About a week a half ago, I decided for the first time ever that I would back a player. I have long been opposed to this idea due to the fact that winning players shouldn't need to be staked and, of course, the awful experiences of numerous other people. This was different, though. First of all, Drew never wanted anything more from me than advice, and secondly, he was already a winning player. Though I won't give out the exact details of the arrangement, I will say that he has a strong winning record in the $8 HUSNG's on the Cake Network, which you can read at his blog, Heads Up Chicago.
After having some correspondence that night with Drew, I realized A) he is probably ready to step it up, perhaps into the $25's and B) that it would be a fun project on my part. Partaking in this new field started me thinking on what normally goes wrong with such agreements, namely backing losing players and stressing their results. I feel that these problems can be eliminated by putting someone into higher volume and/or bigger games provided that they are already winning, yet not properly rolled and also that the staking operation should be worthwhile as a recreational cost. After all, if you are ever stressing the results of your horses, you are just playing above your roll! I also believe too many people are involved in staking because they are trying to get rich. I believe that other than the legendary staking operation of Sheets and Bax, you should do it with the goal in mind of creating a small supplementary income stream.
All that being said, I strongly urge anyone who is interested to check out Drew's Blog. Though it is early in the making, it is very clear that he is going places in this game and the quality of the writing and analysis is just plain excellent. Currently he has hit a rough patch and looking for advice on how to break out of it, though I think he has already figured it out.
Hey man. Thanks a lot for your encouraging comments on the blog, that means a lot.
Things are going okay. I still haven't completely "recovered" as it were from the slump of the last week-two, but things are looking up a bit. I had a decent session the other day, made about $60 in 3 hours. Of course, later that day I lost about half of that back in the course of two games, but it was at least, finally, a winning session in which nothing went too seriously or bizzare-ly awry.
In terms of the 25s, my record for this week is 8 wins/9 losses, so not great but not horrible. I've been good about employing focus and judgement, which has helped.
I played a little recreationally last night. I have discovered a new way to play poker purely for fun when I'm not concerned about profitability or over-analysis of my game [read=when I'm tired/want a beer]: don't play hold 'em. Specifically, I hit up the micro and low stakes 8-game SNGs on Stars, which can be tons of fun, as I really enjoy razz and 2-7 draw without having the same degree of technical knowledge of those games as I have with HE...
Anyway, tomorrow I get back on the horse (no pun intended). Perhaps I'll have a little pre-game study session with Moshman's book and/or some videos to prime my brain, as well as possibly some physical exercise. I have been experimenting with such tactics to see how they affect my play, to some success; specifically, I've noticed that when I've spent part of the day out being mentally & physically active in other ways, my game benefits... I will let you know how things shape up. Thanks again for all your support!
-Drew
Having games that you play for "fun" is always important. Ironically, when you are not playing for money, per se, you are often encouraged to try those things that you always wondered about that might be able to push your game to that next level, yet the fear of "playing incorrectly" (according to what we we THINK we know) often paralyzes our actions. Besides, when playing for fun when are never auto-piloting the decisions and we actually become much more mentally active than we normally are when trying to play "well."
-Lorin
Something just occurred to me, and I wanted to run it by you. I think that i've been thinking about this stake the wrong way, and I'll tell you why. So far I've been treating the $25 games too much like the $5s & $10s; that is, I game select for opponents with a negative ROI, and play them with the same mindset and in basically the same way as I play my lower-stake, & mostly lower-skill, opponents, because I play them during the same grind sessions through which I try to eke out my profit. This raises two problems: 1) I'm not in the right mindset. I'm grinding, mostly playing ABC poker because that's mostly all that's needed to beat the smaller games. This means I'm not using these $25s to really push myself and learn how to play the "new" game at the higher level, and I'm leaving myself vulnerable to opponents who are playing a more nuanced game/whose focus is fresher/etc. And, 2) the losses that I take from the $25s have a more pronounced psychological effect on my session, for the reasons I mentioned in my previous blog posting. If I win $30 over the course of 4 matches and then lose most of it in one, the degrading effect on my confidence and momentum is significant, and probably makes me less effective. Perhaps if I played on your stake in exclusive sessions, or otherwise separated these matches from my regular grind, it would have an overall positive effect. Thoughts? I should prob turn this into a blog post...
-Drew
Hmmm....since you are very careful about game selection, there is no way of being certain that the fish in the bigger game are any better or worse than those in your regular game. One thing that is for certain is that since the losses do affect you more acutely at the higher level, some part of you must be playing a little more weak-tight. If this is true, then your opponents will be playing a proportionally more aggressive game than yourself, making them appear to be tougher, though it might only be you who is getting weaker. I strongly suggest that you stick with your normal game, but if a player is doing something that you find confusing or frustrating, it is best just to move on. Even though you are feeling down at the moment, you will adjust as your pain threshold increases.
I do agree with the idea of game and stake segregation. It is a known fact that when playing multiple stakes side by side, the larger game affects your judgment and you will pay less attention to the smaller game. Rather than reiterate an article that has already been executed greatly, I will turn you over this link at Pocket Fives when it has already been explained, particularly Jennifear's comments at the bottom.
-Lorin
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Correspondence With My Horse, Drew Chapman
I've been playing poker for 13 years and been doing so professionally for 11. This is what I do with the little spare time that I have....and playing Dark Souls 3.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Lorin Offers to Settle the Bet
I've been playing poker for 13 years and been doing so professionally for 11. This is what I do with the little spare time that I have....and playing Dark Souls 3.
Monday, March 22, 2010
An Open Letter to Jolly Toper
The following post was originally going to be a reply to several comments by "jolly toper" in some of our recent posts. However, when planning out in my mind what I wanted to say, I realized that the information I am about to put forth was too important to risk having it be missed by our regular readership.
Congratulations, Ronnie Kruger. Rather than joining and being the third best player on "Team Charlatan", you have chosen to burn your bridges with Travis and claim the spot as the #1 player on Team Barfly. I am failing to see how this has done you any good. Rather than aligning yourself with players who have achieved the position that you used to seek and are capable of pulling you up, you are choosing to keep company with people who lack the technical knowledge and experience to ever prove any of your theories about poker wrong.
Being a long time friend of yours, you should be happy that Travis has finally taken the step to achieve a goal he has sought after for a very long time. Now that you are attempting to dismiss and diminish his recent accomplishments in a hurtful way, you have failed to seize the golden opportunity that had lain before you, and that is to simply ask him: how did you do it? Even better, ask him what he did that you did not.
I'll tell you what that is. Travis did not get there by possessing an overabundance of intelligence or natural ability, as he has neither :). Both of these traits will only get you about 10% of the way there, anyhow. What Travis did was keep pushing through when the experience reached the height of his pain threshold. It was neither easy nor was it fun. Though he may have been able to do this on his own, he had me by his side the whole time to make sure that he never gave up. I supplied him with the knowledge and the standard and he made that extra push on his own. It was nothing more and nothing less. Though I can hardly take the credit for what Travis did by virtue of his own fortitude, he would gladly tell you that he could not have done it without me.
As a friend, Travis would have been willing to do the same for you. Instead, you retreated back into the purgatorial shell that I like to call the "transition phase" and chose to discredit him rather than face where you are lacking. The transition phase is the stage that exists when you are clearly the best player in your regular game and are entertaining thoughts about going pro. However, making this transition is like going from being the high school basketball star to riding the bench on your college team. It strongly arouses the insecurity that comes from being the best in the local pool to testing yourself against those who are clearly better than you.
Most potential pros will never get out of the transition phase, as they feel that acknowledging the accomplishments of others somehow lessens their sense of self-worth. They prefer to label those with better results than themselves as "lucky", or take your unique position that we have contrived this massive illusion to mask the fact that we are just jacking each other off in our basements while collecting unemployment checks. Players in the transition phase find it too painful to come to grips with their weaknesses as players and forcefully block any attempts by others to help them. I would know, because I have been there. Now at this stage in my career, I wish that I had taken more steps to surround myself with people who knew more about the game and played better than I did. Unfortunately, at the time, my ego just would not have allowed it and I have suffered by choosing to pass up on the experience.
I doubt that this is what you had originally set out to accomplish in poker. While being the best player in your home game might garner you respect on a small scale, you know that you can never respect yourself for having given up on your dream of being a professional. So rather than trying to pull people back down to your level, get up off the floor and join them instead. Now that you have officially severed your ties with both myself and Travis, you have to surround yourself with new poker friends. Hopefully, they will know more about the game than yourself and thereby be in a better position to uplift you.
The good news is that you aren't done yet- not by a long shot. Part of what makes poker so great is that you can take it up at any point in your life and you do not have to rely on the judgment of others as to whether or not you succeed. It's completely meritocratic. So if you still want make it in the poker world, stop reading this blog right now and pick up a poker book. You hold nothing but contempt for what it contains, anyhow. However, if you want to stick around for one last piece of advice, here it is: My baseball coach in college once gathered the team up and told us about how Tony Gwynn, the best hitter alive, would take 400 swings in front of a mirror every single day. Then he said, "if Tony Gwynn has to do it that many times, then how many times do you have to do it?"
Stand right now in front of that mirror. Now take a long, hard look at yourself, and start swinging away.
Congratulations, Ronnie Kruger. Rather than joining and being the third best player on "Team Charlatan", you have chosen to burn your bridges with Travis and claim the spot as the #1 player on Team Barfly. I am failing to see how this has done you any good. Rather than aligning yourself with players who have achieved the position that you used to seek and are capable of pulling you up, you are choosing to keep company with people who lack the technical knowledge and experience to ever prove any of your theories about poker wrong.
Being a long time friend of yours, you should be happy that Travis has finally taken the step to achieve a goal he has sought after for a very long time. Now that you are attempting to dismiss and diminish his recent accomplishments in a hurtful way, you have failed to seize the golden opportunity that had lain before you, and that is to simply ask him: how did you do it? Even better, ask him what he did that you did not.
I'll tell you what that is. Travis did not get there by possessing an overabundance of intelligence or natural ability, as he has neither :). Both of these traits will only get you about 10% of the way there, anyhow. What Travis did was keep pushing through when the experience reached the height of his pain threshold. It was neither easy nor was it fun. Though he may have been able to do this on his own, he had me by his side the whole time to make sure that he never gave up. I supplied him with the knowledge and the standard and he made that extra push on his own. It was nothing more and nothing less. Though I can hardly take the credit for what Travis did by virtue of his own fortitude, he would gladly tell you that he could not have done it without me.
As a friend, Travis would have been willing to do the same for you. Instead, you retreated back into the purgatorial shell that I like to call the "transition phase" and chose to discredit him rather than face where you are lacking. The transition phase is the stage that exists when you are clearly the best player in your regular game and are entertaining thoughts about going pro. However, making this transition is like going from being the high school basketball star to riding the bench on your college team. It strongly arouses the insecurity that comes from being the best in the local pool to testing yourself against those who are clearly better than you.
Most potential pros will never get out of the transition phase, as they feel that acknowledging the accomplishments of others somehow lessens their sense of self-worth. They prefer to label those with better results than themselves as "lucky", or take your unique position that we have contrived this massive illusion to mask the fact that we are just jacking each other off in our basements while collecting unemployment checks. Players in the transition phase find it too painful to come to grips with their weaknesses as players and forcefully block any attempts by others to help them. I would know, because I have been there. Now at this stage in my career, I wish that I had taken more steps to surround myself with people who knew more about the game and played better than I did. Unfortunately, at the time, my ego just would not have allowed it and I have suffered by choosing to pass up on the experience.
I doubt that this is what you had originally set out to accomplish in poker. While being the best player in your home game might garner you respect on a small scale, you know that you can never respect yourself for having given up on your dream of being a professional. So rather than trying to pull people back down to your level, get up off the floor and join them instead. Now that you have officially severed your ties with both myself and Travis, you have to surround yourself with new poker friends. Hopefully, they will know more about the game than yourself and thereby be in a better position to uplift you.
The good news is that you aren't done yet- not by a long shot. Part of what makes poker so great is that you can take it up at any point in your life and you do not have to rely on the judgment of others as to whether or not you succeed. It's completely meritocratic. So if you still want make it in the poker world, stop reading this blog right now and pick up a poker book. You hold nothing but contempt for what it contains, anyhow. However, if you want to stick around for one last piece of advice, here it is: My baseball coach in college once gathered the team up and told us about how Tony Gwynn, the best hitter alive, would take 400 swings in front of a mirror every single day. Then he said, "if Tony Gwynn has to do it that many times, then how many times do you have to do it?"
Stand right now in front of that mirror. Now take a long, hard look at yourself, and start swinging away.
