April Review

March had proved to be a successful month for me, turning around some bad fortune in previous months. April 1^st was a Sunday and I registered for the Sunday High Roller on PKR, this attracted 144 runners and had over $5k for 1^st place. Things started off reasonably well with me winning small pots and after about 3 hours I won a flip with AK v 99 to double up and this allowed me some room to play, I was sat with Beyne and Jake Cody at different points during the game but didn’t get involved in any big pots with either. I won some medium pots to keep my stack increasing at a good rate and we made the money and soon after we were down to 12 runners, this moved me to a new table where I had Destacker on my direct left and Jake to his direct left, I had 25bb at this point and they had around 35bb so it was going to be difficult for me but I was playing for the victory and so was determined not to get run over by these MTT machines. A few hands into this table the following hand develops:

Blinds are now 2,000 / 4,000

Seat 1: Destacker - 143,003

Seat 2: JakeCody - 137,684

Seat 3: pinkywinky77 - 61,656

Seat 4: kian6 - 177,265

Seat 5: zacs100 - 132,627

Seat 6: ForFoxSake - 94,980

Moving Button to seat 5

6 x antes of 400

Pot sizes: 2,400

ForFoxSake posts small blind (2,000)

Destacker posts big blind (4,000)

Dealing [9 h][K h] to ForFoxSake

JakeCody raises to 8,157

pinkywinky77 folds

kian6 calls 8,157

zacs100 calls 8,157

ForFoxSake calls 8,157

I decide to call here as my hand is reasonable even though I am out of position I feel I can call with the value I am getting:

Destacker calls 8,157

Dealing Flop [8 c][A c][3 s]

Everyone checks

Dealing Turn [8 d]

ForFoxSake checks

Destacker bets 16,889

JakeCody folds

kian6 folds

zacs100 folds

ForFoxSake calls 16,889

Everyone checked the flop and Destacker bets out on the turn and everyone else folds, I only have K high but we have a lot of history together and I feel there is a good chance I am ahead so decide to call:

Dealing River [J s]

ForFoxSake checks

Destacker bets 38,995

ForFoxSake has requested more time

ForFoxSake calls 38,995

I was planning to call any safe looking river card (otherwise I wouldn’t call the turn) however Destacker bets more than I was anticipating, I use my timebank  as I am getting 3 to 1 on the call, he only needs to be bluffing 25% of the time for it to be a profitable call in terms of chips but if I call and lose I am left with a short stack, however as he is on my left he can do me a lot of damage later on so I need to try and get the advantage over him. In the end I weigh all the factors up and decide it’s a profitable call in terms of $ as well as chips:

Destacker shows [7 d][5 h]

ForFoxSake shows [9 h][K h]

ForFoxSake wins 154,953 with: One Pair: 8s

He shows 75o and my K high wins a nice pot.

A few hands later I get AJ and race Destacker’s 99 for his 14bb, I catch a straight on the river to bust him and I propel to a 50bb stack and a good lead over the table. A few hands after this Jake opens utg for just above a min raise, I am in the BB and put him in with AJ (he had about 20bb at this point) he called with KQd but the board bricked and I eliminated another dangerous opponent and I get a nice chiplead with 10 players left and my eyes are firmly on victory. A short while later the following hand develops:

Blinds are now 2,500 / 5,000

Seat 3: pinkywinky77 - 126,212

Seat 4: kian6 - 178,409

Seat 5: zacs100 - 82,170

Seat 6: ForFoxSake - 360,424

Moving Button to seat 3

4x posts ante of 500

kian6 posts small blind (2,500)

zacs100 posts big blind (5,000)

Dealing [J c][K c] to ForFoxSake

ForFoxSake raises to 10,000

KJc is a worth a raise 4 hand and both blinds call:

pinkywinky77 folds

kian6 calls 10,000

zacs100 calls 10,000

Dealing Flop [Q h][T c][K d]

kian6 checks

zacs100 bets 71,670 (all-in)

ForFoxSake calls 71,670

The donk shove surprised me somewhat and I called fairly quickly with my top pair and open ended straight draw:

kian6 raises to 167,909 (all-in)

ForFoxSake calls 167,909

This was a surprise but I was committed by now so called:

kian6 shows [A c][J d]

zacs100 shows [K h][A s]

ForFoxSake shows [J c][K c]

Dealing Turn [K s]

Dealing River [9 d]

kian6 has Straight, Ace high

kian6 wins 192,478 from side pot #1 with: Straight, Ace high

kian6 wins 247,010 with: Straight, Ace high

This hand annoyed me, neither blind 3 bet with their AJ or AK, considering we are 4 handed I would have expected one of them to 3 bet which would have saved me half of my stack. However on the flop I maybe could have folded and not taken the chance as the BB could have had KT or QT, however I still had 36bb so all was not lost.

I gain a few chips back before we reach the FT where I enter 3^rd in chips with 35bb. The first few hands are cagey but I manage to pick up a decent sized pot with a check raise. Soon after I eliminated WongaMan when he flopped top pair against my nut flush draw with one over, I spike my ace on the river to give me a slight chiplead with 5 left. The final table was long and I lost a few hands where I got it in in good shape or flipping, but eventually I managed to get HU with Jaymz84, I continually put pressure on and was winning a lot of uncontested pots but everytime we were both all-in he would win the hand so I couldn’t deliver the killer blow. Then the following hand developed:

Blinds are now 20,000 / 40,000

Seat 2: Jaymz84 - 752,726

Seat 6: ForFoxSake - 687,274

Moving Button to seat 6

2x ante of 4,000

ForFoxSake posts small blind (20,000)

Jaymz84 posts big blind (40,000)

Dealing Cards

Dealing [4 h][K h] to ForFoxSake

ForFoxSake raises to 80,000

Jaymz84 calls 80,000

I make a standard raise with my suited King, he continues to play passive and just calls:

Dealing Flop [7 s][7 h][5 c]

Jaymz84 checks

ForFoxSake bets 60,000

Jaymz84 calls 60,000

He check calls:

Dealing Turn [T s]

Jaymz84 checks

ForFoxSake bets 80,000

Jaymz84 calls 80,000

I decide to double barrel but he calls again:

Dealing River [J h]

Jaymz84 checks

ForFoxSake checks

ForFoxSake shows [4 h][K h]

ForFoxSake has One Pair: 7s

Jaymz84 shows [9 s][8 d]

