Lemmings!

Hello people.

Well the sun is out, I have sever sunburn for the first time since I was a kid, and am back to work after a week off doing very little but playing poker and Grand Theft Auto (yes I know, it automatically makes me one of those pathetic blokes, but then at least I have found a woman who pities me through all of it!).

So in the last blog I was explaining my intention to play to certain styles, and for the last few weeks thats what I have done, with both great success and the most lemming like catastrophe.

The Howard Lederer Style

My opening style can only be described as ultra conservative. I had listened to a podcast by Howard Lederer on the way to play Sit n Go games, and although I had based my game around most of what he had said from the beginning of playing the game I had not followed it through to his logical conclusion.

When you listen to most players comment on the way they play, the aim is to play conservative to begin with until half of the field is lost and as the blinds go up start playing a looser game with the aim of being near to table leader (ie having the most chips) by the time you are coming to near the money places (ie either 4 or 5 players are remaining). Although Howard agreed with this theory for multi-table tournaments he did not for Sit N Gos. His view was that due to the nature of the pay outs reaching third place (the first place that pays out on a normal SNG) it was imperative to hold out as long as possible even if that meant scraping in to the 3rd place, and then becoming for more loose in your play once you reach the money places, and which point just stealing blinds at this artificial level could double up your chips.

With this in mind I decided to tackle the $10 SNG ten player tables with this in mind (the Howard Lederer Style). It was a great success.

With a starting chip count of $1200 in the opening types of hands (blinds at 10/20 or 15/30) I would play suited connectors at any level by calling to see a flop. I would play suited aces in the same way, never raising a pot until I was looking at a flush. I would also limp in to pots with small pairs, hoping to flop a set. At no point would I bluff a pot. Once blinds went up to 25/50 I stopped playing low suited connectors, but would continue to play the flush pots and low pairs as calling hands. It would normally be at the 50/100 blinds that people would start going out more often. At this point I was no longer playing suited aces, but playing primarily only pairs, and now raising with pairs of whatever size. Again there would be no bluffing. Above these blinds I then began taking into account position far more, and playing two face cards (taking on the Gus Hansen theory of playing any hand worth over 20 points)

This strategy is, of course, very dependent on getting good starting hands, and for the first few tournaments I did - I would always end up, at some point, with a good pair (JJ, QQ, KK, AA) at the high blind levels and usually double up. I would then hold out with whatever it takes to stay in that position - throwing away good starting hands if I could see myself up against someone with a bigger chip stack than me. This usually led to me limping into the money in the third spot. However, I sort of pride myself that once I am in the money places I can usually play myself into first place - not by what cards I have, but by playing certain players in certain ways, and becoming far more aggressive.

This led to a perfect start. In my first two games I won both, pocketing $100 and raising my pot to the most it had been since I was playing. I was a happy bunny.

Inevitably then came the fall - quicker than lemmings jumping off a cliff.

As I say this style of play relies on finding a good hand, and I then proceeded not to find those hands. In one game I never saw any card above a 10. I went out in 6th place when I was almost blinded out.

I was getting mid pairs, but had unfavourable flops, and based on the ruling of not bluffing my play, if I was played in to aggressively after the flop I folded the hand.

Just to digress one moment. I had one game completely in reverse of this trend. In one game I was dealt AA three times! I went out in 5th place! I am also proud of this. Let me explain. All the top pros explain that to make a good player you need to be able to predict your opponents cards - I have tried this consistently and although I can usually be in the ball park I have never nailed it exactly. So imagine this scene. I get dealt AA in early position. I made a standard three times raise, to find two other players drop out but the big blind doubles the bet. I call. Flop comes down J, 6, 2 rainbow. He bets out for the size of the pot. At this point I put him on QQ, KK or AK. The flop I don`t think has helped him as he would have checked if he had trips. So I call his raise - I don`t raise as I think whatever cards he has he is going to be with me all the way, so I decided to let him lead the pot and bury himseld in it. Next card is K. He checks. At this point I put him on KK - don`t ask me why, call it intuition, but it didn`t feel like AK, and I think, on the way he was playing, he would have bet again with QQ with him believing I was on a lower pair. Now having narrowed it down to this, I bizarrely, pushed all in. I had very few chips left and had already become pot committed, so I was hoping my intuition was wrong. It wasn`t, he turned over KK. The proudest moment I have had in poker, whilst loosing $10. he he.