I've been playing poker for 13 years and been doing so professionally for 11. This is what I do with the little spare time that I have....and playing Dark Souls 3.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
The Prop Bet
First of all, I would like to congratulate Travis for officially quitting his 9 to 5 and going pro this month. Fittingly, he not only had his first $2k day this month at the cash game tables, but his second and third as well. Now that he is running hot and a little ahead of me in the winnings category for the month, we thought we should run a special little prop bet to see who can earn more. The rules are simple: $ won and rakeback count, bonuses do not.
WHAT'S AT STAKE
The winner gets to dress as the pimp and the loser gets to dress up as the ho. And oh yeah, we wear these outfits out in public at Travis's bar, The Golden Nugget.
It's very important that Travis get humbled immediately, else he start thinking that this whole poker thing is easy. Besides, my massive ego simply can not allow this to happen. We figured that this plenty demeaning, but if anyone else out there has a better idea, we would love to hear it!
WHAT'S AT STAKE
The winner gets to dress as the pimp and the loser gets to dress up as the ho. And oh yeah, we wear these outfits out in public at Travis's bar, The Golden Nugget.
It's very important that Travis get humbled immediately, else he start thinking that this whole poker thing is easy. Besides, my massive ego simply can not allow this to happen. We figured that this plenty demeaning, but if anyone else out there has a better idea, we would love to hear it!
I've been playing poker for 13 years and been doing so professionally for 11. This is what I do with the little spare time that I have....and playing Dark Souls 3.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Run Your Poker Game Like a Business…(Part I)
One of the most common things Lorin and I talk about nowadays are concepts concerning poker that have nothing to do with the play at the table. For any aspiring pro, or even for somebody looking to advance recreationally, there are a myriad of other factors to consider. We have touched on this topic before but I think that it bears it’s own blog post at it is some great advice gleamed from our successes (but more often from our mistakes) that doesn’t give away strategy to those Short Stack Haters that read the blog just to get a glimpse at our playbook.
There is no doubt that 95% (if not more) of the system we use at the table came from Lorin. The only reason that he keeps me around is that I have a much larger experience base for life factors away from the table. As he has really started to make some serious money, he needed someone to help him out with the other complications that inevitably arise from a rapid ascent into unknown territories. It worked out for both of us. He gave me the play book for shortstacking and I gave him advice on financial issues, marketing, “significant other” issues etc. (while we both got to hang out and waste time under the guise of “meetings”).
To get to the point, I have always believed that there is an optimal way to do EVERYTHING. The difference between “optimal” and “adequate” will often be quite small but their importance cannot be overstated. This should be apparent to students of the game. The difference between being a 1.00bb per 100 winner and a 1.25bb per 100 winner is monumental. While that seems like a tiny margin, (especially if a bb is only $1 or $2) over the course of a year, that is the difference between living in you grandma’s basement and buying your first house.
So, in order to give some hard learned advice to our loyal Short Stack Hero readers, here are some points that will hopefully help you make the transition to pro or help you out with some of the issues arising from that transition if you are already there….
1. Find the best Vendors…..
Before I sold The Bar that I owned, I got very good at looking for the right business partners. Some people may call them Vendors or Suppliers, but I always looked at them as business partners and that may have an ingredient of my success (and I will take this oppurtunity to brag, I won MAXIM magazine's "Great American Neighborhood Bar Search" a year and a half after I took over). Look for the best deal. Just because a certain company (poker site) is the one everybody uses, doesn’t mean that it is the best fit for you. If I found a liquor rep that was hungry and creative, I knew that we could make each other a lot of money if we worked together. There is a reason that Lorin and I both play predominately at POKERWORLD and speak so highly of RAKEBACKNATION. They have been fantastic partners (and us telling you this doesn’t hurt our game at all). Everybody Plays at PokerStars and FullTilt. But why? They are all the public know. They have great marketing plans. But ask yourself, what pays for that marketing and does it help you. Tilt may be superior to PokerWorld when it comes to High Stake game availability. But you know what? I don’t play $10 $20NL and up so I don’t care. Pokerworld has plenty of games at the stakes that I play and a great rotation of tournaments so the rest is just window dressing. But here is the real kicker. Smaller sites pay better because they are looking to build market share. If I was running a promotional event at the Bar, I didn’t approach Budweiser for prizes or financial support because they don’t budget much for Promotions because they don’t have to. They own the market. Coors, however, was awesome to work with because they want some of Bud’s market share. Same with Poker sites. Last Month I raked $4,711.63. With the rake chase that was done with RakeBack Nation, I earned a bonus of $575. A player that raked the same as me at Full Tilt only earned a bonus of $75. Not to mention that I earned 33% Rakeback while he only earned 27%. So, for the same amount I play I earned $2146 ($4700 x .33 = $1551 + $575) while he earned $1344 ($4700 x .27 = $1269 + $75). I won’t even mention the almost $800 I made from PokerWorld’s Gold stack bonus’ (although I guess I just did). So by choosing the right partner and nothing else, I made $782 extra last month. In a year, that is $9384. And that doesn’t require getting better at the game at all, just running your “business” better. I have nothing bad to say about FullTilt as I still play there (ie. Use that vendor) for some things, I just found a better fit to my current business model with PokerWorld as my major “business partner”. It is just choosing the smartest way to do business.
2. Stay up to speed on the Market.
Almost every industry has industry related material such as books, magazines, seminars etc. Poker is no different and actually has a HUGE volume of material available. And I am not just speaking of books on strategy, but also magazines, pod casts, websites etc. It is important to stay abreast of the “market” to help keep up with trends and be knowledgeable about your business. Not to mention, it is a great source of information for tips on the game such as the emergence of the UTG bet as a steal, common SNG strategies etc. It also fills you in on broad subjects like the UIGEA and the legal battles over Poker that may be going on in your state or country. If you owned a bar, you would need to be aware of possible changes to the liquor law. This is no different. After all, if you are going to be a pro, you should be an expert in the field.
Next Week I will address some other issues such as surrounding yourself with the right people and using all the tools (especially technology) to your advantage.
There is no doubt that 95% (if not more) of the system we use at the table came from Lorin. The only reason that he keeps me around is that I have a much larger experience base for life factors away from the table. As he has really started to make some serious money, he needed someone to help him out with the other complications that inevitably arise from a rapid ascent into unknown territories. It worked out for both of us. He gave me the play book for shortstacking and I gave him advice on financial issues, marketing, “significant other” issues etc. (while we both got to hang out and waste time under the guise of “meetings”).
To get to the point, I have always believed that there is an optimal way to do EVERYTHING. The difference between “optimal” and “adequate” will often be quite small but their importance cannot be overstated. This should be apparent to students of the game. The difference between being a 1.00bb per 100 winner and a 1.25bb per 100 winner is monumental. While that seems like a tiny margin, (especially if a bb is only $1 or $2) over the course of a year, that is the difference between living in you grandma’s basement and buying your first house.
So, in order to give some hard learned advice to our loyal Short Stack Hero readers, here are some points that will hopefully help you make the transition to pro or help you out with some of the issues arising from that transition if you are already there….
1. Find the best Vendors…..
Before I sold The Bar that I owned, I got very good at looking for the right business partners. Some people may call them Vendors or Suppliers, but I always looked at them as business partners and that may have an ingredient of my success (and I will take this oppurtunity to brag, I won MAXIM magazine's "Great American Neighborhood Bar Search" a year and a half after I took over). Look for the best deal. Just because a certain company (poker site) is the one everybody uses, doesn’t mean that it is the best fit for you. If I found a liquor rep that was hungry and creative, I knew that we could make each other a lot of money if we worked together. There is a reason that Lorin and I both play predominately at POKERWORLD and speak so highly of RAKEBACKNATION. They have been fantastic partners (and us telling you this doesn’t hurt our game at all). Everybody Plays at PokerStars and FullTilt. But why? They are all the public know. They have great marketing plans. But ask yourself, what pays for that marketing and does it help you. Tilt may be superior to PokerWorld when it comes to High Stake game availability. But you know what? I don’t play $10 $20NL and up so I don’t care. Pokerworld has plenty of games at the stakes that I play and a great rotation of tournaments so the rest is just window dressing. But here is the real kicker. Smaller sites pay better because they are looking to build market share. If I was running a promotional event at the Bar, I didn’t approach Budweiser for prizes or financial support because they don’t budget much for Promotions because they don’t have to. They own the market. Coors, however, was awesome to work with because they want some of Bud’s market share. Same with Poker sites. Last Month I raked $4,711.63. With the rake chase that was done with RakeBack Nation, I earned a bonus of $575. A player that raked the same as me at Full Tilt only earned a bonus of $75. Not to mention that I earned 33% Rakeback while he only earned 27%. So, for the same amount I play I earned $2146 ($4700 x .33 = $1551 + $575) while he earned $1344 ($4700 x .27 = $1269 + $75). I won’t even mention the almost $800 I made from PokerWorld’s Gold stack bonus’ (although I guess I just did). So by choosing the right partner and nothing else, I made $782 extra last month. In a year, that is $9384. And that doesn’t require getting better at the game at all, just running your “business” better. I have nothing bad to say about FullTilt as I still play there (ie. Use that vendor) for some things, I just found a better fit to my current business model with PokerWorld as my major “business partner”. It is just choosing the smartest way to do business.
2. Stay up to speed on the Market.
Almost every industry has industry related material such as books, magazines, seminars etc. Poker is no different and actually has a HUGE volume of material available. And I am not just speaking of books on strategy, but also magazines, pod casts, websites etc. It is important to stay abreast of the “market” to help keep up with trends and be knowledgeable about your business. Not to mention, it is a great source of information for tips on the game such as the emergence of the UTG bet as a steal, common SNG strategies etc. It also fills you in on broad subjects like the UIGEA and the legal battles over Poker that may be going on in your state or country. If you owned a bar, you would need to be aware of possible changes to the liquor law. This is no different. After all, if you are going to be a pro, you should be an expert in the field.
Next Week I will address some other issues such as surrounding yourself with the right people and using all the tools (especially technology) to your advantage.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Loss of Focus to Focus of Loss
Today I ended the session fairly early after booking my largest loss of the year to date of $1,400. More importantly than that, this was my first loss of the month. Since winning every session is not particularly interesting, I decided to "make" this an opportunity to write a new post. But first, take a leap of faith with me.
WINNING EVERY SESSION IS BAD FOR YOU
Until you have experienced this personally for a large sum of money, you will consider this complete and utter horseshit. I don't blame you. Several months ago, when said Mr. Kruger was challenging the credibility of my results, he questioned (at least to Travis, who passed the message on to me) why I would not be at home playing day and night and enjoying the fruits of my automatic money machine. This is a very valid question and it has many answers, but the first and foremost, and the one by which I hope to make you understand is this: you lose the hunger.
Here is my analogy. When you go the entire day without eating and decide that you will order pizza tonight, you engorge yourself when it first arrives (at least I do!). Those first few slices are amazing but as your belly gets full, the pizza, while it may taste the same, declines in pleasure and you quickly find something else that is more entertaining. Though I have stated this before and it has been stated many times before (as the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility), the reason this is bad for you is that when the money rolls in, there is no urgent need to improve.
To this day, I can not think of any time in my playing career where I was truly focused during a rush. The facets of my game where I need improvement are always present and I make a mental list of them, yet there is no pressing need to fill those gaps as long as you are winning. However, when that downswing hits, you are forced to look at your performance for the session and make a checklist of all the things that you could have done differently and with the pain of loss, the hunger quickly sets back in.
Now I am not saying that this imperfection within yourself is something that you should strive to eliminate completely once you finally get to experience it. No professionals are perfect, rather, they are just more aware of their imperfections and can bounce back quicker when they arise.
WINNING EVERY SESSION IS BAD FOR YOU
Until you have experienced this personally for a large sum of money, you will consider this complete and utter horseshit. I don't blame you. Several months ago, when said Mr. Kruger was challenging the credibility of my results, he questioned (at least to Travis, who passed the message on to me) why I would not be at home playing day and night and enjoying the fruits of my automatic money machine. This is a very valid question and it has many answers, but the first and foremost, and the one by which I hope to make you understand is this: you lose the hunger.
Here is my analogy. When you go the entire day without eating and decide that you will order pizza tonight, you engorge yourself when it first arrives (at least I do!). Those first few slices are amazing but as your belly gets full, the pizza, while it may taste the same, declines in pleasure and you quickly find something else that is more entertaining. Though I have stated this before and it has been stated many times before (as the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility), the reason this is bad for you is that when the money rolls in, there is no urgent need to improve.
To this day, I can not think of any time in my playing career where I was truly focused during a rush. The facets of my game where I need improvement are always present and I make a mental list of them, yet there is no pressing need to fill those gaps as long as you are winning. However, when that downswing hits, you are forced to look at your performance for the session and make a checklist of all the things that you could have done differently and with the pain of loss, the hunger quickly sets back in.