Jaymz84 has Straight, Jack high

Jaymz84 wins 448,000 with: Straight, Jack high

I was ahead all the way until the river, there is no point in me leading the river, he isn’t calling with worse than K high and he is unlikely to fold anything better, unfortunately for me he hit one of his outs and I lose a big pot again, if he misses the river I have the 2-1 lead instead of him, his passive play is working as he is getting the run of the cards, but I still believe I can over run him if he doesn’t continue to hit the cards well. This gave him the lead and although I battled back somewhat, this was the final hand:

Blinds are now 20,000 / 40,000

Seat 2: Jaymz84 - 800,726

Seat 6: ForFoxSake - 639,274

Moving Button to seat 2

2x ante of 4,000

Jaymz84 posts small blind (20,000)

ForFoxSake posts big blind (40,000)

Dealing [Q h][A s] to ForFoxSake

Jaymz84 calls 40,000

ForFoxSake raises to 120,000

Jaymz84 raises to 796,726 (all-in)

ForFoxSake calls 635,274 (all-in)

Returning 161,452 to Jaymz84 uncalled

Jaymz84 shows [A h][3 c]

ForFoxSake shows [Q h][A s]

Dealing Flop [2 s][8 d][A c]

Dealing Turn [3 s]

Dealing River [A d]

Jaymz84 has Full House, Aces over 3s

Jaymz84 wins 1,278,548 with: Full House, Aces over 3s

He limps the SB again, I have a hand and raise as I have been doing most the time he limps, he shoves and I snap call and have him totally crushed, if I dodge the 3 outer I have him down to 4bb and am virtually guaranteed to win the $5.6k first prize, but luck is on his side once again and he hits the 3 to win and leave me with $3.3k for 2^nd place. Overall I played well despite not winning a showdown for a long period I kept competitive, but I couldn’t win a single all in v Jaymz and that’s how MTTs go sometimes. I was pleased with my play and there was nothing else I could do.

I played the London Calling Main Event at the Fox club but ran really dry, getting very few playable hands, I managed to chip up to around 35k from 22.5k starting stack but ended up 5 bet shoving AK into a good loose opponent who had KK and I didn’t improve and busted midway through day 1.

Online, aside from the HR 2^nd I was struggling for any notable results, I was playing the WSOP Vegas Nights MTTs on PKR, which allow entry into a ‘freeroll’ for a $4.5k package to play in a WSOP Side Event. I played 35 of these in total for a total outlay of $770, I managed to win a couple of these along with a few other cashes for a total of $126, which gave me a profit of $476 and more importantly a good starting stack in the ‘freeroll’. There was a total of 3 packages up for grabs but hundreds of runners, although most had below 1,000 chips to my 11.5k starting stack. I chipped up slowly to 15k and remained around that level for a while as the players dropped like flies, I got TT cracked by 34 when the SB open shoved and hit but I managed to get my chips back not long after with AQ v QJ. This was the final hand and is a good example of good satellite play:

Blinds are now 2,500 / 5,000

Seat 3: MrMetzger - 8,828

Seat 5: ForFoxSake - 62,938

Seat 6: Weazel666 - 149,964

Seat 8: DaveCoffee3 - 111,170

Moving Button to seat 6

MrMetzger posts ante of 500

ForFoxSake posts ante of 500

Weazel666 posts ante of 500

DaveCoffee3 posts ante of 500

DaveCoffee3 posts small blind (2,500)

MrMetzger posts big blind (5,000)

Dealing [A s][9 h] to ForFoxSake

ForFoxSake calls 5,000

Weazel666 calls 5,000

DaveCoffee3 calls 5,000

MrMetzger checks

Pot sizes: 22,000

Dealing Flop [A d][6 s][8 s]

DaveCoffee3 checks

MrMetzger bets 3,328 (all-in)

ForFoxSake calls 3,328

Weazel666 calls 3,328

DaveCoffee3 folds

Pot sizes: 31,984

Dealing Turn [9 s]

ForFoxSake checks

Weazel666 checks

Dealing River [6 c]

ForFoxSake checks

Weazel666 checks

Pot sizes: 31,984

MrMetzger shows [5 h][7 c]

MrMetzger has Straight, 9 high

ForFoxSake mucks

Weazel666 shows [6 h][8 h]

Weazel666 has Full House, 6s over 8s

If I had raised the A9o preflop chances are Weazel folds and the BB would have won the hand and who knows what would have happened there, satellites are all about securing the ticket and not going for the win. Needless to say I was absolutely delighted to win a package and I am now eagerly looking forward to travelling to Vegas. We will be staying in a Bella Suite in the Palazzo hotel and I will be playing Event 59 of the WSOP, I will probably play some others while out there but have yet to analyse the schedule and make up my mind, at the very least I will play some other tournaments that the other hotels are hosting around the WSOP.

I ended April with a PKR Open win, the final table was very passive allowing me to win lots of uncontested pots, this is my kind of dream final table, one where everyone else is playing tight looking to ladder, but I continually lost a lot of all in races and at one point was down to 22k with the bb at 16k, but I got my turn of luck and won a couple of hands and resumed pushing my opponents around and ended up claiming my first weekday open victory.

Despite running fairly mediocre during April I managed to record a profit and win a WSOP package, so the month definitely goes down as a good one, my short term goal now is to continue getting results and play more live tournaments in the run up to Vegas, where hopefully I can go deep in some events!

MTT Luck Part 3

My previous two blog entries have shown that there is often a very fine line between skill and luck, the two entities cannot always be clearly separated, even though it is obvious that skilful players win in the long run over weaker opponents, luck has a powerful influence over a longer period than most people appreciate.  Even seemingly straight forward actions have hidden elements of luck behind them and I will briefly discuss a couple of classic scenarios here.

Say you are dealt AK and raise get one call from the blinds; you are both fairly deep stacked, say 60bb or so. The flop comes down 29J rainbow. The villain checks so you decide to c-bet, he calls and the turn card is an 8. Now what do you do? Let us suppose you have history with this villain that they often call the flop bet to combat c-bets but fold turn with a big part of their range, betting the turn here is a big element of skill, now if the villain is unknown to you, either because you have never played them before or you have not made any notes or paid attention to their play then betting the turn has a huge slice of luck whether he calls or folds, this doesn’t mean that there is no skill involved or that betting the turn is wrong, but whether the villain calls or folds is out of your hands once you bet, you can control the bet size etc to help turn luck in your favour but that’s it. This example clearly demonstrates that the more information you obtain on your opponent’s patterns the more you can increase the skill factor in your play and in turn reduce the luck element.

