-5 edge, not on whether you win the flip this hour. If you do genuinely have an edge, and you simply go in and play your best all the time, what happens is you get something like this 600-500 or 120-100 coin flip every hour. Isn't that great?

But what a lot of players do is when as the 6-5 favorite they lose the toss three or four or ten times in a row, they start steaming and playing less optimally and tearing themselves up inside about their bad luck. Essentially what "tilt" is, for a winning player, is saying: okay, I've lost four of these coin flips in a row, so to get even for the day I'm going to take an additional couple of flips this hour, but in these additional flips I'm going to be the 5-6 underdog.

Sometimes you'll have a run of bad luck (be it an hour, a day, a month or a few months) when you are the coin flip favorite. Big deal. This is no excuse for trying to "get even" by transforming yourself from a favorite to an underdog just so you can get more flips that day!

Next time you are tilting and chasing, or playing an extra long session when you are stuck, ask yourself why instead of having the chance to flip a coin once an hour to win 600 while risking 500 you are insisting on all these extra flips where you can win 500 (or 465 or 275) while risking 600! "Getting even" is nothing in the grand scheme of things -- applying and reapplying your advantage is.

Challenging the Concept of Short-Stacker Etiquette

Complaint: It is bad etiquette to "hit and run."

Objection: I disagree.  Every player has a right to leave a game where they feel that their edge is disappearing or non-existent.  A player sitting there with 20 BBs has a distinct edge over their larger stacked opposition.  A player with approximately 28-45 BBs does not share that advantage and is likely at a distinct disadvantage due the awkward stack-to-pot ratio (SPR) that this creates.  If you do not believe me, then you have never faced an opening raise with this stack holding TT-QQ and AK where folding, flat-calling or re-raising pot are all negative options.  However, just slightly over the line lies the stack of 50 BB, where you cross a threshold where people will once again begin liberally calling pot-sized 3-bets because of an illusion of implied odds.

In addition, if doubling up and leaving is poor etiquette, then at what point and who can decide when it is appropriate for you to leave?  Should you ask someone's permission and what is their criteria?  Should you leave after you bankrupt everyone at the table?  If so, then someone would certainly complain that you left after taking everyone's money!  Should you leave only once you are broke?  I won't even dignify that with an answer.

Complaint: Hitting and running is not allowable in a casino or home game.

Objection: This IS allowable in a casino.  When I play in a casino, I am not playing with my friends and therefore could give a shit how they perceive me, as long as I am being a polite, good sport.  In fact, I have even receive hostility by sitting in a small stakes limit hold'em game for the sole reason that I was reading a poker book.  I was not nor was I accused of holding up the game, I was simply being chastised by the older know-it-alls who felt superior to me because they had already "figured it out" -- apparently.  Fuck 'em!

Home games are another factor.  Presumably, people are playing in home games with friends and are doing it for the sheer enjoyment.  I imagine that anyone playing there for a perceived profit motive would be met with disdain and soon barred from playing.  

So now let's face the truth: Internet poker is NOT the same thing.  The rules and environment are like night and day.  I have never sat down at a casino and pulled up a heads-up-display on my opponents.  Likewise, I have never walked away from the table and had a device collect information on my opponents' play while I was having lunch.  I have never seen a player who I have never played against and promptly visited a web page to view their results over the last 120 days, all while they are completely unaware that I am doing this.  Have you?

In conclusion, it is time to finally take stock and realize that the game is ever changing, and each increasing change is likely to be negative for the pro.  We must simply adapt and overcome as we can have little hope of writing to a site and hoping that they will ban everything that pisses us off.  If you are concerned about unfair advantages, first toss out your pot odds calculator, un-install your Full Tilt short cuts, shut down your HUD, and stop paying your subscription to Poker Edge.

In Defense of Short Stackers

In numerous poker forms strewn all across the Internet, you can find almost universal damnation of short stackers. As someone who has personally employed this strategy from time to time and very profitably as well, I would like to add my two cents here.