Now I am not saying that this imperfection within yourself is something that you should strive to eliminate completely once you finally get to experience it. No professionals are perfect, rather, they are just more aware of their imperfections and can bounce back quicker when they arise.
I've been playing poker for 13 years and been doing so professionally for 11. This is what I do with the little spare time that I have....and playing Dark Souls 3.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
The Midwest Poker Regionals: How Deep Are You?
Every time a tournament is played there is always at least one person who is asking "what is the structure"? If the stacks are deep and the levels are long everybody is happy and everybody has an advantage.
Wait a minute.... Surely a long structure can't be good for everyone, can it? Naturally, it can't. This weekend I got a great opportunity to find out just how wrong this idea is in practice. I am quite certain that starting with 15k in chips at blinds of 25/50 and hour long levels was the milkshake that brought all the boys to the yard to plunk down their $2,100. Did it do them any good? No. Did it do me good? Well, yes and no.
Here is what happens when you are this deep and the money is this significant:
Everybody gets scared and thinks they need the nuts to play a big pot. Being that this was far and away the largest tournament around, the money spent for most people was very large and the anticipation leading up to the event was even bigger. Not only did they not want to lose their chips, they were also afraid of losing out on getting their $2,100 worth of entertainment for the day with no other equivalent outlet for another few months, at least. If you are in a position to play such an event, here is what you can expect and how you can get an advantage.
IMPLIED ODDS
Starting at 300BB deep, getting huge implied odds is a no-brainer...there aren't any! Though this certainly flies in the face of anything you have been taught, a simple dose of common sense says that it shouldn't. Implied odds rely on a willingness of your opponent to cash off his chips to you. If everyone is afraid of committing large portions of his chips at any point in the hand, then they are just not willing to give you implied odds. I saw guys with big pairs, trips, and sets shut down immediately after getting check raised small on the flop and often times after just being flat-called. After all, if the guy with a known big hand isn't willing to give action, then you definitely can't expect the guy with the lesser hand to be pushing real hard either. In essence, perception becomes the consensus reality so if you had planned on playing a big pot, you had better have the nuts or....
LAUNCH A BIG BLUFF
This would have been trivially easy. When you are this deep and everyone is playing this straightforwardly with big money on the line, this is how you play big to win big. Three betting was virtually non-existent in the first 4 levels and few hands even went to show down. Would I have had the guts to do this? I am not quite sure, but I did perfectly well for the first 6 hours or so making lots of small bluffs with a success rate that was close to 100%. Here are a few examples:
A weak player limps in early position and I notice that this guy is capable of peeling light on the flop but not willing to take any hands to showdown. So I limp on the CO with 75o and if he checks, I will fire 3 barrels no matter what. The older gentleman in the BB is of no concern as well because he shares the exact same tendencies, so barring anything unusual, I will try to bluff both of them on the turn if necessary, though I would probably give up on the river if they both got that far. In any case, the flop is K94. The guy checks and calls as expect and the BB folds. Turn is a T and he checks and calls another 1/2 pot bet. The river makes a backdoor flush and though my first instinct is to check because no one could ever believe I hit that card, I realize that I am not competing with poker competency, but their fear of failure and looking foolish. So I another 2/3 pot and he grunts and lays it down.
#2. A very loose, though seemingly decent post-flop player limps in middle position for 150. I decided that I will make a play at him on my button if no one else enters, despite what my cards are. I look down to see 96o. First, I should give a little background info on this guy. The very first hand of the tournament he limps in EP with AA. He gets heads up with the BB, who check calls a board of 764 to the river and then leads out for $500 when the straight hits (about 1/3-1/2 pot), which he obviously has. The loose player laughs disgustedly to himself and then flips over his aces. Not a huge laydown technically, yet many people could not bring themselves to do this. Personally I feel that this was a huge mistake on his part to show, but I happily file this piece of information away since I might be able to use it later. Secondly, I see that he is perfectly willing to lead at a lot of flops, yet is not paying off on the river.
So I do what any reasonable player would do and raise my Big Lick to 600. The flop is KT7. He checks, I fire my annoying half pot bet and he grunts and folds. It is duly noted that once I again I plan on firing at least two barrels and then making a judgment call on the third, if necessary.
KNOW WHEN TO SHOW
Just as bluffing indiscriminately should never be done, showing your cards should also be meticulously planned. As I soon found out after my first table broke and I got moved, if you are winning too often without a showdown, it is crucial to show a good hand. Here is where I feel that I made a rather small, yet significant mistake. I had about 22,000 in chips with blinds of 100/200 and made my typical raise of 500 with KQo and got a caller behind as well as both blinds. The flop was beautiful as it came KK7 rainbow. Being that these guys often took off a card on the flop, I decided to go ahead and bet 1,000 and the loose player behind me whom I had already tangled with several times decides to be my only customer. An ace hit on the turn which did me no harm but looked as if it would totally scare away any action so I decided to check it.
Though some people might advocate firing again in case he has a king, I just don't consider this to be good advice because if he has a K, the money is going in anyway and the chance that the ace really helped him is minimal and would only allow me to get one more bet from him if he does have it. However, checking gives him a chance to think he can take it away. He doesn't oblige and checks behind and a 9 falls on the river. I bet 2,000 and he quickly folds and I muck my hand. Being that we had played several pots and has now been moved off of all of them (I still had not showed a hand yet), he naturally inquires as to what I had. I told him the truth, that I had KQ and even mentioned that I should have showed that one.
It was then that I realized that I had made a mistake. Even though I had the goods about half of the hands in which I had won, the only thing they thought about me what that I was a complete fucking thief. After all, though I had previously flopped a set and also had trip K's, they didn't know this. By not establishing my honesty, per se, I actually encouraged "Wild" Bill, an old timer from Tennessee who wasn't particularly good, to take a shot at me a short while later on a scary turn card because he said "he keeps raising."
The hand in question occurred when I was on the cutoff and was playing my rush with a K4s. The flop came down 764 with two spades. Bill, who had been playing very loose and calling often in his blinds, decided to check and call my half pot bet. When the A of clubs hit on the turn and he checked again, I saw an opportunity to move him off a better hand or get him to fold a straight draw. I bet half pot, about 2,000 and he check raised me 6,000. Did he have it? It was hard to say since he was playing so loose, but then again, I only had a pair of fours which could have been good at showdown had I gotten there, yet my own thieving image could have spurned him to make that check raise when an ace hit that also completed a flush. Excluding things like chaos theory, had I showed the KQo hand, I would have had more confidence in whether or not he was bluffing. Bill showed plenty of inclination in that direction and though the result could easily have been the same, I would now have had a better opportunity to read how Bill was reading me which could have led to a profitable play in the future.
This highlights one of the more interesting aspects of the game in that what is real is not actually what happens, but rather what people believe happens. The information flowing around the table amongst common competition tends to be very polarized. In other words, you are either a thief or you aren't. In Bill's opinion I was the former and I am sure that everyone around the table more or less agreed with him. Therefore by betting the flush card in this instance and then folding, I was only confirming their suspicions and it was now going to be harder to pull of my tricks in the future. Being that you have more shitty hands than good hands and miss more flops than you hit, I would rather preserve my ability to steal than to get a small bet paid off, since no one was really paying off big anyway.
GETTING PAID OFF (HOPEFULLY)
Now that I was down to 26k in chips after a high of 32k, I was delighted to pick up KK under the gun. With blinds of 200/400 with a 50 ante, I made my standard raise of 1,000 and was hoping that Bill would take this opportunity to show me that a naive greenhorn couldn't sit at his table. He said, "I'll be your huckleberry" and called. The action folds around to Megan in the BB on my immediate right. She has already proven to be nitty and unimaginative, though solid. With 12k left in chips, I am excited when she 3-bets it to 4,000. I announce that I am all in and after some deliberation, Bill folds. Megan turns over AQs and the board runs her out a four card straight to take the pot. Though it was my somewhat laggy image that caused this otherwise good result, it is very important to remember that preflop your edge can only be so big and therefore, it is MUCH more preferable to win a lot of pots uncontested.
At this point I was in quandary. Though I wanted to update my Twitter, it was now crucial that I be present for every single hand. I also didn't want to sound like I was whining, because hey, that's poker! So with a stack now of 14k, I was looking to either chip up or make a big move. With the blinds rising however, open-limping, which was previously very common, was occurring much less frequently. Here was my plan: the new guy who had been moved to my immediate left was playing very nitty and was neither raising much nor calling any raises. My goal was to force the action if we got to play heads up. With his stack at about 30k, I was virtually certain that he wouldn't be calling open shoves with anything less than 99+ and AQ+. However, my short stacking experience armed me with the knowledge that even if he was calling much lighter, it was still profitable to shove any two cards! However, as my stack dwindled to 10k and the blinds now at 300/600 with a 75 ante, he would be much more willing to call with for 1/3 of his stack than for about 1/2. So do I make a move now or do I wait?
Here is my philosophy about tournaments. Once your stack dwindles beyond a certain point, the value of your tournament life plummets, especially if you are intent on winning the event or at least getting to the final table. With 46 out of 102 players left, I was still a long ways out and was not planning on scrapping by the entire time. My stack also needed just a little push so that I could successfully threaten other players with some power moves, which I was ready and willing to do.
With Smitty limping UTG (the player I had been tangling with) and a very laggy player limping two spots after him, I looked down to see A2o in the SB. With 10k left, there was really only two options here: shove or fold. Calling was not an option since I would only get action post-flop if I was beat and flopping a great with with A2o is a lot more difficult than most people realize. In other words, I would be a waste of 300 chips. Now I understand how this might look, but hear me out:
1. The only hand I had showed this entire time was KK.
2. Smitty was playing very loose with a combination of raising and limp-calling and showing no inclination to limp re-raise. He had about 50k.
3. The LAG behind him had a very large stack, but showed that he was willing to raise with any two cards. When I first sat at the table, I even saw him raise Smitty and Bill with A2o. Though I understand that he is certainly not doing this every time, it is much like playing blockers in PLO- he could have such a hand and be willing to call, but the prior action makes it much less likely so. My main concern was that he would call with a small, yet larger ace or a small PP.
4. The BB behind me is almost never calling.
5. Any time you hold an ace, you have a shot against a player's entire range unless he holds aces. Given Smitty's tendencies and the fact that I held a blocker, this almost never occurs.
Finally, #6, the X-Factor
Smitty and I had been chatting it up and this makes him somewhat more likely to fold in a very marginal spot, rather than eliminate his new buddy.
So combining the fold equity, the value of future fold equity by increasing my stack by 30%, my suckout equity, and the diminished value of my stack, I choose to shove. The BB and Smitty fold as expected, but then the LAG calls and surprisingly shows me ATs. I don't know why he chose to overlimp in this spot but I still spike my 2, only to be rivered by a broadway straight.
Given the outcome of the hand, I am still very happy with the decision I made, specifically because it was all meticulously planned. Even though I was able to small ball my way to doubling my stack, I was very unlucky to have lost my tournament life to the only two large pots that I had played. Once again, that is poker!
Wait a minute.... Surely a long structure can't be good for everyone, can it? Naturally, it can't. This weekend I got a great opportunity to find out just how wrong this idea is in practice. I am quite certain that starting with 15k in chips at blinds of 25/50 and hour long levels was the milkshake that brought all the boys to the yard to plunk down their $2,100. Did it do them any good? No. Did it do me good? Well, yes and no.
Here is what happens when you are this deep and the money is this significant:
Everybody gets scared and thinks they need the nuts to play a big pot. Being that this was far and away the largest tournament around, the money spent for most people was very large and the anticipation leading up to the event was even bigger. Not only did they not want to lose their chips, they were also afraid of losing out on getting their $2,100 worth of entertainment for the day with no other equivalent outlet for another few months, at least. If you are in a position to play such an event, here is what you can expect and how you can get an advantage.
IMPLIED ODDS
Starting at 300BB deep, getting huge implied odds is a no-brainer...there aren't any! Though this certainly flies in the face of anything you have been taught, a simple dose of common sense says that it shouldn't. Implied odds rely on a willingness of your opponent to cash off his chips to you. If everyone is afraid of committing large portions of his chips at any point in the hand, then they are just not willing to give you implied odds. I saw guys with big pairs, trips, and sets shut down immediately after getting check raised small on the flop and often times after just being flat-called. After all, if the guy with a known big hand isn't willing to give action, then you definitely can't expect the guy with the lesser hand to be pushing real hard either. In essence, perception becomes the consensus reality so if you had planned on playing a big pot, you had better have the nuts or....