Now let us suppose we are playing in a MTT full of competent and observant players and have been at the same table for an hour and have been totally card dead and played no hands as a result. All of a sudden you get AA in early position and raise and the whole table snap folds. You of course curse your bad luck that no one else had a hand, or if we had had a few hands in the last hour or so someone else may have been tempted to play a marginal hand against us because we don’t have an uber-tight image caused by not playing a hand for over an hour. It is true that if you had had a few playable hands in recent orbits your image wouldn’t be as tight as it is, but we cannot control the hands we get dealt. This is an element of luck that is out of our hands, or is it? If you are finding yourself card dead at a competent table then you should be able to open some pots with weak holdings which does two things; firstly it gives your image a boost, you no longer look like a complete nit so when you do get a monster hand you are more likely to get some action, secondly it also helps you to pick up a few smaller pots (providing you are choosing rights spots and telling a good story with your actions) and this will help you avoid some orthodox hands as described in MTT Luck Part 1 of this blog. Being a bit looser in the right conditions has a double effect at reducing the luck element in your game. Although being loose and playing more hands you run the risk of running into bigger hands and this has its own element of luck, providing you pick your spots well and do not go over aggressive you will be using your skill to gain a small edge which can only be a good thing.

When people talk about variance, or bad beats or luck of any kind they often will refer to the long term. Indeed I have mentioned it in my blog a few times. How often do you get a beat and tell a friend only for them to tell you that you want the call in the long term? What exactly is long term? Long term is a concept whereby if we play enough hands then the effect of luck will cancel itself out and we would run exactly at EV. The truth is that for MTTs at least, the long term does not exist. It is not a tangible entity; you cannot say that 10,000 MTTs or even a million MTTs is the long term. There are simply so many variables in MTTs that it is impossible to get close to the long term. By variables I mean such factors as buyin, number of runners, what stage of the MTT you are at, the dynamics etc. For example you might win one flip in a $5 MTT with 100 runners, but this is not cancelled out by losing a flip in the WSOP Main Event, although in terms of luck it is the same, clearly the weighting of luck is balanced towards the Main Event. It is physically impossible for anyone to play more than 100 Main Events in their lifetime so any luck encountered in the Main Event is short term, and the variance in it as such is off the scale. If I was to tell you that you were playing the main event and were going to bust out losing a flip would you rather it was a) Towards the end of the first day a long way from the money, b) Lose once inside the money but having only doubled your buyin or c) Bust early on the final table having already secured $1,000,000? Clearly you would choose c) as it means you have secured a tidy sum, but the variance in losing flip c) is far greater than losing a) or b) since there is more at stake on the FT. As such the stage in which we encounter luck also has an influence on our variance which makes the long term even further away.

It is true that the more MTTs you play the closer to EV you should be, but this does not mean that because you have run below EV for the past 1,000 MTTs that the next MTT you play you will run above EV. Luck does not remember the past; it has no concept of time at all and I believe it is entirely possible that some people are luckier than others, even over vast amounts of MTTs. There are so many variables at work that it is a mathematical certainty that even if two people played 1 million MTTs each that one of them would be luckier than the other, they could play another million MTTs and the gap could become even wider, there is no reason that it should get closer together just because they are getting closer to the long term. This is because they are in fact NOT getting closer to the long term. Just like when you try to count to infinity, even if you count to 1 billion you are still not closer to reaching it since it is not a tangible entity. In reality this means you could play as many MTTs as physically possible and run below EV over that sample but still run below EV in the next 1,000 you play.

Does this mean that long term is a myth, is it a lie spread to cover the fact that poker is rigged or that some players are luckier than others? No, the long term is valid as principle even though it is not tangible or achievable. What it actually refers to is that over time each MTT you play has a smaller influence over your sample size. Let us suppose we have flipped a fair coin 100 times and it has come up heads 90 times and tails 10 times. If we say we win when the coin lands tails then we are running 40% below EV, we are only winning 10% when we should be winning 50% in the long term, how very unlucky. What is the chance it comes up tails next? It is still 50/50, now let us suppose we flip the same coin another 100 times, this time it lands heads 70 times and tails 30, now we are running 20% below EV, so we are still running under EV. If we add the two samples together we have 160 heads and 40 tails, which means overall we are 30% below EV, which is closer to neutral than our original sample even though we continued to run under EV during the 2^nd sample. Now let’s suppose we flip the coin another 9,800 times and it lands heads 5,000 times and tails 4,800, we are still running below EV but combing it with our 200 flip sample we have a total of 5,160 heads and 4,840 tails which means we are running about 3% below EV. The reason for this is that each toss of the coin has less of an influence in the overall scheme of how close to EV you are. Taking the example of flipping the coin only once, you can only ever be 50% above EV or 50% below it. As such the long term is merely a principle of saying that the luck factor will tend towards the expected values the more you play, but you can never play enough to guarantee that you will be anywhere close to your EV.

A common mistake among MTT players (even seasoned pros) is failing to appreciate good luck when they get it. Poker seems very easy when you get dealt hands frequently and sit on the right side of coolers and hit all your draws, win the big flips etc. Even an average or weak player can win an MTT if they get enough of this run good and when this happens to a player early in their playing days they may get delusions of grandeur about their game, this is often followed by tilt rants when they don’t run as good as that all the time. Average players can go on heaters and can win numerous tournaments in a short span and it can seem like they are a world champion. Meanwhile their peers may look on with envy, hoping it will be their turn soon. This is a wasted emotion, but we are human and can’t always control our emotions as well as we would like.

Another factor that people often overlook in MTTs is that there can only ever be one winner, that combined with all the elements of luck that are involved in MTTs mean it is incredibly hard to win any individual MTT. So with so much luck is there any edge in MTTs? Yes of course there is, since there is obviously skill involved in a lot of hands, players who work hard and have an edge over others will be making good decisions more often than others and these players are more likely to have good results than those making bad ones. The more of an edge you have the less variance will affect you, but even the most skilful player is at the knees of variance. The two biggest weapons against variance are decision making and volume; make enough good decisions in enough MTTs, you will get deep enough often enough and you should come out a winner at some point, although I can't tell you when that point will be as that is in the hands of luck. Don’t let downswings affect your decision making as hard as it may be. Remember, all we can do is minimise the effect of luck where we can, do not worry about what is outside of your control as this can have no positive effects. Simply worry about what is under your control,  focus on your own decision making and look to continually improve your game and let variance and luck do as it pleases for we are a slave to it and not it’s master.