The Tournament Style

Anyway back to the games. The loosing streak continued, so I decided to change my style of play again. Here I would take the tournament route. So I played the same style of game as explained above until I got to the 50/100 blinds. At this point, normally with 5 or 6 players remaining, I would start to play more positionally. I started stealing blinds on a regular basis, played A rag when I felt the position suited. This was similar to the style I was playing previous to this experiment - the style I had been playing for the last two years. I never made it to the final three.

In the end I hit a loosing streak of 9 games. In the whole time of playing poker online I have never had a loosing streak of more than 4 games. This was harsh. My pot dropped below the magic $500 mark, so, to try and run through the bad patch I dropped down to the $5 SNG 10 player tables. I continued to play this "tournament style " for another three games, and still nothing. 12 game loosing streak and well over a $100 hit to my account. Dropping me below the $475 mark for the first time in quite a while.

So as of the weekend I played a $5 SNG and returned to the Howard Lederer style of play. The cards returned, and I won the game. Just pushing the account back near the $500 mark.

So there were the first two experiments. Why do I think the tournament style didn`t work. I think its to do with the level you are playing at. At $5 and $10 people are still willing to risk going against you in pots - and as such I just don`t think bluffing really succeeds. To go into a pot you need to be holding top pair in your hand or from the board, at a push second pair, anything else and you are asking for a fall. Table image doesn`t seem to matter at these levels. You will usually find someone prepared to go against you.

So whats next. Well I am going to mix in two styles of play in the next month. I will continue to play some $5 and $10 SNGs using the Lederer approach. However I am going to mix this with a more aggressive style (whose name I haven`t thought of yet - answers on a postcard) and some of the lower SNG rates (because I am not chucking too much money away... he he).

Right I think thats quite enough for me, all this has made me sound like some sort of semi serious blogger, which just can`t be right.

Ta ra for now.


Pot Total: $498.54

Poker Shark

No I am really not that impressive in churning out two blogs on the same day, but to follow up on what I had previously posted I am going to go all techy on your arses.

There is a rather wonderful website called Sharkscope that can tell you how various people perform in SNGs. Now I know its really to find out how other people are playing, but I find it a very good tool for tracking my own results. So from now on, I will going to include my player graph at the end of each blog so you can see that I truly am playing games and not just randomly making crap up (okay to be fair most of the stuff I write is crap, but you get the point).

So here is my current one.

What does it show. Well, it shows that since playing poker on Pacific poker (and hence not taking into account my results when I was playing on Poker Stars) in the last 18 months or so I have played 833 games (which probably proves I need to get out more). Having started out with a pot of around 200 dollars (which the graph shows as 0 profit) I had a severe hit when I first started playing (the graph dropping well below 0) before then making a gentle climb upwards. I now stand on the graph as having a profit of around $300 which would tie up with my current poker pot. As you can see at its height, the best the pot has stood at was with a profit of $375, before hitting a few slumps and then weaving back and forth around the $300 profit mark. At least I can argue I have had a lot of fun in the past few months without it costing me anything :-)

So there ya go - technology and everything, no way to lie about results now. Bugger!

A Not So Lucky Monkey

Luck.

Well lets face it, most people would prefer to be lucky than good at poker (mainly because it takes less effort and reading to be lucky), and in poker no matter what anyone says, luck features heavily - whether good or bad.

Probabilities.

Lets face it, most people are not going to be able to play poker unless they either have a lot of the luck mentioned above, or they have a good enough grasp of maths to be able to calculate probabilities.

So my question is, can you calculate the probability of good or bad luck? Why am I asking such a weird question. Well to be fair, dear readers, its because I have had a pretty weird couple of weeks on the luck front.

Last week I was working from home one day. During my lunch break, I decided to mow my front lawn. Happily mowing away a piece of gravel got caught in my lawn mower, flew out of the lawn mower and hit the dead centre of my neighbours double glazed lounge window - shattering it completely. So what are the odds of being able to send a piece of gravel in so specific an area of toughened glass that it shatters? Lets be honest, it has to be very high odds of bad luck.

How much higher is the likelihood that on exactly the same day, exactly the same thing happens when a guy is mowing his lawn in a neigbouring road to my house. Those odds go even higher... but apparently, in the road next to mine, on the same day, the same thing had happened!

I just wished that there had been a derby winner named "Breaking Glass" running on the following Saturday.

