Shot from guns

An incontrovertible proof of my advancing age, aside from more wrinkles and more gray hair, is the fact that as time goes by, I'm in an ever diminishing pool of people who can remember advertising slogans from sufficiently long ago. One which sticks in my mind is "Shot from guns". This was an ad campaign for a cereal. I confess I had to google the slogan just now to make sure I got the brand right; it was Quaker Puffed Rice.

Can the slogan be applied to poker? Easily. It means that it's a good thing to come out of the starting gate quickly ...

This is an excerpt from my January 9, 2014 post. Last night, in the second tournament I played, I was shot from guns. On my first hand, I was dealt the jack of clubs and another club (I forget the denomination), and flopped a flush. I won a decent pot and was off to the races :-)

style flavor buy_in  entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE    44000   6000       9     401   99   189        0
MTT   NLHE    88000  12000       9     311   81    37   246000

delta: $96,000
2024 balance: $2,581,000
2024 blue distance: $0
balance: $15,390,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.39 (1201 of 2902)

Shot from guns

On the strength of making the money in a 9max bounty tournament on New Year's Eve, I decided to play another last night. I made the money, but it was funny funny money - I actually ended up taking a small loss, since the payouts on the lower rungs of the pay ladder didn't cover the buy in plus the entry fee. I've decided to play 9max bounties frequently, for a change of pace, even though I swore I wouldn't play them again. They're actually quite fun to play, and really reward patience. I've decided to make it a habit to wait to join such a tournament until its late registration period is almost up, to take advantage of the fact that the longer I wait, the more dead money there will be in the prize pool.

On the very first hand of last night's tournament, I got a premium holding, shoved, knocked out an opponent, received a bounty, and doubled up. I'd been dealt a big slick, and was happy to go all in with it. One of the really refreshing things about playing 9max is that the blinds come around less frequently; I could get used to that :-)

style flavor buy_in  entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT-B NLHE   220000  30000       9     471  89     78   239000

delta: $-11,000
MTT with bounties NLHE balance: $-4,157,820
2022 balance: $-11,000
blue distance: $28,200
balance: $94,832,953

Shot from guns

In the second tournament I played last night, I was shot from guns. On the very first hand, I was dealt cowboys, got all my chips in the middle, went to showdown against three other players, and raked in a huge pot, nearly quadrupling my starting stack. Wish I could start every tournament that way :-) My good luck didn't end there; later on, I was dealt rockets, and later again, I flopped a full house of eights full of tens. My luck ran out after that, but not before I made the money.

style flavor buy_in entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE    87000 13000       6     190    36   86        0
MTT   NLHE    43500  6500       9     281    63   19    73000

delta: $-77,000
MTT NLHE balance: $10,247,668
2020 balance: $3,225,343
balance: $65,033,353

Shot from guns

On Saturday night, I had a shot from guns tournament. On the very first hand, I was dealt baby cowboys (pocket jacks), flopped a set, went all in, got two callers, and tripled up. That was a harbinger of good things to come. I got under the lights again, and narrowly missed achieving a partial Monty.

style flavor buy_in entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE   174000 26000       6      73   21     4   990000

delta: $790,000
MTT NLHE balance: $6,967,668
2019 balance: $15,423,750
balance: $61,958,010

Shot from guns

On Thursday night, I had another shot from guns session. As a reminder, that's a cash game session where I win the first hand. It was my first such session since September 24th of last year. As it happens, winning the first hand of a session is quite a good predictor of it being a winning session. Of my 160 shot from guns sessions, 119 of them have been winning ones (including Thursday night's).

