Monday, March 31, 2014

Sessionus sweetisimus

Due to a business trip, I haven't been able to play poker for over a week. In the normal course of events, that would mean I wouldn't remember much at all about the last session I played; however, that isn't the case this time. Not only did I have a memorable session, I actually had my most memorable session ever. It was the sessionus sweetisimus - the sweetest session yet. What made it so sweet was that I made the money every time I entered a tournament - and I entered six. That's a combination of skill and luck I doubt I'll ever be able to duplicate.

buy_in entry_fee num_players num_hands place winnings

 45000      5000           6        18     2    94500
 45000      5000           6        34     1   175500
 45000      5000           6        37     2    94500
 45000      5000           6        33     2    94500
 45000      5000           6        41     1   175500
 45000      5000           6        48     1   175500


delta: $510,000
tournament balance: $2,628,840
balance: $9,511,539

Friday, March 21, 2014

Near cycle

In baseball, when a player gets a single, a double, a triple, and a home run in the same game, it's known as hitting for the cycle. It's possible to hit for the cycle in poker, too; I nearly accomplished it last night. In 6-max, hitting for the cycle means coming in first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth in a six tournament stretch. As in baseball, the order of the results doesn't matter.

Of course, hitting for the cycle guarantees that you'll lose money, due to the entry fees. The amount you lose is equal to the sum of the entry fees. These days on PokerStars, it costs more to hit for the cycle than it used to. Nevertheless, I think any time you can accomplish this you should be pleased.

buy_in entry_fee num_players num_hands place winnings

 45000      5000           6        32     3        0
 45000      5000           6        17     1   175500
 45000      5000           6         6     5        0
 45000      5000           6         4     6        0
 45000      5000           6        39     2    94500
 45000      5000           6         4     6        0


delta: $-30,000
tournament balance: $2,118,840
balance: $9,001,539

Thursday, March 20, 2014

From bad to worse to better to best

I had an unusual streak to open last night's session. It was unusual in 3 ways:

1. it was my longest streak ever of finishing in the same place in consecutive tournaments in a single session (four in a row)
2. the place I finished in, fourth, is not my most frequently occurring place; it's actually my third most infrequently occurring place
3. in each succeeding tournament, I lasted less hands than I did in the previous one

Thankfully, the trend stopped in the fifth tournament. I managed to come in second. When I came in first in the sixth tournament, I knew it was time to quit. An overview of my night is that I went from bad to worse to better to best :-)

buy_in entry_fee num_players num_hands place winnings

 45000      5000           6        38     4        0
 45000      5000           6        14     4        0
 45000      5000           6         9     4        0
 45000      5000           6         6     4        0
 45000      5000           6        37     2    94500
 45000      5000           6        48     1   175500


delta: $-30,000
tournament balance: $2,148,840
balance: $9,031,539

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Surviving vs. thriving

Tournaments are a dicey dicey business. There's a razor sharp line between success and failure. If you want to do well in a tournament, it's important to have great survival skills. If you actually want to win a tournament, however, you must know how to thrive. Last night I had ample survival skills, coming in second three times. However, I wasn't able to thrive when I got to heads up. Sometimes, that's fine; I accept the fact that I was on the receiving end of a lot of luck to get to that point, and the odds finally caught up with me. Other times, however, I can't help feeling I somehow blew it :-) Of my three runner up finishes, I was fine with the first two, but got the feeling I blew the third.

buy_in entry_fee num_players num_hands place winnings

 45000      5000           6        33     2    94500
 45000      5000           6         8     6        0
 45000      5000           6        13     4        0
 45000      5000           6        24     2    94500
 45000      5000           6        37     2    94500
 45000      5000           6        18     4        0


delta: $-16,500
tournament balance: $2,178,840
balance: $9,061,539

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

The fall in

There are three ways of having all your chips go into the middle:

1. the all in
2. the call in
3. the fall in

The all in is when the action is on you and you decide to put all your chips in the middle. The call in is when the action is on you and someone who bet before you bet big enough to put you all in if you call, and you decide to call. The fall in is when you're in the small blind or the big blind, and are so short-stacked that the forced bet puts you all in. You want to avoid the fall in at all costs, since it removes all decision-making from you.

