A 1 in 270,725 occurrence

If you play poker long enough, you'll see freaky things you never believed you'd ever see. That's one of its appeals, at least for me :-) There's essentially no cap on the number of times you'll see something you've never seen before, no matter how long you've played. That makes poker forever young!

I've played online poker for 16 years. In that time, I've played 4,413 sessions. I don't know the precise number of hands I've played, for two reasons:

1. I didn't start keeping track of the number of hands I played right away

2. some years ago, PokerStars removed hand histories from the data they make available for play money tournaments

Nevertheless, I can calculate a ballpark figure for the number of hands I've played. The average number of hands per session for the sessions where I have the hand histories is 114.84. To be conservative, I'll assume the average number of hands per session for my career is 60.  That means I've played roughly 264,780 hands in my career.

Now for the freaky thing that happened yesterday: in the first tournament I entered, I was dealt pocket rockets on one hand, called a shove made by an opponent on the flop (which put me all in), and didn't win the pot. The freaky thing was not that I didn't win the pot. The freaky thing was why I didn't. I didn't because I chopped it, and I chopped it because my opponent also had pocket rockets! Such an occurrence is very rare - the chances of it happening to you are 1 in 270,725. It never happened to me before, but I plan on playing for many more years, so there's a decent chance it'll happen to me again :-)

style flavor buy_in  entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE    44000   6000       9     339   81    71    89000
MTT   NLHE    44000   6000       9     235   63    12   175000

delta: $164,000
2024 balance: $3,255,000
2024 blue distance: $7,000
balance: $16,064,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.56 (1222 of 2940)

Just say no to guarantees

"Guarantees" is my shorthand for multi-table tournaments which have a guaranteed prize pool. I do my best not to play them, but sometimes my desire to play poker exceeds my will to avoid bad tournaments, and that happened again last night; the guarantee was the second of the three tournaments I played. Guarantees are bad tournaments. Why? For the simple reason that they require you to outlast a larger percentage of the entrants in order to make the money. The tournaments that are good for me on PokerStars typically require outlasting anywhere from 71%  to 76% of the entrants in order to make the money. The guarantees on PokerStars require outlasting anywhere from 81% to 86% of the entrants in order to make the money. That's too rich for my blood. The only guarantee about guarantees is that I'll be guaranteed to lose money hand over fist if I continue to play them :-)

style flavor buy_in  entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE    44000   6000       9     233   63   169        0
MTT   NLHE    44000   6000       9     226   39    41        0
MTT   NLHE    44000   6000       9     315   81   181        0

delta: $-150,000
2024 balance: $3,091,000
2024 blue distance: $171,000
balance: $15,900,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.52 (1220 of 2938)

Silver lining

Whether I win or lose a session, I'm contracted to write about what happened before being allowed to play another. Who drafted such a nefarious contract? Me :-) It's typically easier to write about winning sessions than losing ones. After losing, I often struggle to find the session's silver lining, but that's what I want to write about.

This is an excerpt from my June 6, 2016 post. Yesterday, I had a losing session, but found a silver lining - I increased my MTT NLHE ITM pct (Multi-Table Tournament No-Limit Hold'Em In The Money percentage) by one hundredth of a percentage point. Not much to crow about, but beggars can't be choosy :-)

style flavor buy_in  entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE    44000   6000       9     278   72    64    79000
MTT   NLHE    44000   6000       9     245   63   163        0

delta: $-21,000
2024 balance: $3,241,000
2024 blue distance: $21,000
balance: $16,050,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.57 (1220 of 2935)

Uberflushed

One of the worst feelings you can experience at a poker table is having your flush beaten by a better flush, in the case where the board has three cards to a flush and both your hole cards are needed to complete it. The odds that someone else has another such flush, let alone one which beats yours, are small indeed. I call the better flush an uberflush, and say that the loser has been uberflushed :-)

