Modified dolphin leap definition

I originally defined a dolphin leap as a hand which vaults you into the black at the very end of a session, during which you've been underwater up until that point. The problem with this definition is that the leap could actually be quite a small one. I'd like to make a new definition. From now on, a dolphin leap will have to satisfy the following criteria:

- it must be the hand with the largest positive hand delta of the session
- it must be one of the last two hands of the session
- it must take you into, or back into, the black

Last night, I had a dolphin leap under the new definition. On hand 39 of 40, I had a hand delta of $28,568, which took my session balance from $-22,954 to $5,614. For the record, my winning hand was two pair, aces and queens.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 40 hands and saw flop:
 - 3 out of 5 times while in big blind (60%)
 - 1 out of 4 times while in small blind (25%)
 - 13 out of 31 times in other positions (41%)
 - a total of 17 out of 40 (42%)
 Pots won at showdown - 2 of 5 (40%)
 Pots won without showdown - 1

delta: $5,614
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $5,897,017
balance: $7,186,248

The rarest of the rare

As I've mentioned before, I love rarities, even when they're not in my favor. Last night, the rarest of the rare occurred - a cash game session which satisfied all of the following criteria:

1. it was a losing session
2. the biggest loss occurred on one of the last two hands of the session
3. I didn't hit the felt on the final hand

Just how rare was this? Here are the numbers:

783 cash game no limit hold'em sessions
270 sessions satisfying the first criterion
 72 sessions satisfying criteria 1 and 2
  3 sessions satisfying criteria 1, 2, and 3

Therefore, the rarity is 3 out of 783, or 38/100ths of a percent. For all intents and purposes, it's something that never happens :-)

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 100 hands and saw flop:
 - 7 out of 13 times while in big blind (53%)
 - 7 out of 13 times while in small blind (53%)
 - 25 out of 74 times in other positions (33%)
 - a total of 39 out of 100 (39%)
 Pots won at showdown - 5 of 10 (50%)
 Pots won without showdown - 3

 delta: $-49,331
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $5,891,403
balance: $7,180,634

Blue distance nightmare

I have some numbers to show you. I'll show them first, then explain what they mean.

10    2009
 3    2010
 4    2011
 5    2012
21    2015

Knowing, as you do, that 2015 is a poker annus horribilis for me, you know that whatever the number in the left column signifies, a higher one must be worse than a lower one. I went for two full years, 2013 and 2014, without recording a single observation of the mystery statistic. This year, I've more than doubled the highest number of observations of this statistic from any previous single year, and I still have 95 sessions to go.

Okay, enough beating around the bush. The mystery statistic is the number of sessions where my blue distance reached an all-time high. Just as a refresher, the blue distance is the distance a stack has fallen from its all-time high. The best value for a blue distance is 0, which means your stack is currently at its all-time high. It's very bad when your blue distance reaches an all-time high, since that means you're the furthest from former glory that you've ever been. Currently, the blue distance of my overall balance is a whopping $3,275,414. That officially qualifies it as a blue distance nightmare :-)

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 95 hands and saw flop:
 - 10 out of 14 times while in big blind (71%)
 - 3 out of 13 times while in small blind (23%)
 - 29 out of 68 times in other positions (42%)
 - a total of 42 out of 95 (44%)
 Pots won at showdown - 4 of 9 (44%)
 Pots won without showdown - 9

delta: $-6,257
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $5,940,734
balance: $7,229,965

Back to the high chaparral

In Saturday night's session, I achieved a high chaparral count of 6. That was the first time I'd had such a high count in nearly a year. This indicates that I was dialed in, and also that I was getting dealt premium hands with some regularity. Obviously, you can't control the hands you get dealt, only what you do with them. I didn't slim down as far as I'd hoped to on my poker diet, but was still under the bloated average I'm hoping to halve.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 61 hands and saw flop:
 - 6 out of 7 times while in big blind (85%)
 - 3 out of 8 times while in small blind (37%)
 - 17 out of 46 times in other positions (36%)
 - a total of 26 out of 61 (42%)
 Pots won at showdown - 6 of 9 (66%)
 Pots won without showdown - 0

delta: $53,735
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $5,946,991
balance: $7,236,222

Time for another poker diet

Over the years, I've gone on various poker diets. None of them has lasted very long, but they serve a purpose. I think it's time for another :-) My goal is simple: to play less hands per cash game session. I won't set a hard limit, since that might cause me to miss out on some really lucrative hands. What I want to do is play about half the volume of hands I've been playing lately. Let's check the numbers ...