So besides the £350 hit to my wallet and a neigbours house now boarded up and looking like it will be occupied by squaters, what on earth does any of this have to do with poker.

Well since my last post, I have played a lot more SNGs than I have recently. I would estimate around 25 games in the last three weeks.

So if I have played 25 SNGs, what would be the odds of going out of a game being beaten by a straight? If it happened once, the odds aren`t going to be that high?

How about going out beaten by a straight 5 times of the 25 - okay lets face it those odds are going to be higher.

What if I told you that of the 25 SNGs I played in 22 I went out on being beaten by a straight!

Anyone who has the time and inclination please feel free to tell me which of the two had the lower bad luck odds.

Anyway I tell this more as an anecdote. On with the more serious stuff....

I have realised re reading some of these blog posts that although there is a fair amount of waffle, and a fair amount of talk about money management, there is very little being said about actual poker tactics or hands - so I will attempt to make more of this in coming blogs

I am finding that the style of poker I have been playing up until now is not as affective as it was 6 months ago. Lets face it, poker moves on. My money has floated around the $500 mark for a couple of months now, and no real impression is being made on my mortgage because of it!

So from today I am going to start experimenting with differing styles of play and will report on how these fair, whether different styles are more favourable at different money levels, and different amounts of players. I shall report on how terribly or well these go.

Bye for now people.

Pot Total: $509.23 ($5.75 down from last month)

Yeah Yeah Yeah Clown Boy

Hi people,

Well I am back from my jaunts, and have managed not to sell myself into slavery in return for camels. So bonus. On the plus side I can say "Carter Beats the Devil" is a perfect holiday book, and never try to get to a coral reef before a Russian - they always make sure they get there first by fair means or foul!

Well between holidays, relationship stuff (in a good not a bad way) and house stuff (yeah remember that, moving and all that jazz) I have managed to play a bit of poker but not as much as I would have liked to. However I seem to have been going on a streak of finishing in 3rd place recently so the pot doesn`t look at healthy as the amount of games I have been playing.

Now I need to preface this with a slight diversion. As you will all be aware I am in perpetual mourning for the ending of PNL. However whilst sneaking through the lower spectrum of satellite channels (and of course not at all looking for any late night dodgy entertainment) I came accross what seems to be a weird arts/poker hybrid TV channel. At around 10 p.m. it has started showing sit n go`s and last table tournaments from PKR with commentary attached. I have to say it isn`t bad.

Now at no point has it, as yet, ever come close to the sarcasm levels of The Thing vs Dracula on PNL but it still has just enough levels of sarcasm to get me through an evening (or my ironing at least). The commentary, from three experts of slightly different styles is a nice variation and offer a few alternatives to mix your game up. I have even used some of the suggestions to good use in a few SNGs.

I have never played on PKR but its a 3D version where you can create your own avatar and emote throughout a game. Funny that every male avatar on there looks like a cool Scandanavian twentysomething with a beret. Call me stupid but wouldn`t there be just a little tilt value in having your avatar as a giant clown, or an old woman of 80? Though to be honest I think there is huge tilt value just on wanting to get out of a game where everyone keeps saying "YEAH YEAH YEAH" and "READ EM AND WEEP" every five minutes!

I digress. What has surprised me is that I think the whole of 888.com has started watching this program the same time I have. I have been playing $5 S&Gs since getting back from holiday, simply because I wanted quick games and a little more auto pilot. However the style of game is clearly changing on there. Calling stations are getting less, hammer moves and three barrel firing is being implemented, and the quality of the game is definately improving - just playing super tight aggressive isn`t enough to get into the money now, you are having to make a lot more moves. The surprise has been that these plays are coming from the UK players, rather than european players. Does this mean that whilst I was in Egypt there was a huge poker tutorial on TV that I missed out? If so did Graham Norton host it?

If it all carries on like this I may have to dig out my Harrington books again! Sacrilege!

With work completely done on my house now, I am taking a couple of weeks break before getting the estate agents in (oh joy!). That, along with a bank holiday coming up, I am hoping to get some more games in. These will either be at the $10, 10 player SNG level, or may add a bit of vareity and try a 30 player $5 SNG. Will keep you updated on the next one of these.

Until then, ta ra for now.

