The Poker Lab Rat

Tournament complaint three.

Rebuy tournaments. I don’t like that whole concept. I won’t revisit the reasons today, but it comes down to the inequality of opportunity between those who can afford to rebuy and those who can’t. Furthermore, those - like myself - who are interested primarily in winning the first-place trophy will usually rebuy or add-on, given the opportunity, even when the decision is not merited in terms of profit.
I believe that in a tournament, anything you do correctly to increase your chances of winning first place should not be punished. But that’s not the case with poker tournaments today. The ones that work, in my mind, are winner-take-all in which the table champion gets immediate compensation and advances to the next winner-take-all table. Don’t get me wrong. As I’ve said before, I have nothing against “rebuy events,” just don’t call them “tournaments.”

Having now sounded my tournament dissent, I’ll tell you that this year I entered the main event at Binion’s World Series of Poker for the first time. Before this year I was content to say that, although I’d never won the event, I’d never lost it, either. Now I can’t say that anymore.

The hand.

Those of you who follow this column and take an interest in the Internet know that I frequently recommend the discussion group rec.gambling.poker. You’ll need a newsreader to access it. Anyway, in May, I left a message about how I got eliminated from the tournament. I’d like to share it with you now. Then, next column, I provide some of the responses and my subsequent comments. Here it is (although it has been edited slightly to conform to my follow-up post revising the seating positions)…
Subject: How Mike Caro got eliminated — an interesting hand From: caro@caro.com (Mike Caro) Date: 1998/05/12 Newsgroup: rec.gambling.poker

How would y’all have played this hand? I got eliminated with it, and possibly should have played it differently. Here’s the situation…

We are three hours into the final $10,000 buy-in event at the World Series of Poker. I’m at table two, which is outside the main room in the satellite area. My table consists of no players that I am very familiar with, but five of my eight opponents have talked about my books and introduced themselves. Surrealistically, there are two separate discussions about my philosophy of tells while the action is going on — neither of which I participate in. Everyone is friendly. Opponents all seem experienced and capable, but no super stars that I can spot. All male. Action is marginally loose compared to what I expected in this main event at the early stages (I’ve never entered before).

After about three hours, I’ve built to $13,500 in chips. I have Ad-Qd Two seats to the right of the button (dealer position), nine handed. Blinds are $50 and $100. Everyone passes to the player on my right (6th position). He makes a routine attack raise of $300 ($400 total). He has far fewer chips than I do, probably about $7,000. Here’s my first decision.

I can pass, call, raise marginally, or raise big. You could make an argument for any of those four tactics, since nobody behind me has more chips than I do, although the button has almost as many.

I call. Button also calls. Time for the flop.

It’s Kd-Kc-6d giving me an ace-high flush draw with my Ad-Qd. Sixth seat bets $1,400. I debate. A good argument can be made for throwing the hand away here. Actually, I would if the off card were a nine or higher, because this would greatly increase the chances of a full house. Pot is now $4,100 and it costs me $1,400 to call. In a ring game, I would occasionally raise here (not usually, though) — perhaps $3,000 or $4,000 more.

Again, there are valid arguments for passing, calling, and raising. I decide to call, but I think I would have folded a good percent of the time in similar situations. Button also calls.

Turn card is 7d. I make my flush. Check to me. There is danger here, but I need to weigh the chances of an opponent holding K-K, 6-6, K-6, or K-7 (not likely to be 7-7) to beat me against the chances of an opponent holding K-anything else — or even, less likely, two diamonds or another pair to lose to me. If I bet big, K-J, K-10, K-9 or K-smaller (except K-7 or K-6) may fold. If those hands call, I’m not as happy (because of the tournament danger), but I have the best of it.

There are valid arguments for checking along, making a small bet, or making a large bet. I move all-in.

Player on the button calls instantly with 6-6 (a full house), leaving me with only $300 in chips that last another 10 minutes.

I thought that since this was a hand with so many options, it would be fitting for r.g.p discussion. Of course, some readers will look at it and conclude that it is obvious that the hand should be played a particular way. But I don’t think so. Let me know what you think.

Straight Flushes, Mike Caro

Join Mike Caro at a poker table sometime at DoylesRoom.com Poker. Players from around the World including most States of the USA are safe and welcome to play poker for free or real money.

