Friday, October 28, 2005
Mission Accomplished
So what happened in the end ? When the 8s stood up that made me chip leader, and soon enough we were 4 handed with me still holding a slight chip lead. Then bosh bosh bosh I knocked each of them out on a 50-50, one by one, in about 10 minutes. Skill - it's overrated. $5000 kerching. Just in time too or I might have had a losing month, which would have sucked.
GIQ I know, but privately a little celebration is in order. After all, I didn't just take it to the hoop, I 540 slam-dunked it ! Haha. Overall, props are due yet again to Dan Harrington. What a legend. A quick re-read of Volume 1 and I stopped playing KQ, AJ and so on in early postion in the early rounds. That seemed to help a lot. In general I was surprised how many people knocked themselves out trying to bluff. Massive, Hollywood, check raise allin on the river bluffs. If this is more common at the higher levels, it might suit me better. One of my problems is that I pay off too much with top pair. If people are bluff raising more often, that's not going to hurt me so much. Next stop the £110 on Sunday nights I think !
GIQ I know, but privately a little celebration is in order. After all, I didn't just take it to the hoop, I 540 slam-dunked it ! Haha. Overall, props are due yet again to Dan Harrington. What a legend. A quick re-read of Volume 1 and I stopped playing KQ, AJ and so on in early postion in the early rounds. That seemed to help a lot. In general I was surprised how many people knocked themselves out trying to bluff. Massive, Hollywood, check raise allin on the river bluffs. If this is more common at the higher levels, it might suit me better. One of my problems is that I pay off too much with top pair. If people are bluff raising more often, that's not going to hurt me so much. Next stop the £110 on Sunday nights I think !
Decisions Decisions
Key hand from last night's E100 on Betfair. 8-handed in the final, hero has a little under 30K out of 180K in play. Chip leader with 50K is on his immediate right. Blinds 800-1600, 200 ante. Passed to hero in small blind, who makes it 4800 to go with T8. Chip leader calls. Flop 853 no suits. Hero bets 7K. Chip leader minimum-raises to 14K.
What now Captain ?
What now Captain ?
Thursday, October 20, 2005
Oi, Sklansky ! No !!
I have great respect for the uber-nerd but something occurred to me out of the blue the other day, and I fear I must take issue.
In Tournament Poker For Advanced Players, page, err, no hang on, I sold it. Well, in there somewhere is an analogy along the following lines :
You can bet $100 today on an 11/10 shot that has a 50% chance of winning. But if you lose the bet, you will miss out on an opportunity tomorrow to bet $100 on a 5/4 shot that's also 50%. So, if you take the first bet your total EV is $10 + (0.5 x $25) = $22.50. This is less than the $25 EV you achieve by passing up today's bet and just betting the 5/4 shot tomorrow. The parallel is drawn with poker tournaments and why you should sometimes pass up a good spot because you figure you'll find a better one.
All well and good until I posit the following. What if winning the first bet empowers you to make TWO bets tomorrow at 5/4 (or to stake $200) ? I think that's more analagous to the situation in a poker tournament. It seems only fit to leave the resulting calculation, and the conclusions to be drawn, as an exercise for the reader !
In Tournament Poker For Advanced Players, page, err, no hang on, I sold it. Well, in there somewhere is an analogy along the following lines :
You can bet $100 today on an 11/10 shot that has a 50% chance of winning. But if you lose the bet, you will miss out on an opportunity tomorrow to bet $100 on a 5/4 shot that's also 50%. So, if you take the first bet your total EV is $10 + (0.5 x $25) = $22.50. This is less than the $25 EV you achieve by passing up today's bet and just betting the 5/4 shot tomorrow. The parallel is drawn with poker tournaments and why you should sometimes pass up a good spot because you figure you'll find a better one.
All well and good until I posit the following. What if winning the first bet empowers you to make TWO bets tomorrow at 5/4 (or to stake $200) ? I think that's more analagous to the situation in a poker tournament. It seems only fit to leave the resulting calculation, and the conclusions to be drawn, as an exercise for the reader !
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Getting It Quietly
It has been quiet on here lately, so I thought that seeing as I had just moved the blog I might as well give you a quick update. The reason it has moved, by the way, is that I have flogged off the pokersoft.co.uk domain and so I'm going through the process of removing "pokersoft" from as many bits and pieces as I can. I will rename the other blog as soon as I think of a cool name. Unfortunately "Revenge Of The Nerds" is taken.
It's been quiet on here poker-wise because the tournaments are going very well online. Perhaps I am the luckiest git in Christendom as Pete B says, but I'm on a good run for sure. When you're running good, you don't want to over analyse your game. Get the cake while it's hot. Analyse later, or when you're running bad. That's when you learn more. In which case I ought to have learned a shedload in 2003/04, but if all I did learn is "don't bother with live tournaments" that's a big plus in itself.
Also, when you're playing well, "interesting" hands don't tend to come up so often, because most of these dilemmas are caused by mistakes on earlier rounds. When you're not making those mistakes, you don't create many problems that you have to solve.
The last 3 months have been the best I've ever had online, consistently too, no single result over about $2500. I should remember that when I'm sulking about "only" finishing 3rd in an online tournament, or doing £500 at Gutshot. I've had 3 opportunities to take down $5-6 grand over the last month, in tournaments around the $100 entry mark. My mission now is to take the next one to the hoop. If I'm not posting on here so often in the meantime, assume that things are cool !
It's been quiet on here poker-wise because the tournaments are going very well online. Perhaps I am the luckiest git in Christendom as Pete B says, but I'm on a good run for sure. When you're running good, you don't want to over analyse your game. Get the cake while it's hot. Analyse later, or when you're running bad. That's when you learn more. In which case I ought to have learned a shedload in 2003/04, but if all I did learn is "don't bother with live tournaments" that's a big plus in itself.
Also, when you're playing well, "interesting" hands don't tend to come up so often, because most of these dilemmas are caused by mistakes on earlier rounds. When you're not making those mistakes, you don't create many problems that you have to solve.
The last 3 months have been the best I've ever had online, consistently too, no single result over about $2500. I should remember that when I'm sulking about "only" finishing 3rd in an online tournament, or doing £500 at Gutshot. I've had 3 opportunities to take down $5-6 grand over the last month, in tournaments around the $100 entry mark. My mission now is to take the next one to the hoop. If I'm not posting on here so often in the meantime, assume that things are cool !