Last night, I had a fall in on hand 24 of the fifth tournament I entered. I was dealt queen four offsuit, and very fortunately paired my queen on the flop; my queens held up, so I had a stay of execution. Unfortunately, I was out in fourth place six hands later.

buy_in entry_fee num_players num_hands place winnings

 45000      5000           6        40     1   175500
 45000      5000           6        46     2    94500
 45000      5000           6        19     4        0
 45000      5000           6        44     1   175500
 45000      5000           6        30     4        0
 45000      5000           6        20     4        0


delta: $145,500
tournament balance: $2,195,340
balance: $9,078,039

Monday, March 17, 2014

Too bad luck

Every family has its own private language, words and phrases that have special meaning because they grew out of events known only to the family members. One such phrase in my family is "too bad luck"; it was coined by my sister when she was about three years old. It's a combination of "too bad" and "bad luck", and connotes more than ordinary misfortune. In Saturday night's session, I had too bad luck twice. Both times, I exited a tournament as early as one can - in sixth place. Both times, I got my money in good and was a huge favorite - 92.22% after the flop in the first case, 90.91% after the turn in the second. Both times, my opponent hit runner runner - for a flush in the first case, and for a full house in the second. I knew when too bad luck hit the second time that there was no earthly point in playing another tournament that night.

buy_in entry_fee num_players num_hands place winnings

 45000      5000           6        52     2    94500
 45000      5000           6        14     3        0
 45000      5000           6        27     4        0
 45000      5000           6         6     6        0
 45000      5000           6        28     2    94500
 45000      5000           6         8     6        0


delta: $-111,000
tournament balance: $2,049,840
balance: $8,932,539

Saturday, March 15, 2014

The front page

Though I never listened to Garrison Keillor's radio show "A Prairie Home Companion", it was so popular that I became aware of some of its home-spun humor anyway. One of the phrases which forced its way into my consciousness through the sheer brute strength of its comicality was the following:

"Well, that's the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average."

The mathematical impossibility of all the children being above average is what turns hyperbole into comic absurdity. Of course, it's very human to wish for mathematically impossible things :-) I find myself doing that often enough when I sit down to assess the previous night's session in preparation for writing my next blog post. I'm always happiest when my previous session was exceptional in some way. What I'm secretly hoping for is that all my sessions will be exceptional, which of course is mathematically impossible.

Getting the session onto the front page of an all time list of some kind is my litmus test for deeming it exceptional. Last night's session happily obliges. Its session delta of $151,000 puts it in 19th place on that particular list.

buy_in entry_fee num_players num_hands place winnings

 45000      5000           6        16     3        0
 45000      5000           6        35     1   175500
 45000      5000           6        20     4        0
 45000      5000           6        40     1   175500


delta: $151,000
tournament balance: $2,160,840
balance: $9,043,539

Friday, March 14, 2014

Tenliness is next to quadliness

Last night, even though I had a losing session, the poker gods showed me a little love on one particular hand. They threw a four of a kind my way - specifically, quad tens. Tenliness is next to quadliness :-) No poker player ever gets used to getting quads; they're just too rare.

I've mentioned fingerfehlers before; last night, a fingefehler ended up costing me $62,750. When I selected my seventh table, I didn't realize I'd scrolled down a little too far in the PokerStars lobby; as a result, I picked a $22,500 buy in tournament instead of one at the $45,000 buy in level I intended. I came in first in that tournament, meaning I only ended with half the profit I would have had had I picked the right buy in. I still wouldn't have made a profit on the night, but it would have made for a more palatable loss.

buy_in entry_fee num_players num_hands place winnings

 45000      5000           6        16     3        0
 45000      5000           6        10     5        0
 45000      5000           6        42     2    94500
 45000      5000           6        13     3        0
 45000      5000           6        40     2    94500
 45000      5000           6        33     3        0
 22500      2500           6        46     1    87750
 45000      5000           6        10     4        0


delta: $-98,250
tournament balance: $2,009,840
balance: $8,892,539

Thursday, March 13, 2014

You were never shovelier

This marks the third time I've used this blog post title. What can I say? I like it a lot. In case you missed those earlier posts, what I mean by a shovely hand is a hand which is good enough to shove (go all in) with. When you're at a certain stage in a tournament, you need to start looking for shovely hands. When you find one, you can silently say to it, "You were never shovelier" :-)