Whom to attack in tournaments…

The most common types of poker tournaments are the “proportional payoff” variety. That’s where, as players are eliminated, tables are consolidated until the survivors meet at a final table and first place wins all the chips. But first place doesn’t get to keep all the money, so there’s — in effect — a penalty for winning. This means survival is worth more than using many sophisticated tactics that would earn extra profit in non-tournament games. So, you should avoid high-risk, seemingly profitable finesses and play more conservatively in order to survive and win more of the prize pool. Fine.

But, correct strategy for these tournaments also requires that you attack mostly players with fewer chips than you have. This provides two advantages:

(1) You can’t be eliminated by those players, so you’ll survive even if you lose the pot;
(2) If you win the pot, you’ll eliminate the short-stacked opponent and automatically move up in the money.

You can chat and play with the “Mad Genius”, Mike Caro, every Wednesday night at 9:30pm ET in the Bounty Tournament at Doyles Room Poker. (Players from around the world including most States of America are safe and very welcome to join Doyle Brunson’s own poker site: Doyles Room Poker).

Full Tilt Poker recently released a revolutionary new form of online poker: Rush Poker*. If you’re not familiar with the game, I encourage you to give it a try. Instead of the players sitting in a 6 or 9-handed game, they are seated in a game that has up to 2,000 players in it. All players are seated at a normal table, but as soon as you decide to fold, instead of waiting for the hand to finish and playing the next hand against the same players, you are immediately seated with a different group of players and play your next hand. This allows players to play around 300 hands per hour instead of the usual 80.

The excitement level isn’t the only thing that makes this game different than normal online poker. Playing against a different group of players each hand means you will need to make a few other adjustments to your normal ring-game strategy to succeed at Rush Poker*.

One big mistake that is tempting to make is to play too tight, waiting for only premium hands. It’s easy to find yourself folding any marginal hand, as you will have a chance to get a monster the next hand with no waiting. But, you must not forget that you’re still paying blinds. And if you tighten up your starting requirements too much, those blinds will eat away at your stack. In fact, I would suggest that opening a few speculative hands (like suited connectors in middle to late positions) is a good way to try to steal a few blinds. However, you should give any 3-bet a lot of respect. Players won’t be as likely to 3-bet light when a new hand is just seconds away.

One habit that is harder to break is playing off a table image. In Rush Poker*, you don’t have one. Just because you have stolen a few blinds lately, doesn’t mean you should be worried your opponents are aware of it. In fact, they have no way of knowing, as they weren’t seated with you when you were making those steals. If you just slow played a big pair, don’t be afraid to try it again next time. Instead of worrying about protecting your table image, you should be ruthlessly exploiting basic strategy and punishing what should be the more predictable hand ranges of your opponents.

Playing good poker is all about making the proper adjustments to your strategy, given different playing conditions. Rush Poker* presents very different conditions than a regular ring game, so making the proper adjustments will be a must. Make those adjustments, and you’ll find yourself having a lot of success while you have loads of fun playing the fastest game on the Internet.

* Patent Pending

ABOUT HOWARD LEDERER:

Howard has won 2 WSOP Bracelets and 2 holds WPT Titles. Howard “The Professor” plays an analytical strategic game based largely on complex mathematical poker theories. He was 2003 WPT Player of the Year and he plays online exclusively at Full Tilt Poker.

For the latest views and reviews on FullTiltPoker.com online poker room check out:

>>PokerLabRat.com’s Full Tilt Poker Review
>>Full Tilt Poker Review and Rating at GoonersGuide.com

Compare Full Tilt to other US-friendly online poker sites - or just visit FullTiltPoker.com for a look around!

Full Tilt Poker’s new Cashout Tournaments provide players the option to leave the tournament at any time before the final table and get the cash value of what their stack is worth. With the options of cashing out part of your chip stack or your entire stack and exiting a tournament, we players are presented with a whole new variety of options to consider.

In Cashout Tournaments, half of the buy-in goes into the Cashout prize pool, and the other half into the tournament prize pool. The ability to cash out in 10% increments of the starting stack (for example, if you start with 3,000 chips, you can cash out as little as 300 chips and keep cashing out in increments of 300) can drastically alter the way you approach these tournaments. With most pros, the goal in a tournament is first place. Cashing in a tournament or lowering variance is not a major concern the vast majority of the time. If that’s your only goal, removing chips from your stack is not going to be an option you employ very often. For most players, however, while first place is certainly always going to be the number one goal, there are other factors involved.

