Quarter

I’ve gone and done it. I changed my picture in my profile from a dime to a quarter. My last 3500 hands have been 25NL, minus my 6max Experiment, so, it only makes sense. I may drop down to 10NL if I have a bad run, but for now, that’s where I’m at. I don’t have 20 full buyins, but I have enough to play 20 buyins of $20, so that’s what I’m going to do. If I drop below $200 on UB, I’ll drop down. I don’t feel nervous or uncomfortable playing at 25NL. There are a lot of rocks, but a lot of them are weak tight (I consider myself weak-tight, but they are way worse than I am). There have been no players that have had me scrambling yet. I don’t always know where I’m at, and I’ve gotten myself into trouble, but I haven’t ever felt like I was the sucker at the table. I feel like I’m still one of the top guys at every table I sit down at.

I’m still seeing the same betting patterns – making a smaller bet on the turn than was made on the flop – guaranteed to fold to a raise or river bet, min blocking bets for bottom pair or a draw that will usually fold to a raise on the turn. 2 barrel bluffs that give up on the river. I still occasionally run overpairs or top pairs into sets, or kings into aces, but I think that will always happen. I’m slowing down a bit with them depending on the player, but if the stack to pot ratios are reasonable, I’m going for it.

I’m tightening up and calling fewer raises, playing less out of the blinds, playing more on the button, and playing strong with my big aces and pairs.

We’ll see how it goes.

The Return Of The 6Max Experiment

All that being said in my last post, I did get a chance to play some poker last night. I played full ring 25NL and was up about 1.5 buyins, which is great as far as I’m concerned. My PTBB/100 for 25NL is still at about 7.5, which makes me happy. I got paid off on a set of queens and a set of sixes. I would have been up another buyin, but a crazy loose player rivered 2 pair on me against my TPTK on a very non-threatening board. We got it in on the turn and I was way ahead.

In addition, I’ve been sneaking in some 2NL 6Max. I’d still like to work on my shorthanded game, so I’ve been playing it when I have a chance. It’s fun to play 2NL, because even if I get stacked, it’s not painful. I haven’t doublechecked my stats, but I’m up pretty good in my past 2 sessions – about 1.5 buyins. I still think I’d like to make the conversion, but the game is wilder and the swings are bigger, so we’ll see. I guess I’m just too conservative

Days Of The Week

Crazy how Fridays and Saturdays are full of loose maniacs, but on Sunday, my tables are full of the tightest rocks. I guess it shouldn’t be surprising. Anyway, it’s like pulling teeth tonight.

NLHE Vs. Split Pot Games

I’ve been having a conversation with Adam from http://donktasticpoker.blogspot.com/

We’ve been talking about our small bankrolls and our games. Adam prefers Omaha, Stud, and the split pot games. He’s having an issue building his bankroll, but I think he’s a good player. I think the issue is game selection. In a recent email to me, he sent me a hand history, and said that’s why he’ll never build a bankroll. It was Stud8, he had AA2, which is a great split pot starting hand. He played it aggressively, and a guy who shouldn’t have been in the hand ran into a straight for the scoop.

My response was this:

That’s ugly. I don’t think you played it wrong. You’ve got aces and a good low draw, and later hit 2 pair. It’s a good hand. You’ll build a bankroll, it’s just always 2 steps forward, 1 step backward with limit – and really with NL too.

I still think playing split games is not the best idea for a small bankroll though. You’re playing for scoops, but they are rare, which means you’re playing a lot of hands where you have to ante, plus you have to contend with a high percentage rake, so your profit is minimal on a split – that rake is cutting into your bankroll. Especially in Stud, there are so many streets, you have to invest a lot of money in your hand before it really gets defined – you’ve bet for 3 rounds for 5 cards only 2 find out your 3 card draw never went anywhere. In Hold’Em, right off the bat you know where you stand, and by the flop you’re should know whether you are way behind or way ahead, or you have a draw to the nuts and can get there cheap or push someone off a hand. Not to mention the amount of hands per hour and the fact that its harder to multitable effectively in the stud family of games.