Thanks for reading, hope you have enjoyed this 3 part series, I won’t wish you good luck since that would be ironic, but I wish you good decision making!

MTT Luck Part 2 - Positive Hands

In Part 1 I described what an Orthodox hand was and how these were essentially flips regardless of the actual cards dealt, if you can get around to this way of thinking for Orthodox hands it may well help you deal with tilt issues when you get that set of 6s cracked by AA as in my previous example. It also highlights how in MTT endgames nearly every hand can become a flip as the play becomes standardised due to shallow stack sizes. So what about hands that we wouldn't play the same as our opponents?

Let us consider another simple hand, it is folded around to Player A, who is in the SB with 10bb, player B in the BB also has 10bb. Player A looks down to see QJs and decides to shove, player B looks at their cards and sees pocket Aces so snap calls the shove, the board runs out A27 T K giving player A the pot with a runner-runner gutshot, how sick was that hand? Note that player B would not have shoved the QJs if they had been in the SB, so this is not an Orthodox hand as discussed previously so we can not consider it a 'flip'. As such, on the face of it, it looks like player A got terribly lucky and player B terribly unlucky but luck in this hand is not a zero sum equation; that is that Player A is not as lucky as player B is unlucky. Why is this the case? Well let us analyse the hand again but this time we will do some basic calculations of the expected value of each players move. If you don’t want to get bogged down with the maths, skip this bit and go to the final figures I give in the table.

For simplicity let us assume at the start of the hand each player has exactly 10,000 chips, the SB is 500, the BB is 1,000 and there are 10 antes of 100 each in the pot, so the pot before any action is (100 x 10) + 500 + 1000 = 2,500 chips.

It is folded around to player A, who after posting the SB and ante has 9,400 chips left, they expect the BB to only call a shove with the top 20% of hands, so if player A shoves, player B folds 80% of the time. Of the 20% of the time player B calls, then player A has 44% equity against the top 20% of hands (check PokerStove to work this out if you wish).

We now have 3 possible outcomes: 

1.             80% of the time player A wins the pot of 2,500 chips so their stack becomes 9,400 + 2,500 = 11,900, the EV here is 0.8 x 11,900 = 9,520     
2.       When player A calls, player B still wins 44% of the time, this happens 44% x 20% = 8.8% of the time, the EV for player A here is 1,830. Calculated as 20,800 (the total size of the pot when both players call) x 0.088
3.       The rest of the time 11.2% player A loses and has zero stack

We now add these 3 figures together 9,520 + 1,830 + 0 = 11,350, this is the prior expected stack of player A after he shoves and this is a gain of 1,950, this is an increase of over 20%! (Prior Expected Stack is the stack that player A can expect to have on average when they shove prior to player B acting).

What happens to Player’s A’s expected stack size when B calls with AA, well AA v QJs is 80% v 20% so the posterior expected stack (This is the Expected stack of player A after B calls and shows AA) of A is 20,800 * 0.20 = 4,160. 

When player B sees AA, they don't really care what player A has, but let's assume that they expect play A to shove the top 50% of hands, player B has 85% equity against this range , we can calculate player B’s Prior Expected Stack (this is prior to Player A shoving  but given that Player B knows his own cards) and this is 14,540.

Similarly once player A shoves, we can work out that Player B’s Posterior Expected Stack is 16,640. I have summarised the scenarios and outcomes in the table below:

As we can see, both players have a positive expectation at the time they make their action (their Prior Expected Stacks are above their current stacks). I will label these types of hands as Positive Hands, in which both players make plays that have a positive expectation at the time given the info they have. Of course this is subjective depending on factors such as playing styles and there may be multiple streets of action some of which maybe slightly negative or have implied odds calculations etc but it highlights a good principal.

How can both players have positive expectations in the same hand? Well there are dead chips in the pot, but also player A makes a move against an unknown random hand, which means his shove is profitable long term. The fact here is that each player does not know his opponent’s hole cards so they both have different expectation levels to those that exist once the action plays out and the cards are shown. Note that the sum of the 2 Prior Expected Stacks do not equal the sum of the 2 stacks, but the sum of the Posterior Expected Stacks do, this is because the Prior stats take account of folding and ranges of random hands, the Posterior Stats have complete information. Once the hands are known one player can only gain at another’s expense as is seen in the table above.

So that’s a lot of number crunching, how does this fit in with luck in MTT’s?  Well we can see that when player A shoves he makes a good move that is profitable long term, but all of a sudden he expects to lose lost 7,190 (11,350 – 4,160) because player B has AA, this is out of A’s control so A can rightly say he has been very unlucky.

Also, Player B obviously makes a +EV move since he has the nuts at the time, but he has been lucky to get dealt AA at the start of the hand in a spot where player A can make a +EV move, he has a big +EV situation at the start of the hand but this increases further when player A shoves, even though A does not make a mistake by shoving. Since A has not made a mistake, we cannot state that he has been outplayed, as such player B is very lucky to have found himself on the right side of a positive hand. This is an often overlooked side of luck, it is very easy to get AA in the BB and the SB finds 84o and folds, the maths shows that AA wants the shove long term, but this is not under his control so he is lucky when he gets the shove.

Naturally when player B wins with the AA here he will want to congratulate himself on doubling up, but his double up is entirely down to luck, therefore when he loses with AA in this spot he should take it in good grace, this hand is in the hands of luck much like the orthodox hands but only these spots generally favour one player over the other since both players wouldn’t play it the same way. Player B is losing out in the long run when they have QJs in the SB but fold here, but this does not mean that they should begrudge player A winning occasionally when they shove QJs, remember QJs should beat AA about 20% of the time. In the long run here if Player A shoves QJs from the SB but Player B would fold, player A will crush player B assuming a random hand in the BB. Note this means there is a skill element in the prior element of the hand for Player A, but not for Player B, as such Player A has more right to be aggrieved at being unlucky that Player B, even though player B actually has the best hand when the stacks go in!

