Play Money Holiday

Whilst off work and recovering from a sedative in hospital I have sensibly avoided cash poker and been playing for play money:) I have always argued that there is no point in playing poker for no stake at all but this is simply not true as it is actually great fun. Some of the highlights so far have included sextupling my play roll in omaha cash during a 9way all in fest; quadrupling through in the second hand of a 6man nlhe sit and go, then trying my hand at 7 card stud and doubling through my starting stack in no time! Now obviously all my run good has arrived at once but the fact is that these games are a great training ground for the lowest limit play anyway.  You have to think long and hard before bluffing in play money because of the insanely wide calling ranges but conversely you can bet the pants off players with your better starting hands and flop hits. These are two of arguably the three most important elements of poker besides choosing good starting hands. Players also tell you more or less straight away with their timing and betting patterns how strong their hand is in a very exaggerated way.  If they insta check you can bet as a bluff, if they dwell you can charge them to draw/pay you off with a worse made hand etc. I met a player today who insta potted all his bluffs for example, which baffled the rest of the table into submission whilst I took note of it until I was in a position to make a play.

Play money has also given me the bug for seven card stud again. I definitely enjoy 7stud more than omaha as you get more reward for selecting tighter starting hands plus glean lots of information on other players' hands as you move through the streets. I only play omaha from time to time in an effort to become a more rounded player but I find that it is a very swingy game better suited to people with more money to burn than I have. I also nearly got pwned heads up in a  nlhe sit and go until I noticed that my opponent was adjusting and not playing a static 'loose passive' game. I was card dead, limping into pots and bluffing at a rate of 0% because I thought I faced a 'calling station' passive opponent, but they suddenly morphed into a stabbing, aggressive pot stealer heads up. This was better play than I have typically faced in dozens of heads up matches and it left me wondering. If this player is able to get heads up in a sit and go, plus make strategic adjustments based on their opponent's game, why weren't they playing for real money? Perhaps they were just ill/tired and off their regular game or maybe it is because for them the true essence and appeal of poker is in beating and outwitting your opponents,  not the strategic and systematic acquisition of cold hard cash? I think I have just (re) discovered or reaffirmed in my mind poker's magical dichotomy which separates (or at least should separate) the thinking players from the social gamers: I am calling it the donkotomy of poker. Game on:)

Tagpoker competition entry

Tagpoker competition entry

I knocked up this silly animation for Tagpoker.co.uk $500 free bankroll/coaching competition. The aim is to advertise the site in a 'wacky' manner. I made it just after watching a Tagpoker leakfinder vid and thought it would be funny to do a tilt based skit on donkey plays.  I used the free version of Goanimate to make the basic animation and then edited the footage using windows movie maker, camstudio and videodub.The music is a backing track I knocked up to use when teaching guitar although I wanted to have 'Loser' by Beck but I was scared of getting copyright spanked once it was up on Youtube. The competition runs until September so it will be interesting to see how many hits it gets. It still makes me laugh, partially because the animation and text-to-voice are so stilted. I highly recommend playing about on Goanimate because it is very satisfying creating a character and have them say funny stuff, especially out of context swearing. I also recommend Tagpoker.co.uk for no-nonsense poker strategy. It is mostly heads up based videos but this will sharpen your game like you would not believe.

Losing my rhythm

I am sick at the moment and finding lots of time to fill whilst sat around the house. Naturally online poker can do this very well but it is not really a profitable exercise.  I am losing my rhythm, finding myself stranded across the beat unable to make sense of the pulse of the game. I am misreading strength as weakness and misreading weakness as strength and often folding better hands. The more you play with donkeys the more you start to play like one since they make such odd size bets at random times and routinely play any two cards. I have been trying to nit up and play solid hands, but the high proportion of rocks in the cash games makes this unprofitable. Your aim is to stack a donk but this can take time and I am firing at all the wrong times and not punishing tight players enough to keep afloat. I want to be able to move into multitabling but I see potential pitfalls that many bad reg players suffer from. You can limp into too many pots because it is easier to think 'i can flop a flush with A5s if I limp, so I call' than it is to note your position, who is behind, who might pay you off if you hit, and what would happen if you repeated the move 100 times? I am already having problems limping in the small blind too often multiway and errors like this compound when you multitable. You also lose the ability to spot timing tells which have become very useful to me. So many players routinely quick check polarised hand strength and have a long think about marginal situations, making your post flop decisions easy in heads up pots. Of course if I am being truly honest with myself the main reason I want to multitable is that I have just discovered how to tile the tables together into a neat pattern on the screen and it looks very cool indeed.