NLHE is the way to go. I fought it for awhile, but you can’t beat 16.5 PTBB/100 over 40k hands -
PS NL ($0.02) 40012 22.5457 46.8492 78.8889 70.4348 12.7613 28.0021 $263.78 16.4813 25.0367 54.9033 4.4862 $69.80rake

Even though your BR is small, you’re better off buying in for minimum at .05/.10, playing super tight and shoving your premium hands preflop or on the flop than you are fighting that rake in split pot games.

I haven’t seen Adam’s response, but I just don’t see how you can make any money against the rake and splits. It’s really noticeable to me when I’m playing NLHE and I split the pot with another player when we both have the nuts and go all in. I lose money on the hand – 10%. If you’re playing for half the pot, the only winner is the rake – it plays perfect and wins 10% every hand.

Playing the stud family of games, you have more to keep track of and the hands take longer. With the rake being a higher percentage of the overall pot in microlimit games, you’re never going to be a longterm winner for over 2 PTBB/100. For split pots, I’d be shocked if you can get over 1 PTBB/100.

I played Limt Hold’em when I first started online. I did well at .25/.50 -

PS $0.25/$0.50 18047 22.7905 46.9369 70.5128 49.1228 20.442 28.883 $160.40 1.7776 33.5672 51.6384 6.5828 $234.70

You can see that I paid $75 more in rake than I won yet I was a 1.77 PTBB/100 player – a very solid winrate. At .01/.02 NL, I average the same $/100 than I did at .25/.50, required 75% of the bankroll I needed for limit, and earned 4x the rake.

With the popularity of NLHE, there is no shortage of games or fish. I just don’t think there is any question what any aspiring player should be playing right now – NLHE cash, and probably 6Max over full ring. More hands = more $/100. If you’re trying to build a bankroll from nothing, it’s the best way.

6max Experiment?

I’ve been checking out some blogs lately, especially people who are doing personal bankroll challenges – trying to get their BR to a certain point in x days. I’m not doing one of those challenges, because the amount I can play is limited by work and family responsibilities, but I figure I can read about them and gain some knowledge, and perhaps expand my game a bit.

The one thing I’ve taken from all these challenges is that all these people are playing 6max. I’ve always eschewed 6max because the game is very aggressive – lots of contested pots, lots of reraising. It forces you to really trust your reads and make some aggressive plays and questionable calls. You have to re-evaluate your starting hand requirements, and your postflop aggressiveness. These guys are showing me that the game is profitable though.

The big reason? More hands equals more opportunities for better decisions than your opponents. In lots of cases, people are playing 8 tables and 125 hands per hour. I’m playing 4 tables at about 55-60 hands per hour at a full table. If I could manage a winrate similar to what I have now at a full table (7 PTBB/100), I’d double my $/hour by playing twice as many hands, and making better decisions than my opponents. Really, I don’t think I could maintain that kind of winrate at 6max, but it’s leaving me curious. I do think I could play 8 tables if I had enough screen real estate, but I only have one monitor, so I’m stuck at 4.

With that in mind, I may try a little 1 week experiment – playing 4 tables of .01/.02 6 max. At the end of the week, I’ll compare my stats (PTBB/100, hands per hour, $ per hour) against my .01/02 full table stats, and see where I stand. It will slow my bankroll growth for a week, but I’m curious to see how it goes. If I can handle the aggressiveness, I may try a week at .05/.10 and see how that goes. If it’s obvious that I can’t handle it, and I lose more than 5 buyins (due to poor decisionmaking, not due to suckouts), I’ll go back to my standard game.

I’ll keep you posted on whether or not I decide to do it, and how it goes.

No Poker Last Night

Had a day with the family, which was really great. I don’t really post any personal stuff in this blog, because that’s not really what I want it to be about. I’ve started to maintain another blog for personal stuff not related to poker. I may or may not let you know what the blog is.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot about table selection lately. I think it’s important, and I think no one talks about it much. They just say that table selection is important, and it affects your bottom line, but I don’t see much in the way of specifics. I’m not going to tell you how to select your tables, but I’m going to explain how I select mine, and then you can tell me what I’m doing wrong, because I think that’s somewhere I can probably improve my game.

I go through the list of games – whether on Stars or UB. 90% of the time I’m going to play cash NLHE. If I know I will have 2.5+ hours (like a Friday night), I’ll look for a tourney with an overlay (like the .25 + $100 guaranteed on Stars). These days, my first choice has been UB for cash games though, just because that’s where I have more money.