LAUNCH A BIG BLUFF
This would have been trivially easy. When you are this deep and everyone is playing this straightforwardly with big money on the line, this is how you play big to win big. Three betting was virtually non-existent in the first 4 levels and few hands even went to show down. Would I have had the guts to do this? I am not quite sure, but I did perfectly well for the first 6 hours or so making lots of small bluffs with a success rate that was close to 100%. Here are a few examples:
A weak player limps in early position and I notice that this guy is capable of peeling light on the flop but not willing to take any hands to showdown. So I limp on the CO with 75o and if he checks, I will fire 3 barrels no matter what. The older gentleman in the BB is of no concern as well because he shares the exact same tendencies, so barring anything unusual, I will try to bluff both of them on the turn if necessary, though I would probably give up on the river if they both got that far. In any case, the flop is K94. The guy checks and calls as expect and the BB folds. Turn is a T and he checks and calls another 1/2 pot bet. The river makes a backdoor flush and though my first instinct is to check because no one could ever believe I hit that card, I realize that I am not competing with poker competency, but their fear of failure and looking foolish. So I another 2/3 pot and he grunts and lays it down.
#2. A very loose, though seemingly decent post-flop player limps in middle position for 150. I decided that I will make a play at him on my button if no one else enters, despite what my cards are. I look down to see 96o. First, I should give a little background info on this guy. The very first hand of the tournament he limps in EP with AA. He gets heads up with the BB, who check calls a board of 764 to the river and then leads out for $500 when the straight hits (about 1/3-1/2 pot), which he obviously has. The loose player laughs disgustedly to himself and then flips over his aces. Not a huge laydown technically, yet many people could not bring themselves to do this. Personally I feel that this was a huge mistake on his part to show, but I happily file this piece of information away since I might be able to use it later. Secondly, I see that he is perfectly willing to lead at a lot of flops, yet is not paying off on the river.
So I do what any reasonable player would do and raise my Big Lick to 600. The flop is KT7. He checks, I fire my annoying half pot bet and he grunts and folds. It is duly noted that once I again I plan on firing at least two barrels and then making a judgment call on the third, if necessary.
KNOW WHEN TO SHOW
Just as bluffing indiscriminately should never be done, showing your cards should also be meticulously planned. As I soon found out after my first table broke and I got moved, if you are winning too often without a showdown, it is crucial to show a good hand. Here is where I feel that I made a rather small, yet significant mistake. I had about 22,000 in chips with blinds of 100/200 and made my typical raise of 500 with KQo and got a caller behind as well as both blinds. The flop was beautiful as it came KK7 rainbow. Being that these guys often took off a card on the flop, I decided to go ahead and bet 1,000 and the loose player behind me whom I had already tangled with several times decides to be my only customer. An ace hit on the turn which did me no harm but looked as if it would totally scare away any action so I decided to check it.
Though some people might advocate firing again in case he has a king, I just don't consider this to be good advice because if he has a K, the money is going in anyway and the chance that the ace really helped him is minimal and would only allow me to get one more bet from him if he does have it. However, checking gives him a chance to think he can take it away. He doesn't oblige and checks behind and a 9 falls on the river. I bet 2,000 and he quickly folds and I muck my hand. Being that we had played several pots and has now been moved off of all of them (I still had not showed a hand yet), he naturally inquires as to what I had. I told him the truth, that I had KQ and even mentioned that I should have showed that one.
It was then that I realized that I had made a mistake. Even though I had the goods about half of the hands in which I had won, the only thing they thought about me what that I was a complete fucking thief. After all, though I had previously flopped a set and also had trip K's, they didn't know this. By not establishing my honesty, per se, I actually encouraged "Wild" Bill, an old timer from Tennessee who wasn't particularly good, to take a shot at me a short while later on a scary turn card because he said "he keeps raising."
The hand in question occurred when I was on the cutoff and was playing my rush with a K4s. The flop came down 764 with two spades. Bill, who had been playing very loose and calling often in his blinds, decided to check and call my half pot bet. When the A of clubs hit on the turn and he checked again, I saw an opportunity to move him off a better hand or get him to fold a straight draw. I bet half pot, about 2,000 and he check raised me 6,000. Did he have it? It was hard to say since he was playing so loose, but then again, I only had a pair of fours which could have been good at showdown had I gotten there, yet my own thieving image could have spurned him to make that check raise when an ace hit that also completed a flush. Excluding things like chaos theory, had I showed the KQo hand, I would have had more confidence in whether or not he was bluffing. Bill showed plenty of inclination in that direction and though the result could easily have been the same, I would now have had a better opportunity to read how Bill was reading me which could have led to a profitable play in the future.
This highlights one of the more interesting aspects of the game in that what is real is not actually what happens, but rather what people believe happens. The information flowing around the table amongst common competition tends to be very polarized. In other words, you are either a thief or you aren't. In Bill's opinion I was the former and I am sure that everyone around the table more or less agreed with him. Therefore by betting the flush card in this instance and then folding, I was only confirming their suspicions and it was now going to be harder to pull of my tricks in the future. Being that you have more shitty hands than good hands and miss more flops than you hit, I would rather preserve my ability to steal than to get a small bet paid off, since no one was really paying off big anyway.
GETTING PAID OFF (HOPEFULLY)
Now that I was down to 26k in chips after a high of 32k, I was delighted to pick up KK under the gun. With blinds of 200/400 with a 50 ante, I made my standard raise of 1,000 and was hoping that Bill would take this opportunity to show me that a naive greenhorn couldn't sit at his table. He said, "I'll be your huckleberry" and called. The action folds around to Megan in the BB on my immediate right. She has already proven to be nitty and unimaginative, though solid. With 12k left in chips, I am excited when she 3-bets it to 4,000. I announce that I am all in and after some deliberation, Bill folds. Megan turns over AQs and the board runs her out a four card straight to take the pot. Though it was my somewhat laggy image that caused this otherwise good result, it is very important to remember that preflop your edge can only be so big and therefore, it is MUCH more preferable to win a lot of pots uncontested.
At this point I was in quandary. Though I wanted to update my Twitter, it was now crucial that I be present for every single hand. I also didn't want to sound like I was whining, because hey, that's poker! So with a stack now of 14k, I was looking to either chip up or make a big move. With the blinds rising however, open-limping, which was previously very common, was occurring much less frequently. Here was my plan: the new guy who had been moved to my immediate left was playing very nitty and was neither raising much nor calling any raises. My goal was to force the action if we got to play heads up. With his stack at about 30k, I was virtually certain that he wouldn't be calling open shoves with anything less than 99+ and AQ+. However, my short stacking experience armed me with the knowledge that even if he was calling much lighter, it was still profitable to shove any two cards! However, as my stack dwindled to 10k and the blinds now at 300/600 with a 75 ante, he would be much more willing to call with for 1/3 of his stack than for about 1/2. So do I make a move now or do I wait?
Here is my philosophy about tournaments. Once your stack dwindles beyond a certain point, the value of your tournament life plummets, especially if you are intent on winning the event or at least getting to the final table. With 46 out of 102 players left, I was still a long ways out and was not planning on scrapping by the entire time. My stack also needed just a little push so that I could successfully threaten other players with some power moves, which I was ready and willing to do.
With Smitty limping UTG (the player I had been tangling with) and a very laggy player limping two spots after him, I looked down to see A2o in the SB. With 10k left, there was really only two options here: shove or fold. Calling was not an option since I would only get action post-flop if I was beat and flopping a great with with A2o is a lot more difficult than most people realize. In other words, I would be a waste of 300 chips. Now I understand how this might look, but hear me out:
1. The only hand I had showed this entire time was KK.
2. Smitty was playing very loose with a combination of raising and limp-calling and showing no inclination to limp re-raise. He had about 50k.
3. The LAG behind him had a very large stack, but showed that he was willing to raise with any two cards. When I first sat at the table, I even saw him raise Smitty and Bill with A2o. Though I understand that he is certainly not doing this every time, it is much like playing blockers in PLO- he could have such a hand and be willing to call, but the prior action makes it much less likely so. My main concern was that he would call with a small, yet larger ace or a small PP.
4. The BB behind me is almost never calling.
5. Any time you hold an ace, you have a shot against a player's entire range unless he holds aces. Given Smitty's tendencies and the fact that I held a blocker, this almost never occurs.
Finally, #6, the X-Factor
Smitty and I had been chatting it up and this makes him somewhat more likely to fold in a very marginal spot, rather than eliminate his new buddy.
So combining the fold equity, the value of future fold equity by increasing my stack by 30%, my suckout equity, and the diminished value of my stack, I choose to shove. The BB and Smitty fold as expected, but then the LAG calls and surprisingly shows me ATs. I don't know why he chose to overlimp in this spot but I still spike my 2, only to be rivered by a broadway straight.
Given the outcome of the hand, I am still very happy with the decision I made, specifically because it was all meticulously planned. Even though I was able to small ball my way to doubling my stack, I was very unlucky to have lost my tournament life to the only two large pots that I had played. Once again, that is poker!
I've been playing poker for 13 years and been doing so professionally for 11. This is what I do with the little spare time that I have....and playing Dark Souls 3.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Rush Poker, Part II- Strategy Tips
Not too long ago I heard a brilliant saying that I would now like to quote: the man who understands how will always have a job, the man who understands why will always be his boss. Much like leading the horse to water, this post is not just going to be about what I think is good to do, but more importantly, why it should be done. In the poker world, and often even among many low-mid level professionals like myself, there is an obsession with how to do things and emulating the people who do them well. Those that developed these concepts and strategies did so because they understand why they work. If you can follow and understand the "why's" that I will provide below, you should soon be developing similar strategies on your own and will gain deep insights to the intrinsic nature of the complexities of poker.
I will begin by explaining what I like to do on the button and then follow it up with a rather long, yet easy to understand explanation. The good news is that you can easily execute the "how" for a profit without understanding the "why", yet fully grasping the "why" is necessary if you want to excel.
THE HOW: I open min-raise ANY 2 cards and follow it up with a 2BB c-bet if against only one opponent. If both blinds call, I give up unless I hit something good.
THE WHY: Stealing the blinds is important. In fact, it's huge. As David Sklansky has said in several of his earliest works, all hands of hold'em begin as a battle for the blinds. This concept is so simplistic and obvious that the fact alone makes it easy to overlook. Those who believe that the game is just about winning huge pots are slowly losing money to people who are comfortable with this very basic truth about the game. Min-raising makes this very easy, as it is a simple odds play and therefore only needs to work 57% of the time to break even since it is so cheap to do. I can already guess what some of you might be thinking: if this is so easy and effective to do, why not do it all the time in any kind of game? To answer this, we must now ponder the flip side of this equation by asking "why not?"
WHY NOT? What prevents you from doing this normally is your table image. This is one of those concepts that I had previously explored in theory for short stacking (in which case it is a very sound strategy and some players actually use it or something similar). Even otherwise nitty and uncreative players would soon go to great lengths to prevent you from doing this and though your great hands would get payed off nicely, your marginal to medium-strong hands would suffer greatly after the flop, as it would be very difficult to figure out what to do with a hand like QJ when the flop is J95 and you face a large check-raise by a TAG. Naturally, much more of your hands fall into the second category.
WHY NOW? The constant shifting tables in a large player base make it very unlikely that you will face the same lineup in the blinds in the same steal situation more than a couple of times per session at most. The small blind, who has made half the investment as the big blind, has little incentive to stick around with a couple of turds in the mere hope that he can make a 3-bet bluff to pick up your $2 raise when he can fold immediately and hope to pick up aces on the very next deal...even if he knows what you are up to! Given that he can move on to the next hand with precious little thought, it is easy to assume that this is exactly what he will do, approximately in the ballpark of 60-70% of the time on average. Essentially, this means that you are only facing one opponent over half of the time and his cards are completely random and you will have position on him the entire hand. Knowing this, as well as the strong incentive to try to cash in on another lotto ticket immediately if he folds makes him more inclined to refuse to get tricky and just pass.
Attempting to steal the blinds in Rush poker is very similar to a back alley mugging in the real world. With no witnesses around, your crime is not only more likely to succeed, but also very importantly, it is less likely to face retributive action from others. Once they have folded their hands, the other players have been moved away from the crime scene and allow you to do your dirty work without their scrutiny. While this has no bearing on the current situation, it makes it more probable that you can continue to get away with this for a long, long time.
But doesn't raising the minimum give him great implied odds? Absolutely not...in fact, his implied odds are very poor. A little known secret about implied odds is that they are only available when you choose to cooperate with your opponent and pay him off with a lesser hand. Therefore if you are raising with trash, I recommend that you only commit a large portion of your chips if you make at least two pair or better. Too many people instinctively believe that implied odds are a necessary component of specific two card combinations like 98o or 54s. Unfortunately for them, flopping a large hand with their own breed of trash will occur very rarely and far more rarely will you have a hand that you are willing to commit with yourself. The likely result is that they will frequently call with their pus and then fold to your tiny continuation bet. Furthermore, by keeping the pot very small, you can fire another cheap bet of around 1/2 pot if your opponent check calls and a scare card comes on the turn.