NOT EVERYONE PLAYS POKER WITH THE SAME GOALS IN MIND. This is perhaps the singular most important argument here. So many times you will hear the detractors saying that you can not maximize profit by playing in this fashion. Obviously, this is true and all short stackers are aware of this. But just as some people play poker just for fun and not for profit (yes, it's true), a professional is not always interested in maximizing profit. As someone who has short stacked in the past and is currently short stacking, I can tell you that minimizing variance is often much more valuable to a professional (or semi-professional) for both monetary and psychological reasons. This is no different than the guy who can beat the $5/10 NL game but chooses to play $2/4 NL because he can't not focus himself comfortably after losing $1000 or more on a single hand.

You also see the detractors saying that if you are not rolled for the game at hand you should be playing smaller. This is absolute nonsense. The stakes are only one contributing factor to your bankroll exposure. As I had pointed out in one of my previous posts on bankroll management, the amount of your buy in also determines how well rolled you are for the game at hand. $600 might not seem adequate to play at the $1/2 level if you are buying in full, but if you are buying in for $40 at a time, you are now rolled for 15 simultaneous games! It is also much easier to play more tables and earn frequent player points or rakeback bonuses. These are not only ends in themselves but also serve to reduce variance.

Specifically, I just think that most players who see themselves as being fairly competent are just shocked and appalled that someone employing a seemingly crude strategy can thwart their years of hard work. They are also failing to realize that there are almost as many different styles and skill levels of short stacking as there are “normal” approaches to a full ring game.

Most importantly, as I had stated in one of my first posts, every single professional player should have some sort of tight aggressive style that they can fall back on in times of need. Bottom line – POKER IS HARD. Just as someone who is looking to make their living as an artist should be willing to do commercial art in order to prevent starvation, a poker player should have a strong, solid technique or strategy that he can fall back on when the bottom of the floor starts caving in as he regains his focus. I see short stacking in this light for myself, personally. Right now I am trying daily to perfect my own version of this strategy so that if times ever get rough again, I have a low variance strategy that I can use to rebuild a bankroll and make a strong consistent income. Which does lead to another argument...

If it were theoretically possible for a player to make $100 per hour short stacking, would those players who are struggling to make $20 an hour still criticize this method or would they want to learn it? I don't think that any sane person would pass up $80 per hour to preserve any romantic notion of the purity of the game. Currently I am exploring the limits to this type of strategy and will be publishing the results from time to time though I will keep the strategy close to the vest.

Tournament Poker- Why Two Heads Are Better Than One

Poker has traditionally been viewed as a game played in isolation. One player to a hand, goes the rule. However, now that poker is being played on the Internet, that rule is purely optional. And even if such a rule were ever put into place it would be impossible to enforce.

Has it ever occurred to you to play with a partner? While I play the role of the maverick in my cash games, particularly because I play 6 tables or more, these days I play almost all of my tournaments with my 50/50 partner, Travis, and to great success. Here is how we do it: we both qualify or buy our way into the same tournament and then discuss every critical hand over the phone while watching each others tables.

Now wait- I know what you are thinking- why would I want to split my winnings with someone else? Besides the obvious comeback that it reduces variance and essentially gives you 2 shots at a tournament where you are only granted one, here are the benefits:

2 Observers

You now have two sets of eyes watching the same set of players and can glean extra information about opponents that you might have missed on your own, as well as prior history.

2 Complimentary styles

Ideally, you would choose a partner that you not only trust but that also has different strengths and outlooks on the game. Obviously you will sometimes disagree strongly in the heat of the moment, so Travis and I created a safe word (“fungus”, in our game) that lets the other know that we are dead serious and that the partner is about to do something phenomenally dangerous and/or stupid.