Since I returned to cash games on September 16th, I've played 826 hands in 9 sessions. That averages out to 91.77 hands per session. My goal is to try to lower that average to 50 hands per session. We'll see how I do :-)

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 81 hands and saw flop:
 - 7 out of 11 times while in big blind (63%)
 - 9 out of 11 times while in small blind (81%)
 - 31 out of 59 times in other positions (52%)
 - a total of 47 out of 81 (58%)
 Pots won at showdown - 5 of 16 (31%)
 Pots won without showdown - 2

delta: $-31,372
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $5,893,256
balance: $7,182,487

The four tops

I sat and stared at the bar chart of my stack size over the course of last night's session for a long time, trying to come up with an angle for this post. It has several interesting features. I was underwater for the first half of the session, and above water for the second. My largest positive hand delta put me into the black for the first time. What I finally settled on as the focal point was the fact that my stack hit its maximum at the very end of the session, and held it for four straight hands, since I bet no money on the final three. I don't have to look it up to know that this is the first time this strange ending, which I'm calling "the four tops", has occurred.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 91 hands and saw flop:
 - 9 out of 13 times while in big blind (69%)
 - 2 out of 13 times while in small blind (15%)
 - 25 out of 65 times in other positions (38%)
 - a total of 36 out of 91 (39%)
 Pots won at showdown - 5 of 6 (83%)
 Pots won without showdown - 4

delta: $24,548
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $5,924,628
balance: $7,213,859

Cruel and unusual treatment

Over the years, I've picked up a lot of great phrases from people I admire. One such is "cruel and unusual treatment", which I picked up from my father. Last night, the poker gods subjected me to cruel and unusual treatment on hand 35. It was very close to being the cruelest hand it could be, and that's saying a lot. When you've flopped a monster, you know it, and I flopped a monster on hand 35. I'd been dealt 5d Qd, and the flop came 7d Kd 4d. I'd flopped the second nut flush, and bet it accordingly; I went all in on the turn after seeing the harmless turn card, which was the five of clubs. I had one caller. I was extremely unlucky to be up against an opponent who had flopped the stone cold nuts; he'd been dealt 6d Ad. Using one of my home-grown poker utilities, which calculates a statistic I call "percent at flop", I found out that my hand, in combination with that flop, beat 96.58% of all possible opponent hands, in combination with the remaining possible turn and river cards. I lost $56,986 on the hand, and hit the felt.

Just to try to put things in perspective, I decided to try constructing the most dominant percent at flop scenario I could think of. Here's what I came up with:

hole cards: Ac Ad
flop: Ah As 2c

This yields a nearly perfect percent at flop value of 99.99%. Not too terribly different from 96.58%. Ouch!

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 91 hands and saw flop:
 - 3 out of 11 times while in big blind (27%)
 - 5 out of 13 times while in small blind (38%)
 - 29 out of 67 times in other positions (43%)
 - a total of 37 out of 91 (40%)
 Pots won at showdown - 2 of 6 (33%)
 Pots won without showdown - 4

delta: $-100,000
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $5,900,080
balance: $7,189,311

5 hands

Last night's session only lasted 5 hands. That's generally an awesome sign for a cash game session; it's the kiss of death for a tournament. As it turns out, I've never lost a 5 hand cash game session. Here the amounts I won, and when:

$140,537    2013-03-03
$101,790    2015-09-21
 $36,400    2013-01-15
 $24,100    2011-04-06
 $20,500    2012-02-22
  $9,040    2011-02-24

Of course, these micro sessions are almost entirely composed of luck. Be that as it may, I'll take 'em :-)

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 5 hands and saw flop:
 - 1 out of 1 times while in big blind (100%)
 - 0 out of 0 times while in small blind (0%)
 - 2 out of 4 times in other positions (50%)
 - a total of 3 out of 5 (60%)
 Pots won at showdown - 1 of 1 (100%)
 Pots won without showdown - 1

delta: $101,790
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $6,000,080
balance: $7,289,311

Rope

Last night, an opponent gave me enough rope to hang myself. Unfortunately, I obliged. I'd been dealt pocket jacks, and the board ran out 4c 7c 9s Th 4h. I did all the betting, and my opponent called me down. At showdown, he turned over pocket kings, and I'd lost $39,456 in a New York minute. It was incumbent on me to slow down after his turn call; I should have just checked. I'd convinced myself my hand was best, though, so it's not too surprising I bet again. I can't find much of a silver lining in last night's session; about the best I can come up with is that my seeing the flop percentage didn't exceed 50 :-)