The min-raise also has a very strong and yet subtle psychological aspect to it. When you make this play, since calling is very cheap and folding feels compellingly weak, your opponents will often become indignant and call with a hand that has no post-flop potential out of stubbornness alone. The small post-flop pot combined with a complete lack of information of you as a player makes them more likely to fold than normal because the incentive to play the hand out with some potentially very difficult decisions is simply not worth the hassle to many players.
WHAT ABOUT FACING LIGHT 3-BETS? The question is: is it really light? Here is how I would recommend determining if the 3-bet is indeed light.
1. The small blind has 3-bet you. For the reasons above, the incentives for the small blind to both plan and execute this kind of bluff are simply not there. He also does need to be at least somewhat concerned that the BB might have picked up a large hand behind him, and although not likely, this is just one more facet to discourage this play.
2. His stack is below 100BB. Since short stacking is not allowed in these games and the typical reg is always sitting with a full stack, you must assume that anyone with less is either A) almost broke B) playing on scared money and C) just not all that likely to be very good. Playing with a stack of 20BB or less can give you an automatic advantage and 100BB or more gives you maximum maneuverability against most players at the table. Anything in between is no man's land and all good or aspiring players know this. What's more? Good players are also the ones who understand that defending your blinds matters. Therefore, if a player has less than 100BB, be apt to give him credit for what he is representing.
3. You see that your opponent in the BB has more than 1 entry in the game and you see him playing day after day. This is the one who is most likely to be pushing back at you with air.
It is important to realize that the advice I am providing here is not new or original. It took me about 15 minutes of play to realize that this was possible and therefore it was no surprise to be reading about it by other more well-known players. When advice such as this becomes wide spread, good counter strategies are likely soon on the way. The obvious solution would be to start light 4-betting opponents who fit the above criteria. This was also very clear when I noticed that my legitimate 4-betting hands were causing most 3-bets to fold. In light of this observation, I find that flat-calling with your best hands is preferable to 4-betting.
Originally, I was hoping that HUD's would never enter the scene. This is not because I don't believe in them as a strategy tool. After my rants against them this past summer, I came to grips with the fact that I must suck it up and learn them or put myself at a serious disadvantage to those who harness their power. I did not want them in this game because I felt that this gave me a better edge against certain sectors of my competition who would be weakened without them. I am also concerned that they will hurt the profitability of the plays recommended above, but these plays are sturdy and powerful enough in their own right that they should be effective in this particular arena regardless.
Given the news that PT3 and HEM are now offering fixes to make their HUDs usable in Rush poker, I will have to take this advance into consideration as I delve further into this game. At this point in time, I have not had the opportunity to incorporate the new HUD features into this game and therefore am not qualified to comment on their effects (or lack of) at this time. Hopefully, you guys who are reading this and experimenting with this game will try this out and share some of your insights on its effectiveness. In a future post, I will supply and examine some hand examples in these situations with some in-depth commentary. Best of luck!
I will begin by explaining what I like to do on the button and then follow it up with a rather long, yet easy to understand explanation. The good news is that you can easily execute the "how" for a profit without understanding the "why", yet fully grasping the "why" is necessary if you want to excel.
THE HOW: I open min-raise ANY 2 cards and follow it up with a 2BB c-bet if against only one opponent. If both blinds call, I give up unless I hit something good.
THE WHY: Stealing the blinds is important. In fact, it's huge. As David Sklansky has said in several of his earliest works, all hands of hold'em begin as a battle for the blinds. This concept is so simplistic and obvious that the fact alone makes it easy to overlook. Those who believe that the game is just about winning huge pots are slowly losing money to people who are comfortable with this very basic truth about the game. Min-raising makes this very easy, as it is a simple odds play and therefore only needs to work 57% of the time to break even since it is so cheap to do. I can already guess what some of you might be thinking: if this is so easy and effective to do, why not do it all the time in any kind of game? To answer this, we must now ponder the flip side of this equation by asking "why not?"
WHY NOT? What prevents you from doing this normally is your table image. This is one of those concepts that I had previously explored in theory for short stacking (in which case it is a very sound strategy and some players actually use it or something similar). Even otherwise nitty and uncreative players would soon go to great lengths to prevent you from doing this and though your great hands would get payed off nicely, your marginal to medium-strong hands would suffer greatly after the flop, as it would be very difficult to figure out what to do with a hand like QJ when the flop is J95 and you face a large check-raise by a TAG. Naturally, much more of your hands fall into the second category.
WHY NOW? The constant shifting tables in a large player base make it very unlikely that you will face the same lineup in the blinds in the same steal situation more than a couple of times per session at most. The small blind, who has made half the investment as the big blind, has little incentive to stick around with a couple of turds in the mere hope that he can make a 3-bet bluff to pick up your $2 raise when he can fold immediately and hope to pick up aces on the very next deal...even if he knows what you are up to! Given that he can move on to the next hand with precious little thought, it is easy to assume that this is exactly what he will do, approximately in the ballpark of 60-70% of the time on average. Essentially, this means that you are only facing one opponent over half of the time and his cards are completely random and you will have position on him the entire hand. Knowing this, as well as the strong incentive to try to cash in on another lotto ticket immediately if he folds makes him more inclined to refuse to get tricky and just pass.
Attempting to steal the blinds in Rush poker is very similar to a back alley mugging in the real world. With no witnesses around, your crime is not only more likely to succeed, but also very importantly, it is less likely to face retributive action from others. Once they have folded their hands, the other players have been moved away from the crime scene and allow you to do your dirty work without their scrutiny. While this has no bearing on the current situation, it makes it more probable that you can continue to get away with this for a long, long time.
But doesn't raising the minimum give him great implied odds? Absolutely not...in fact, his implied odds are very poor. A little known secret about implied odds is that they are only available when you choose to cooperate with your opponent and pay him off with a lesser hand. Therefore if you are raising with trash, I recommend that you only commit a large portion of your chips if you make at least two pair or better. Too many people instinctively believe that implied odds are a necessary component of specific two card combinations like 98o or 54s. Unfortunately for them, flopping a large hand with their own breed of trash will occur very rarely and far more rarely will you have a hand that you are willing to commit with yourself. The likely result is that they will frequently call with their pus and then fold to your tiny continuation bet. Furthermore, by keeping the pot very small, you can fire another cheap bet of around 1/2 pot if your opponent check calls and a scare card comes on the turn.
The min-raise also has a very strong and yet subtle psychological aspect to it. When you make this play, since calling is very cheap and folding feels compellingly weak, your opponents will often become indignant and call with a hand that has no post-flop potential out of stubbornness alone. The small post-flop pot combined with a complete lack of information of you as a player makes them more likely to fold than normal because the incentive to play the hand out with some potentially very difficult decisions is simply not worth the hassle to many players.
WHAT ABOUT FACING LIGHT 3-BETS? The question is: is it really light? Here is how I would recommend determining if the 3-bet is indeed light.
1. The small blind has 3-bet you. For the reasons above, the incentives for the small blind to both plan and execute this kind of bluff are simply not there. He also does need to be at least somewhat concerned that the BB might have picked up a large hand behind him, and although not likely, this is just one more facet to discourage this play.
2. His stack is below 100BB. Since short stacking is not allowed in these games and the typical reg is always sitting with a full stack, you must assume that anyone with less is either A) almost broke B) playing on scared money and C) just not all that likely to be very good. Playing with a stack of 20BB or less can give you an automatic advantage and 100BB or more gives you maximum maneuverability against most players at the table. Anything in between is no man's land and all good or aspiring players know this. What's more? Good players are also the ones who understand that defending your blinds matters. Therefore, if a player has less than 100BB, be apt to give him credit for what he is representing.
3. You see that your opponent in the BB has more than 1 entry in the game and you see him playing day after day. This is the one who is most likely to be pushing back at you with air.
It is important to realize that the advice I am providing here is not new or original. It took me about 15 minutes of play to realize that this was possible and therefore it was no surprise to be reading about it by other more well-known players. When advice such as this becomes wide spread, good counter strategies are likely soon on the way. The obvious solution would be to start light 4-betting opponents who fit the above criteria. This was also very clear when I noticed that my legitimate 4-betting hands were causing most 3-bets to fold. In light of this observation, I find that flat-calling with your best hands is preferable to 4-betting.
Originally, I was hoping that HUD's would never enter the scene. This is not because I don't believe in them as a strategy tool. After my rants against them this past summer, I came to grips with the fact that I must suck it up and learn them or put myself at a serious disadvantage to those who harness their power. I did not want them in this game because I felt that this gave me a better edge against certain sectors of my competition who would be weakened without them. I am also concerned that they will hurt the profitability of the plays recommended above, but these plays are sturdy and powerful enough in their own right that they should be effective in this particular arena regardless.
Given the news that PT3 and HEM are now offering fixes to make their HUDs usable in Rush poker, I will have to take this advance into consideration as I delve further into this game. At this point in time, I have not had the opportunity to incorporate the new HUD features into this game and therefore am not qualified to comment on their effects (or lack of) at this time. Hopefully, you guys who are reading this and experimenting with this game will try this out and share some of your insights on its effectiveness. In a future post, I will supply and examine some hand examples in these situations with some in-depth commentary. Best of luck!
I've been playing poker for 13 years and been doing so professionally for 11. This is what I do with the little spare time that I have....and playing Dark Souls 3.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
December and January Results
Cash: $23,619
Rakeback: ~$6,750
Tournament Winnings: $573
Gold Stack Bonus: $323
Gold Card Race: $310
Race Chase: $3,200
Not shown: ~$350 Rush Poker (played on my laptop)
$120 Heads up
TOTAL: $35,145
I was kind of reluctant to post this at first in light of recent security attacks on my FT account, my rakeback account, and the blog itself. Rest assured, there is no more money in any of these accounts, as I cashed it all away on one misclick against Isildur1 shortly thereafter (though it is still in dispute on a datamining charge). If said hacking scum is reading this right now, you know who you are and I hope you die in a grease fire.
Essentially this was all made in about 6 weeks time, as I was actually stuck about $500 as of the middle of December and then immediately began to run like Cantu. Over this span I ran over $5,000 over EV, but would have certainly been happy running totally even or below. I did manage to skeet by on the January Rake Chase which added heftily to my January total, which also pushed me past the $20k mark for the first time ever in the cash games, which was truly exciting for me on a personal level.
Though I spent the first week and a half away from the tables this month, things are still looking solid, though I have a rather moderate goal of making at least $6k since I have not been able to log the hours. Other than that, I am very excited to be an official affiliate of Rakebacknation and also have been invited to do some writing for parttimepoker.com, their affiliated site. Though the details have not yet been worked out, I plan on offering more original content on that platform and hopefully offering my share of deranged humor as well!
As an aside, I would like to send a special thank you to my friend and colleague, Crazy Bear, whose influence on my game boosted my results practically overnight and without his help, none of what you see above would have been possible.
I've been playing poker for 13 years and been doing so professionally for 11. This is what I do with the little spare time that I have....and playing Dark Souls 3.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
How to Cause Tilt
I found this as an addendum to a great article by grapsfan on Pocket Fives. It was written by Jennifear and I consider this to be absolute gold:
I'm not much of a chatter, and you won't find this advice anywhere in a book, because it doesn't promote the game. If you want to tangle in the chatbox and have a little fun, then I have one word for ya:
Illogic.
If you want to tilt someone in a nasty fashion, use an argument devoid of logic. The reaction you get is priceless. When you beat KK with A4, then "it's about time I won a coinflip", or "no aces flopped last hand, so I felt they would hit this hand".... this even works better if the flop last time contained an ace.
"It was suited." "It wasn't suited so I had TWO chances to hit a flush, not just one." "I had a feeling." "I have all the chips now, so I must be better than you." These one-liners work.
If they can't beat your argument with logic, they will become very frustrated and tilty. Plus you aren't getting mad, your goal is now truly to get them upset, and use your newfound image to your advantage, so you won't get caught up in defending your plays. One last word of advice if you are going to use the chatbox as a weapon: Fight right, nice left. You want the player on your right to call your 3-bet value raise out of frustration, but you want to be able to continue to steal from the player on your left.
I'm not much of a chatter, and you won't find this advice anywhere in a book, because it doesn't promote the game. If you want to tangle in the chatbox and have a little fun, then I have one word for ya:
Illogic.
If you want to tilt someone in a nasty fashion, use an argument devoid of logic. The reaction you get is priceless. When you beat KK with A4, then "it's about time I won a coinflip", or "no aces flopped last hand, so I felt they would hit this hand".... this even works better if the flop last time contained an ace.
"It was suited." "It wasn't suited so I had TWO chances to hit a flush, not just one." "I had a feeling." "I have all the chips now, so I must be better than you." These one-liners work.
