A bit of an update ...

Eew, I can hardly believe how long it is since I updated my blog! ...

Since my last entry, with the exception of playing in some "coolers" (single-table SNG's with ten players and five equal prizes for 1st-5th, known at PokerStars as "double or quits", and really very easy money indeed - at least for the lower-stake games, if approached with patience and discipline and without bluffing), all I've been playing is triple-draw.

Mind you, I have played over 10,000 hands now, and shown a profit (mostly when I'm "supposed" be writing up my PhD thesis!). After playing 10,000+ hands, I've now re-read Negreanu, realised I did not understand most of it on an initial reading, and started to understand it. So the plan now is to play about another 10,000 hands and then re-read it for a third time ...

The standard of play in this game at PokerStars is, shall we say, "very mixed".

I'm playing $2/$4 limit when I can, sometimes $1/$2 or $3/$6 if that's what available.

It's really a wonderful game, much more intricate and skilful than it looks at first, second or third glance, and very interesting. Meanwhile, I will - as they say - "draw to smooth hands"!

More Triple-draw

Since my last post nearly a week ago, I have played nothing but triple-draw and a few holdem SNG's (with nothing much to report from the latter: progress continues).

Triple-draw is a brilliant game, far more complicated than it at first appears. Like the best new plays, it has a bit of everything: twists and turns in all the right places, suspense and excitement galore and sometimes a devastating dénouement.

I've made little financial progress overall, but I'm learning the game.

The standard of play in the low-stakes PokerStars games is absolutely dreadful, and in the higher stake limit games seems excellent. Ideally I'd like to be playing $2/$4 limit, but there isn't always a game at the times of day I can manage. When the choice is between $0.25/$0.50 limit and $30/$60 limit, what can you do?

Triple-draw 2-7 small blind: hand-selection

So, I am learning to play Triple-Draw 2-7 Lowball, which is wonderful. You can read a bit about it here.

My primary source of information on how to play this game is Daniel Negreanu's long chapter on it in the new edition of Doyle Brunson's poker book, and there are also articles by Mark Gritter (who very kindly replied to my pestering message requesting information) and others here, and some more listed here.

I am short of insights into hand selection in the small blind. Negreanu considers "playing from the blinds" more or less as an entity and says comparatively little specific to the small blind position. If everyone's folded up to you in the small blind, it seems fairly clear that one should expand one's range for raising, in an attempt to win the BB. My concern relates more to situations in which one or two have called before you. Position being so important in this game, and the SB being the worst position for future betting rounds, it seems that the opposite might be the case, if anything. Even if one is "getting good odds" in the sense that one has made half a bet already, it seems that one loses more than one gains by calling with a normal sort of "opening range".

At the moment I'm raising (and re-raising) in this position with two-card wheel draws and one-card smooth 8-draws, and folding more or less everything else, if one or two other players have already called/raised. (I almost never call before the first draw: if I don't want to raise or re-raise, I fold). But I'm thinking this must be a little bit too conservative? If anyone has any insights to offer, or wants to discuss it, they're more than welcome to reply here as a "comment" (click where it says "komentari" below - comments are moderated), or perhaps more easily just to email me (address shown in the sidebar on the right), or even to reply to my thread in the 2+2 poker forum, and thanks in advance!

But much more importantly, I have very recently acquired a wonderful dress, which was made in France, in the 1930's (I think), and it's a glittery one! It's being altered for me as I write this!

A minor triumph

I have not been playing quite so much for the last few days, but at the weekend I played in one of those 180-player SNG's at PokerStars (NLHE). $20 + $2 entry, 20 tables. With a lot of luck and a following wind, I managed to achieve third place (and was actually in the lead at the point we were down to the last 9-player table). Obviously the variance with these events will be enormous, but meanwhile the $428.40 third prize will pay for another 19 entries, and they're very enjoyable events (albeit that they take over 3 hours!), so I will probably try some more ...

SAGE System review

The Sit-And-Go Endgame (SAGE) System is a heads-up strategy for NLHE which was developed by Lee H. Jones (author of "Winning Low Limit Hold'em" and formerly the manager of PokerStars poker rooms) and James Kittock (a mathematics professor). It's a solid and unexploitable heads-up strategy that can help you overcome weak and strong players alike. Once you're down to the last two players in a sit 'n' go, first place pays you 50% of the prize pool while second place leaves you with only 30%, so a significant proportion of the prize-money changes hands in these situations.

