Saved by zero

Last night, I had a spin and go gorge-fest. I played 18 of them. I can safely say that I've had my fill of them for the foreseeable future. My spin and go balance is now exactly zero, and it's a telling number. I've played 102 spin and gos in my career, and it's clear that if I can't make a profit in that number of tournaments, I'm never going to make a profit. So you could say I've been "saved by zero" from losing money on spin and gos :-)

This is an excerpt from my September 26, 2016 post. When I looked at the breakdown of my 2025 results by style and flavor this morning, I had another "saved by zero" moment.

    delta  count  style  flavor
=========  =====  =====  =============================
       $0    232  MTT    No Limit Hold'em
 $-29,000      8  MTT    Limit Razz
 $-45,000      3  MTT    Limit 7 Card Stud
$-117,000      8  MTT    Limit Stud Hi/Lo
$-175,000      7  MTT    Limit Triple Draw 2-7 Lowball 

The verdict? The only flavor of MTT I should ever play is NLHE.

style flavor    buy_in  entry entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE       44000   6000     298   72    74        0
MTT   NLHE       44000   6000     381   99    99    67000
MTT   NLHE       44000   6000     307   72   120        0
MTT   NLHE       44000   6000     316   81   179        0

delta: $-133,000
2025 balance: $-366,000
2025 blue distance: $366,000
balance: $15,931,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.26 (1364 of 3306)

Preemptive immediate service

First, here's the definition of immediate service (from my blog post of September 20, 2015):

One of my favorite poker commentators is Nick Wealthall. He provides commentary for online tournaments on PokerStars. One  phrase I really like which he uses quite often is "immediate service"; it refers to hitting a straight or flush draw as soon as possible, in other words on the turn.

With that in mind, preemptive immediate service is immediate service which comes on an even earlier street, i.e. on the flop.

This is an excerpt from my April 25, 2019 post. In the last tournament I played yesterday, I hit the rail very early on. On my final hand, I was dealt pocket queens, and called a preflop bet which put me all in. My opponent turned over A7o (ace seven offsuit), and I was a sizeable favorite to win the pot, with a 71% chance. Unfortunately for me, my opponent received preemptive immediate service on the flop, pairing both his ace and his seven. I was now an underdog, and had only an 8% chance to win. My opponent's two pair held up, and I was gone in a New York minute.

style flavor    buy_in  entry entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE       44000   6000     239   63   106        0
MTT   NLHE       44000   6000     332   81    41   131000
MTT   NLHE       44000   6000     209   54   157        0

delta: $-19,000
2025 balance: $-936,000
2025 blue distance: $936,000
balance: $15,361,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.26 (1333 of 3231)

McMansioned

"McMansioned" is ... what has been done to you when your full house has lost to a better one.

This is an excerpt from my February 18, 2011 post. In yesterday's session, I got McMansioned in an especially brutal way. When the money bubble was close to bursting, I was so short-stacked that my only realistic chance of making the money was to fold every marginal hand, and hope that the tournament shed players faster than I was shedding chips. :-) As it turned out, every hand I was dealt from that point on was marginal, and I soon fell in. On my final hand, I was dealt an eight and another card which I don't recall. An eight and a jack showed up in the flop, the turn was another eight, and the river was a jack. This gave me a full house, eights full of jacks. Really lucky, right? Sure; not as lucky, however, as the player who'd been dealt pocket jacks, giving him a full house, jacks full of eights. I exited as the bubble boy, missing the money by a single spot.

In other news, I decided a while ago to post much less frequently, but not to mothball this blog completely.

style flavor    buy_in  entry entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE       44000   6000     284   72    73        0

delta: $-50,000
2025 balance: $-850,000
2025 blue distance: $850,000
balance: $15,447,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.29 (1321 of 3199)

Poker interruptus

I've used this title several times before. Last night, I experienced poker interruptus once again. It's never fun. This time, instead of being due to a power outage, it was due to my internet connection going down.

This is an excerpt from my January 24, 2019 post. Yesterday, in the only tournament I played, my internet connection went down after I'd already made the money. It happened in the middle of a hand where I'd been dealt pocket cowboys, and called a preflop bet which put me all in. I never got to see if I won that hand or not. I'm guessing not, for one of the following reasons:

1. there were additional bets made after my connection dropped, which would have caused the PokerStars software to change my status to "sitting out", mucking my hand automatically

2. I think the PokerStars software may have changed my status to "sitting out" even if no additional bets were made, due to detecting that my connection had dropped

Fortunately, these "poker interruptus" occurrences are exceedingly rare.

style flavor    buy_in  entry entries paid place winnings hands

MTT   NLHE       44000   6000     310   81    45   122000    48

delta: $72,000
2025 balance: $-961,000
2025 blue distance: $961,000
balance: $15,336,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.43 (1308 of 3157)

The hateful eight

I've never seen Quentin Tarantino's "The Hateful Eight", but that won't stop me from appropriating its title, yet again :-) In this case, the hateful eight are the eight hands I played in the first tournament I entered yesterday. It was the smallest number of hands I've played in a tournament since I started manually recording the minimum viable hand data. One again, I was dealt baby cowboys on my last hand, and they rode off into the sunset. I fared much better in yesterday's second tournament, making the money. It was only a min cash, but beggars can't be choosy :-)

style flavor    buy_in  entry entries paid place winnings hands

MTT   NLHE       44000   6000       ?    ?     ?        0     8
MTT   NLHE       44000   6000     364   99    97    64000    29

delta: $-36,000
2025 balance: $-1,033,000
2025 blue distance: $1,033,000
balance: $15,264,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.41 (1307 of 3156)

Baby cowboys into the sunset

"Baby cowboys" is my nickname for pocket jacks. Last night, my baby cowboys rode off into the sunset. Although that makes for a good movie ending, it's not what you're hoping for when playing poker.

This is an excerpt from my April 4, 2022 post. In the one tournament I played yesterday, I only lasted 10 hands. I had one premium hand dealt to me, baby cowboys. Unfortunately for me, it was on the tenth hand. Whatcha gonna do?

style flavor    buy_in  entry entries paid place winnings hands

MTT   NLHE       44000   6000     248   63   137        0    10

delta: $-50,000
2025 balance: $-997,000
2025 blue distance: $997,000
balance: $15,300,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.41 (1306 of 3154)

Further refinement of the magic minimum

It's a given that the more hands you play in a tournament, the better your chances are of making the money. It would be neat if there were a magic number of hands which, if you managed to achieve it, would guarantee that you made the money. Of course, there's no such number ...

This is an excerpt from my February 13, 2025 post. I call this number the magic minimum. While it's true that there's no such number in perpetuity, it's also true that at any particular point in time, there is such a number, even though its usefulness is limited, since it only applies to past data, and won't necessarily be true for future data. Over time, the magic minimum will gradually increase; it can never decrease. Here's the definition of the magic minimum: find the maximum number of hands played in the tournaments where you failed to make the money, and add 1 :-) Currently, based on the hand data I've collected so far, the magic minimum is 35.

style flavor    buy_in  entry entries paid place winnings hands

MTT   NLHE       44000   6000     394   99   154        0    16

delta: $-50,000
2025 balance: $-947,000
2025 blue distance: $947,000
balance: $15,350,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.42 (1306 of 3153)