One thing about playing tournaments is that you end up playing significantly more hands per session than you do playing cash games. To illustrate, let's just run the numbers, shall we? In 841 sessions of cash game poker, I'm averaging 71.84 hands per session. In 124 sessions of tournament poker, I'm averaging 184.16 hands per session. With that many hands, you tend not to remember most of them. The ones you do remember, though, are quite likely to be hands you took bad beats on. That was the case with my most memorable hand of last night's session. I was dealt ace ten offsuit, went all in preflop, and got one caller. I was a 58.56 favorite before the flop, a 53.13 favorite after the flop, and a 70.45 favorite after the turn. However, it wasn't meant to be. My opponent hit a straight on the river, and I was gone from tournament in 3rd place.

buy_in entry_fee num_players num_hands place winnings

 45000      5000           6         9     4        0
 45000      5000           6        43     1   175500
 45000      5000           6        15     3        0
 45000      5000           6        18     4        0
 45000      5000           6         4     5        0
 45000      5000           6        32     3        0
 45000      5000           6        23     3        0
 45000      5000           6         8     5        0


delta: $-224,500
tournament balance: $2,108,090
balance: $8,990,789

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

A milestone to remember

Last night, I achieved a significant milestone in my tournament career - I surpassed 30 million in play dollars wagered. That's a lot of funny money! Why do I think that amount is significant? For the simple reason that I never could have wagered so much if I hadn't been making a profit along the way. That huge number proves to me, once and for all, that I have what it takes to be a tournament player. That's great news, since I find tournaments a lot more fun to play than cash games. They're exciting, invigorating, and also humbling. I'm looking forward to wagering many more play millions on them!

buy_in entry_fee num_players num_hands place winnings

 45000      5000           6        21     3        0
 45000      5000           6        49     2    94500
 45000      5000           6         1     5        0
 45000      5000           6        21     4        0
 45000      5000           6         6     6        0
 45000      5000           6        48     2    94500


delta: $-111,000
tournament balance: $2,332,590
balance: $9,215,289

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Double sweetness

It's a sweet thing to win a tournament. It's doubly sweet to win two tournaments in a row. That's a rare occurrence; I've only accomplished it 17 times in 490 tournaments. The 17th was last night.

buy_in entry_fee num_players num_hands place winnings

 45000      5000           6        15     4        0
 45000      5000           6        14     4        0
 45000      5000           6        40     1   175500
 45000      5000           6        30     1   175500
 45000      5000           6        48     3        0

delta: $101,000
tournament balance: $2,443,590
balance: $9,326,289

Monday, March 10, 2014

Contemplating the ultra-short tournament

One of the wonderful things about poker is that there is no absolutely correct way to play. The correct way is always changing, and it's sometimes pretty hard to keep up. Last night, I only lasted six hands in the second tournament I entered. How could that have happened? On the face of it, that's playing horribly. But is it really? Looking at the specifics, I don't think it was in this case. I actually got it in good on hand six - after the flop, I had an 82.93% chance of winning the pot. Unfortunately for me, my opponent hit a second pair on the turn. Even though I only lasted six hands, I actually played better in that tournament than I did in some of the others where I lasted longer. How could that be? It's simple; my average quality of decision was higher. As long as you're making high quality decisions, you shouldn't care too much about whether you win or lose. That's accepted poker wisdom, and I don't dispute it.

