Target Amount

Odds

Poker is a mixture of Mathematics and Psychology, while the latter is quite qualitative and based on judgements, the maths side is usually a lot more black and white. Therefore learning the maths side of poker can help to improve your game. The majority of the maths involved in poker revolves around odds and there are plenty of articles on Outs, Pot Odds and Implied Odds which you should familiarise yourself with if you haven’t already.

I don’t like to write about topics that have been covered to death and written better than I could hope to, so I am going to briefly talk about a couple of related concepts that I use rather than using Pot Odds or Implied Odds, these may or may not help but I always think it’s useful to look at things from a different angle, I will try to keep the maths to a minimum but some is required!

Maximum Return

One thing you can always do is calculate your Maximum Return; that is the maximum amount you can win from a pot if everyone still in the hand at that point went all in. Let us say we are on the cut-off with 18bb and it is folded to us, before blinds were posted the button has 12bb, the SB has 22bb and the BB has 17bb, assuming no antes in play our Maximum Return is 12bb + 18bb + 17bb = 47bb (we can only win 18bb from the SB since we only have 18bb ourselves). Even in a dream scenario where everyone behind us went all in and we won the pot we would only show 47bb profit and of course this is extremely unlikely, for example, if the button folds preflop our MR drops to 35bb.

Taking another scenario we are in a pot which is on the flop and there is already 12bb in the pot, we have 20bb behind and have a 22bb and a 13bb stack still involved in the hand, here our MR is 12bb + 20bb + 13bb = 45bb.

Maximum Return is useful as it is a definite known quantity which may help us quickly identify that we are not getting the implied odds required as there are not enough chips in play to make it ever worth chasing that flush draw.

Target Amount

All these different numbers and definitions can be confusing but when involved in a hand and making an odds decision I usually calculate things in a slightly different way than Pot and Implied Odds, I call this Target Amount (TA) and I will give an example to demonstrate how I might do this as this will make it clearer than any explanation could.

I am dealt ThJh on the button and a TAG player opens from early position, we have reached the turn and the board read AhQd2h 7s, the pot is 2,000 and we both have 8,000 behind, the TAG player bets 1,500 on the turn, what is the best move here? Well if I call and miss my flush and straight draws on the river I am folding and investing nothing else in the pot, I am also going to rule out raising (although that may be a valid play in some circumstances I am ruling it out here for illustration) so our options here are either to call or fold, if we make our draw we will try to get value on the river, if we miss we will fold.

It costs me 1,500 to call here, to make things easier I am going to assume we know the villain has AcKc so I have 11 outs and this equates to roughly 25%, which means I need to win 3x whatever I call in order to break even (3 to 1 – if you are unsure of how this figure is reached then google the subject and you should find some handy articles to help). This means I need to win a total of 1,500 x 3 = 4,5000 to break even therefore 4,500 is my Target Amount at this point in the hand, note the TA may change at different points in a hand as action unfolds.

As there is 3,500 already in the pot (2,000 plus my opponents 1,500 bet) I need to make at least another 1,000 on the river when I make my hand to hit my target amount and thus for the call to be profitable (do not make the mistake of adding the cost of your call into this equation, you haven’t called yet so it cannot be added into the pot and as such it is not profit).

So the question to ask is if I call this turn bet how likely is it that I can make at least 1,000 on the river when I make my hand. If I call on the turn the pot will be 3,500 + 1,500 = 5,000 so it is reasonable to assume that when I make my hand I can make at least 1,000 on average, e.g. if I bet 2,500 when I make my hand and only get called 50% of the time then in the long run I make 1,250 on the river when I hit my hand, calling the turn therefore is profitable, the river bet of 2,500 is only half the pot and so is a reasonable river bet and the villain has 8,000 behind so it is putting about a third of his stack at risk so he is more likely to feel he can call and still have a playable stack.

Of course if you are playing a good player they may put you on the flush draw and may fold more than 50% of the time to a 2,500 bet so you may not be able to reach that target amount no matter what bet size on the river you choose and so would not be able to call the turn bet, similarly if stack sizes are short you may never be able to reach your Target Amount as your opponent does not have that many chips behind (this is where Maximum Return is used). If in the example above the villain only had 3,000 behind then it is probably going to be much harder to get them to call a value bet when we hit so the TA is harder to make and so calling should be less appealing.

Notice that I didn’t calculate pot odds or implied odds, I looked at how much I had to call and determined what amount I needed to win if I made the call, if this Target Amount is reasonably achievable in the long term then the call can be deemed profitable, this doesn’t always mean it is the best play of course!

