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
Wednesday, September 9, 2015
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
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
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
Sunday, September 6, 2015
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
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
Saturday, September 5, 2015
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
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
Friday, September 4, 2015
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
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
Thursday, September 3, 2015
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
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
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
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
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
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