Often times, the best opportunity to cash out is going to be early in the tournament. You can get back some of the money you put up in the buy-in and navigate a slightly shorter stack while the blinds are still small and chip away to get back to where you started and beyond. The real key to knowing when to implement the Cashout option is how much the money means to you. There’s certainly a real advantage in a poker tournament when you triple up very early and have that bigger stack, but for a lot of players, securing that automatic Freeroll in a tournament is going to be even more advantageous (remember that with the 3,000 chip starting stack, should you increase your stack to 9,000, each 300 chips will allow you to cash out for 10% of what you put into the Cashout pool – 6,000 chips will get your full buy-in back and still leave you with a starting stack!). The ability to give peace of mind, guaranteeing that you can’t lose any money in the tournament, might allow you to play a stronger game as you go on.

The Cashout Tournaments also provide a few other opportunities poker players have never seen before. There isn’t a player out there who hasn’t been playing their tournament and just had something “come up” or something they absolutely had to do. Maybe you were already on a time crunch with just a few free hours to spare and were looking to play a little poker. I would advise any player in this position to join a Cashout Tournament rather than risk running out of time in another MTT. The full Cashout option allows you to play and still get money out of the work you did, even if you can’t complete the whole thing!

My strategy going into Cashout Tournaments would be to cash out little by little. I might take a little off the top here and there, while trying to retain a relatively decent stack. I always like to have the biggest stack at the table so I can get maximum value out of my hands, but in the cases where I have quite a bit more chips than anyone else, getting a little bit of money for my chips becomes quite appealing. Later on in the tournament, I would consider cashing out a little bit here and there, while still trying to keep my stack above 15 big blinds, and preferably above 20 big blinds. Maintaining this stack size makes sure that I’m not so short that my hand is forced while still having enough chips to re-raise all-in and have enough chips that someone can fold.

The full Cashout option is one I would reserve for mostly emergencies and other such events that come up unexpectedly. Tournament life is such a valuable thing that I would never give up my last chip in a Cashout Tournament unless I had to leave, but cashing down to a shorter stack and trying to double up can be highly effective and fun as well. Many people like to start with short stacks in cash games and take away a lot of the decision work. Cashing out to 10 big blinds or less and beginning to play shove or fold poker is something many people hate, but many others love.

One final tip to keep in mind is that you will also have the ability to practice valuable tournament skills by utilizing the Cashout option. If you need more experience playing a shorter stack effectively, you can cash out a portion of your stack. This allows you to make additional money without having to actually dump off chips, and you can work on improving that portion of your poker game, as well.

ABOUT ERIC:

Nicknamed “EFro”, Eric Froehlich has won two WSOP bracelets and more than $1.3 in Career Tournament Earnings. A native of New Jersey, Eric is an accomplished “Magic: the Gathering” card game player. Join him at a table at FullTiltPoker.com.

For more about Cash Out Poker Tournaments or to give one a go check out FullTiltPoker.com.

Ever dreamed of going to the Super Bowl? How about the World Series, Stanley Cup, or NBA Finals? Win it All!

The crew at popular online poker site Bodog Poker are sure that you’ll think that he opportunity to see these four ‘must-see-before-you-die’ sporting events in one year is just crazy talk. But here it is… 

The Ultimate Sports Fan Prize Package: Bodog Poker is giving one lucky person 2 tickets to the NBA Finals, Stanley Cup Finals, Super Bowl, AND World Series, including airfare, accommodations, and $500 in spending money to each event. 

Players can earn their entry into the draw by playing in eligible Sit and Go Tournaments between February 15th and March 14th 2010. Easy!

Hungry for more action?  Bodog Poker is also giving away weekly trips and tickets to an NCAA March Madness Game, UFC event, U.S. Open (Golf), or NASCAR event. Plus players can earn a seat at 1 of 2 $5,000 freeroll tournaments. 

It’s easy, just play and cash in the qualifying “Sit and Go” tournaments. 

OK, so what’s the catch? ….

Qualifying for the Grand Prize: Players must cash (receive a payout), in 3 eligible real money “Sit and Go” Tournaments between February 15th and March 14th 2010.  That’s it! And with players only able to earn one entry person, everyone has an equal chance of winning! (Yes, even total poker mutts like me!)

Qualifying for the Weekly Prizes: Players must play in 5 eligible “Sit and Go” Tournaments that week.  There is a new prize each week of the promotion, so players who want to get in on all 4 draws, can come back every week and earn their entry.

Qualifying for the Freeroll Tournament: Getting into one of the two $5,000 freeroll tournaments, players must cash (receive a payout), in 3 eligible real money “Sit and Go” Tournaments between February 15th and March 14th 2010.  Qualifying players will be notified by Email with registration details.

Good luck! 