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 100 hands and saw flop:
 - 18 out of 20 times while in big blind (90%)
 - 7 out of 18 times while in small blind (38%)
 - 25 out of 62 times in other positions (40%)
 - a total of 50 out of 100 (50%)
 Pots won at showdown - 5 of 13 (38%)
 Pots won without showdown - 3

delta: $-68,286
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $5,898,290
balance: $7,187,521

Immediate service

I enjoy listening to good poker commentary. When you listen to a good commentator often enough, not only do you gain valuable poker insights, but you also get to know the personality of the commentator. Very often, he or she will have certain pet phrases which you'll look forward to hearing.

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.

Last night, I hit the felt at the end of a long and somewhat frustrating session. The reason is was long was the same as the reason it was somewhat frustrating - I was playing fairly well, but wasn't getting many premium hands. On the final hand, I was up against an opponent who had both a flush draw and a gutshot straight draw; he got "immediate service" when he filled his gutshot on the turn.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 143 hands and saw flop:
 - 16 out of 21 times while in big blind (76%)
 - 12 out of 21 times while in small blind (57%)
 - 38 out of 101 times in other positions (37%)
 - a total of 66 out of 143 (46%)
 Pots won at showdown - 6 of 15 (40%)
 Pots won without showdown - 8

delta: $-50,000
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $5,966,576
balance: $7,255,807

$98,412,840

The gaudy number which I've used for the title of this post is the amount of play money I've spent on cash game no limit hold'em hands. By definition, this amount is less than or equal to the amount of play money I've wagered on cash game no limit hold'em hands, for the simple reason that uncalled bet amounts are always returned to the bettor. Therefore, I think it's quite safe to say that I've wagered over $100 million play dollars on cash game no limit hold'em in my career. That's more than double the amount of play money I've wagered on sit and go tournaments in my career, and 148 times the amount of play money I've wagered on MTTs. This is proof positive that cash games are my bread and butter, and that I stray from them at my peril.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 83 hands and saw flop:
 - 9 out of 10 times while in big blind (90%)
 - 6 out of 11 times while in small blind (54%)
 - 18 out of 62 times in other positions (29%)
 - a total of 33 out of 83 (39%)
 Pots won at showdown - 9 of 14 (64%)
 Pots won without showdown - 9

delta: $10,417
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $6,016,576
balance: $7,305,807

Cash splashes

One thing I realize I really missed when I was playing tournaments was the ability to make a cash splash. In cash games, every hand has an immediate effect on your stack. To go even further, every time you call, bet, or raise in a cash game hand, that action has an immediate effect on your stack. Namely, it reduces it by the amount that you called, bet, or raised. You've essentially kissed that money goodbye. If you win the hand, you get the money back, but don't fool yourself that it wasn't gone in the meantime :-) In tournaments, no single hand has an immediate effect on your stack.

What do I mean by a cash splash? When you win a pot in a cash game which gives you a hand delta greater than or equal to your initial stake. Since I play $200/$500 tables with a maximum initial stake of $50,000, and always buy in for the maximum, a cash splash for me is $50,000. Last night, I had a cash splash of $64,608 on hand 8.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 82 hands and saw flop:
 - 3 out of 12 times while in big blind (25%)
 - 4 out of 12 times while in small blind (33%)
 - 20 out of 58 times in other positions (34%)
 - a total of 27 out of 82 (32%)
 Pots won at showdown - 5 of 8 (62%)
 Pots won without showdown - 3

delta: $31,894
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $6,006,159
balance: $7,295,390

Picking up where I left off

Last night, in my return to cash game no limit hold'em, I picked up where I left off. That is, I lost a pile of money. I hit the felt twice, and reupped twice. I made up some ground after the second reup, but the table ended up quitting on me before I could do too much. The lone highlight of the night was that my largest positive hand delta was larger than my largest negative hand delta, even though it wasn't by much. I have a long road to travel to get my 2015 cash game no limit hold'em balance back into the black, but I'm committed to making the attempt.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 150 hands and saw flop:
 - 25 out of 34 times while in big blind (73%)
 - 18 out of 36 times while in small blind (50%)
 - 25 out of 80 times in other positions (31%)
 - a total of 68 out of 150 (45%)
 Pots won at showdown - 7 of 18 (38%)
 Pots won without showdown - 12

delta: $-70,810
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $5,974,265
balance: $7,263,496