Detachment

Even when you have a financial interest in your partner's play, it feels completely different when HIS aces get cracked vs. when your OWN get cracked. When you are constantly getting your head stomped on it is difficult to play well. You partner can not only encourage you at these dark and painful times, he can actually step in and make decisions while you cool off. I like to call this my “relief brain.” Likewise, your partner will not get as emotionally attached to big pre-flop hands since he is not holding them and can help you make post-flop laydowns that might be emotionally difficult to make (even though quite obvious to an observer).

Stamina

In a long tournament, some routine decisions become more and more difficult, particularly if your head has been getting bashed in. With two mentally active players, usually at least one of you will have the gas to make it through the late stages. Additionally, on a personal level, having someone else's money at stake makes you push harder on your own game rather than taking the “fuck it” exit strategy when things are not going your way.

Hand Discussion

Even when the hands are played and the tournament is over, you and your partner will be having long and heated arguments over the way hands were played and results were achieved. This is a good thing!

Finally, the best part- having someone to celebrate with

The life of the professional poker player is fraught with strife and peril. The losses you take create doubt in yourself and others and the wins you make breed envy and resentment. When you take down a big win with someone who has an even stake in it, you don't just believe, you KNOW that someone is finally taking the same joy away from the game that you are.

Priceless.

A Mental Error, Part II

The other day, I was playing some $.50/1 NL 6-max and was faced with a situation that had profound implications for my game. A regular, solid player raised UTG and I flat called him on the button with 55. The flop came Qc 8c 4d. The raiser checked first and since this seemed like a flop that he might fear giving a free card on, I bet 3/4 pot behind him and he quickly called. I had almost given up on the hand but then I spiked a 5 on the turn and bet about 2/3 pot behind him, as I had put him on either TT or JJ at this point. He called again and then checked the river when a complete brick fell. There was now about $50 in the pot and I fired for $40. There was a slight hesitation before this came out in the chat box from his end:

"God, I'm the worst player ever! I can't believe I am doing this..."

He then mucked and flashed AA for the entire table to see! It goes without saying that this was the last hand I expected to see here. Seeing as he was willing to part with this initial information, I went ahead and asked why he would do that, to which he replied, "I knew I was beat."

"So what did I have then?" I replied.

"A set probably."

So given the sequence of raise, check, call, check, call, check, fold, I had to know how he could possibly have put me on the correct hand. A question he errantly obliged for me.

"You bet too fast. If you were going to bluff, you would have a least thought about it for a few seconds." Now in this regard he was mostly inaccurate, but in hindsight I had been a little too eager to get my money in the pot...presumably because I would never expect anyone to make this kind of fold. But clearly I am in error here, but my error is not the focus of this blog entry.

In his eagerness to prove how quickly he could lay down AA and prove how much smarter he was than me, he gave me an incredible insight into my own game, as well as offering me and anyone who was paying attention a method to now effectively bluff him off strong hands with a very casual betting line.

The moral of the story is thus: I now count to at least three whenever I make any decision, even if I am planning on check-folding. I should have noticed myself that I was giving this information away, particularly now that I am beginning to make a very substantial amount of my decisions based on the click tells that many people are giving away, at LEAST at the lower levels.

I guess now would also be the perfect time to add this addition to my last post about multi-tabling negative effects. A particularly strong one is that people who are playing too many tables are subconsciously giving away too much information in the timing of their bets and checks. After all, if you were playing 12 tables, how much time do you really care to put into disguising the strength of a hand that you never intended to ever play?

To wrap it up, he asked me again right before he left what I had had. Did I tell him?

Not a fucking chance.

Playing Too Many Tables

Do you consistently get the feeling that you are always doing something wrong or could be doing something better? Trust me, I get that feeling all the time but hopefully if I am able to follow my own advice, I won't be getting that feeling anymore. The question at hand is: have you been playing too many tables? Other than the obvious indicators that you have been, here are a few other ones that might seem minimal when you do them that could lead to grave errors.