In another hand we get dealt pocket deuces in mid position, we have 28bb and UTG + 1 makes it 3bb to go from his 30bb stack. Should we set-mine here? Well we will flop a set 1 in 8 times, so 7 times we lose the value of our call which makes a total of 7 x 3bb = 21bb. This means that the 1 time in 8 that we flop the set we need to make a profit of 21bb just to break even, so we need to make 24bb (since we are putting 3bb in by calling) the original raise was 3bb and there is another 1.5bb in the pot from the blinds, so we need to make a further 24 – 3 – 1.5 = 19.5bb postflop when we flop the set, this is over half of our remaining stack! This means we would need to double up at least 50% of the time we flop our set and this is usually an unrealistic assumption as the original raiser may fold as they missed the board or they may get it in with us but either have a better hand or hit a draw to improve to the better hand. Add this to the fact that if we do flat preflop there is always the chance that someone squeezes and we might not even see a flop. This means we should aim for above our Target Amount (how far above depends on how likely we feel we are to be squeezed off the pot) and so this makes the decision a pretty easy fold if we are purely set mining. Of course we may have reads on the villain that mean we are happy to call here as we know they will always stack off if we hit the set or they never c-bet without a good hand which may allow us to win the pot without a set.

These last 2 or 3 points cannot be quantified and our opponents range may not always be well defined and so there will always be a grey area when it comes to calling based on a Target Amount but it can be a useful guide and as shown above can often illustrate a spot that is a clear fold or a clear call, if you are not confident of making these kind of calculation during a hand then you could even create a spreadsheet with common bet sizes (either in number of blinds or as an amount of the pot, e.g. ½ pot etc) and chances of winning to get grids of target amounts based on typical situations (such as flush draws, small PPs etc) using this you would always have a figure that closely resembles the situation you are in which you could refer to in play to help your decision making. Of course there will always be grey areas and this is where you will need to use your experience to make a decision that may override any calculations you make.

This will probably be my last blog this year so I wish you and your families a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year J

To Flip or not to Flip?

I made the journey to the Fox Poker Club for their main event this weekend and very early on had a hand that I think is worth a little discussion, players often ask whether you would take a flip early on in a tournament to double your stack, usually the response is no as the variance is too high and the double stack is not worth twice as much as a single stack (tournament chips are not linear in value, that is the most valuable chip is your last one as once you lose it you are out, similarly each extra chip you have is worth slightly less than the previous one). For these reasons this refusal to double or nothing early doors is quite a sensible one in my opinion, but poker is not a game of absolutes as the hand I am going to discuss will illustrate.

First off a little background information that is important, the tournament is a 2 day live event with a £400 + £35 buyin and a £10 optional dealer bonus, the starting stack is 25,000 +  2,500 dealer bonus and the blinds start at 25/50 with 45 minute levels. It has quite a good structure and allows 1 re-entry per person for the first 6 levels, it has a guaranteed prizepool of £25,000 and I was expecting around 70 – 80 entrants.

We are in the first level of the tournament having played for about 30 minutes, I am down slightly on my starting stack at around 26k and haven’t yet showdown a hand. In the hand in question UTG opens to 800 (16bb) from a stack of 21.5k and gets two callers from middle position, and it folds to me in the big blind and I look down at AQo. I have played with this villain before and he is very loose and is often busted within the first couple of levels and immediately re-enters, he is quite happy to bluff and gamble and although he is UTG here he doesn’t have to have a big hand. He also varies his raise sizes frequently, generally weaker and monster hands he would be raising slightly less (400-600) and so I was fairly confident that I could narrow his range down and gave him a range of approximately the following QQ-77,ATs+,KQs,AJo+,KQo, I think AA and KK are unlikely here due to the sizing. Against this range I am about 51% so it looks like a good spot to squeeze, however we are 430bb deep and I have also seen the villain get it in with pretty much all of his opening range here so I cannot rely on any fold equity and this also means I am reluctant to 3 bet then fold to this opponent. 

So this spot is basically a question of whether I want to flip or not, if I do then I can raise to around 3k with the intention of getting it in against him although I would have to re-evaluate if one of the other players raises back, if I am just called preflop I will have to re-evaluate but I think this is an unlikely case. If I do not want to get it in here then I can either call out of position or even just fold, even though this seems quite tight the guy will barrel a lot of the time and my life will be difficult out of position 4 way. So I quickly weighed up the pros and cons of 3 betting to get it in here, these are what I saw the cons to be:

1)We are very deep and flipping is high variance

2) I have very little fold equity to add to the EV from flipping

3) It is possible one of the other two players is trapping

4) I might only get calls which will mean I am playing a bloated pot out of position against a loose opponent

5) Doubling my stack is less than twice as good as keeping my stack

  

And the pros:

1) The villain is on my immediate left and is very aggressive making it harder for me to win chips without a decent hand while he is there

2) The structure is good and even if I lose I will have 90bb left to try and work with or gamble

3) It is a re-entry tournament, which increases the chances he will get in when I have him dominated, it also means I can re-enter if I lose and then bust my remaining chips

4) There is 1,600 of likely dead chips in the middle

5) Getting a big stack would allow me to be more aggressive in subsequent hands

6) The villain is likely to gamble off his chips in another hand and this is a chance for me to get them before someone else does

This last point links quite nicely to my previous blog about edge, in particular how our edge changes as the dynamics change and how our edge isn’t as big as it may appear if there are other good players at the table fighting for those chips. Point 6 definitely has a lot of weight here as there were other good players at the table who I didn’t want to get his chips as they would make my life even harder, add this to the fact that my edge over this player is reduced due to me being directly out of position and this edge is going to diminish as the blinds increase. If I had had position on this player then I would have been much more likely to call and assess on the flop.