In summary, Positive Hands are hands where both players make a move that has a positive expectation prior to them knowing their opponent’s hole cards, however if the roles were reversed each player would act quite differently so these cannot be considered Orthodox hands, if both players were to act the same way then the Orthodox hand logic from part 1 should be applied. In Positive hand situations it is not necessarily the player with the best hand when the stacks go in who should feel the most upset when they lose the hand, but often it is the player who has the worst hand but runs into a better hand. They gain the most against a random hand but also lose the most when they are unlucky to run into the top range of hands. The player with the best hand also gains when the other player makes their own positive move which in itself is down to luck, so this player is lucky in two ways, firstly that they have such a good hand and secondly that their opponent has a hand good enough that they can make a positive move, therefore when you lose with the best hand in these spots you have already used some good luck up at the start of the hand. I have intentionally given an overly simplified example to illustrate my general point but there are lot of permutations and other factors involved of course. Try to bear this example in mind next time someone shoves a positive hand into your AA which gets cracked.

MTT Luck Part 1

I've had a terrible few days of luck following a short spell of running above EV, on the train back from London this morning I was dozing and thinking about Luck in MTTs, and what it really means and whether I could reduce the luck effect in my games, I will share some of my early morning half-asleep thoughts over a few blogs:

A lot of poker players will talk about how they get more than their fair share of beats or how they never win crucial flips, or how so and so is always in god mode. Luck is much more than your pocket kings holding to ace rag, or your queens winning a race v AK. Luck can take many subtle forms some of which we don’t appreciate.

Table Draws

The first element of luck in an MTT is undoubtedly the table draw, imagine sitting down to a table where you have known sharks all with position on you, while your friend has a table full of fish, clearly you have been unlucky and will find it harder to gain chips than your friend. This can be particularly true in deep stack MTTs for two reasons, firstly the game is deeper stacked so players skill edges are more apparent, on a table full of sharks it is harder to get paid with a set when your opponent holds top pair, but on a fishier table it may well be much easier. Also deep stack games generally mean that your table will stay together for longer, so you will be playing with you current players for a lot longer, if the table if full of sharks it can be hard for anyone to gain chips, while the players at the neighbouring tables collect the chips of the weaker players.

Further to this I believe that if you are at a tight table, this means you will as a rule be playing lots of small pots, this means there is usually low variance at the beginning of the MTT but this gets higher towards the middle/end of the game game as you are frequently shorter stacked as a result of not winning many big pots.

Conversely a looser table means fewer but bigger pots, so variance levels can be quite high at the beginning but comparatively less in middle as your stack size is usually better when you survive the loose play.

So which table is preferable at the start of an MTT? I would say a loose table that allows me to play a tight aggressive game where I can look to get paid handsomely when I hit, since this is my preference I must accept a high level of variance at the start of a MTT, it will mean making more marginal decisions, such as stacking off with JJ preflop to a known loose shove but the same hand would be an instant fold on a tight table. It also means accepting that the loose player will chase his draws and inevitably will hit some of the time. However, winning bigger pots enables the player to take more control in the middle stages and provides a cushion against variance as they can usually take one or two hits from shorter stacks, it also allows the player to use their stack to apply pressure in the mid stages. A player coming from a tight table may have won numerous pots but may not have even doubled their starting stack, whereas a player from a loose table may have tripled or quadrupled their stack playing 2 or 3 pots only. I know I have been frustrated many times playing at a tight table, where I can chip away and win lots of small pots but still fall behind the average stack and find myself in shove fold mode too quickly, I definitely want a loose starting table, particular if the structure is deep. Of course I have no influence over who starts at my table or how they play so this is 100% luck.

Orthodox Hands

For the purposes of this blog I am going to define what I call an orthodox hand:

An orthodox hand is a hand where you and your opponent would play the hand virtually the same way if the roles were reversed, let suppose player A has 20bb and picks up AK in mid position and raises it up to 2.5x, player B in the BB has QQ and 20bb so shoves and A calls. Now let us suppose player B is in mid position with AK and raises it to 3x, now player A is in the BB and also shoves QQ, clearly the action is virtually the same and this is what I call an Orthodox Hand. AK v QQ is the classic example and is probably the most frequent race seen in MTTs and the outcome can be the difference between winning a title or busting out early on a final table.

Let us take another example where player A has AA and player B has 66, A raises and B just calls, everyone else folds and the flop comes 36T rainbow and A bets half the pot and B calls. The turn is a Jack and player A bets again and B now shoves over the top, now if player A is tight and B is loose, then A will usually have a hard time folding here but if the roles were reversed then player B might be able to fold their overpair if they know that A is a tight player with a narrow range here which comprises mostly sets. Therefore if A goes broke with AA but player B would not go broke with the same hand then it’s not an orthodox hand as there is some skill in deciding whether to call, but if both players were to go call with the AA (if the stacks are too shallow to fold AA here for example) then this becomes an orthodox hand. Clearly this is a matter of judgement and it is not easy to identify whether a hand was orthodox or not, but bear with me because it is the conclusion drawn from this rather than the exact definition that is important.

Here is a recent hand from the PKR Open:

Blinds are now 30 / 60

Button is at seat 9

Seat 1: Mutufs - 2,280

Seat 2: englANDfans - 2,870

Seat 3: ForFoxSake - 5,140

Seat 4: checkerr87 - 2,360

Seat 5: buscseb - 4,182

Seat 6: GoldHands - 5,500

Seat 7: Toffeyman - 2,480

Seat 8: bpitman - 5,725

Seat 10: brentos - 2,440

Moving Button to seat 10

Mutufs posts small blind (30)

englANDfans posts big blind (60)

Dealing [A s][A h] to ForFoxSake

ForFoxSake raises to 180

checkerr87 folds

buscseb folds

GoldHands folds

Toffeyman raises to 540

bpitman folds

brentos folds

Mutufs calls 540

englANDfans folds

ForFoxSake raises to 1,260

Toffeyman raises to 2,480 (all-in)

Mutufs folds

ForFoxSake calls 2,480

ForFoxSake shows [A s][A h]

Toffeyman shows [K s][K h]

Dealing Flop [8 d][2 c][Q c]

Dealing Turn [K d]

Dealing River [3 c]

Toffeyman has Three of a Kind: Kings

Toffeyman wins 5,560 with: Three of a Kind: Kings

I get AA cracked by KK, but if I had been Toffeyman here with KK I would have played it the exact same way. We are equally likely to be on the good (AA) or the bad (KK) side of this hand, furthermore my EV when I have AA v KK here is the same as Toffeyman’s EV when he has AA and I have KK. This means over the longrun our EV in this orthodox hand is the same. Note in effect here I may as well have had KK and lost to AA as it wouldn’t have affected either of our play in the hand. Since I am equally like to have got the KK side of this hand rather than the AA, the hand above is not a bad beat, it is actually a flip!