Figuring out what can be salvaged

As I could have predicted, talking about a streak while it was in progress put an abrupt end to it. I should have known better. Failing to extend my MTT NLHE streak last night freed me up to try other flavors, but I was equally unsuccessful in them. I realize I have to figure out how I want this poker annus horribilis to end. Here's my tale of woe so far:

sum(delta)  count(*)      style  flavor

     18020        64        MTT  8-Game
      2600         1   Sit & Go  HORSE
     -1338        44        MTT  No Limit Hold'em
    -64160        25        MTT  HORSE
   -536690        35   Sit & Go  8-Game
   -553256        37  Cash game  No Limit Hold'em
  -1153200       208   Sit & Go  No Limit Hold'em

  -2288024       414

I almost hate to say it, but the only viable goal for the remainder of the year is to try to bring my 2015 cash game no limit hold'em balance back into the black. I need to swear off sit and gos and MTTs for the duration. The best I can realistically hope for is a year where I lose over 1.7 million play dollars, when I've never had a losing year before. Whatever happens, I won't be sad to see this poker year come to a close.

style flavor buy_in entry players hands place winnings

MTT   NLHE      900   100       6    21   448        0
MTT   8-Game   4500   500       6    44    32        0
SNG   NLHE    45000  5000       6    51     3        0
SNG   NLHE    45000  5000       6    50     3        0

delta: $-106,000
Sit and go no limit hold'em balance: $123,200
balance: $7,334,306

Lucky 13

This is actually the fifth time I've used this blog post title. I'm sure I'll continue to use it, since it's quite expressive. Last night, I won my 13th straight MTT NLHE. My aggregate percentile for those tournaments is 85.9981; you'll forgive me if I round that up to 86 :-) My next longest MTT NLHE win streak is a mere 3 tournaments. I'm somewhere in the middle of an outlier, and I'm going to keep it going as long as I can.

buy_in entry players hands entries places_paid place winnings

   900   100       6    63    1186         300   156     2294

delta: $1,294
MTT NLHE balance: $-8,738
balance: $7,440,306

Nearing .500

After 45 MTT NLHEs, I'm one money finish away from hitting .500. I've made the money 22 times, and missed it 23 times. I think I've perfected a method for making the money. The ironic thing is, if everyone tried to follow this method, it would fall apart. That's due to the fact that a fundamental piece of the strategy is to join the tournament at the end of the late registration period. The reason for doing this is to maximize the number of players who have hit the rail before you even start playing. If everyone waited until the end of the late registration period, then no one would have hit the rail by the time anyone joined. Luckily for me, this is only a hypothetical problem :-)

buy_in entry players hands entries places_paid place winnings

   900   100       6    47     817         216   112     2316

delta: $1,316
MTT NLHE balance: $-10,032
balance: $7,439,012

Different kinds of ROI

Looking at MTTs strictly from a monetary perspective, they make little to no sense to play. Since August 25th, when I switched from sit and gos to MTTs, I've played 26 MTTs and have a negative aggregate of $-4,576 to show for my efforts. The financial ROI on MTTs is essentially non-existent. However, there are different kinds of ROI. Not only do I have a lot of fun playing MTTs, I get an immense amount of satisfaction when I make the money, even though the winnings are so meager. For me, the fun ROI and the satisfaction ROI of MTTs far outweigh the lack of financial ROI.

buy_in entry players hands entries places_paid place winnings

   900   100       6    62     894         216   147     2132

delta: $1,132
MTT NLHE balance: $-11,348
balance: $7,437,696

F.T.S.

Distilled to its essence, my advice for how to succeed at MTTs is a mere three letters: F.T.S. It stands for "Fold That Shit!". The vast majority of hands you're dealt will be shit, and you should fold them. Imagine if everyone knew that, and acted on that understanding! That would be a tragedy for the minority of poker players, including myself, who do act on it. Fortunately, the chance of a snowball surviving in hell exceeds the chance that a majority of poker players will act on that understanding. In a perverse way, you actually almost have to want not to win in order to be able to fold all the times that you should. Just as perversely, it's this avoidance of winning which will virtually guarantee you of making the money :-)