Taking all this into account within a few seconds I decided to raise to 3k, UTG shoved and the other players folded, I called and flipped my AQ to find he had pocket 8s, I had got 430bb effective in preflop with AQo which may seem crazy but I was happy with it in this spot. Alas, I didn’t catch and ended up down to 4.5k, but after grinding this stack for a while I got back to the starting stack and eventually got well above average when I got it all in with AcAh on 2s4c5h 4h board v Kh3h and my aces held (They do hold sometimes!). I eventually busted on the last level of day 1 after triple barrel bluffing a K high board and getting called down by KQ, this left me around 20bb and soon after I got AK and flatted an UTG open the flop came KQ3 and I called his bet then he checked the brick turn and called my bet, the Ace on the river gave me top two and he put me all in, I called to find he had JT and rivered the stone cold nuts, I had slowplayed preflop and on the flop to try and get value and I did get value but in doing so I ran the risk of him hitting which he did on this occasion. Given my recent run in live games I can’t complain about some misfortune!

In summary, although generally we want to avoid flips when very deep in tournaments, we shouldn’t always shy away from them if there are stronger reasons for flipping than against, it will always hurt to lose big flip early on in a MTT and it increases variance but in the right spots it can increase your $EV, particularly if you can use the big stack well.

Edge

I often hear of poker players talking about their edge over the table, but I believe many people fail to understand what edge means and more importantly they overvalue their edge, particularly in the latter stages of MTTs, in this post I am going to briefly go through what I believe edge means and what it entails, I will give you advance warning that this is quite a woolly entry and probably won’t help you in any tangible way except help kill 5 minutes of time while you are bored at work J

Most poker enthusiasts will have seen the movie Rounders, where Mike McDermott proclaims that if you can’t spot the sucker in the first 20 minutes at the table then you are the sucker, while this is generally true it doesn’t mean that if you can identify the sucker(s) that you are not one yourself! Simply identifying weaker players alone is not enough, you need to be able to identify what it is that makes them a weaker player and work out the best strategy to take advantage of their weakness. Once you have successfully identified a strategy that is going to give you a positive expected value in a certain situation then you have an edge over that player in that situation, but bear in mind that they may have identified another situation where they have an edge over you!

OK so let’s start off with a simple example, we are in a deep stacked MTT versus Steve, and we have seen Steve call down huge bets with weak hands, basically he is a calling station. We have therefore decided we will not bluff Steve but will value bet him hard with a range of hands, as such we have an edge over Steve when we have those value hands, but Bill is a bluff monkey and will bluff most of the time, therefore Steve has an edge over Bill as he will be correctly calling most of his bluffs (although this is by accident it is still an edge if Bill does not adjust!).

Now imagine we are in a different MTT and have Mike at the table, he is open shoving 200bb every hand, so we decide to wait until we have a good hand and call his shove, this edge is not as big as people might think, and this is for 2 main reasons, firstly other competent opponents will also be  trying to do the same thing to Mike and if we are at a 10 seater table it may be that all of the other 8 opponents have the same objective which means our edge on Mike is a fraction of what it would be if the other players are not paying attention. Secondly we may pick up a hand that we are happy to call with and end up losing anyway, either because Mike had a better hand or got lucky, or because one of the other players had a better hand than us in a 3 way pot. This being said, we can definitely claim to have an edge on Mike, although the size of the edge is unclear.

A few days later we see Mike at our table again and he is open shoving every hand, the only difference now is that it is in the later stages of an MTT and we are only 20bb deep with the blinds due to go up soon. Now we can’t wait as long for a decent hand (neither can the other players) as each steal from Mike adds a more meaningful amount to his stack while diminishing ours, while waiting for a premium hand against Mike when 200bb deep is fine, we cannot afford to wait for such a strong hand when 20bb deep, we are forced to call lighter so our overall equity will usually be less when we do call, this means variance will be a lot higher but it also means that the size of our edge is vastly reduced.

Nigel is a nit, he plays very tight and loves to setmine and hope to stack people with big hands, as such early on in MTTs it is hard to win big pots off him so we have little edge, however if he fails to adjust as the MTT progresses stealing versus him becomes more profitable as he will be folding a lot of the time so our edge here would increase as the tournament progresses until he correctly adjusts.

These examples show that edge is not something that is static; it can change as the dynamics of the table change so you should be constantly assessing your strategies against your opponents and adjust where necessary.