The system applies only to heads-up, no-limit games in which the ratio ("R") of the smaller stack size at the table divided by the current big blind is less than ten, and is at its strongest when it's less than 8.

It's deceptively simple: all you have to do is work out the power index ("PI" - a calculated numeric value) of your instant pre-flop hand and compare it against the relevant line of the table of R's on a little chart and you can see whether your PI is high enough to be a "yes"; if it's a yes, that means you go all-in if you're the small stack, and you call the all-in (or raise "all-in", i.e. enough to put your opponent all-in). It really is as simple as that, and the little chart is small and easy enough to be reduced to a "sticky note" about 5cm square which you can put on the side of your screen.

Determining your hand's PI is easy: (i) assign each of your cards a number based on the card's rank. For face cards, assign the following power numbers: J = 11, Q = 12, K = 13, and A = 15; (ii) double the power number of the higher ranked card in your hand and adding the number of the lower ranked card (i.e. 2H + L, where H is the higher number and L is the lower number); (iii) add 22 if you're holding a pair, or add 2 if your cards are suited.

Although SAGE is an unexploitable strategy, it's not always the optimal strategy. As R increases past 7 and especially past 10, it's not quite so clever.

It's even easier to use than I've made it sound. I think this area was a considerable "leak" in my game, and a highly relevant one given how often I seem to be in the prize-money. I'll report back later on how it's going for me, but at the moment I strongly welcome it. It seems to work by more or less stifling your opponent's creativity and poker abilities, reducing him to an automated system. Opponents often fold hand after hand as you continue to push your entire stack into the pot.

You can read an article about the system by Lee Jones himself here, and more of his articles here.

Small update

Not all that much to report, here. I am back at home/work, and will probably work now until nearly Christmas without more than some weekend breaks, but I don't normally work on Saturdays or Tuesdays. Poker continues: I am playing almost entirely $16-entry "turbo" ("fast"-moving) single-table 9-player sit 'n' go's at PokerStars. They take typically about 45-50 minutes each. The prize-money is: first place $67.50; second place $40.50; third place $27.00.

I can play two at a time, by starting a new one each time the most recently entered one is reduced from nine to five or six players. That said, I have once been knocked out first, in 9th place, when I went all-in with KK and lost to a player with AJ who flopped an Ace, as can easily happen. I'm actually slightly surprised this sort of thing has not happened more often, but I do play very, very few hands until three people have been knocked out and the blinds have gone up two or three times.

At the moment, I'm getting into the prize-money 48% of the time, so my account-level is gradually increasing. If that figure stays steady, then over a series of about 600 events, mathematically there "should" be only a 5% risk of my losing 11 consecutive times, and less than a 5% risk of my hitting a longer losing patch equivalent financially to 17 consecutive losing events.

I'm hoping not to play as many as 600 of them, though. If I keep going steadily enough, I'll move up to the $27-entry events at some point, and am wondering to what extent the overall standard of play is higher in those. My guess is that whereas there's no discernible difference between the $11 events and the $16 ones, the $27 ones may be a rather different proposition.

Coming up soon: brief reviews of Collin Moshman's book, and the SAGE system!

Sit 'n' go ...

Greetings from France!

I have decided that the "significant accident" in my previous entry was perhaps not quite so significant after all. I could have bet less than going all in, something like $50 or so to deny the opponent the right odds to continue with, for instance, a straight draw, then going all in on the turn anyway ... but mostly I think this was just a "bad beat" and one should not dwell on them, irritating though they are.

I have been playing more $200NL at 6-max tables with small profits but nothing much else to report. I am wondering whether it's a good idea to change tables after every half-hour or so, unless I particuarly like the opponents, in an attempt to make it harder for them to "work out my style". There's certainly no shortage of 6-max tables. I've also been re-raising pre-flop a little bit more, in late position (on the button) with mostly good effects.

Late last night I played in two $16 sit 'n' go's, and won both of them ...