Mike

PS: Pity finals tickets to the World Cup Football aren’t included too …but that’s just me being picky!

PPS: New to Bodog Poker? Bodog Poker is easy to play and easy to download. There’s even a great 110% to $1100 welcome bonus running for new players in February) The links on this blog post are geotargeted so if you click through you’ll get your local version of this promotional offer. USA residents, Canadians and UK players are eligible to enter.

For more on Bodog Poker check out these player reviews:

>>Bodog Poker Review at GoonersGuide.com
>>PokerLabRat.com Bodog Poker Review

Full Tilt Poker, one of the world’s largest online poker sites, suffered a server crash during the busy Sunday night period.

The crash occurred at 7:45pm ET and players were dropped from the website and unable to log back in. When attempting to open the Full Tilt client, players received a message saying, “Unable to connect to server.” This went on for 3.5 hours.

The server crash affected everyone playing on the site, including those still alive in Full Tilt’s flagship Sunday tournament, the big $216 buy-in with $750,000 Guaranteed.

Full Tilt Poker cancelled all running tournaments at 9:41pm ET. Then, at approximately 11:15pm, ET, the site’s support staff sent the following e-mail to players who were still playing in tournaments:

When a tournament is cancelled before it reaches the money, according to tournament rule 31.2 :

-All players still in the tournament at the time of the cancellation will be refunded their tournament buy-in and tournament fee. Players will have their initial buy-ins refunded in the tournament prize pool currency.

-In addition, the remaining prize pool will be divided and distributed according to chip count - (Remaining Prize Pool)*(Your Chip Count)/(Total Chips in Play) = Your Share of Remaining Prize Pool.

Full Tilt Poker was back on Monday morning and has been running normally since.

Hiya
Here’s a nice little Texas Hold’em tournament for players who’d like to try Backgammon…

Huh? Backgammon you say…

Stake £20 (or currency equivalent) between now and the 21st of August on ANY multiplayer game at Betfred Skill and you will get FREE entry into an Exclusive $1000 Poker Tournament taking place on Sunday the 23rd of August at 7pm BST.

We’ll be there, wanna join us?

(NOTE: If you are playing Skill for the first time and stake £20 within 48 hours of your first multiplayer game on Skill, you will also receive a £20 Skill Welcome Bonus)

What’s at BetFred Skill? Choose from Backgammon, Gin Rummy, Blackjack, Poker Dice, Domino Duel

BetFred Poker plays on the popular and busy Playtech iPoker Network. For more on BetFred Poker check out the latest reviews here:
>>BetFred Rating at PokerLabRat.com
>>Review of Bet Fred Poker at GoonersGuide.com

The Main Event of the World Series of Poker has found the “November Nine” who will play the final table in four months time.

Leading the way is poker legend Phil Ivey, holder of seven WSOP bracelets, including two bracelets won in minor events of the 2009 WSOP series.

Veteran Jeff Shulman is another familiar face that will play at the Final Table which will contain seven American players, one Brit, and a Frenchman.

The chip leader is Darvin Moon, who owns a small logging company and describes himself as a recreational player. Moon holds 58,930,000 chips, approximately 30% of the total chips in play.

Here is the complete WSOP Final Table with a chip count :

Darvin Moon (58.9m chips),
Eric Buchman (34.8m),
Steven Begleiter (29.8m),
Jeff Shulman (19.5m),
Joseph Cada (13.2m),
Kevin Schaffel (12.3m),
Phil Ivey (9.7m),
Antoine Saout (9.5m),
James Akenhead (6.8m)

The final table will sit down on November 7th 2009 - after ESPN have aired all the shows of the preliminary days leading to the final table.

Most of the time when you’re engaged in a poker hand, you’ll be thinking about what decisions you will make before you have to make them. For example, if you call a raise with K-Q, you’ll think to yourself: Okay, if I hit top pair, I’m going to play this hand. If I have a gut-shot and two over-cards, I’m going to play this hand. If I have an open-ender and two over-cards, I’m going to play this hand. Otherwise, I’m going to let it go.

However, there will often be times when something happens that causes you to change your strategy mid-hand. Maybe your opponent makes a weak bet that gives you information worth using to your advantage. Or maybe he makes a bet on the river that looks like a value bet and convinces you to fold a hand you were planning on calling with.

It’s always good to enter a hand with a plan, but it’s essential that you be willing to deviate from the plan if the situation calls for it. Every hand requires that you react to your cards and the cards on the board, but it’s equally important that you factor in your opponent and his tendencies.