My first proper brag post

This is my first real 'check me out and chill' post because I have made my first $100 in pure profit! I nearly reached the landmark around one year ago but donked off 10 buy ins and then withdrew all my starting capital. I came very close to the threshold a week ago but had some mental problems crossing the finish line as it were and lost a few buy ins trying too hard. This felt like the start of a tilt-induced downswing so I took a few days off to reflect and since then it has all come together with a cash game mini-heater and freeroll final table finish tipping me over the edge. To make the magic $100 I landed 6th place out of 3000 runners in a freeroll through a combination of insanely good luck, bad calls and suckouts:)

I have already started playing some cash games at the next level 2/4 (or 4nl if you want to use forum speak) but these are mostly 6max which is a format I am not as successful in as full ring.  In a recent foray into 2/4 I played a $5 pot and it would not take many of those going the wrong way to send me into screaming monkey tilt! I have also dabbled in 2-tabling 1/2 (2nl) but the problem I see with this strategy is that it is tricky to table select well and there are a lot of regular 2nl multitabling players, many of whom play across the microstakes. I am not sure if I want to sit in a big pool of rocks waiting to be coolered in overpair vs set confrontations. I really enjoy the challenge of heads up play but took a break from turbo HUSNGs because I kept losing to weak-tight players and I had to take a step back and admit that my heads up game is a little too spewy. I would rather work on my heads up game in a regular speed format which on my site is more than double the buy in of the turbos, so I need to wait until I am suitably bankrolled before I can regularly play in these games.

The good thing is there is a high proportion of donks across the stakes on my site so as long as I keep my bankroll management tight and keep working to improve my game, I stand a very good chance of climbing up the ranks. I often open up tables at the higher stakes and it is great to see weak players I have notes on entering $24 tournaments or playing 5c/10c cash games for example. Even better still I have seen $5/$10 cash game players limping in then min betting AK across all 3 streets. That is the kind of action I am used to seeing at 2nl! Oh boy...

If I know, he/she also knows...

A theory has been rattling around my head for dealing with the varied types of players players at the cash tables. For every piece of information I know about an opponent's tendencies and playing statistics, they also know a comparable amount about mine. This sounds like a truism but from this I can modify my game play, stay aware of my table image and make the occasional play against regulars that I would not make against most fish. I was raised by a regular opponent in position recently, so I popped a 3 bet preflop with rags and was able to 2 barrel an ace high board to take it down. This move worked because I know enough about my opponent to know that he would likely be getting out of line in late position, therefore he knows enough about me to know that I would only ever 3 bet good aces and medium pairs+ so the flop probably helped me. This sort of move does not give me license to spew chips, but demonstrates a point where a small edge in a game can be ground out.

The further conclusion of this theory is that if I know nothing about an opponent, all they know about me is my actions in a hand or two. If I decide to call a hand down, it looks weak, if I decide to bet it looks strong. It is for this reason that if unknown fish are still on the line and you have shown aggression twice then it is quite often correct to check-fold. It is horrible weak-tight poker, but time and time again the third bet is just spew. Our approach to continuing with aggression should be to look at the flop, decide whether to bet 1,2, or 3 times and then plan a line based on the passivity/activity of the fish in question. This morning I played a slight losing session where I tried to isolation raise an aggrodonk when I was in position, so I could skin him before he went broke. The trouble was I had was a passive fish in the big blind that kept calling my raises with 45% of hands. In one pot I ended up heads up in position to the fish, with a small pair that missed the board. The board read K89 two hearts. Here my line is to decline to c-bet, check back the flop, and check fold the turn all day of the week. The reason for this weak play is what hand can my opponent call with preflop that will not also call a bet post flop that I am still ahead of by the turn? Only small pairs and weak aces. Since I am behind most of his small pairs ( I had 44) and having watched this fish for a few rounds of the table I know he would check down a missed ace all the way. That leaves Kx, Qx, Jx 109,108, 98, 97 etc. all of which are happy with the flop, will certainly call and will likely improve on the turn. Furthermore this fish had also ran a check trap play since sitting down at the table and so would likely check all his kings+ hands on flop for sure.I was happy that I had shown aggression, backed off at the right time and made the right play for this particular opponent in this particular spot.