I will give another couple of quick examples where we might find an edge against otherwise good players; Charlie is a very good player whom we respect but we observe that he c-bets almost 100% of the time, therefore we know we can call wider on the flop and can also utilise the check raise more often, we can float and see what Charlie does on the turn, particularly if we know he gives up on the turn a lot of the time then floating every flop could potentially be profitable against him. Pete is very aggressive opening preflop but will fold to a lot of 3 bets and he only 4 bets with KK/AA or AK; we can take advantage of his play by 3 betting a wide range, especially if we have position. Note that Charlie and Pete may actually be better players than us overall but if we can find some small chinks in their armour then we can bridge the gap somewhat.

At this point I want to split edge up into 2 categories, Showdown Edge (SE) and Non-Showdown Edge (NSE). From the examples above it should be clear that we have SE v Mike and NSE v Nigel, that is against Mike we get our edge from showing down better hands than him, whereas versus Nigel we are trying to win pots without going to showdown (e.g. we expect him to fold before showdown unless he has a big hand, in which case we would probably recognise he has a big hand and fold before showdown ourselves).

I think a lot of players over value their Showdown Edge against opponents when late on in MTTs, since by definition this edge is obtained from showing down better cards we are relying on luck to have a better hand then our opponent and that this hand will hold up, it may often be the case that the good hand doesn’t present itself too soon and we are blinded down  so once we get the chance to put the SE into use we actually don’t get as much value as we only have a 15bb stack say instead of 20bb (so doubled to 30bb instead of 40bb, an effective loss of 25% edge), on top of this we may run into the top of their range or they may suck out on us.

A common misconception is players believing they can outplay their opponents postflop and have a big edge as a result of this, well this may be true when deep stacked, but once effective stacks are 20bb deep there isn’t much room to outplay opponents, it’s very difficult to double barrel and often opponents can shove when they hit part of the flop and this is generally more correct and harder to exploit than when 100bb deep. This demonstrates that there is less skill difference in latter stages of tournaments than you might realise if our only edge is showdown edge.

Early on in MTTs having showdown edge is preferable to NSE, but as the effective stacks dwindle as the blinds increase this shifts to NSE being more preferable since it relies less on luck, that is we don’t need hands to use the edge, we just need Nigel to not have much himself and we can continually steal chips from him, even when stacks are 15-20bb deep we can use this edge by min raising and picking the right spots to steal.

Sharkscope and other similar websites are often used by players to see if their opponents are winning or losing overall, this can give a broad guideline but should be taken with a pinch of salt, a player may be a massive loose losing fish early on in MTTs, but once they get deep they may play close to perfect and might actually be the best player at the table for the current dynamics, or a winning player may be weak playing deep stacked poker but they are successful overall as they have mastered the art of shoving and 3 bet shoving when the stacks are 25bb or less but we may be able to stack them early on if they can’t fold top pair when we hit a bigger hand.

It may be that you think you are outclassed at the table, in which case you want to try and implement the reverse of these thoughts, that is try to think how your opponents will utilise their perceived edge on you and try to minimise those situations, this is usually going to be easier to achieve when the stacks are smaller, so if you are in the later stages of an MTT against stronger opponents often it may be better to play more shove / fold poker which is harder for them to exploit.

Well that is a lot of waffle, which is probably of little practical use to you, but I like to try and discuss topics that aren’t already hugely documented to help generate fresh ideas and approaches not only to my own game but also for any interested readers out there and this sometimes means the blog post doesn’t yield anything concrete, I am sorry if you are left disappointed by this or any other posts but I generally let my thoughts flow and capture them as I go without too much editing later on.

To summarise the concept of edge please bear in mind that someone you identify as a fish at the start of an MTT may play better later even though their style does not change and similar a solid player may become more exploitable as the stacks get shallower if they do not adjust their game. The key is to try and identify what edge you think you have over your opponents and adopt a strategy against them to maximise this edge, but you should also be aware that this strategy may need to be changed depending on the current dynamics you find yourself in.

Recent Review - Final Tables and Wins Galore!

After returning from Vegas, I was eager to start playing online again but the first 2 or 3 weeks lacked results until I managed to win the PKR Prestige on 31^st July. The following week brought 5 consecutive final tables in the Prestige along with in the 2 Monte Carlo and an Open final table, but unfortunately none of these ended in wins they still yielded tidy profits.

The following week I final tabled the Prestige 2 days in a row and this time I converted them into back to back wins, one was a 9 seater and the other was 6 max so this was pleasing as I feel my 6 max game is weaker than full ring. I also won the Open and had a few other final tables and August proved to be a very profitable month for me, it also saw me climb into 3^rd place in the PKR All Time MTT Money list, overtaking my good friend Destacker (who hasn’t been playing much of late to be fair!), however after this my volume of MTTs has dropped dramatically as I have started to play cash games and also live MTTs at the weekend.