The first thing I do if I know I’m going to play a cash game on UB is I check UltimateBuddy. UltimateBuddy is like an instant messenger list, except instead of being able to chat with someone, it shows what tables they are at. Everytime I find a terrible player, I add them to the list. So, I look to see if any really bad players are online. If they are, I double click their tables and go to them. If there’s a seat open and they are at a level I want to play at, I’ll sit down, regardless of anything else, because they bleed money. Most of the players I add to the buddy list don’t stay active for long, because they blow their money pretty quickly, so this process is hit or miss.

So, I open up the cash game section. I evaluate my bankroll for that site, and determine how much I am willing to play per table. Usually, it’s <5% of my BR. With my BR at about $170 on UB, I’m looking at about $8.50 max buyin. Then I pick a range of stakes based on that. These days, I’m basically stuck at .05/.10 on UB. I’d probably play .02/.05 for $5 if they had it, but they don’t. I’ve generally been buying in for $5 lately with my short stack strategy. My PTBB/100 has been lower (about 7) because of the short stack strategy, but I’m playing with confidence because I know I can get stacked a couple times by a bad beat or my own bad play, and not really have it dent my bankroll.

Well, UB lately has been pretty short on the full .05/.l10 tables. There are always lots of seats available at 6max. There’s probably about 20 full tables going on a regular basis, and 2 or 3 short handed tables. I don’t like playing shorthanded much, so I try to avoid them. I just think the variance is too high (going to post about this, because I may change my mind). So, right away I’m having some problems finding a seat at a table with 8 or 9 people at it for my BR. That’s why I sat at .10/25 the other night with $8 – there were plenty of tables open, and a couple had really nice percentages.

At times when I do have a decent choice, and there’s several tables available, this is what I’m looking for:

Number of players: >7
Average number of players seeing the flop: >35%
Average Pot size: < 30 BB
Most players having > $ than what I sit down with

Basically, I want a a lot of players seeing the flop with small pots and few raises. This allows me to open limp in with my more questionable hands like Axs and small suited connectors hoping to catch a good flop. I won’t usually look for a limp-reraise with my big pairs in this case, I’ll usually just play them for a solid 3.5x raise. I’d prefer a table with>40% seeing the flop, but they aren’t that common. The more people seeing the flop the better.

If the average pot size is higher than that, which is usually is, it means the table is more aggressive. I usually won’t open limp as much, but I’ll still limp if I have limpers in front of me. In addition, it also allows me to do a fair amount of limp-reraising with my bigger pocket pairs, especially if I have pokertracker numbers for the players to act after me.

I prefer that the players at the table have big stacks. It’s not a tournament, so really, I want them to have me covered. Having a bigger stack than everyone else at a cash game has no intrinsic value, because if I get stacked, I can just rebuy. When I hit my big hand, I want to be paid in full. Flopping a boat against a guy with an overpair does me no good if the other guy only has $1 in his stack.

One nice bonus for playing on UB that I don’t get on Stars is that you can prefetch hands and stats for the tables. Gametime+ will allow you to grab the previous x hands up to 200. I usually have it set to 35. Any more than that, and it just takes too long to grab all the hands when you’re 4 tabling. I like the hands to be grabbed within 3-4 minutes – basically before I get to the big blind and have to post. The hand grabbing makes it difficult to click any table buttons while it’s going. 35 hands isn’t enough to be super-confident about how someone plays, but it gives me a head start. If I tried to grab 200 per table, it would take about 15 minutes.

If the table does end up being a little tight – say after 1 or 2 bad players bust and leave, and everyone has a VPIP of under 25, I will consider getting up myself. I’ll start going through the lists again looking for good numbers.

New Online Poker Pal

See http://donktasticpoker.blogspot.com/ – A work buddy who has decided to blog his online poker exploits. He’s still in the process of putting it together, so check back often, but I’m sure it will be interesting, with lots of Limit Omaha HiLo discussion.

I Hate Teachers

Played a little. Blew it in the Stars .25 tourney. Had JJ, raised 3x, got reraised allin, called against what I thought was a resteal, but no, it was KK. Made me a short stack. Saw a cheap flop with K5s, flopped a straight and flush draw, shoved, got called by a straight and AA. No flush, I go from middle of the pack to out in like 5 hands near the bubble. Mom has been hovering in top 30 in chips.