buy_in entry players hands entries places_paid place winnings

   900   100       6    67    1072         264   162     2170

delta: $1,170
MTT NLHE balance: $-12,480
balance: $7,436,564

Sometimes one donkey is all you need

I've mentioned before how fish (mediocre players) are vital to poker. I wouldn't say that donkeys (foolishly risk-taking players) are vital, but they sure come in handy now and then :-) In an MTT, sometimes one donkey is all you need. That was the case for me last night. On hand 20, a donkey went all in preflop with absolute rags, as I discovered when I called him. He'd been dealt deuce nine offsuit and I'd been dealt cowboys (pocket kings). My cowboys held up, and I raked in a pot worth $3,238. That enabled me to fold my way into the money. Cashing in these huge field MTTs is starting to feel as easy as taking candy from a baby :-)

style flavor buy_in entry players hands place winnings

MTT   NLHE      900   100       9    65    95     2726

delta: $1,726
MTT NLHE balance: $-13,650
balance: $7,435,394

The lower 98

It's a great feeling to be above the crowd. That's where I ended up last night, when I finished 11th in a field of 975. That put me into the 98th percentile, for the first time in my MTT career. So you could say I beat the lower 98 :-)

style flavor buy_in entry players hands place winnings

MTT   NLHE      900   100       9    98    11     7458

delta: $6,458
MTT NLHE balance: $-15,376
balance: $7,433,668

For the love of deepstacks

PokerStars has a name for tournaments where they give each player double the normal amount of chips - they're called deepstacks. The buy in is the same. As I've mentioned before, these extra chips greatly favor the more skillful players. I've haven't yet detected if there's any kind of pattern as to when PokerStars runs the deepstacks; I only know that I love them and will join one whenever I can :-) Such was the case last night.

style flavor buy_in entry players hands place winnings

MTT   NLHE      900   100       9    50   173     2161

delta: $1,161
MTT NLHE balance: $-21,834
balance: $7,427,210

Hitting .400

With Sunday night's cash, I'm now hitting .400 in MTT NLHEs. I have 16 cashes in 39 tournaments, for a .410 average. Most of them have been min cashes, but it's still a nice achievement. I've been staying very true to my "fold early and often" MTT philosophy, and it's clearly paying dividends. I can only imagine three ways of finishing really high in an MTT:

1. build a huge bankroll by getting really lucky
2. build a huge bankroll by playing very riskily
3. build a huge bankroll by getting really lucky and also playing very riskily

I'm only willing to use the first of these methods.

style flavor buy_in entry players hands place winnings

MTT   NLHE      900   100       9    51   106     2126

delta: $1,126
MTT NLHE balance: $-22,995
balance: $7,426,049

A more accurate zero bet percentage

As I've settled into a comfortable pattern of playing MTT NLHEs and cashing in them, largely by folding, I've been thinking about how best to measure the act of not spending money. I've come to the conclusion that my calculation of zero bet percentage leaves something to be desired. What I was measuring was the percentage of time I spent no money on a hand, when it was possible to spend no money on it. This is coarser grained than it could be. I've come up with an improvement; my new calculation measures the percentage of decision points where I spend no money. Using it, my zero bet percentage for last night's session was 80.36 (45 of 56 decision points).

style flavor buy_in entry players hands place winnings

MTT   NLHE      900   100       6    37   174     1702

delta: $702
MTT NLHE balance: $-24,121
balance: $7,424,923

Anatomy of an MTT NLHE cash

With last night's cash, I've now had four MTT NLHE cashes in a row. You must forgive me if I feel I now have some expertise in how to go about securing them. My advice divides neatly into three parts. The first two parts can be followed by anyone at all. The last part is the tricky one. Here they are:

1. wait until there are 5 minutes or less left in the late registration period to join the tournament
2. fold, fold, and fold again; then, just for spite, fold some more
3. win pots when you must

When I first started playing MTTs, I was really divided in my mind about whether it was better to join them as early as possible or as late as possible. Now, I have no doubt; it's far better to join them as late as possible. Why? For the simple reason that the longer you wait, the more opponents there are who have already hit the rail; these opponents, by definition, can never beat you. Another way to look at this is that they've donated their buy ins to the remaining players, so you want to join when as many buy ins as possible have been donated in this way. Yet another way to look at this is that the more dead money there is in the pool, the better it is for the live money.

As for folding, the plain, simple, unvarnished truth is that in an MTT, it's almost always better to fold than not to fold, and most players simply cannot bring themselves to fold as often as they should. I know this for a fact, since I myself can't fold as often as I should, despite the fact that I fold much more frequently than the average MTT entrant.