Fox Club Main Event

I played the Fox Poker Club Main event in September; this is a 2 day event with 25,000 starting chips (plus 2,500 extra as a dealer bonus) and 45 minute levels. I started off playing fairly tight but still managed to get 3 streets of value with AA against a calling station. That aside I struggled to win many chips until one hand directly before a break, a LAG player limped from the hijack, the cut-off folded and I saw Q7hh on the button, my image was tight, the LAG player had only limped which suggested he had a poor holding and as it was the last hand before a break I thought it might be a good spot to pick up a few chips so I raised. The BB decided to flat and the hijack folded, the flop came down A77 and the BB decided to check call, the turn brought another 7 giving me quads and in a greater piece of fortune the BB decided to lead out, I paused for a short while to check the effective stacks sizes and deduced that I would be better flatting as this would give me an ideal stack size to shove the river if checked too. The river brought another ace and the BB put me all in which I quickly called and he said that I must have the other Ace, I flipped my quads and he wasn’t too happy.

A while after this the same guy from the previous hand limped from EP and a MP also called, I looked down to see TT in the BB but decided to check it as the EP player had previously limped AA in a similar spot, he was also short enough that I couldn’t raise fold. The flop came down JJT, so I flopped the bottom boat, I decided to lead out in the hope that one of them had the J or got stubborn with a PP or an unlikely Tx, the EP then shoved and MP flat called, so I decided to re-raise fairly small as I am pretty certain MP has Jx and I can then shove the turn which is an Ace, I shove and MP calls and flips over J8, EP flips AA for the turned higher full but the river bricks so I end up making a big profit despite losing the main pot to the short stack and I was able to make day 2 with 141,000 which was the 3^rd biggest chip stack.

Day 2 was incredibly frustrating as I had very few hands and was struggling against loose opponents; I got some bluffs through but rarely had a hand I wanted to play for value. We reached the final table and the first hand after the break I picked up KQo UTG, I decided to raise as I had a tight image and the BB was away, I got one caller and the flop came Ace high, I tried to double barrel it my opponent called and I gave up on the river and he tabled A7o. This left me with around 12bb and I squeeze shoved with 66 and ran into AA and busted 7^th for a min cash. While I was disappointed not to go deeper I was also happy that I managed to cash with so few hands, although I was fortunate on day 1 that pretty much every value hand I had I got paid handsomely on, in day 2 I just had a lack of anything playable and never felt there was enough fold equity to get out of line too often.

Fox Club Super Saturday

A couple of weeks later I returned to the Fox for their Super Saturday MTT, a 1 day event with 20k (+2,500) stacks and 30 minute levels. The event only attracted 50 entries in total but there was close to £5k for first, definitely worth grinding for a few hours!

The first major pot I got involved with was when I saw QQ in EP, I raised a little over 2.5x and got 2 callers, one of whom was getting short and was playing loose looking to bust so he could re-enter. The flop came down J42 and I lead out for around half pot he snap shoves and the other guy folds, I call and flip and see he has A2o, the turn is an Ace and suddenly I am the one with around 15bb.

A short time later I am in the BB with 15bb at 200/400 when UTG raises to 1,000, UTG + 1 makes it 6,000 and then the hijack cold 4 bets to 15k ish and it folds to me, I haven’t looked at my cards yet but think to myself what a great spot this would be to gamble, the first card I see is the Ad and when I slide the other to see the As I of course get my chips in, both UTG and UTG + 1 fold (stating they had AT and JJ) the 4 bettor shows KK and my Aces hold to give me a triple up. Soon after I bluff some chips off and the blinds go up and I end up with a 15bb stack when Eleanor joins my table to my direct right. It isn’t too long before she opens and I shove over the top with AQ she calls with 88 and I catch an Ace on the turn to double up and leave her short (Sorry Elz!) then not long after I win a big pot with AKd v KQs and then get a couple of good bluffs through, before slow playing Aces on the turn (to get max value on the river) and allowing a draw to get there which cost me a medium pot and was probably the hand I was least happy with my play in. We reach the final table and I am below average when a couple of players bust and we are on the bubble but quickly agree to take a bit out of 1^st and 2^nd to give the bubble boy £300, I happily agreed to this as it was likely that I would be that bubble boy!

Almost immediately after this hand I get dealt KK UTG and raise, MP shoves and then another guy 4 bet shoves, I call and I am in bad shape with KK v AA v AQ, however I hit a King on the flop and eliminate two players in the process. Not long after I 3 bet shove JJ and eliminate 88 and we are down to 4 players and I am the chip leader, another player got eliminated and 3 handed play went on for a short while before the other 2 villains went to war JJ v TT and the Jacks held meaning we went to HU about even in chips. We decided to do a deal, as there was £7,570 to play for split £4,790/£2,780 we agreed to make the split £4,070/£3.5k. I was happy to agree the split as my opponent was loose aggressive and we would invariably be getting it in light and essentially flipping so reducing the variance was ideal. As it turns out I 4 bet shoved KQ and got called by A3 and flopped two pair to take a big lead and shortly after got it in with KQ v 77 and hit the King on the flop to seal my first live MTT win. While I was happy with my plan in general (there was maybe 2 hands I would have played differently) I still owed a lot to luck, which has been lacking in my live games to date. I finally ran good in a live MTT and managed to turn it into a win, which has helped boost my confidence.