Played ok on UB though, pretty tight for the most part < 20%, didn’t get many hands, and when I did flop some big hands, ended up getting caught by the river. Still managed to have a pretty solid night, back over $60. PTBB/100 is still a paltry 6.75. Ugh. That rake is killing me. I’ve paid 36.26 in rake over ~7.5k hands. On PS, my paid rake is 69.80 over ~40k hands.

Frustrated that I found a couple juicy tables, and the teachers kept criticizing the ‘dumb’ players, and pots went from 7 people in the hand and $1 pots to 2 people in a hand and .15 pots. Loose players would either tighten up or leave for fear of being ridiculed. I hate it because that’s how you make the big money, the guy that calls raises with Q5s and will call multiple streets with bottom pair. These supposed geniuses should shut their traps and let the bad players continue to play the way they play. Everyone gets sucked out on, quit whining. Blog about it or whatever, but don’t teach at the table. I get the nuts 1 or 2 times a night, I don’t want you telling someone they shouldn’t call my all in with top pair.

UB – $60.54/($18.02 pending)
PS – $80.15
FT – $19.50

Played Some Tourneys

Played 3 tourneys last night, got deep in all 3, only cashed in 1 -

PokerStars Tournament #51838220, No Limit Hold’em
Buy-In: $0.25
2817 players
$100.00 added to the prize pool by PokerStars.com
Total Prize Pool: $804.25
Tournament started – 2007/06/08 – 22:00:00 (ET)

Dear Me,

You finished the tournament in 359th place.
A $0.64 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 19.58 tournament leader points in this tournament.

I went out with AJs vs. QQ when the QQ acted after me and I had already shoved. I had an M of about 5. I wasn’t catching any cards, and no real opportunities to steal or resteal except this hand.

I also played in a 5.50 tourney on FT with about 500 people. I went out in about 180th place. I had AA, guy raises UTG, and I pushed all in, hoping he’d call. He showed JJ, he flopped his J. Made me the short stack with an M of 1. Doubled up 1x with AJo, then tried to steal a couple hands later with JTs and didn’t catch, but I was done for anyway, only had an M of 3 after the AA vs. JJ fiasco.

BR coming later.

Table Image – Am I Weird?

This is kind of a random thought post. I was having a poker discussion with the two other poker dorks (I say ‘poker dork’ affectionately) at my office. Occassionally, they’d say things like ‘I owned that table’, or ‘the table feared me’, or ‘I lorded over that table’, or what have you.

I think I may be weird, because I never think about those things. I read other people’s blogs, and they often talk about how they were running over the table, intimidating players, wanting players to fear them, etc. None of these thoughts ever enter my mind when I’m playing. When I think about winning, I don’t think about crushing my opponents, I think about winning the most chips or money. When I think about how others view me, I think it terms of ‘he probably thinks I’m weak tight, and I’ll fold if he raises, so I’m going to play back at him’, ‘he thinks I always have it when I bet’, ‘he thinks I cbet the flop every time when I have nothing’, or what have you. I don’t think ‘I have him so intimidated he will never call me’. Maybe I have low testosterone, but I’m not trying to beat people, I’m trying to accumulate the most chips. I guess I’m kind of detached from the ego side of beating everyone. It’s not a boxing match to me (although I see lots of similarities because of the multiple levels of thinking), I’m not trying to knock a person out of a tournament, or take all their chips at a cash game so they’ll feel dejected and leave, I just want chips. I have no desire to be the ‘table captain’ trying to push people around. If I push someone off a better hand with garbage, I did it because I thought the bet would be a high percentage play based on whether I think they are willing to fold to a big bet. I’m generally don’t talk trash. I want them to feel good about losing. I want them to think they made a nice laydown. I will, on occasion, needle someone a little, but it’s not a major part of my game.

I hope others playing the game I’m in, whether losing or winning, enjoy it, because if they’re losing but still enjoy it, they’ll come back and won’t feel bad about losing next time. When someone feels bad about losing, they’re more likely to not be around, which means no poker, no winning for me.

Am I weird?