1) Have you forgotten who raised the pot?

2) Have you missed seeing a third player in what you thought was a heads-up pot?

3) Have you made your standard button raise with a hand like T9s only to see that the BB was practically all in?

4) And most importantly, do you find yourself playing certain hands EXACTLY the same way every time?

I understand the theory behind playing multiple tables perfectly and believe me when I say that I have had this same argument with myself over and over again to justify doing it.

I AM MISSING VALUE!

Actually, you probably aren't and I will use a direct analogy to explain why. My last job was waiting tables. In a smaller section consisting of 3-4 tables, I was usually seriously limited in how much money I could expect to make on that shift. After all, if I was working one or two more tables, I could expect to make more money, right? And that was true. But at least there, I KNEW that after reaching my load of 6 tables, my ability to serve our guests well began to decline rapidly. In what ways? Tell me if some of these sound analogous to you:

1) I could not give each guest special attention (playing the player and missing value).

2) I would forget who ordered what (missing who raised the pot or who was in the blinds).

3) I might deliver the wrong food to the wrong table (thinking you are playing AA when in fact you are holding JJ- ouch!)

At some point in time, by playing too many tables you will reach a critical limit where your ability to play even 1 correctly collapses entirely. Presumably, we are limiting ourselves to that point just before where that decline begins. But even if that were true, there are some unpredictable external events that could push you over the edge immediately. Maybe your phone rings and it is that important call that you have been waiting for. Maybe your dog just puked on the floor. Maybe your kid just woke up and began crying uncontrollably -- all while you were trying to "maximize your expectation" while playing 12-16 tables simultaneously.

Of course, we expect to make some (small) mistakes but these are the only ones we are noticing. In fact, it's almost like using selective memory. We remember the small mistakes that we spot, but will never "remember" the ones we never realized we were making. But the bottom line is that by playing too many tables, we are ultimately stunting our growth as players for some possible (and I do mean possible ) short-term gain. By playing too many tables, it is easy to get too ingrained in habits that are used to beat the average players at your chosen limit. By learning to beat consistently the best players at your limit, you are preparing your self to beat the higher limit.

A Mental Error

Two days ago, while playing a little .50/$1 6-max PLH on Full Tilt I had made a huge and embarrassing mistake. Here is how the hand went down:

An under the gun player raised to $3 and the button called and I called as well in the big blind with 33. I hit gold on the flop when it came up T 7 3 rainbow. I checked and so did the raiser and the button bet out $7. I flat called him and the pre-flop raiser bailed. The next card was an off suit K and I checked it again. The button did not disappoint and went ahead and bet $10. I check raised him to $25 and he re-raised enough to effectively put me all in so I pushed the rest of the way. Surprisingly, he flipped over AA and the river bricked. With that hand out of the way, I turned my attention to my other tables. When I looked back, the player I had just "busted" typed in the chat box "??". Since that made me curious, I took a look at his stack and it was double what I had. So now I asked myself, "did he make a straight or something on the river?"

Now I was somewhat distraught so I started looking through the hand histories and guess what I found? I was never dealt 33 in the first place! I actually had 44 and totally whiffed on the flop. My first reaction was a pain at the loss of $200 I thought that I had but the feeling was quickly replaced by a feeling of embarrassment. I wanted to type back in the chat box that I had misread my hand for the set in order to salvage my ego, but even as my heart was racing, I told myself that it is far more productive to let them believe that I am a complete donkey maniac so that I could get paid off handsomely on future pots.

Since this is the type of mistake that I probably only make every 100,000 hands or so, it is important to make the best of it. Otherwise you have wasted all of your money. And who knows? Perhaps that grave mental error could actually end up netting you much more than that in your session because you were able to swallow your pride and focus on your "implied donkey odds"?

Even though this particular error is rare, in a future post I will point out some more frequent mental errors that you should watch out for more ways to prevent them. Stay tuned.