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!