If they can't beat your argument with logic, they will become very frustrated and tilty. Plus you aren't getting mad, your goal is now truly to get them upset, and use your newfound image to your advantage, so you won't get caught up in defending your plays. One last word of advice if you are going to use the chatbox as a weapon: Fight right, nice left. You want the player on your right to call your 3-bet value raise out of frustration, but you want to be able to continue to steal from the player on your left.
I've been playing poker for 13 years and been doing so professionally for 11. This is what I do with the little spare time that I have....and playing Dark Souls 3.
Friday, February 12, 2010
An Appeal to Capitalists
I plan on playing in the main event of this series on the 27th of this month and I am looking to sell pieces of myself. The total buy in is $2,100, of which I will be paying the first $1,000 as well as the $100 entry fee. Anyone who wants to contribute will actually be getting a small overlay on their money (100% rakeback!) with an added bonus that if I place in the top 3 spots, I will be paying out an additional 10% of my winnings. For example, if someone wants to buy a $100 dollar share of the $2,100 buy in, they will be contributing just over 4.7% of the total, but will be receiving a 5% share of the prize.
Here is how I plan to do this:
I will sell pieces of myself in increments no smaller than $25 with returns as explained above. I will list all contributors and the total amount purchased at the end of this post and will keep amending the list as more people contribute. Should anyone prefer to remain anonymous, your contribution will be listed with only your first and last initial labeled. All stakers should send the money to Poopatron at Poker Stars and then follow up by email to let me know of the transfer. If you do not have a PS account and would like to be involved, please email me and we can make an alternate arrangement. I will be providing up to the minute updates via Twitter and will be taking photos from the event as well.
Here is a list of the contributors thus far:
$25- Jerry Hodges
$50- Adam Monteiro
$50- Jonathan Novak
$100- Daniel Yelle
$50- Rakebacknation Rob
$100- cucinella
$100- Crazy Bear
Total Raised- $475
Thanks!!
I've been playing poker for 13 years and been doing so professionally for 11. This is what I do with the little spare time that I have....and playing Dark Souls 3.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Rush Poker, Part I- Structure and Theory
By means of popular demand, I decided to take on this topic first. Rush poker, in essence, is the action player's wet dream and finally fulfills the demand that has driven recreational play online in the first place. For those unfortunate souls who have yet to try it, the premise of Rush poker is thus: you enter the game without having to post, as positions are dealt at random with the player who has gone the longest without posting the BB being the one who must take it. From there, if you do not like your starting hand, you have the option of using a "quick fold" feature where you immediately leave your current table and are seamlessly transported to another and are instantly dealt into a new hand with an entirely new set of opponents. Tables are unobservable as the action consists of one large player pool that is constantly shifting. A full ring table that would normally deal between 55-80 hands per hour now averages about 250-275. If it isn't already clear, the implications of such play are profound, as are the means of profiting from such play. Here is my take on the advantages:
1. No time spent on wait lists or waiting to post
Recreational and serious amateurs will have a hard time grasping how important this is to your overall profitability. Given that I consider our readership here to be above the curve in general, this shouldn't really require an explanation other than to state the obvious: more time at the tables = more $.
2. Lack of specific reads
Many people consider this to be a fault but I consider this to be an advantage. The truth is that this is, in fact, neutral. Those who admit that this burdens their play have unwittingly revealed a weakness in their game and all weaknesses can be exploited. Naturally, that specific reads are difficult and often impossible to achieve works both for and against you. So who benefits? The guy who actually knows how to play fundamentally strong poker! The Phil Hellmuths of the world would get slaughtered and the Sklansky-bots would reign supreme. Being that your average work-a-day professional falls into the second category, this is good news indeed!
3. Ease of folding makes hand reading easier
Funny how most people like to complain that a group of fish drawing against your aces makes the game impossible to win and then go on to complain that the fish now have very little incentive to play their crappy 53o now that they can instantly be dealt into another hand. I can't say that I really care either way, except that now if you raise from EP and get a cold caller in the CO and they need said 53 to make the only available straight in a heads up pot, they almost CAN'T have it! Likewise, elaborate bluffs will almost never occur except as the result of a draw that bricked on the river. Naturally no game variant could ever be this predictable, but it certainly is to a higher than normal degree.
3. Easy to rathole
No, I do not mean this in the short stack sense. Though I plan on taking this concept one step further in my future post about reflections on a year of short stacking, I will have to touch on this briefly in order to make the point clear. Pretend that you are 200BB deep and then look at the following examples and notice the error in thinking:
A. When I have AA, I want to be able to stack someone holding QQ.
B. When I have the nut flush, I want to be able to stack someone holding the K high flush.
C. When I flop a royal flush, I want to be able to stack someone who flopped a straight flush.
Here is my quick take on the above examples:
A. When you are this deep, it will be extremely difficult to get someone holding QQ or even KK to commit a ton of money preflop, and made much more difficult when there is essentially no game history established. Furthermore, a bad flop such as 8h7h6h when the QQ holder does not have the appropriate suit and already made suspicious of the possibility of being up against aces is likely to make them clam up and play passively or simply make the correct fold early in the hand out of nothing more than fear alone.
B. This is pretty much the same as the example above, with the added fact that if the board is paired or the fourth of the suit falls, they are very likely to play passively when there is a lot of money behind, but would of course have happily stacked off in the common 100BB scenario even when the above scare cards are present.
C. This is the whole concept of "I want to be able to stack someone when I flop a set" taken to its logical extreme. Naturally, this scenario is ridiculous due to its rarity, but it is something to consider when chasing what I like to call "jackpot hands" like small pairs. Flopping huge is not the same thing as flopping huge and getting paid. The deeper you are, the more difficult this becomes to do as a large favorite. I don't know about you, but I would not feel particularly good about getting all in 200BB deep with a set of 2's on a rainbow board of K92.
So what does this mean? Being really deep adds significantly to your total bluffing equity but quite likely subtracts significantly from your value equity. Unfortunately, with the lack of metagame built into the structure of Rush poker itself, exercising large bluffs on a regular basis would be suicide. I would strongly suggest that you rathole your winnings when get much above 100BB and just re-enter the game with a full stack.
While I am sure that this advice will ruffle a few feathers, my short stack experience has shown me the truth of the situation. My win rate over the past 5 months has been about 1.5ptBB/100 (a true short stack artist can enjoy a WR in the 1.75-2 range). With my somewhat extensive use of PTR, I have determined that this is approximately equal to what an ordinary full stack professional earns. A very good full stacker can expect a WR of 2.5BB and only a small elite group can hope to ever earn anywhere near 3BB or higher. Please don't draw on the example of Nanonoko, as his LTWR is extraordinary and he should be considered an outlier on all accounts.
What sort of assumptions can we draw from this information? That the first 20% of your stack provides the majority of your entire earnings! Furthermore, the remainder of your stack forces you to take greater and greater risks for a proportionally poorer and poorer return on your investment. While ratholing might be preferable in an ordinary situation, external factors like good seating and long wait lists make this a Catch 22 when playing in a good game. They might hate that they are sitting the the right of a great player when they are both 200BB deep, but reluctant to leave a huge fish on their right who is spewing away all his money. The constant reshuffling of tables and seating in Rush poker make this a non-factor and should be exploited to the fullest.
This concludes part I on my take on the basic structural theory of the game, and I will conclude part II with my advice on HUD availability and late position strategy. I am really hoping for feedback from you guys so that we might be able to delve even further into this fascinating innovation of online poker.
1. No time spent on wait lists or waiting to post
Recreational and serious amateurs will have a hard time grasping how important this is to your overall profitability. Given that I consider our readership here to be above the curve in general, this shouldn't really require an explanation other than to state the obvious: more time at the tables = more $.
2. Lack of specific reads
Many people consider this to be a fault but I consider this to be an advantage. The truth is that this is, in fact, neutral. Those who admit that this burdens their play have unwittingly revealed a weakness in their game and all weaknesses can be exploited. Naturally, that specific reads are difficult and often impossible to achieve works both for and against you. So who benefits? The guy who actually knows how to play fundamentally strong poker! The Phil Hellmuths of the world would get slaughtered and the Sklansky-bots would reign supreme. Being that your average work-a-day professional falls into the second category, this is good news indeed!
3. Ease of folding makes hand reading easier
Funny how most people like to complain that a group of fish drawing against your aces makes the game impossible to win and then go on to complain that the fish now have very little incentive to play their crappy 53o now that they can instantly be dealt into another hand. I can't say that I really care either way, except that now if you raise from EP and get a cold caller in the CO and they need said 53 to make the only available straight in a heads up pot, they almost CAN'T have it! Likewise, elaborate bluffs will almost never occur except as the result of a draw that bricked on the river. Naturally no game variant could ever be this predictable, but it certainly is to a higher than normal degree.
3. Easy to rathole
No, I do not mean this in the short stack sense. Though I plan on taking this concept one step further in my future post about reflections on a year of short stacking, I will have to touch on this briefly in order to make the point clear. Pretend that you are 200BB deep and then look at the following examples and notice the error in thinking:
A. When I have AA, I want to be able to stack someone holding QQ.
B. When I have the nut flush, I want to be able to stack someone holding the K high flush.
C. When I flop a royal flush, I want to be able to stack someone who flopped a straight flush.
Here is my quick take on the above examples:
A. When you are this deep, it will be extremely difficult to get someone holding QQ or even KK to commit a ton of money preflop, and made much more difficult when there is essentially no game history established. Furthermore, a bad flop such as 8h7h6h when the QQ holder does not have the appropriate suit and already made suspicious of the possibility of being up against aces is likely to make them clam up and play passively or simply make the correct fold early in the hand out of nothing more than fear alone.
B. This is pretty much the same as the example above, with the added fact that if the board is paired or the fourth of the suit falls, they are very likely to play passively when there is a lot of money behind, but would of course have happily stacked off in the common 100BB scenario even when the above scare cards are present.
C. This is the whole concept of "I want to be able to stack someone when I flop a set" taken to its logical extreme. Naturally, this scenario is ridiculous due to its rarity, but it is something to consider when chasing what I like to call "jackpot hands" like small pairs. Flopping huge is not the same thing as flopping huge and getting paid. The deeper you are, the more difficult this becomes to do as a large favorite. I don't know about you, but I would not feel particularly good about getting all in 200BB deep with a set of 2's on a rainbow board of K92.
So what does this mean? Being really deep adds significantly to your total bluffing equity but quite likely subtracts significantly from your value equity. Unfortunately, with the lack of metagame built into the structure of Rush poker itself, exercising large bluffs on a regular basis would be suicide. I would strongly suggest that you rathole your winnings when get much above 100BB and just re-enter the game with a full stack.
While I am sure that this advice will ruffle a few feathers, my short stack experience has shown me the truth of the situation. My win rate over the past 5 months has been about 1.5ptBB/100 (a true short stack artist can enjoy a WR in the 1.75-2 range). With my somewhat extensive use of PTR, I have determined that this is approximately equal to what an ordinary full stack professional earns. A very good full stacker can expect a WR of 2.5BB and only a small elite group can hope to ever earn anywhere near 3BB or higher. Please don't draw on the example of Nanonoko, as his LTWR is extraordinary and he should be considered an outlier on all accounts.
What sort of assumptions can we draw from this information? That the first 20% of your stack provides the majority of your entire earnings! Furthermore, the remainder of your stack forces you to take greater and greater risks for a proportionally poorer and poorer return on your investment. While ratholing might be preferable in an ordinary situation, external factors like good seating and long wait lists make this a Catch 22 when playing in a good game. They might hate that they are sitting the the right of a great player when they are both 200BB deep, but reluctant to leave a huge fish on their right who is spewing away all his money. The constant reshuffling of tables and seating in Rush poker make this a non-factor and should be exploited to the fullest.
This concludes part I on my take on the basic structural theory of the game, and I will conclude part II with my advice on HUD availability and late position strategy. I am really hoping for feedback from you guys so that we might be able to delve even further into this fascinating innovation of online poker.
I've been playing poker for 13 years and been doing so professionally for 11. This is what I do with the little spare time that I have....and playing Dark Souls 3.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Thinking of Moving in a New Direction
As enjoying as it has been playing the part of the villain for greater part of the past year, it might be time to move on and wear the shell of a new identity. No, it was not due to Full Tilt's move to raise the minimum buy in, which I am in fact quite pleased about for reasons that will be explained in an upcoming blogpost. The move is more about the desire to not dilute the quality of the writing by visibly wearing such a divisive uniform. As stated previously, this blog has never been to endorse short stacking or any other poker form or strategy. When it all comes down to the wire, there are really only two kinds of play that I truly endorse- the fun kind and the profitable kind. As it were, both Travis and I have been very grateful for the ongoing support of our dedicated readers and their openmindedness to strategies that they might not even necessarily agree with, yet can still respect as just another aspect to a complex and ever-changing game.