I've also played in a couple of those bigger 180-player (20-table) events, but I think single-table sit 'n' go's are much more suitable for my purposes. The variance is obviously going to be far lower. Those bigger events take about 3 - 4 hours and only 10% of the players are in the prize money (and the prize-money for 10th to 18th places is only twice the entry-fee anyway, so only 5% of the players actually win anything worth having). An ordinary sit 'n' go takes 30 to 70 minutes and 33% of the players are in the prize-money, so one's pattern of results will obviously be far more consistent for the hours put in. I said originally that I would play 100 of the $10 sit 'n' go's and then review the results, but I've been making steady profits from them and have moved up to the $16 games now, which are a little faster-moving as well (they are what's called "turbo tables" at PokerStars, so you get in a bit more play for your money, overall.)

In Paris now for the weekend, and will be home (and back at work!) early on Monday morning ...

Significant Accident (1)

I had my first really expensive accident in a game late last night, I was perhaps too tired to be playing anyway and don't really know whether I did anything too blonde. I have asked the "2 Plus 2" guys in this thread. Some of them clearly know what they're talking about although, as in other forums, the confident- and fluent-sounding ones by no means always agree! Still, it will be interesting to see whether they all tell me more or less the same thing. In that forum, they don't like you to give the result of the hand when requesting advice, so nobody can subconsciously be influenced by the outcome, so I didn't, but I can give it here: I went all in for the remainder of my $200 table-capital and was called by someone who had flopped a higher set than mine. He had pocket 9's, in other words, which I did not expect at all (though obviously I did ask myself, because that's the only possible hand that can beat mine at that point). I thought/hoped he had either AK or an overpair - maybe 10's or J's with which he had not himself originally raised, but had called a pre-flop raise, or even Aces which he had been slowplaying, as some people will). A setback indeed, though I am still a fraction ahead there overall ...

Another 800 hands

Greetings from Hydra!

Well, since my last update, thanks partly to the availability of the Hydranet, a WiFi network covering the residential area of the island, I have played between 6 and 7 hours at PokerStars 6-max tables, in the NLHE games with $1/$2 blinds (these are known as "$200NL" because the buy-in to sit at the table is $200). This represented 800 hands, give or take, and my bankroll is unchanged, more or less: I have paid in $1,820 ($340 to start and $1,480 later to bring it up to $2,000) and remain on just a fraction over $2,000.

I hope I am playing in the right games to get useful experience without paying a fortune for it. The standard of play is variable, but overall quite a lot better than I expected. I am told that some serious players sometimes play $200NL by way of "light relief" and that the standard is considerably higher than in an equivalently-staked live game; so I can't complain. I am playing at only one table, to try to watch the game fairly closely.

A slight change of plan ...

Greetings from Greece!

A valued and respected online friend of mine who plays this game professionally and very successfully has very kindly been giving me a lot of advice over the last couple of days.

My original $340 deposit has gradually crept up to just over $500 now, from bits of profit in low-stake NL games (I am fairly regularly turning a $10 table-stake into $15 against weak opponents but not really learning anything much from it) and quite a few low-stake sit 'n' go wins and second places (I do enjoy those). But sometimes friends tell you what you need to hear, which in this instance was that I should be learning the game by playing in $1/$2 ($200 buy-in) 6-max NL games (6 players at the table instead of 9/10 - slightly more aggressive games, and more educational). My own limited experience of watching had suggested that this is the way to learn the game, anyway. So, for the moment, my sit 'n' go plans may go on the back burner, much though I enjoy them, because you should not do too many different things at once. I will deposit another $1,500 to have ten buy-ins available for the $1/$2 NL games (yes, I know you should really have more like 20-30 buy-ins in your account, but I can attend to that later if needed, and to be honest I don't mind paying to learn anyway, and can afford to).

Also to be attended to: re-read one of Sklansky's books and (at least) the first volume of "Harrington on Cash Games".

I have read the SAGE system mentioned down below, and will write about it shortly, but probably postpone the rest of my study of Collin Moshman's sit 'n' go book for the moment. I need to learn this game properly. But not necessarily this week, because I'm on holiday anyway. Further updates follow ...