In an orthodox hand note that since both players would play the hand virtually the same, there is no skill difference involved in the hand whatsoever, and since no skill is involved the hand is 100% luck, this includes your hole cards and any and all community cards dealt. Whenever the luck element is 100% in a hand it is essentially a flip as the cards are meaningless, it is just in effect a lottery. Taking the AA v the set of 6s example above, if the villains calls your shove but you would also call the shove if the roles were reversed then you have not outplayed your opponent or been outplayed, so the skill element is 0% which means it is all down to luck!  So if you hold the set of 6s but would have called the all in if you had the AA, then if your opponent calls and hits the 2 outer Ace on the river and you lose the hand then it is not a bad beat but merely a flip (you were just as likely to be the one holding the AA here and rivering the 2 outer).

Let’s just clarify that again, you could get your money in as a 90%+ favourite and lose the hand but it is not a bad beat if you would play the hand the same way in the villain’s shoes, the hand is in essence a flip as the roles are just as likely to have been reversed and over the long term neither of you will gain any EV from the other as you both will have been on each side of the orthodox hand the same number of times.

Note the more orthodox hands you are involved in the larger variance will be (as you are essentially flipping each time), this is why variance in the late stages of MTTs is huge because the stacks are so shallow that most hands play themselves and everyone plays them in a similar way, so most hands become orthodox hands. 

The only way to try and combat this is to use your skill edge to win as many non orthodox hands as possible, the more chips you have the more orthodox hands you can afford to lose before being eliminated. Good MTT players will win non showdown pots which weaker players do not take advantage of and the weaker players fall victim of orthodox hands a lot more as they are invariably shorter stacked and they play hands in a standard way. The best MTT players are often deeper stacked and so can avoid orthodox hands more because their deeper stack allows them to play hands in a different way (if you have 20bb it is very hard to fold AK preflop for example, but with 70bb you might find you are behind and can fold).

Another way to reduce the effect of luck is to control tilt, the next time you get a big hand cracked think about how you would have played the villain's hand, if it was practically the same as they played it, then try to think of that hand as an orthodox hand in which you lost a flip rather than losing to a 2 outer or however the hand played out.

That's all I will say on the subject for now, hopefully I have explained the concept of orthodox hands well enough for you to understand, but if it is not clear then feel free to leave me a comment and I will try and provide a more detailed example. I will give more thoughts on MTT Luck in the near future, until then good luck!

2012 First Quarter Review

January started with a trip to the Fox Club for their main event, having made day 2 and busting to a cooler a few places from the money in December I was hoping to do better this time around. There were 143 entries with 15 paid and a top prize of just over £13k. The first few levels were fairly standard and I was winning a lot of pots without showdowns by mixing up my play, I won a big pot when I opened with Aces over a limper who called, the flop came down 2cJc8s and I ended up getting it in v T9c, I had the guy covered and it was only about 50% of my stack but it was still a sweat, but the board bricked and I was amongst the chiplead after winning another decent pot turning the nut straight with KT, although I chopped with another player who had KT also, we got a 3^rd player’s stack who had the small end of the straight. Soon after I got A8o on the button and opened to 1,400 from an 85k stack, the blinds are 300/600 and at this point I get distracted by the Fox Club blogger who wanted a chip count etc from me, meanwhile the BB shoved for 9k and slightly distracted I made a quick call, it felt like the guy was making a stand to the button open, I had been fairly aggressive and so I called and he flipped AQh and I lost the pot and kicked myself somewhat for making the call, however soon after the same player 3 bet shoved rags and busted which made me feel a little better since he was clearly capable of raising wide but I just happened to run into him having a hand. At the end of the first day I bagged 102k; with an average stack of 84k and 38 players left I was happy with my play and looking forward to day 2.

Soon into day 2 I get AA and raise over a limp and get called, the flop comes 884 and I c-bet and get called, I know the limper is loose and I have heard him say previously that 8 is his favourite number so I am very wary and check the brick turn, he fires on the brick river and I call and he shows 83o and I drop to 75k ish. After this I struggle for momentum for a while before doubling with JJ v Ace rag and we go down to 2 tables, with 15 being paid I try to pick up the aggression and win a few small pots but by the time the bubble burst I am just below the average stack, soon after a strange player shoved 5bb or so from EP it folded to me in the BB and I had JQo, this guy had previously shoved hands like 92o while folding Ax hands, I decided I was in good shape against him and called, he flipped 84 but he made a full house and that left me short, soon after I open shoved J2h and ran into kings and busted in 15^th, which while it was a cash was also a disappointment since I had had a good stack for most of the tournament.

The very next day I won Welllbet’s Home Game on PKR but despite this January was a miserable month a few minor cashes and winning Welllbet’s again at the end of the month didn’t stop me recording a loss for the month, I also played the £540 APT event at the Fox but didn’t really get anywhere in it and lost a flip with JJ to AK, all in all January was pretty bad and I had had higher hopes for February. 2 wins in a month without many other serious cashes is not enough for someone who plays lots of mid and high stake MTTs throughout the month.

February would prove even worse, a 2^nd and 3^rd in the Monte Carlo were my only notable results and my bankroll was taking a severe hit. I was feeling really low  about my game and was seriously considering taking a break, I decided to give it another week or two and I managed to win the Monte Carlo, this helped me to regain some of my confidence and a few days later I won a Primetime and the day after that the Dirty Dozen, these 3 wins combined were worth nearly $5k and suddenly things were looking up again, a more steady stream of minor cashes also helped maintain my bankroll and I won the Dirty Dozen again towards the end of the month. March had proven to be a really good for me and had more than made up for my losses in the previous two months.

It just shows how quickly things can change in MTTs, I was down and out a few weeks ago but suddenly my confidence was back. I am a firm believer that confidence is a huge factor in MTTs, when I am feeling confident my instincts are generally better and I make better decisions in marginal spots. Let’s take an example of where I have been card dead in an MTT for a while and I get dealt QQ, UTG raises and I 3 bet from UTG+1 and all of a sudden a mid position player cold 4 bet shoves, instinct tells me they have AA or KK most of the time but if I am feeling low on confidence then I am more likely to call because I have no belief that I can get chips elsewhere, either because I am not playing my A game or the cards are not going my way or a combination of both, whereas when I am confident I can hit the fold button easier trusting my abilities (and also variance) will allow me to regain chips in a better spot. Confidence also naturally means I play more aggressive and providing this doesn’t lead to over-confidence and over-aggression this can only be a good thing as controlled aggression will win more chips without showdowns than a tight game will, this in turn usually leads to better results since less showdowns means less luck is involved and this generates a confidence cycle. As I type this I am feeling confident about my game and have had a few decent results recently, which have been a combination of me playing my best game and also getting a good run of cards (I don’t think I have been in god mode in terms of variance but I have been running above EV which is always a welcome change).