Home game report: caught between a rock and a hard place

Last night we played a super tight 4 handed sit and go home game. Small pairs were being played cautiously and weak aces were hitting the muck. When the cd player stopped you could hear a pin drop as we sat statuesque like deer hunters 4ft from their prey. I have never felt such a tense poker atmosphere and my emotions were a mixture of doom and elation when I was dealt QQ early in the game and got reraised by Hitman preflop.  Following Hitman's raise Pokerhontasz and TheConge called in the other two spots and I repopped the hand with some trepidation. To cut a long story short I lost half my stack on this stupid hand and Hitman would go on to ride my chips to heads-up later on. At one stage Pokerhontasz got coolered with trips undeneath TheConge's turned full house and never really recovered fully, so she was first out in the shove/fold stage. I was out shortly after and head's up was a very short affair because Hitman was tired and zombie re-shoved Q6 into The Conge's aces preflop.  The real story of the match though was TheConge's relentless button raising strategy.  Time and time again I had to look down at Q4o, J6o etc in the small blind hoping for a glimmer of a hand to 3bet with but none came. He played great last night, and more so when he didn't really have much of a hand to start with, because he played his position. By acting last after other player's decisions TheConge could wait to judge tells/range/action/board texture etc. and make some good post flop moves. I wish I could play this well when on the button but I am so rooted in 'level one' poker because of playing gutter stakes online that I cannot make the leap, or do so at the wrong times against the wrong players. TheConge and I have had our higher level battles in the past, but last night I was sandwiched between his button and the big stack's big blind.

Insta actions in nano stakes cash games

As far as I am concerned, an insta bet or insta check in online poker can only be one where the pre-emptive button has been pressed and the betting action happens the instant play gets around to the villain. Some poker information websites will have you believe that a super-fast bet is an insta-bet but this is not so. A super -fast bet or check may well contain loaded information and act as a tell, but it is not to be confused with the instantaneous (or near-instantaneous) action. At nano stakes cash full ring,and in order of frequency seen instantaneous actions can be:

1. The insta-check or insta call

Rarely in full ring is this anything other than weakness or a drawing hand. A player may preselect check/fold or check/call. The surest time when you can take down the pot in these situations are when a player who multitables has used the insta check button out of the blinds. The texture of the flop will tell you if you should bet or not in position, and if you are insta called on a wet board a dry turn card and bet should finish the job off.

2. The insta min-bet

This is most often ace-high, two overcards or a weak pair in the pocket. Many players will preselect insta min bet all 3 streets with these kinds of holdings. The insta min bet is a hand they perceive to be o.k but not worth betting properly with. The only time you should fold is if you have 1. terrible position and a weak hand multiway 2. Worse than ace high heads up or 3. They change the bet sizing on the river to HUUUUGE! It doesn't take a genius to work out their hand has been the nuts all along, or miraculously came good by the river.  It is also important to spot any timing delay on the turn. Calling stations who insta-min bet the flop and think before min betting or 2xing the turn are often trapping, with the intention of blasting the river with a pot bet. More aggressive donkey players perform all these moves with 2X or 3X size bets (which can be pre-selected) as well, so be on the look out for this high level and cunning bluffing tactic.

3. The insta click raise

I cannot think of a situation where this would be anything other than a monster hand. Unless you are playing against a super aggressive moron who has a sizing tell where he bets instantly most of the time and also bets proportionally to the strength of his hand.

4. The insta river shove

Foldfoldfoldfoldfoldfoldfold....... Or risk going down the road of "he cannot have it this time I call oh shit its the mortal nuts, dammit I wish I had folded!" The thing to remember here is that this move was pre-planned. The villain had to know on the turn that he was shoving the river so ignore the river card and fold your unimproved pocket jacks, again.


5. The insta pot bet

This is the only insta action with any ambiguity as far as I am concerned and it is player dependent. It screams strength but you often see players betting like this if they are scared. AK is a hand that gets some players into trouble this way. They know it is supposed to be a good hand, but cannot believe it when then the flop comes down ragged time and time again. In response to this cycle of disappointment they formulate a plan: to pot the hand regardless and show super strength. If they bet this way then only players with a really strong hand can call down, which is unlikely because they have a top 5 starting hand. This donk logic is doomed to fail and all the showdown value of AK vanishes when weaker aces may have stuck around for smaller bets, or weak pairs may have called and been outdrawn by you on the turn or river. The only time you get action you are crushed and these sorts of players have a hard time folding AK once they have invested a chunk of cash into the hand. More often than not an insta pot bet is a decent pair hand though, so look out for players who mostly check/fold and then suddenly insta-pot the flop when they 'have it.'