The final bit of advice separates the good players from the great ones. You can't teach this. There's no practical guide for how to go about it. It's a feel thing. You have to have great feel. Another name for it is instinct. Yet another is card sense. You're either born with card sense or not. Thankfully, I was born with it :-)

style flavor buy_in entry players hands place winnings

MTT   NLHE      900   100       9   104    21     4677

delta: $3,677
MTT NLHE balance: $-24,823
balance: $7,424,221

First MTT NLHE three bagger

Last night, I had two more easy money MTT NLHEs. On the strength of them, I registered the first three bagger of my young MTT NLHE career. Even though I'm playing these tournaments strictly for fun (and believe me, they are fun), I'm still kind of curious about their profit potential. Let's take a look at the $900 buy in level, which has a $100 entry fee. The first scenario I'll consider is one where I only ever make a min cash when I make the money. How frequently would I have to min cash in order to break even? Let's use the min cash payout from last night's first MTT NLHE as a guide. There were 1,082 entries, and 264 places were paid. The payout for a min cash was $1,412. To break even playing such tournaments, and only min cashing, I'd have to make the money 70.82% of the time. Friends and neighbors, that just ain't gonna happen. So far, my making the money percentage is a comparatively lowly 36.11. Assuming (and this is a big assumption) that I can increase that to 50%, how much better than min cashing would I have to do in order to break even? Here's the full pay table from the tournament:

1         $43,504
2         $36,274
3         $31,405
4         $27,509
5         $23,614
6         $20,693
7         $17,771
8         $14,850
9         $12,092
10-12     $10,955
13-15      $9,494
16-18      $8,033
19-24      $7,060
25-30      $6,086
31-36      $5,112
37-42      $4,430
43-48      $3,943
49-60      $3,651
61-72      $3,359
73-84      $3,164
85-96      $2,970
97-114     $2,775
115-132    $2,580
133-150    $2,385
151-168    $2,191
169-192    $1,996
193-216    $1,801
217-240    $1,606
241-264    $1,412

If I made the money exactly 50% of the time, and every time I made the money, I were able to hit the payout which is three slots up from a min cash, I still wouldn't quite break even! This shows how unbelievably difficult it is to make a profit playing this type of tournament. However, it's a wonderful challenge, and I'm here to tell you that I'm picking up the gauntlet these numbers have thrown down :-)

style flavor buy_in entry players hands place winnings

MTT   NLHE      900   100       6    39   253     1412
MTT   NLHE      900   100       9    38   106     2485

delta: $1,897
MTT NLHE balance: $-28,500
balance: $7,420,544

Easy money

One of the aspects of huge field MTTs which I find amusing is how fast the number of remaining players can go down. The PokerStars software helpfully keeps a running count prominently displayed. Sometimes it feels like all I need to do to make the money is just sit there and watch the counter run down. That's what I call easy money :-)

I had just such an easy money situation on Tuesday night. The last I remember checking, there were about a hundred spots to go to make the money, and all of sudden, the money was there. There must have been a huge spike of players hitting the rail in a really short period of time. I'll take it :-)

style flavor buy_in entry players hands place winnings

MTT   NLHE      900   100       6    53   225     1643

delta: $643
MTT NLHE balance: $-30,397
balance: $7,418,647

Getting it in semi-good

Although I didn't make the money in either MTT NLHE I entered last night, I had the consolation of achieving very high missed the money percentiles in both. Here are my career top 10 missed the money percentiles:

percentile place entries paid      date    mtt

    0.9924    43     174   42  2015-08-25    b
    0.9857    19      88   18  2015-06-28    a
    0.9838   291    1018  279  2015-08-28    b
    0.9667   346    1245  315  2015-08-31    b
    0.9615   242     891  216  2015-08-31    a
    0.9579   214     783  189  2015-07-20    a
    0.9556   316    1113  279  2015-08-28    a
    0.9524    21      81   18  2015-07-15    a
    0.9103    31     102   24  2015-07-28    a
    0.8889    49     153   36  2015-07-19    a

In the second MTT, I got it in semi-good on my final hand. I'd been dealt ace eight offsuit, went all in preflop, and got two callers. As it turns out, I had a 30.25% chance off winning the pot, and a 9.00% chance of chopping. I had been "within an ace" of folding, but decided to go for the glory :-)

style flavor buy_in entry players hands place winnings

MTT   NLHE      900   100       9    21   242        0
MTT   NLHE      900   100       9    58   346        0

delta: $-2,000
MTT NLHE balance: $-31,040
balance: $7,418,004