The following week I returned to the play the Super Saturday again but ran really cold and eventually busted shoving QQ UTG for 10bb and getting called by A8o UTG + 1, the flop brought all clubs giving me the flush draw as insurance but he hit one of his two outs on the river to send me packing. Given that I ran well the week before I can’t really complain! J

Adapting to Different Poker Sites

There are a lot of online poker sites available nowadays, most of us start out on one site and learn the game there but sometime later we invariably look elsewhere for whatever reason. One factor that I think a lot of players fail to fully appreciate and understand is that there are often a number of differences in playing styles between these sites, which may require adjustments to our game (i.e. A certain way of playing on site A may not be suited to site B). This blog entry will look at why there are differences but I want to stress a word of caution here; this is my own personal opinion of some of the sites I have played based on the games I have played there, but I have very limited experience on some and the games I have played may not match those that you may play, so I am not going to talk about specific details but try and help give some concepts to think about if you are trying to adapt to new sites. 

Different demographic of players

Different poker sites and networks may well attract different markets of players, they may be targeting specific countries, or age ranges or abilities etc and as such if there is a substantial demographical difference this may well lead to different tendencies in play (For example Scandinavians are generally thought to be more aggressive).

Different software capabilities

Some software is easier to multi-table on than others, for example features such as 4 colour decks, resizable windows, ability to tile / cascade windows all help players to multi-table, the more of these features that a site has the more multi-tablers there are likely to be on that site. As a rule the more tables someone is playing the closer to standard ABC poker they are likely to be playing. Another good example of how the platform software can affect play is evident in PKR. On older versions of PKR the preset bet size buttons used to be 2xBB, 3xBB, 4xBB and 8xBB for every street regardless of the pot size, generally players are more likely to use the preset buttons than manually type bet amounts in and on the older versions it would be a common occurrence that a player would bet 8xBB into a 50bb pot on the river, now PKR have changed these preset buttons to 1/2 pot etc and so the same player might now bet ¾ pot (37.5bb) on the same 50bb pot. A more common difference is open bet sizing, where again the preset buttons often determine open raise sizes rather than player preferences (Stars allows customisable buttons so players can configure their own open raise sizes). Playing on party for example, I often see either a min raise or a 3x as an open, but less frequently 2.5xbb. These are just some examples of how playing styles can be dictated by the software alone.

Differences in MTT structures

Sites all have their own MTT structure; with differing starting stacks and increases in blind levels, some sites have smaller starting stacks, but gentler increases in blinds that generally means more room for play in the middle stages while not being extremely deep in the early levels. Also a subtle difference if you play full ring games is some sites have 9 seat as full ring and others 10 and this alone should have an effect on hand ranges.

Player Pools

If you play on Stars you will usually be sat a table full of random unknown players due to the huge playerbase, which can make it a lot harder to know what to do in certain situations, whereas on sites with much smaller player pools you will often seem familiar faces and if you take notes can make more informed decisions against players, these smaller sites will often have players taking unusual lines in order to deceive regular opponent’s whereas on Stars the most profitable line is usually the best to take as players are less likely to know you well enough to be able to adapt.

Player Tendencies

Different sites tend to yield players with different tendencies, for example a lot of online bookmakers now have poker sites and these players generally seem to call and gamble a lot more than on traditional sites. You can be sure that a lot of the players on Pokerstars will be multi-tabling and are using tracking software. Also Pokerstars is frequently full of players who will 3 and 4 bet a lot lighter than on PKR for example. This last point may well be because PKR has a higher proportion of recreational players. Knowing the generally tendencies of players on a site can help you make better decisions against unknowns.

Range of Stakes and Qualifiers

The range of stakes that a site offers can affect the way opponents will play, if $100 MTTs are the norm then the standard is usually going to be more aggressive and tougher than if a $100 MTT is dubbed a monthly high roller event. In addition to this generally the more qualifiers there are in an MTT the tighter the play will be, particularly around the bubble. If you are playing a MTT at a new site it is worth having a quick look beforehand at what satellites are offered and how many players are winning a seat and hence more likely to be playing tighter.

Associated Forums

If a poker site has a closely associated forum with it then this can heavily influence playing styles, particularly if there are one or two dominant posters on the forum. This is because their own playing style will come out in replies to posts and other people reading them will absorb this knowledge and are more likely to introduce it into their own game. If you are playing at a site you are unfamiliar with it is often worth browsing any forum they may have first and looking at strategy replies to see if there are any clues as to general playing styles, all this information may help you when making a marginal decision against an unknown.

Loyalty Program and Bonuses

A site is more likely to have a higher number of ABC grinders if it is has a good loyalty scheme and offers regular bonuses to players. These players will frequently be multi-tabling and are more likely to be playing as many hands as possible, often resulting in more basic poker in order to clear bonuses. It is always worth being aware if there are any big bonuses currently running on a site as this may have an impact on playing styles (although this is probably more common in cash games than MTTs).