Pot total: $514.98 (rise of $9.50 since last blog)

Holy Craps

Blimey,

Having posted a blog entry after such a long time I have noticed that I actually have comments on my blog. From people I don`t even know! People are reading me! J K Rowling eat your heart out!

Right, thats a definite then. More blogs will be forthcoming! Even if its just me commenting on Kara Scott!

Rise in tables, drops in houses

Hello all,

So its only April and I am doing my second blog entry of the year. Certainly on the ball aren`t I!

I do have a legitimate excuse though. No my fish have not eaten my homework or anything like that, its been because of the house. My usual time for playing poker is in the evenings or late at the weekends. However since the new year I had set a specific date to get all the work on my house finished in readiness to sell - that date is in two weeks time. Last weekend the last coat of paint finally went on to the last piece of wood in the house. It is, after ten years, finally finished.

Of course this all coincides with a massive plummeting of house prices. For first time buyers this is a good thing, for me, looking to buy something bigger, this is hopefully a good thing. Also, the way its going you never know, in six months time "Can Poker Pay My Mortgage" may be renamed "Poker Paid My Mortgage with just a packet of Haribo".

With all this Northern Rockiness, I would be surprised to see my house sell particularly quickly. Therefore what the hell am I going to do with my time. Of course the answer should be, "spend more time with your friends", "spend more time with your family". Of course that won`t be what will happen. The Xbox 260 is already bought. The High Definition TV has been installed. Couch Potatoism is luring me already.

The good news, however, is that I can no longer blame my lack of playing online on the need to put a second coat of knotting on the doors (its DIY technical stuff, don`t worry about it). So hopefully this will be updated a little more often than it has been. (Assuming that the lure of mowing zombies over with a lawnmower in Dead Rising doesn`t get to me first).

I do have poker related news however (shock horror). After much delay I did rise in table levels, and so am now playing $10 ten player S&Gs. The play has changed more than I expected but not in a way I expected.

In the $5 S&Gs I was always finding you had at least 5 muppets went out of the game in the first few rounds, that led to one player taking a chip lead. I quickly learnt there was no need to try and gain an early chip lead, but to just bide your time, wait for big hands, and go for the all in Kill Phil approach rather than small bore play. I knew if I could get in the final three players most of the time I could win the game even if I was short stacked.

$10 has been different. There are far less muppets. This doesn`t mean that the quality of the game has improved. Players still don`t raise, they play as calling stations, and they take no account of the rise in blinds, so you often find that you are playing with 8 players still in when the blinds are at such a height no one at the table has more than 8 times the BB. This has led to me taking a more aggressive playing style, which is having far more mixed results than previously.

I had a phenominal run when I first went up to the $10 tables, cashing in the first 5 games I played and taking my fund up to $580. I then went on a heavy slump where I was finding I was finishing in fourth spot (out of the money) on a regular basis. Again this came down to having to bet all your pot on a middle pair just due to the size of the blinds. To stop the rot I have recently played a mix of $5 and $10 S&Gs and am settling into a more regular winning pattern now, so intend to stay permanently at $10 S&G until I can refine my playing strategy at that level.

As I have mentioned before I only tend to go up levels when I have 50 times the game rate in my account, so this means, with the next level playing at $20, I will need to wait until $1,000 before moving up a level.

On better poker news, its good to see Nick 'Bow down before him' Wealthall and Kara Scott are now producing more regular On the Rails poker podcasts. Its no PNL but I`ll happily settle with it for now. For those of you who haven`t had a chance to witness the greatness have a look:

http://www.totalgambler.com/pokerlife/pokerplayerpodcast/

So thats it from me for now. The next time you hear from me I will have come back from a holiday in Egypt. Maybe I can report on Camel betting??

Bysey Bye.

Pot total: $505.48 (rise of $77.50 since last blog)

How far will you go for a pair of ten pound Next cufflinks

Hello all, a merry Christmas, Happy New Year, happy Hanukkah etc etc.

So yes it is an obscenely long time since I last wrote a blog entry.

To be honest I haven`t been playing anywhere near as much poker as I had been previously, and ashamed though I am to admit, I never jumped up the table rates as much either. This is mainly because I have enforced the poker equivalent of abstenence on myself for the past few weeks.