buy_in entry_fee num_players num_hands place winnings

 45000      5000           6        48     3        0
 45000      5000           6         6     6        0
 45000      5000           6        14     4        0
 45000      5000           6         1     6        0
 45000      5000           6        21     4        0
 45000      5000           6        68     1   175500
 45000      5000           6        15     4        0
 45000      5000           6         5     6        0


delta: $-224,500
tournament balance: $2,342,590
balance: $9,225,289

Saturday, March 8, 2014

Making up for it in volume

Lately, I haven't played any 8-game tournaments at all; right now, I'm addicted to the faster pace of the no limit hold'em tournaments. With 8-games, the tables take so long to fill up, and they take so long to play, that it would be impractical to play more than 2 or 3 per session. However, the no limit hold'em tables fill up almost immediately and the tournaments are typically much shorter, so it's easily possible to play 8 or more per session. I've come to the conclusion that the way to make money playing tournaments is to play as many of them as you can. That's almost like saying the way to make money selling things at a loss is to make up for it in volume :-) Actually, though, there's method in my madness. If you're good enough to make a profit playing tournaments, it stands to reason that the more tournaments you play, the more profit you'll make. Therefore, for the foreseeable future, I'll be playing no limit hold'em tournaments, and lots of them. Last night, four bubbles kept me from making a profit, but actually prove I was playing pretty well.

buy_in entry_fee num_players num_hands place winnings

 45000      5000           6        44     3        0
 45000      5000           6        54     2    94500
 45000      5000           6        17     3        0
 45000      5000           6        48     1   175500
 45000      5000           6        18     4        0
 45000      5000           6        19     3        0
 45000      5000           6         9     4        0
 45000      5000           6        33     3        0


delta: $-130,000
tournament balance: $2,567,090
balance: $9,449,789

Friday, March 7, 2014

The land of the threes

The way tournaments are set up, the winners divide up the total of the buy ins, but the entry fees always go to the house. If there were no entry fees, a 6-max tournament player would break even by coming in first place 1/6th of the time and coming in second place 1/6th of the time. That means finishing in the money one of every three times, which is .333333..., aka the land of the threes. However, there are entry fees, and that changes the minimum requirements for making a profit. Here are the place counts for my tournament career to date:

1    86
2    95
3    94
4    72
5    74
6    48


This means I've finished in the money 181 times in the 469 tournaments I've played, for a winning rate of .385928, well north of the land of the threes. The tyranny of entry fees is easy to illustrate. When I first started playing sit and gos, PokerStars charged a small entry fee of $800 for a $50,000 buy in. That's only 1.6%. These days, PokerStars charges a whopping $5,000 entry fee for a $45,000 buy in. That's 11.11%! If I had played all my tournaments using the old structure, my profit would have been $2,919,800. If I had played all my tournaments using the new structure, my profit would only have been $620,500. So far, I'm proving to myself that I'm good enough to make a profit playing sit and gos, even with exorbitant entry fees. That's a very satisfying realization :-)

buy_in entry_fee num_players num_hands place winnings

 45000      5000           6        38     2    94500
 45000      5000           6        39     1   175500
 45000      5000           6         5     6        0
 45000      5000           6        36     1   175500
 45000      5000           6         6     5        0
 45000      5000           6        44     4        0
 45000      5000           6        37     2    94500
 45000      5000           6        15     3        0


delta: $140,000
tournament balance: $2,697,090
balance: $9,579,789

Thursday, March 6, 2014

In the sweetness

There's nothing like being in the sweetness. When you're in it, it's hard to imagine that you could ever be out of it. It's totally an "all sweetness, all the time" kind of a vibe :-) There's only one rule to follow when you're in the sweetness, but it's a cardinal rule: keep playing until you fall out of the sweetness. Last night, it took me five tournaments to fall out. I had no business staying in as long as I did, but that's just the way poker rolls! If you can't deal with that, you're in the wrong game :-)

buy_in entry_fee num_players num_hands place winnings

 45000      5000           6        41     1   175500
 45000      5000           6        43     2    94500
 45000      5000           6        26     2    94500
 45000      5000           6        25     1   175500
 45000      5000           6         9     5        0


delta: $290,000
tournament balance: $2,557,090
balance: $9,439,789

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

The gunslinger

I'm a big Stephen King fan, as I've said before. Sometimes, particular phrases he's chosen embed themselves in my memory as soon as I read them. Other times, it's the images his words call up which I remember, though I don't remember his exact phrasing. This was the case with one of the passages in "The Gunslinger", the first book of his Dark Tower series. At one point in the story, the hero is attacked by a whole town of furious people intent on killing him. To save himself, he must kill everyone in the town. What stuck in my mind was that King likened this to a trick of the gunslinger's hands; his hands knew how to do it on their own, with no thought required on his part. Thanks to the magic of Amazon allowing one to peek inside books, I was able to find the passage:

The guns were empty and they boiled at him, transmogrified into an Eye and a Hand, and he stood, screaming and reloading, his mind far away and absent, letting his hands do their reloading trick. Could he hold up a hand, tell them he had spent a thousand years learning this trick and others, tell them of the guns and the blood that had blessed them? Not with his mouth. But his hands could speak their own tale.

How does this relate to poker? When I'm at the top of my game, it's almost as if I don't have to think at all; some part of me knows instinctively what to do. It's a trick learned from playing many thousands of hands. You could even call it a trick of my right hand, since that hand must manipulate the computer mouse to click on the appropriate buttons in the PokerStars client interface :-)

buy_in entry_fee num_players num_hands place winnings

 45000      5000           6        24     1   175500
 45000      5000           6        31     5        0
 45000      5000           6        63     5        0
 45000      5000           6         6     3        0
 45000      5000           6        19     1   175500
 45000      5000           6        59     2    94500

The second and third tournaments I played last night were 8-games; the others were no limit hold'em.

delta: $145,500
tournament balance: $2,267,090
balance: $9,149,789

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Short stuff

Last night, I knew I didn't have the patience to wait for an 8-game table to fill up, so I decided to play some some no limit hold'em tournaments instead. I've never had to wait longer than a minute or two for a no limit hold'em tournament table to fill up. Sometimes, I just have a hankering for a shorter tournament experience; it's akin to the hankering to read short fiction every now and then, between longer pieces :-) One again, I managed to lose the minimum you can lose when you play two $50,000 buy in tournaments. I'm due for a profit!

buy_in entry_fee num_players num_hands place winnings

 45000      5000           6        25     3        0
 45000      5000           6        30     2    94500

delta: $-5,500
tournament balance: $2,121,590
balance: $9,004,289

Monday, March 3, 2014

A tournament within the tournament

As is turns out, I was wrong about my longest bubble, since I was calculating it wrong. I was looking for the tournament where I played the most hands while still coming in third, but what I should have been looking for was the tournament where I played the most three-handed hands. That truly measures the bubble, since the counting doesn't start until the bubble does, and ends when the bubble ends. Using this methodology, Friday night's tournament actually had my third longest bubble - 84 hands. My longest is a whopping 90 hands, which occurred in the last tournament I played on February 13th.

Playing three-handed is a tournament within the tournament. You can't play the same way you played to get there, and you can't continue to play the way you're playing if you manage to make it to heads up. I think playing three-handed well is actually even harder than playing heads up well. It's arguably an even more important skill, since if you don't master it, you'll never make the money enough times to turn a profit playing tournaments.

On Saturday night, I had a decent-sized bubble - 32 hands. Unfortunately, I came out on the short end.

buy_in entry_fee num_players num_hands place winnings

 45000      5000           6       108     3        0


delta: $-50,000
tournament balance: $2,127,090
balance: $9,009,789

Saturday, March 1, 2014

Longest bubble yet

As I've said before, one of the things I really like about 8-games is their length. It gives me a great sense of accomplishment to be able to take part in a marathon session, where I need to maintain a high level of concentration for well over an hour. Last night, I had my longest bubble yet - 153 hands. This obliterated the previous longest of 104 hands. Of course, bubbling is not what you aim for, but since you have to bubble sometimes, it's nice if you can set personal bests while you're doing it :-)

After the 8-game, I had a hankering to play some pure no limit hold'em tournaments, so I did - to the tune of 4 of them.

buy_in entry_fee num_players num_hands place winnings

 45000      5000           6       153     3        0
 45000      5000           6        16     4        0
 45000      5000           6        19     3        0
 45000      5000           6        26     2    94500
 45000      5000           6        15     4        0


delta: $-155,500
tournament balance: $2,177,090
balance: $9,059,789