April has so far continued as March left off and I am going to play the London Calling Main Event at the Fox club over the Easter weekend so I am hoping I can transfer my online results into a deep live finish, hopefully my next blog will be about me winning my first live MTT J

Min Cash Syndrome

In an earlier entry I mentioned that I had often suffered from Min Cash Syndrome, with that in mind I have decided to write a short piece on what it is, what causes it and ways to try and overcome it, while this won’t transform your game it might help give you a few ideas to think about.

What is Min Cash Syndrome?

MTTs payout to a predetermined amount of the highest placed finishers, but the vast majority of the prizepool is weighted towards the top 3 players. If you finish just inside the cash you will often receive only 2 to 4 times your initial buyin and this is commonly called a min cash. If you find yourself min cashing frequently but rarely finishing in the top 3 then you are likely to be suffering from Min Cash Syndrome (MCS). While there is nothing wrong with MCS, it is generally accepted that MTTs are more profitable if you aim to win them rather than min cash since the prize for winning once is a lot more than for min cashing a few times.

What are the Common Causes?

Some of the common causes of MCS are:

1.    Poor Bank Roll Management – if you are playing in an MTT that is above your bankroll then any min cash will often be a large percentage of your bankroll so your natural instinct will be to make it into the money first

2.    Poor confidence – you may be on a downswing and have not cashed at all lately so aim to just make the money to try and boost your confidence

3.    Tight game – you game is naturally a tight one this will often mean you are shorter than average by the time the bubble bursts so you are less likely to make the top 3

4.    Poker is just a hobby - any profit from your hobby makes you happy so your primary goal is to cash

5.    Qualified via a lotto – If you qualified to a $20 + $2 MTT via a lotto for $2.31 you may think a min cash (~$40) is a good return on your $2.31. Note this is really a myth as over the long term the ticket costs you more since you pay an additional 5% rake so a $2.31 lotto giving 1 in 10 tickets to a $22 MTT will cost you $23.10 in long run…)

Do you see any of the above in your game and do you want to try and overcome MCS? If so then read on....

How to Combat MCS?

1.    Employ better Bank Roll Management, there are plenty of good articles on this subject if you are not sure about proper BRM rules

2.    Shake off the confidence issues, start afresh with a new approach/philosophy and try not to let short term results affect your game

3.    Abuse the bubble - Play in MTTs with smaller fields to practise bubble play (usually there will be longer bubble periods in smaller fields) don’t open limp because you are trying to preserve your stack, if you want to play a hand and there is no action before you then raise it up, this will help you obtain more chips in the long run than limping and hoping to hit. Take notes on who ladders and look to punish them now and in future MTTs

4.    Try not to let your stack get too small (anything less than 10-15bb is trouble although this depends on the structure etc.) you don’t want to lose your fold equity (people are more likely to call if you shove 5bb than 12bb so you rely on luck more with a smaller stack)

5.    Drop stakes to practise, you won’t be as worried about min cashing in a MTT that is below your usual buyin, although you should be aware that steal attempts are less likely to work in lower level MTTs

6.    Be prepared for longer cashless streaks, if you are trying to obtain a big stack you will inevitably bubble more, but this is made up for the rewards you get when you get a big stack and get a deep finish

7.    Don’t let looking at the payout structure tighten your game, you should only be looking at it to work out when the bubble is so you can use that to take advantage of others who are trying to min cash

8.    Be aware of other players who may be taking advantage and re-steal from them. Once people see you won’t be pushed around they are less likely to steal your blinds

Here is a hand from near the bubble of a recent $20 MTT which gives a brief illustration of accumulating chips without a hand on the bubble:

Blinds are now 1,000 / 2,000

Button is at seat 8

Seat 1: Seat 1 - 26,342

Seat 2: Seat 2 - 38,436

Seat 3: Seat 3 - 78,297

Seat 5: Seat 5 - 22,325

Seat 6: Seat 6 - 100,495

Seat 8: ForFoxSake - 85,288

Shuffling Deck

Moving Button to seat 1

Everyone posts ante of 200

Pot sizes: 1,200

Seat 2 posts small blind (1,000)

Seat 3 posts big blind (2,000)

Dealing Cards

Dealing 9d, Kc to ForFoxSake

Seat 5 and 6 fold

It’s folded to me on the cut-off, I have over 40bb which is above average and my K9o is certainly worth a raise here, I make it just less than 2.2x as this has been my recent standard open raise size

ForFoxSake raises to 4,355

Seat 1 folds

Seat 2 has requested more time

Seat 2 calls 4,355

Seat 3 calls 4,355

Pot sizes: 14,265

Dealing Flop Ac, Qs, 6d

Seat 2 and 3 check

Both blinds call and check the flop to me, the flop is fairly dry other than gutshot straight draws so I decide to c-bet slightly less than half the pot

ForFoxSake bets 6,577

Seat 2 folds

Seat 3 raises to 16,000

I get check raised, but I don’t believe my opponent has a strong hand here, it’s likely a weak ace or a QJ type hand, I would expect strong Ax hands to 3 bet preflop, I would also expect a set to just call on the dry flop and check raise the turn, so the majority of the time this is a medium strength hand trying to define where they are. Since we are on the bubble and because of our stack sizes I can re-raise to an amount that puts a lot of pressure on my opponent but still allows me to fold if he shoves and I will still have a playable stack of 25bb.

ForFoxSake raises to 28,000

Seat 3 folds

ForFoxSake doesn't show

ForFoxSake wins 46,265

I win a nice pot with some good thought and reasoning, but sometimes these spots will go wrong and you will lose chips but as long as you are making good reads and decisions in the long run you should find yourself accumulating more chips which should help you make deeper runs. There are times when it is difficult to employ this strategy, for example if the table is really aggressive or if players are calling every street then it is often better to wait for good hands and bet for value as bluffing is going to cost you chips far too often.

If you decide to try any of these things out, good luck and be sure to let me know how you get on.