So there are a few reasons why there might be differences in playing styles at different sites, how you personally identify, adjust and ultimately take advantage of these differences will be down to your individual circumstances, such as which site you are moving from and to and what games you are playing, your own playing style etc. so I cannot give a nice easy formula to adapting to a new site, however the first step should be to consider the reasons above and any others you can think of, see which apply and to what degree and then decide in advance how you are going to adapt and then after a period of playing assess how this has or hasn’t worked, and re-evaluate frequently until you feel you have adjusted as well as you can.

I will finish by giving you one example of how I might play differently on PKR to on Pokerstars, let’s say we are deep in an MTT and on the button with 18bb and both blinds have 15bb and are complete unknowns to us. It is folded to us and we look down to see 22, now on Stars I would usually shove here as I expect random players on Stars to 3 bet jam a wider range than on PKR and I will be forced to call, however on PKR I may well elect to min raise and then fold if they jam as I believe they will fold enough to the min raise to make this the best play, clearly if I suspect the players on PKR to be aggressive and capable of 3 bet shoving a wider range than I will usually elect to open jam the deuces.

I hope this entry has given you some food for thought in differences between sites and I wish you every success no matter where you are playing!

Poker Rants - What's the Point?

Online poker has been around for years now but in more recent times social media has expanded, most players now have a Facebook and / or a twitter account and follow their peers, often providing updates on tournaments and giving support to others, however it appears that the vast majority of updates from amateurs are invariably rants about a lost hand or a particularly player being a ‘donkey’.

I see people constantly post one sided posts, such as “I just lost a huge pot with KK into AA I run so bad” yet the same person might have won a massive pot with aces versus kings earlier in the MTT to put them in that position, yet they don’t post this…why is that? I think it is mainly because we are less likely to accept good luck in our favour than bad luck that goes against us, we like to believe when we win it is mostly because of skill, but when we lose it is down to bad luck, we don’t need to post when we flop a set of deuces and stack AA but when we are on the reverse end we bemoan our luck and proclaim it as a cooler. I also see people continually post beat after beat after beat, claiming they are the unluckiest player in the world, yet they can’t all be the unluckiest can they!

I have been guilty in the past of posting bad beats and whinge posts, both on twitter and within forums, this is an area where I feel I have improved, certainly the number of these posts has dropped, but there is still room for improvement. To help me cut these posts out I have been thinking about why we, as poker players, post these type of posts at all and the reasons behind them and what benefits and drawbacks they may have. 

Venting

Sometimes we suffer a bad beat or a cooler in a crucial hand and we just want to get it out of our system, this is seemingly a natural human instinct, but it does not change the events of said hand and can only act as a reinforcement of the negative outcome which may lead to us making poor decisions later on during the session or subsequent sessions if we have a build up of these type of posts. It is usually better to try and push the hand out of your mind and focus on the current hands with a clear head in order to maximise your play in them and avoid making mistakes and / or going on tilt. 

Ego

The poker world is quite competitive and when we take a beat it is easy to feel hard done by, that our skills have not yielded the result they should have so we might make a post to make a statement that our results are not as good as they should be through no fault of our own, e.g. “I Just lost with AK to AQ for a massive pot on the FT bubble, I was going to crush for sure”. Again this only has negative impact; we cannot control the luck and should not be focused on short term results, only that we are playing hands as well as possible. Even if we have a long string of results and are going weeks or months of bad luck then posting about this run serves no productive purpose, it can only harm our mindset and focus for the sessions ahead, hence damaging any prospects of overturning the poor fortunes. 

Sympathy

We all joined social media sites to be able to interact with friends, so it is only natural to seek attention and sympathy when hands don’t go our way, sometimes it is good to share experiences and provide encouragement to each other, however overdosing on hands of a similar nature any may lead to indifference from our friends, after all they are probably playing themselves and are probably suffering similar woes. In my opinion it is more constructive to spend this time discussing hands where we might improve with each other rather than merely posting a beat looking for a simple “Unlucky” reply from a friend.

Another common occurrence I see is players berating another players’ play at the table, it may be that an opponent misplayed a hand and got lucky, so the loser of the hand (or even a third player not involved) will abuse the player and criticise their play. I can’t express how idiotic this is on so many levels in my opinion, any poker player who wants to be successful at the game should never criticise or abuse another player. Generally in a hand a player will have either made a good play or have made a mistake, neither of which should lead us to abuse a player as  I will briefly outline below.

If our opponent has made a mistake, either knowingly or not there is no reason to rub this fact in their face. Poker is about taking advantage of our opponent’s mistakes, the less errors they make against us the harder it us for us to make a profit, so by telling players they have made a mistake we give them the opportunity to learn and this will diminish our long term profitability in the game. They have paid their entry fee and they can play how they wish within the rules, it is our job to take advantage of opponents playing styles to maximise our edge on them. Sometimes their bad play will cut short our tournament but that is the nature of poker, anyone with any skill level can get lucky and beat anyone else. If you want to play a game where the best player wins everytime then go and play chess, otherwise accept the inevitable beats with good grace when they happen.