Here’s a hand that I played recently at the 2009 EPT German Open in Dortmund, where I went on to finish in fourth place. It was late in Day Two, I had been fairly short-stacked for a while and occasionally shoving with decent hands, but I hadn’t yet made a serious bluff in the tournament. We were eight-handed, the player in second position made a very small raise to 8,500 with blinds at 2,000/4,000 and a 500-chip ante, and it folded around to me in the small blind with pocket fives. I had about 70,000 in chips, and all I knew for sure was that I wasn’t going to fold a pocket pair in this situation.

I decided to call rather than raise, knowing the big blind would certainly be priced in to call as well, and he did. The flop came A-8-3. I was obviously looking to flop a set, or maybe something like 2-3-4 or 3-4-6, and this flop was not at all good for my hand, so I checked. The big blind also checked. And the initial raiser made what looked to me like a very weak bet, 12,000 into a 29,500 pot.

I was quite sure from the bet that he didn’t have an Ace, and probably he didn’t have a pair of any kind. It seemed to me that he had a hand like K-J, something in that range. So when he bet 12,000, I considered all of the factors – my read on him, my tight image, and my stack size. I decided to raise 21,000 more, representing that I had perhaps a weak Ace and had committed myself to the pot (even though, in reality, I wasn’t committed and would be willing to fold to a re-raise, leaving myself with about 30,000 in chips).

The big blind folded, and after thinking for a long time, the initial raiser folded also. He simply had to give me credit for a real hand that I wasn’t going to lay down to a re-raise.

This was a situation where I didn’t really intend to commit many chips if I didn’t hit a favorable flop, but I adjusted my decision making based on my opponent’s post-flop action, believing the stage had been set for me to make a move. Always be willing to adjust your plan, and every once in a while you’ll find yourself winning chips that otherwise would have been pushed toward someone else.

ABOUT JOHAN STORAKERS: Swedish player Johan Storakers is based in Stockholm and has won more than $2.4 Million in career tournament earnings… and like many pros and wanna be pros, plays poker online at Full Tilt Poker.

ABOUT FULLTILTPOKER.com: For the latest views and reviews of Full Tilt Poker site check out
>> Full Tilt Poker Review (PokerLabRat.com)
>> FullTiltPoker.com Poker Room Review (GoonersGuide.com)

WHAT’S ON AT FULLTILTPOKER.COM?

Hosts announced for FTOPS XII: Erick Lindgren opens FTOPS XII with a $1 million NL Hold ‘em event on May 6th. WPT Bay 101 winner Steve Brecher hosts Event #12, the $1.5 million 6-max tournament with antes from the start. Howard Lederer’s HEROS Event #14 has a new format, Patrik Antonius hosts the $2 million Two Day Event and Jennifer Harman ends FTOPS XII with the $2.5 million Main Event. Choose your event from the full schedule.

Each pro hosts a matching MiniFTOPS XII event, where you can play for just 1/10th the regular FTOPS buy-in.

Play the 200K Stimulus Qualifier: At least 80 players in the 200K Stimulus Qualifier will win a $2,500 prize package to WSOP’s* Event #4, including the $1,000 entry fee and $1,500 for expenses. Event #4, the Stimulus Special, is likely to have the largest starting field outside of the Main Event and a prize pool of $5 million.

Buy your way in for $30 + $3 or satellite your way in for as little as $1 or 50 Full Tilt Points.
* World Series of Poker and WSOP are trademarks of Harrah’s License Company, LLC (”Harrahs”). Harrah’s does not sponsor or endorse, and is not associated or affiliated with Full Tilt Poker or its products, services, promotions or tournaments …(or for that matter PokerLabRat.com and Red Card Media Limited)

AFTER A tough Budget and a difficult year for the Irish economy, you couldn’t blame the organisers of the €3,500 entry Irish Open poker championships for feeling tetchy in the run-up to the event.

Since last year’s tournament, which 667 people entered, consumer spending has dropped, the dole queues have extended and the tide of disposable income which brought about the worldwide poker boom has slowed to a trickle.

However, despite the prevailing economic wind, 701 players turned up at the Citywest Hotel in Dublin Friday afternoon to take their seat in the event, more eager than ever to compete for a prize pool of more than €2.2 million.

The eventual winner of the Texas Hold’em event, which runs until Easter Monday (13th April), will take home some €600,000.

“We had to work much harder to get the numbers this year,” said Paul Burke of tournament host Paddy Power. “A lot of poker players don’t have the same disposable income they had this time last year. If we had got 600 players we would have been very happy.”