No one likes a whiner, but I am going to do it anyway. I have been hit by the worst run of bad luck in games I have had since I have been playing. About a month before Christmas I was around the $500 mark, playing some good S n G games and cashing in most. Then I started noticing I was going out at the bubble. Playing against people who had called raises with 6,4 offsuit and then finding a straight on the river. Much swearing was used. Laptops were thrown. In the words of The Hulk "you won`t like me when I am angry" - mainly because I go in a strop in the corner of the room and don`t talk to anyone. lol.

Poker theory says not to worry about these flukes because in the end its those type of people who pay you out in the long run. Maybe so, but for the following three weeks I found this happening every game. Miracle cards on the flop. I was beginning to be knocked out of games in 5th place, then 6th. God forbid at one point 9th - a position I haven`t been knocked out in in years.

It hit its lowest point between Xmas and new year. I had decided to drop out of S n G tournies for a bit and have a go at cash tables, just to control my run a little more. I played exceptionally well (or so I thought anyway) but had very little profit to show for it. Finally a big hand came. On the flop I had a full house. One guy, very aggressive player, stuck with me. I played him in a way that suggested I was chasing a flush, and he kept betting into me. I had the nuts and so, managed, on the turn, to get all my money in. He flipped over his cards. He has highest two pair. My middle full house was well in the lead. All the money would be mine. Unless of course the only remaining relevant 9 in the pack came out. A 1 in 52 chance. Yeah you can guess the rest. By that night I think I had invented swear words!

By the end of that run I had lost $100 of my account, the most I had ever dropped by. However that game did seem to be the turning point. From there I seem to have resumed the same flow I was on before, and gradually building my pot back up. So I am still playing the $5 and probably will until I can get back to the $500 mark. Ironically, with that run of bad luck, if I had changed up tables I dread to think what I would have lost.

Christmas also featured my second live game. This wasn`t in a pub, or high class casino, but at a friends house - the first home game I had ever done. Now to be fair this is in a house in Bedford where the guy clearly has too much money. A ten player game started in a kitchen that had features in Home and Gardens, and finished in a wood lined smoking room, where the losing players had the chance to enjoy a losing sauna.

This is a yearly gathering. A blokes day basically. A morning starting off with clay pigeon shooting (something I have never done before and after all the bruises may never do again) being trained by a bloke who trains members of the navy. So you can guess who won that (and the accompanying prize of a cartridge pen knife). Then on to the poker.

The prize on offer was a pair of cufflinks in the shape of playing cards. As you can understand this was a classy prize. I took the same game play I use on the net into the game.

The first two hours I played one hand. At one point I was threatened with violence for taking it too seriously. (Mental note - don`t handle cards properly when playing with amateurs, they suddenly think you know what you are doing). I was lowest in chips for the whole of the time we were playing. And my word there were odd plays (Second mental note - cufflinks aren`t worth that much - that means peoples money is not on the line. Bluffing does not work).

The guy in the lead all the way through was the guy who was playing the 9, 6 offsuits. I even asked him if he has played me online a month previously. lol. But somehow I got to past midnight and we were down to five and in the smoking room. Then all of a suddent the poker gods decided they would give me cards with actual pictures on them for a change, and a lot of them. I had a phenominal run of cards AQ followed by AA followed by AK. I went in with all my chips almost every hand, and people were folding to me. Holy crap, the theory actually seems to be working.

I got down to the last two and heads up play. Except it was now 3 a.m. We had been playing for 6 hours. I like cufflinks, but not that much. I started pushing with any old hand - either trying to bluff him off his hand, or just leaving it to the Gods. At one point I had a 10 to 1 chiplead over him. At this point the Gods clearly decided I was taking the piss and swapped the luck around. I pushed all in with Ace 6, to go up against Ace 10 suited spades. Three more spades came up and I was out. They were in my grasp...... mere inches from my cuffs (which had buttons so may have been an issue), but they were not to be. I shall chase them next year!

However its true what they say. I may have lost, and no money was on offer, but that was the most enjoyable evening of poker I have ever had. People were laughing, way too much drink was had, people were helping with each others hands, half naked men leaving saunas were wandering around, the poker seemed distant on the list. Thats how it should be played. Even at small stakes I had been taking it too seriously online. Chasing losses. Now I am not, I am back to playing how I did six months ago. I am also back to winning again.

Also, as I left that evening, driving bleary eyed back home at 4 in the morning, one of the guys turned around and said. "You were, by far, the best player here." Ah the warm glow of semi recognition. Phil Helmuth eat your heart out.

Pot total: $427.98