Incidentally however, this move is actually inspired by Full Tilt's introduction of Rush Poker. Though considered by some to be a mockery of purist poker, I actually embrace it as a very innovative and profitable move on their part that fills a gap in an area that was lacking in both online and brick and mortar play- instant action and gratification for both enthusiasts and recreational players alike. How does this tie in to the move to change the direction of our blog? Due to my most recent strategy construct improvements in short stacking, I have gleaned some super insights on how to exploit a strategy glitch that this new type of play allows. And no, I am not referring to short stacking these games. Even if it were possible, I would not choose to do this. I have been full stacking these games a bit this month to some good win rates and massive profits and I am eager to share these insights in the hope that our current and future readers will be able to explore them without bias in ways that they will find to be both enjoyable and profitable. Too many people have been quick to judge my knowledge of the game based on the way in which I choose to express my skills within the game and I do want short stacking to hide the fact that I have been making a living purely off this game in one form or another for close to 5 years now- a feat that I am truly proud of.
This blog has always been and will continue to be about managing the professional lifestyle, thinking outside the box and challenging conventional and outdated poker dogma. My ultimate personal goal is not to be the best short stacker in the world, nor full stacker, or even the best player. I would prefer to leave a legacy as one of the great poker writers and thinkers about the game, and I feel that the identity of "The Short Stack Hero" will only burden this ultimate goal. For this I would personally like to request a favor from our regular readers to let us know in which ways they feel they have benefited most from the content on this site so that we can pave the path to future.
In any case, here are the articles that I have been meticulously mulling over in my mind to post over the course of the last month, not in any particular order:
Incidentally however, this move is actually inspired by Full Tilt's introduction of Rush Poker. Though considered by some to be a mockery of purist poker, I actually embrace it as a very innovative and profitable move on their part that fills a gap in an area that was lacking in both online and brick and mortar play- instant action and gratification for both enthusiasts and recreational players alike. How does this tie in to the move to change the direction of our blog? Due to my most recent strategy construct improvements in short stacking, I have gleaned some super insights on how to exploit a strategy glitch that this new type of play allows. And no, I am not referring to short stacking these games. Even if it were possible, I would not choose to do this. I have been full stacking these games a bit this month to some good win rates and massive profits and I am eager to share these insights in the hope that our current and future readers will be able to explore them without bias in ways that they will find to be both enjoyable and profitable. Too many people have been quick to judge my knowledge of the game based on the way in which I choose to express my skills within the game and I do want short stacking to hide the fact that I have been making a living purely off this game in one form or another for close to 5 years now- a feat that I am truly proud of.
This blog has always been and will continue to be about managing the professional lifestyle, thinking outside the box and challenging conventional and outdated poker dogma. My ultimate personal goal is not to be the best short stacker in the world, nor full stacker, or even the best player. I would prefer to leave a legacy as one of the great poker writers and thinkers about the game, and I feel that the identity of "The Short Stack Hero" will only burden this ultimate goal. For this I would personally like to request a favor from our regular readers to let us know in which ways they feel they have benefited most from the content on this site so that we can pave the path to future.
In any case, here are the articles that I have been meticulously mulling over in my mind to post over the course of the last month, not in any particular order:
- January and December results
- Full Tilt's move to raise the minimum buy in
- Game Theory, Short Stacking, and "what's best for the game"
- Rush Poker review and strategy concepts
- Insights gained from looking back on a year of short stacking. This will be truly epic!
- Bankroll Theory, part III (I was wrong)
As always, thank you for reading and your support!
Lorin
I've been playing poker for 13 years and been doing so professionally for 11. This is what I do with the little spare time that I have....and playing Dark Souls 3.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
The Poker Stars Blogger Championship
I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! Bloggers can register to play for free in the WBCOOP, if you don’t have a PokerStars account you can get your Free Poker Download at PokerStarsRegistration code: 361858
I've been playing poker for 13 years and been doing so professionally for 11. This is what I do with the little spare time that I have....and playing Dark Souls 3.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Focusing on the Long Term
Just a few days ago, I began ruminating on the concept of "focusing on the long-term." Widely accepted as the wisdom of dealing with bad beats and bad temporary results, poker authors everywhere have been regurgitating this advice for years, much to the dismay of...oh, just about everyone. In fact, I can not think of a more abstract or depressing way of viewing this game. After all, they say we can never get too high or low about a given cash game session as it is really just one long game that goes on and on and on and on and ON..... Apparently the journey of a thousand miles not only begins with the first step but ends somewhere far beyond the visible horizon at a place that we won't even recognize when we get there. Luckily for all of you, I have managed to take this poorly constructed yet well-meaning advice and turn it into something usable. I will be the first to admit that there is nothing groundbreaking that I am about to present here, yet I am sure that some of you have oft overlooked it.
This meditation first began when pondering the effects of attempting to win the rake chase at Pokerworld for the month of January. That wasn't a typo- for those of you who don't know, a rake "chase" is different than a rake "race" in that there are guaranteed tiered payouts for everyone who reaches specific rake plateaus. The one in question rewards an extra $1,400 in cash to all those who rake at least $8,000 (high volume, if this is not already obvious) and $3,000 to all of those who rake at least $15,000 (extraordinary volume!). Being that you are rewarded for consistent performance, this is superior to the alternative.
While this goal seem ludicrous to me personally when I saw it, it seemed quite doable the first time I raked $800 in a single day and realized that it was about 9 hours of play. Though I knew it was unreasonable to think I could do this every day, I was quite happy to realize that it would only take 19 sessions like this. Doing some quick calculations yielded that it would take somewhere between 180-200 hours of play of 9-tabling. Further examination showed me that not only would I bring home that extra dough, it would also glue me to the table and force me to play when I would otherwise quit, creating much higher earns overall. Being that I can track my rake to the penny using HEM, the previously abstract "long term" now had an end in sight. When you have a distinct end point in that is actually tangible and achievable, the bad beats become much more tolerable and the long sessions now have a meaning other "win more" or "get unstuck".
The "goal" of winning at poker over the long-term is no better than the goal of finishing college, losing weight, or making Supernova Elite next year. All experts say that these things must be broken down into manageable sub-goals that are achievable and measurable and preferably have some kind of reward for each step. The above goals would be better stated as taking 6 credit hours each semester, limiting yourself to 1,500 calories per day, or earning x FPP's each day. While the idea of raking $15,000 is unheard of for myself personally, I know that I can get through each day visualizing that $3,000 pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
For those of you who would like to follow my progress towards this goal, click here and search for the player name "Papa Rozzi" at Poker World, right at the top of the list!
P.S. A quick word of caution: do not let goals of earning FPP's or rake or rakeback distract you from your ultimate goal- making money. Do not consume yourself with pushing past your maximum table limits to quickly reach a goal that will happen on its own. As always, if the amount of money you earn at the tables is ultimately eclipsed by the rakeback you earn on a monthly basis, you are doing something wrong or misusing your focus.
This meditation first began when pondering the effects of attempting to win the rake chase at Pokerworld for the month of January. That wasn't a typo- for those of you who don't know, a rake "chase" is different than a rake "race" in that there are guaranteed tiered payouts for everyone who reaches specific rake plateaus. The one in question rewards an extra $1,400 in cash to all those who rake at least $8,000 (high volume, if this is not already obvious) and $3,000 to all of those who rake at least $15,000 (extraordinary volume!). Being that you are rewarded for consistent performance, this is superior to the alternative.
While this goal seem ludicrous to me personally when I saw it, it seemed quite doable the first time I raked $800 in a single day and realized that it was about 9 hours of play. Though I knew it was unreasonable to think I could do this every day, I was quite happy to realize that it would only take 19 sessions like this. Doing some quick calculations yielded that it would take somewhere between 180-200 hours of play of 9-tabling. Further examination showed me that not only would I bring home that extra dough, it would also glue me to the table and force me to play when I would otherwise quit, creating much higher earns overall. Being that I can track my rake to the penny using HEM, the previously abstract "long term" now had an end in sight. When you have a distinct end point in that is actually tangible and achievable, the bad beats become much more tolerable and the long sessions now have a meaning other "win more" or "get unstuck".
The "goal" of winning at poker over the long-term is no better than the goal of finishing college, losing weight, or making Supernova Elite next year. All experts say that these things must be broken down into manageable sub-goals that are achievable and measurable and preferably have some kind of reward for each step. The above goals would be better stated as taking 6 credit hours each semester, limiting yourself to 1,500 calories per day, or earning x FPP's each day. While the idea of raking $15,000 is unheard of for myself personally, I know that I can get through each day visualizing that $3,000 pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
For those of you who would like to follow my progress towards this goal, click here and search for the player name "Papa Rozzi" at Poker World, right at the top of the list!
P.S. A quick word of caution: do not let goals of earning FPP's or rake or rakeback distract you from your ultimate goal- making money. Do not consume yourself with pushing past your maximum table limits to quickly reach a goal that will happen on its own. As always, if the amount of money you earn at the tables is ultimately eclipsed by the rakeback you earn on a monthly basis, you are doing something wrong or misusing your focus.
I've been playing poker for 13 years and been doing so professionally for 11. This is what I do with the little spare time that I have....and playing Dark Souls 3.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Moving Up and Losing Me Bottle
After last month of playing mostly $1/2 with some $2/4 and $3/6 and showing success in all of these stakes, I figured that the best move would be to start December playing only $2/4 and $3/6 from that point on, being well rolled for both games. Being that playing the bigger pots in the larger games was distracting me from playing well in the smaller game, it seemed to make logical sense to eliminate the smallest game from my menu and enjoy the better win rates in the larger games. Naturally, had this worked out so well, there would be no reason to make this post.
What I am attempting to explore here is whether or not you will do better in the long run by moving up now, EVEN IF you are well rolled and competent enough to beat the higher game. Here is what I have found out:
1. BIGGER WINS CAN LEAD TO SHORTER SESSIONS
Coventional poker knowledge: you should always keep playing when you are winning. Short stack hero says: HORSESHIT. Don't get me wrong here: I am not disagreeing with what all of the poker authors are saying in spirit, but rather, what they are saying in practice. They have never addressed the psychological fact that people experience more pain due to a loss than the joy they receive relative to an equal win.
When I first started the month, I went up about $2,500 right out of the gate, in 3 short sessions. Most of this came in $1,000 spurts experienced in the course of short runs of about 1-2 hours. While this might feel quite good while it is happening, it is totally eclipsed by taking a dinner break and giving back $1,000 in 30 minutes. The result? It is very easy to go up a lot (relative to the smaller stakes you had been playing) and then find some external reason to quit and enjoy your win for the day. To make matters worse, we create our own psychological barriers according the law of diminishing marginal utility. It feels good to win the first $500 of the day and very good to hit $1,000 for the day, yet beyond this point, things begin to change. Going up to $1,500 will make me feel only slightly better, yet dropping down to $500 for the day will make me feel lousy, with the irony being that had you told me the previous day that I would be making $500 tomorrow, I would be satisfied.
In sum, though $1,000 is still the same to me that it was in November, when you are playing just $2/4 and $3/6, it is an average of 2 full buy ins. Easy to make and easy to give back. My mind was simply not prepared for this.
2. BIGGER LOSSES ARE LIKELY TO LEAD TO LONGER SESSIONS
This requires no extrapolation, for all of us have done this a some point.
3. BAD RUNS CAN EQUAL LONGER TIME AWAY FROM THE GAME
We all know by know that poker profits are not just measured by the month, but also by the day, the hour, and to some people, by the hand. No matter how big a single session is, time spent afterward away from the table will likely hurt your profits more than a long, slightly tilty session if you are a competent player. The second week of the month was terrible. I lost about $2,800 in the course of 3 short sessions and ran $3,300 under EV. I had intellectualized that this would happen at some point, yet I was stilled floored by the fact it not only did, but that it happened so soon. When you take a loss that is this disruptive, the thought of sitting at your desk becomes burdensome, if not intolerable. Some people are made of stone and things like this just roll of their backs. I am not one of them and I imagine that you are most likely not as well.
4. GAME SELECTION BECOMES FAR MORE DIFFICULT
Damn short stackers have completely infested the full ring $2/4 and $3/6 games at Full Tilt (not for much longer, though)! Rather than whine about it though, I just won't sit and play with them if there are too many and they have position on me. Likewise, the higher you play, the fish become fewer and less frequent. So for guys who are used to playing at 16-24 tables with little thought, this just becomes much more difficult to do.
As if it weren't difficult enough to make money at this game, making more money requires even more consideration than simply win rates and bank roll management. Am I saying not to give it a try? Absolutely not- just keep this on the back burner and be self-conscious at all times.