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 80 hands and saw flop:
 - 7 out of 11 times while in big blind (63%)
 - 5 out of 11 times while in small blind (45%)
 - 25 out of 58 times in other positions (43%)
 - a total of 37 out of 80 (46%)
 Pots won at showdown - 2 of 8 (25%)
 Pots won without showdown - 4

delta: $35,948
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $5,649,141
balance: $9,894,283

Shot from guns

This is the fourth time I've used this blog post title, but the first I've used it in the context of sit and gos. In the first three posts, the context was cash games. Boy, it's been a long time since I've played a cash game, and boy, I don't miss cash games a bit :-) In a sit and go session, you're shot from guns when you come in first in the first sit and go of the night. That sets you up nicely for a guaranteed profit, provided you're willing to quit playing as soon as your profit drops to a min win. I was willing to do that last night.

buy_in entry players hands place winnings

 44000  6000       6    55     1   171600
 44000  6000       6    15     5        0
 44000  6000       6    88     3        0

delta: $21,600
Sit and go no limit hold'em balance: $4,273,000
balance: $12,314,804

Shot from guns

There's almost nothing in poker I like better than starting off a session by winning a big pot. I call that being shot from guns. That's what happened last night. On the very first hand, I made a straight on seventh street; I won a pot worth $13,320 with it, $9,680 of which was o.p.m. (other people's money).

Every so often I like to I take a look at my percentage of winning the first hand of a session, and like the children of Lake Wobegon, it's always been above average :-) Since I started playing stud again last month, I've won the first hand in 6 of the 25 sessions. That's 24 percent, almost double the expected 12.5 percent.

The great thing about being shot from guns is that it immediately gives you chips to play with. It doesn't matter if your stack comes back to its starting amount, or even if it dips under it; what matters is that you've been gifted with a greater number of hands to play. The more hands you can play, the better; the sooner your next monster pot :-)

During current Stud session you were dealt 68 hands and:
- saw fourth street 55 times (80%)
- saw fifth street 45 times (66%)
- saw sixth street 32 times (47%)
- reached showdown 12 times (17%)
 Pots won at showdown - 6 of 12 (50%)
 Pots won without showdown - 8

delta: $14,813
cash game 7 card stud balance: $84,138
balance: $10,169,872

Shot from guns

Last night, I had my third best cash game no limit hold'em opening hand delta ever. Here are the top ten:

$95,100 2013-03-03
$59,800 2012-02-06
$57,250 2014-06-17
$44,000 2012-01-10
$42,400 2013-01-01
$39,900 2012-01-11
$28,850 2013-12-23
$22,500 2013-08-20
$22,478 2014-02-05
$21,400 2013-08-11

It's always nice to start off your session "shot from guns" :-) When you hit the ground running, you open up the possibility of running further and faster than you ever have before.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 64 hands and saw flop:
 - 7 out of 9 times while in big blind (77%)
 - 3 out of 8 times while in small blind (37%)
 - 26 out of 47 times in other positions (55%)
 - a total of 36 out of 64 (56%)
 Pots won at showdown - 7 of 10 (70%)
 Pots won without showdown - 2

delta: $22,755
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $6,250,418
balance: $9,308,121

Shot from guns

An incontrovertible proof of my advancing age, aside from more wrinkles and more gray hair, is the fact that as time goes by, I'm in an ever diminishing pool of people who can remember advertising slogans from sufficiently long ago. One which sticks in my mind is "Shot from guns". This was an ad campaign for a cereal. I confess I had to google the slogan just now to make sure I got the brand right; it was Quaker Puffed Rice.

Can the slogan be applied to poker? Easily. It means that it's a good thing to come out of the starting gate quickly, and win the very first hand of the session. If you can do that, you get a jump start on a winning session. Last night, I was shot from guns. As it turned out, I was never underwater. I just did some research and discovered the following:

- I've played 573 sessions of cash game no limit hold'em poker
- in 120 of them, I won the first hand, for an average of .209424; that's well above the expected average of 1 in 7 (since I invariably join tables with 6 players seated at them), or .142857
- of those 120 shot from guns sessions, I've won 92, for an average of .766667
- of the remaining 453 sessions, I've won 297, for an average of .655629

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 23 hands and saw flop:
 - 2 out of 4 times while in big blind (50%)
 - 1 out of 2 times while in small blind (50%)
 - 8 out of 17 times in other positions (47%)
 - a total of 11 out of 23 (47%)
 Pots won at showdown - 2 of 3 (66%)
 Pots won without showdown - 2

delta: $10,134
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $4,974,857
balance: $7,331,810