2011

I started 2011 by going on a 2 week cruise around Hawaii, paid for by my results of 2010. Being onboard a cruise is fantastic, most importantly a wide range of food was available 24 hours a day and since it was all inclusive I made sure I got more than my fair share! There were lots of facilities onboard, such as a full gym (which I avoided, I don’t work out at home so I certainly wasn’t going to start on holiday!) and a casino, which of course is where my I spent a lot of time. There was one poker table, it was an automated PokerPro table, which combines online and live poker, you sit around a table that has a screen for each player and one in the middle. Most of the people that played where middle aged / old Americans, even from the first night I realised this could very profitable for me despite the 20% rake charges on SNGs, which had a 1500 starting stack and quick blinds. The play was very loose early in the SNGs and would tighten up as the blinds went up and players were blinding down to 2bb or less, I would press in the middle stages and my strategy paid dividends, I won 6 of the 14 SNGs I played and cashed in 4 others. I made over $1,000 profit I also won a blackjack tournament for $500; due to others lack of understanding in tournament blackjack and some luck of course.

When I arrived back home I had a largely uneventful first quarter of 2011 but in March PKR held a PKR Social event at the Fox Poker Club in London. This included a Friday night SNG fest with free bar; needless to say much fun was had with variety of SNGs played, including doubles and one up Hold’Em.

Riots in London


The $130 event started on the Saturday and I immediately lost most of my stack with KK to a flopped set, I didn’t play the hand too well but I managed to double up soon after shoving JJ and holding v AK after that I managed to pick up blinds and squeeze a few times, no one seemingly wanted to risk becoming a short stack themselves and eventually I got back to a competitive stack. There were a couple of distractions to the poker though, first off there were riots down Shaftesbury Avenue outside the club as can be seen in the video above. Also some of the PKR staff dressed as Teletubbies as part of a lost bet, this made for much fun and laughter and shows the spirit of the occasion. I continued to play aggressive, making moves as we approached the bubble and I made the final table eventually finishing 7th, I open shoved 73d in the small blind but the big blind called with KQ and I was virtually out, down to one ante and despite winning the next hand I lost the next. It was a highly enjoyable weekend all round.


Teletubbies Invade

PKR Teletubbies from Paul Condron on Vimeo.

I won a couple of Montes and the Gold freeroll but finished 3rd in a WSOP Package qualifier, with the top 2 getting tickets which hurt but another couple of Monte wins saw the start of a run of good luck for me which gave me several good results around June time. I was also trying to play more cash games, but lacked the commitment necessary to grind out the number of hands necessary to improve my game, cash was just a table filler alongside my MTTs, but I did enjoy playing in some cash game TV episodes, including the one below which featured several 4 figure pots. I had played a loose game in the cash TV game the day before which was $0.50/$1 which helped give me a LAG image for the $1/2 game the next day which enabled me to win some big pots, unfortunately I lost a $1k pot to Durrrsucks when I had a higher set on the turn but he hit quads on the river, then most of the money went in as I had a loose image I felt my set was good most of the time despite the action he was giving me.

PKR Cash TV June 17th


In August I attended my first PKR Leeds meetup, again this was a great weekend full of poker, beer and general degeneracy. I managed a couple of 4th place finishes but the poker was really an aside to some of the banter. If you have never attended a PKR meetup, I highly recommend you do so as they are full of friendly faces. I also attended a team event in Sheffield, where we bubbled the prizes despite me bubbling the final table and Destacker winning the event, this was also followed by a mini meetup in Southampton which was more of the same!

One of my goals at the start of 2011 was to play more live poker, but aside from the social events it wasn’t until December that I played my first major MTT of 2011, this was the Fox Club Main event, which is a £330 2 day event with a 22k starting stack and 45 minute levels. After 4 hands I was down to 18k, I had played all 4 hands and got outdrawn for small pots in each, still it wasn’t a big problem as it gave me useful information. I struggled to win any big pots all day, but managed to keep my stack ticking along slowly. During the last level of the day I got more aggressive and managed to win a flip which left me with above 60k going into day 2. Day 2 started well, I won a small flip and picked up a few small pots to get to around 80k when the aggressive chip leader opened and one player called, I looked down at QQ and as I only had 20bb decided to squeeze shove, the raiser folded but the caller snapped and he showed KK and he held, which left me hitting the rail a dozen or so places from the money.

A couple of weeks later I headed to the Dusk till Dawn Poker Club in Nottingham for their £1k buyin Monte Carlo event, which had a 30k starting stack with 1 hour blinds and played over 3 days. Day one started well, half the table were absent for the first level which allowed me to collect lots of pots, I only showed down one hand in the first level which was AJ on a ace high board. The second level started and by now most of the table were present, I got dealt QQ on the button and open raised (which I had being doing every orbit with little resistance from the blinds) the sb folded but the bb 3 bet, this was the first time she had 3 bet me, I put in a 4 bet and got called. The flop came QT6 rainbow and the big blind led into me, at this point the effective stacks were about 200bb deep and I figure that she either has a big hand and is looking for me to raise or is betting for info and plans to fold to a raise. I decide that if it’s the latter she is likely to shut down on later streets anyway and as we are so deep I want to try and get all the chips in so I raise and she 3 bets and so I shove as by now I am pretty certain she has a big hand (I am thinking either a set or AA) she thinks for a while but eventually calls and flips AA, the turn is a king but the river bricks and I get a nice double up. The rest of the day was fairly standard, the early double allowed me to change gears when I needed too, tightening up for periods when the action got loose and loosening up towards the end of the day when everyone started to think about day 2. I made day 2 with a good stack but was busted within the first two hours, I ran a set into an unlikely rivered straight and had lost with a straight to a flush and ended up short, I ended up squeeze shoving 15bb when I saw an ace in my hand, I got called by 99 and when I saw the other card was a 3 I was in bad shape and I didn’t improve. After a promising start I was really disappointed to be out so early, but I felt my play had been good I just lacked a bit of fortune in day 2.

Toward the end of 2011 I won a couple of Prime Times having played really well on both final tables but I had bubbled a qualifier for WPT Ireland, my satellite woes continued, despite playing nearly every final satellite going I never quite got over the line, coming close on a couple of other occasions, I just never won a crucial flip here or there and on occasion had become a little too tight hoping others would bust out rather than taking the lead myself. 2011 had been an OK year for me, it wasn’t as good as 2010 even taking out the Masters victory, I had played a lot more higher stake MTTs and despite several 4 figure scores I didn’t have a level of consistency throughout the year and also paid the price for playing lots of big satellites which have a steep payout structure which I failed to cash in on.