What I am attempting to explore here is whether or not you will do better in the long run by moving up now, EVEN IF you are well rolled and competent enough to beat the higher game. Here is what I have found out:
1. BIGGER WINS CAN LEAD TO SHORTER SESSIONS
Coventional poker knowledge: you should always keep playing when you are winning. Short stack hero says: HORSESHIT. Don't get me wrong here: I am not disagreeing with what all of the poker authors are saying in spirit, but rather, what they are saying in practice. They have never addressed the psychological fact that people experience more pain due to a loss than the joy they receive relative to an equal win.
When I first started the month, I went up about $2,500 right out of the gate, in 3 short sessions. Most of this came in $1,000 spurts experienced in the course of short runs of about 1-2 hours. While this might feel quite good while it is happening, it is totally eclipsed by taking a dinner break and giving back $1,000 in 30 minutes. The result? It is very easy to go up a lot (relative to the smaller stakes you had been playing) and then find some external reason to quit and enjoy your win for the day. To make matters worse, we create our own psychological barriers according the law of diminishing marginal utility. It feels good to win the first $500 of the day and very good to hit $1,000 for the day, yet beyond this point, things begin to change. Going up to $1,500 will make me feel only slightly better, yet dropping down to $500 for the day will make me feel lousy, with the irony being that had you told me the previous day that I would be making $500 tomorrow, I would be satisfied.
In sum, though $1,000 is still the same to me that it was in November, when you are playing just $2/4 and $3/6, it is an average of 2 full buy ins. Easy to make and easy to give back. My mind was simply not prepared for this.
2. BIGGER LOSSES ARE LIKELY TO LEAD TO LONGER SESSIONS
This requires no extrapolation, for all of us have done this a some point.
3. BAD RUNS CAN EQUAL LONGER TIME AWAY FROM THE GAME
We all know by know that poker profits are not just measured by the month, but also by the day, the hour, and to some people, by the hand. No matter how big a single session is, time spent afterward away from the table will likely hurt your profits more than a long, slightly tilty session if you are a competent player. The second week of the month was terrible. I lost about $2,800 in the course of 3 short sessions and ran $3,300 under EV. I had intellectualized that this would happen at some point, yet I was stilled floored by the fact it not only did, but that it happened so soon. When you take a loss that is this disruptive, the thought of sitting at your desk becomes burdensome, if not intolerable. Some people are made of stone and things like this just roll of their backs. I am not one of them and I imagine that you are most likely not as well.
4. GAME SELECTION BECOMES FAR MORE DIFFICULT
Damn short stackers have completely infested the full ring $2/4 and $3/6 games at Full Tilt (not for much longer, though)! Rather than whine about it though, I just won't sit and play with them if there are too many and they have position on me. Likewise, the higher you play, the fish become fewer and less frequent. So for guys who are used to playing at 16-24 tables with little thought, this just becomes much more difficult to do.
As if it weren't difficult enough to make money at this game, making more money requires even more consideration than simply win rates and bank roll management. Am I saying not to give it a try? Absolutely not- just keep this on the back burner and be self-conscious at all times.
I've been playing poker for 13 years and been doing so professionally for 11. This is what I do with the little spare time that I have....and playing Dark Souls 3.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Following in Glenn Beck's Footsteps
This post is an apology to our regular readers. We were going to do a series on the "debate" with narrow minded full stackers but are scrapping it after much consideration. After all, winning an argument requires a certain amount of cooperation on the part of the arguee - where the person in question decides to submit and see things from your point of view. Doing so in this case is also counter productive, because it is tantamount to tapping on the glass. As long as we are dismissed, our play becomes highly profitable. The minute we are taken seriously, we will seriously need to consider doing something else, like working at McDonald's ;)
As anyone who has been following the last few posts can see, narrow minded fools will not be persuaded under any circumstances. They simply change the argument when they see a point which they can not possibly win and spout more and more ridiculous things as a consequence. Had we not let our utterly massive egos get in the way, we would have ignored such blather long ago, and that is precisely what we will do from this point on.
For those of you who have been following this blog over the course of its evolution, you fully understand that this blog was not meant to promote short stacking or any other style of poker. It was meant to challenge conventional wisdom and groupthink to reach conclusions that help a person succeed in their own fashion. I should know. I have read pretty much every single significant text on hold'em since the day I declared that I wanted to be a professional over 6 years ago now. While I am very grateful for the knowledge that has been handed down to me, I also never had the chance to develop a style all my own. This knowledge has given me the tools of the professional and given me a good living, though it has also almost certainly prevented me from ever becoming a top player with a unique approach to the game. I am hoping to break that mold for the rest of you and not further waste your time by engaging in arguments with idiots. I'll leave that to Glenn from now on.
I've been playing poker for 13 years and been doing so professionally for 11. This is what I do with the little spare time that I have....and playing Dark Souls 3.
Monday, November 9, 2009
An Amazing Hand by Any Measure...
I've been playing poker for 13 years and been doing so professionally for 11. This is what I do with the little spare time that I have....and playing Dark Souls 3.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
The Law of Unintended Consequences
We see this everywhere. A smoking ban in bars leads to more drunk driving deaths when people drive further to get to bar that has heated outdoor smoking areas. Obama's "Cash for Clunkers" program hurts the Demolition Derby sport by causing a drought of old vehicles that now going straight to the junkyard. Why should we care? Because all players who are upset by the short stack epidemic are witnessing this happening right now. The culprit? A powerful new generation of poker software that we all love and enjoy.
Many people have suggested that we raise the minimum buy in. I would like to point out, though, that the minimum buy in has always been 20BB pretty much across the board. Yet if you peel the layers back a little further, you will see that there only exists a short stack swarm at sites where the newer highly advanced HUD's are not only rampant, but encouraged. After all, the 20BB minimum buy in exists at the Cake Poker network as well, yet there are very few short stackers who exist there and none of them are particularly dangerous...because of the site wide ban on this software.
The highly detailed HUD's available through HEM and PT3 et al. paved the way for short stackers who can now slice through you with razor thin margins because of a huge list of very specific stats that can track your patterns of play from every single position at the table and can feed this information into advanced simulators on their free time like StoxEV that can measure their expected value down to the PENNY. Even if a player has never logged any hands against you, they can still purchase hand histories by the million and have a complete profile against you as soon as they wake up at noon.
So is this new generation of software aids the true danger to the game? I would wager a "yes" here. Even Kyle "Cottonseed" Hendon made a remark in one of his videos on Stox Poker that the HEM HUD is so good that it is almost like cheating. While the lines have blurred tremendously since their inception, it is certainly quickly reaching that point. Had you explained to an old time pro back in 1999 what people were doing now to the game they almost certainly would have called it such.
Many people have suggested that we raise the minimum buy in. I would like to point out, though, that the minimum buy in has always been 20BB pretty much across the board. Yet if you peel the layers back a little further, you will see that there only exists a short stack swarm at sites where the newer highly advanced HUD's are not only rampant, but encouraged. After all, the 20BB minimum buy in exists at the Cake Poker network as well, yet there are very few short stackers who exist there and none of them are particularly dangerous...because of the site wide ban on this software.
The highly detailed HUD's available through HEM and PT3 et al. paved the way for short stackers who can now slice through you with razor thin margins because of a huge list of very specific stats that can track your patterns of play from every single position at the table and can feed this information into advanced simulators on their free time like StoxEV that can measure their expected value down to the PENNY. Even if a player has never logged any hands against you, they can still purchase hand histories by the million and have a complete profile against you as soon as they wake up at noon.
So is this new generation of software aids the true danger to the game? I would wager a "yes" here. Even Kyle "Cottonseed" Hendon made a remark in one of his videos on Stox Poker that the HEM HUD is so good that it is almost like cheating. While the lines have blurred tremendously since their inception, it is certainly quickly reaching that point. Had you explained to an old time pro back in 1999 what people were doing now to the game they almost certainly would have called it such.
I've been playing poker for 13 years and been doing so professionally for 11. This is what I do with the little spare time that I have....and playing Dark Souls 3.
Friday, August 21, 2009
The Perils of Emulating Your Own Success
It would seem a very rational thing to do. You pick the game of your choice, learn the fundamentals and mechanics of solid play and then slowly become a winner in that game. Though you don't quite know fully what you are doing yet, you try some creative plays and some of them turn out to be brilliant. Perhaps you got a little lucky here and there with these plays, but mostly they were fundamentally sound and based on good observation of your opponents and the flow of the game. You congratulate yourself and vow that you will do these good deeds again. Well done!
On the other hand, during your experimental phase you also make some plays that don't turn out quite so well. Actually, that is an understatement- they are monumental fucking failures. In fact, had you eliminated two of the plays from your session, you would have actually come out a small winner for the day. You take these harsh lessons to bed with you, only this time you vow to never make these plays again.
Now that you are bumping around less frequently in the dark and have pruned all of the major atrocities from your game, you start winning fast now...and BIG. You could keep on trying new things, but you are a professional and you have bills to pay, so better to just stick with the formula- at least for now.
Right now I play x tables with y win rate for z hours per week. If I play x + 3 tables for z + 15 hours a week, even if I can maintain a win rate of just y - b, I can pay off my car and my credit cards in 5 1/2 months!! ...And all I have to do is keep doing what I've been doing!
Except for one tiny little problem...it just doesn't work anymore. Is it the variance? The bad beats? The fact that your opponents are catching on to you? Perhaps a combination of all these things, but they are merely symptoms of the real problem. The real problem is that by failing to react appropriately to the situation at hand yet still playing fundamentally decent in a formulaic fashion, you moved from an exploitative/optimal strategy to one that is only approaching optimal, at best. This what occurs when you begin applying your commonly most effective lines to every single hand.
Once this finally dawns on you, it truly becomes easy to understand. Your best lines were developed in response to game flow that existed THEN but is not likely to be present NOW. In the past, you were to trying to play GREAT, not just ADEQUATE. However, in all likelihood, the lines that you are using formulaicly at this point are probably rarely awful, but they also going to rarely be great as well. And great play is what creates good win rates and solid monthly incomes. Making the occasional horrific play that you would not normally make is not necessarily something to be avoided at all costs, but rather shows that you still have blood pumping through your veins. The only types of plays that should be cut completely from your game are those odds defying blundering all-in calls on the turn.
By emulating your past success, you are settling for mediocrity and being just plain lazy. The bottom line is very simple- you must strive to get a little bit better every day. That is how you got to where you are right now. This is the very minimal requirement, even if you plan on only keeping your current win rate. As they say "if you aren't slowly getting better, you are slowly getting worse."
On the other hand, during your experimental phase you also make some plays that don't turn out quite so well. Actually, that is an understatement- they are monumental fucking failures. In fact, had you eliminated two of the plays from your session, you would have actually come out a small winner for the day. You take these harsh lessons to bed with you, only this time you vow to never make these plays again.
Now that you are bumping around less frequently in the dark and have pruned all of the major atrocities from your game, you start winning fast now...and BIG. You could keep on trying new things, but you are a professional and you have bills to pay, so better to just stick with the formula- at least for now.
Right now I play x tables with y win rate for z hours per week. If I play x + 3 tables for z + 15 hours a week, even if I can maintain a win rate of just y - b, I can pay off my car and my credit cards in 5 1/2 months!! ...And all I have to do is keep doing what I've been doing!
Except for one tiny little problem...it just doesn't work anymore. Is it the variance? The bad beats? The fact that your opponents are catching on to you? Perhaps a combination of all these things, but they are merely symptoms of the real problem. The real problem is that by failing to react appropriately to the situation at hand yet still playing fundamentally decent in a formulaic fashion, you moved from an exploitative/optimal strategy to one that is only approaching optimal, at best. This what occurs when you begin applying your commonly most effective lines to every single hand.
Once this finally dawns on you, it truly becomes easy to understand. Your best lines were developed in response to game flow that existed THEN but is not likely to be present NOW. In the past, you were to trying to play GREAT, not just ADEQUATE. However, in all likelihood, the lines that you are using formulaicly at this point are probably rarely awful, but they also going to rarely be great as well. And great play is what creates good win rates and solid monthly incomes. Making the occasional horrific play that you would not normally make is not necessarily something to be avoided at all costs, but rather shows that you still have blood pumping through your veins. The only types of plays that should be cut completely from your game are those odds defying blundering all-in calls on the turn.
By emulating your past success, you are settling for mediocrity and being just plain lazy. The bottom line is very simple- you must strive to get a little bit better every day. That is how you got to where you are right now. This is the very minimal requirement, even if you plan on only keeping your current win rate. As they say "if you aren't slowly getting better, you are slowly getting worse."
I've been playing poker for 13 years and been doing so professionally for 11. This is what I do with the little spare time that I have....and playing Dark Souls 3.
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