It might be that our opponent actually made a good play and we do not understand why it was a good play, in this case we are likely to think it was a mistake, although we may not be sure it was, in which case we should use the same common sense in the previous paragraph but also attempt to use it as a learning exercise to see why it might be a good play to help improve our own game.

It may also be that our opponent made a good play and we know it was the correct play, but we just happened to get unlucky (or maybe made a mistake ourselves which the villain took advantage of) in this case it is no fault of our opponent and so there is no need for any abuse either.

I don’t believe there is ever a justifiable reason for abusing players, further to this, new players can be immediately put off by getting their play ridiculed and this will cut the number of new players entering the poker economy, which is bad for us all in the long term, we need all the players we can in the current economic climate! Poker rants and abuse are indicative of leaks in our own game and usually do far more harm than good, try to spend that energy on something positive, like reviewing hands or doing some exercise (going to the off license definitely classes as exercise in my opinion!). Thanks for reading, as ever feedback and comments are welcome! J

Vegas

First off, apologies for a lack of any posts since June, I have been a little busy and haven’t had much time to dedicate to writing, but finally I have finished a short account of my Vegas voyage from a few weeks back (although it seems years ago now!)

I was hoping to be able to write a blog about some successes during my recent trip to Vegas, but alas there were none, I had a solitary cash in the all tournaments I played during my 12 day stay, this was a 9^th place in a $125 re-entry tournament at the Aria which only yielded a min cash. I took a notepad with me hoping to jot down some notable hands for inclusion in this blog but quite frankly there were none and any that were vaguely interesting would involve a bad beat story, I am not one to encourage the posting of bad beat stories anymore so will not discuss any specific hands in this blog in any great detail.

I will however give a typical example of the kind of play I found myself up against, this happened in the WSOP Event # 53, a $1500 buyin with a starting stack of 4,500 chips. We were in the 1^st level so the blinds were 25/25 and I get dealt JTcc in mid position and open to 75 and pick up two callers, at this point we had only played an orbit or two and this was only the 2^nd or 3 hand I played. The flop comes down with a rainbow 2 3 9, the SB checks and I bet about half the pot and get one fold behind but the SB calls, I had seen him call continuation bets before then give up on the turn so I planned to fire any turn which was a 7 giving me a gutshot. He checks and I bet around half pot again and he calls me again, the river brings an ace and he checks to me, I think at this point I should have given up but I bet another half pot and he called and showed K3 and I lost a chunk of chips triple barrelling into a calling station.

As we played more hands it became apparent that the 3 guys to my immediate left were good but the rest of the table was weak but it was difficult for me to isolate the weak players and I was out of position in pots with substandard holdings so I quickly decided that I was going to have to play value hands only, which was a distinct problem as I had very few hands at all, while I looked on in horror as opponents failed to value bet 3 streets with hands such as 2 pair and sets against the calling stations. I eventually bust in level 5 losing AK to AQ and 88 to AJ, both were standard plays for both players due to the short starting stacks, most players were by this time having to 3 bet shove. The other WSOP event I played in (59b, a $1000 buyin which I qualified for via PKR) followed a similar pattern.

The standard of play throughout my trip was pretty poor, with the majority of players being calling stations and very little 3 betting going on. This means it can be difficult to put players on a range of hands a lot of the time but in general against stations the best approach is usually to bluff infrequently and value bet thinly. The main problem I had here was that I rarely had any hands to value bet with, in the middle of my trip I went over a week without seeing AA or KK, and only had queens once, the times I had medium type hands I often ended up value owning myself by betting 2^nd pair for example against a calling station who happened to have top pair, or who rivered a second pair and checked / called the river. I could count the number of flopped sets I had out there on one hand so I found a lot of my time was spent folding which invariably left me having to play shove / fold poker a lot of the time and the various races I got into rarely fell my way.

During the latter part of the trip I picked up a cold and this put me off playing some of the bigger events at the Venetian (by this time it was apparent that the Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza was better value than the shallow stacks at the WSOP) so my poker plans didn’t go to plan. Regardless of this (and feeling under the weather) I still had a great time and am eagerly looking forward to returning again but with more of a focus on some of the deep structured games that allow some play early on without putting a large proportion of your stack at risk.

Aside from the poker I had already done the tourist side of Vegas but still enjoyed evening walks and watching the Bellagio fountains and the like. I attended PKR parties and met friends, both old and new, although I didn’t feel up to a couple of them and had to miss them out I did catch the latter part of the Wet Republic Pool Party, I was delayed due to railing Eleanor on the final table of the Venetian $1,100 Deep Stack, which she finished 8^th for a very tidy $9k, well done Elz J.

Overall, despite the poor results on the poker tables and my cold, I enjoyed myself and hope to return next year, in the meantime the online grind is my main focus with some live tournaments thrown in during the year.