This is an excerpt from my April 3, 2017 post. I was uberflushed on the final hand of the first tournament I entered today. I'd been dealt a jack of hearts and a smaller heart, and the ace of hearts, the queen of hearts, and a smaller heart showed up on the board. I knew I could only be beaten by someone who had been dealt the king of hearts and another heart. I called a river bet which put me all in, and got the bad news at showdown. However, I didn't feel downhearted. There were two excellent reasons for this:

1. it was the correct play to call, and I'd make the same call in that situation 100% of the time

2. I'd already made the money :-)

style flavor buy_in  entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE    44000   6000       9     334   81    58   102000
MTT   NLHE    44000   6000       9     255   72    39   106000

delta: $108,000
2024 balance: $3,262,000
2024 blue distance: $0
balance: $16,071,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.56 (1219 of 2933)

Getting to the second break

In the $50,000 buy in tournaments that I play on PokerStars, the software gives players two five minute breaks. The first occurs at the 24 minute mark, which is five minutes before the late registration period ends, and the second is somewhere around the one hour mark. Since I habitually join tournaments late in the late registration period, I almost always make it to the first break. Getting to the second break is exponentially harder. If you make it to the second break, you've definitely made the money, and are likely to have a decent shot at making the final table. Today, I made it to the second break, and narrowly missed making it to the final table. Don't look now, but I'm closing in on crossing the $16,000,000 boundary once again :-)

style flavor buy_in  entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE    44000   6000       9     294   72    11   206000

delta: $156,000
2024 balance: $3,154,000
2024 blue distance: $0
balance: $15,963,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.52 (1217 of 2931)

Apples and oranges

Back in the days when I played sit and gos, I realized that it made a lot of sense to standardize on a buy in; if you don't, then a loss in a big buy in sit and go can wipe out all the gains you made in a bunch of small buy in sit and gos. That's like mixing apples and oranges, generally not a smart idea. The same is true, to a lesser extent, for MTT NLHEs. Accordingly, I'm going to try playing $200,000 buy in tournaments exclusively for a while, and see how I do.

This is an excerpt from my January 24, 2020 post. It highlights another good reason for my recent decision to stop playing both $50,000 buy in and $100,000 buy in tournaments. Last night, even though I didn't have a profitable session, the fact that the tournament where I missed the money had a $50,000 buy in instead of a $100,000 one meant that I saved myself from losing an additional $50,000 :-)

style flavor buy_in  entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE    44000   6000       9     351   81   111        0
MTT   NLHE    44000   6000       9     283   72    57    93000

delta: $-7,000
2024 balance: $2,998,000
2024 blue distance: $79,000
balance: $15,807,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.50 (1216 of 2930)

Thinner tournaments considered harmful

A thin tournament is one that doesn't have a large number of entries. Thin tournaments have smaller prize pools, fewer paid places, and smaller payouts. A trifecta of good reasons not to enter them! The only way to ensure that you don't enter a thin tournament is to postpone entering it until it has grown fat :-)

This is an excerpt from my June 10, 2021 post. On PokerStars, the number of entries is usually in inverse proportion to the buy in. The smaller the buy in, the larger the number of entries, as a general rule. So far this year, and for most of last year, I've only played in tournaments with a buy in of $50,000 or $100,000. I got curious to compare how well I do in these. I just ran this year's numbers and was surprised to see that my balance for the $100,000 buy in tournaments is in the red. Here are the numbers:

  balance    buy in  tournaments
==========  ======== ===========
$3,376,000   $50,000         502
 $-371,000  $100,000          47

I've played in far fewer $100,000 buy in tournaments, but the writing is on the wall. I'll restrict myself to the $50,000 buy in tournaments going forward.

style flavor buy_in  entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE    88000  12000       9     239   63    72        0
MTT   NLHE    44000   6000       9     359   99    68    96000

delta: $-54,000
2024 balance: $3,005,000
2024 blue distance: $72,000
balance: $15,814,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.50 (1215 of 2928)