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Random poker nonsense.

Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 7:57 pm
by Semaj
So I made a bet with my friend... Because I am a moron

The bet:
Each of us start with 100 bucks in our Account. We only play MTT's at pokerstars, and the first one to 1200 bucks wins. The loser, if he is in the positives has to buy the winners HUD (Holdem Manager) and the losers facebook status has to announce the winner as the manliest man alive... For 3 days, 3 hours and 3 minutes.

He's better at push-shoving than i am which is important in the 90 man turbos. So he's taken a early lead while I adjust my style of play. In normal slower tournaments I have a solid ROI but the Turbos are currently my nemesis. I hit a 5th and a 3rd last night in 2 90's to make them less painful. But as it stands, he is up 220 bucks 2-3 days in and I am down 8. he had a run of solid cards and was able to whip through the ones quickly and the 2's inside 3 or 4 hours with a 3rd a 2nd and a first in like 20 tournaments.

My being down 8 is good since at one point I was over 30 down when I hit a run of luck so vicious it made my head spin and changed my style. I went 5-20 in coinflips and 1-7 in 75-25/80-20's. Quite literally at one final table, the other guy doubled up 8ish times, usually either in a coinflip or from behind (he was ahead twice when I was over 20-1 on his chips and ATC was a fine call.

The rules:
100 times buyin to move up : 100 - 1's, 200 - 2's, 300 - 3's
You can move down if you have a bad run and drop half your stack
Freerolls are ok, unless they are invite only for cash and the other one isn't invited.
Screenshots are not required but are being given just on general principle.
I'm sure I am missing some minor ones

It's a fun bet thats helping both of our tournament games. Now if only I can pull the hands he is...

Unfortunately for me he's better... He's been playing poker longer, so he can Multitab 10-12ish and I have to stop around 6 or I get so bad its not cost effective. 8 pretty much made me time out once or twice. The other major adjustment for me is how _bad_ these poker players are until around the final table. I assume bluffs and no idiot will call Aces if I all in in the opening hand. After watching him I am realizing how wrong this is. He made a few comments and I did solid in just turbos last night... Now I just have to remember to stop playing Ace-Rag/JK until late game :)

Any thoughts/opinions/advice is welcome, I need all the help I can get :)

Re: Random poker nonsense.

Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 11:53 am
by Vorret
the best ROI tournament on stars are the 4.40 180mans mtt
they're soft as hell and a win net you 220$ if I remember correctly.

That's what I'd play if it was my 100$.
Granted it's a risk and not a good advice as far as bankroll management goes bu the objective here is winning.

Also, it's not turbo so you if you can build a decent stack you won't have to use the crazy pushing strategy after 30 minutes.

They tend to last 3:30-4hrs and you can start one every 15 minutes or so.

Re: Random poker nonsense.

Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2009 8:50 pm
by Semaj
against the rules of the bet... or I'd be playing 180's

Pokerstars has 45 and 90 man turbos... but while I can win a 45 or two.. the 90's have been my nemesis. While Mike (My co conspirator) rocked out like 3 wins in the 90's in a day and was up to 2's in short order. Then he had a 1st and a secodn in the 180 2's and was up to 3's in 2 days.

I have suffered in the dollars.... I'll have a good stretch... and I'll have days where I go all in 6 times in 6 tournaments with a 60+% chance to win and win none. losing all 6 tournaments and hating finishing on the bubble in 3 others, netting a 10 dollar loss.

Luckily we get to play frerolls... and if not for a bad move near the final table I'da prolly gotten a 2nd or 3rd in a 5k person 20 fpp freeroll and netted 90 or 100 bucks, instead 16th got me 4.50... which hurts o so much. But.. my oturnament game is getting noticably better. Now if only i could get through the idiots in the beginning and not have A's cracked by k7, kq or 35 (all which happened yesterday, twitch) I'll be on my damn way.

luckily they do have a few specials going on I can get in on while i try to make my way into the monies. 27 tables enter you into a tournament... 1-3 dollar tables are low end, 4+ are high end. Finishing in the top 150 a block of 20 (for low) or 100 (for high) will get you monies.

At least it means my 3 final tables in the first 5 might be a good start to 27's.

Now all I have ot do is figure out 90 turbo's and I am solid in 1's.., lol

Re: Random poker nonsense.

Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 12:01 pm
by Vorret
you just said he played in 180s ?
just make it to 4$ and grind the 4.40 to glory

Re: Random poker nonsense.

Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 6:37 pm
by The Meal
Semaj wrote:So I made a bet with my friend... Because I am a moron

The bet:
Each of us start with 100 bucks in our Account. We only play MTT's at pokerstars, and the first one to 1200 bucks wins. The loser, if he is in the positives has to buy the winners HUD (Holdem Manager) and the losers facebook status has to announce the winner as the manliest man alive... For 3 days, 3 hours and 3 minutes.
Sounds like a fun premise, though I'd be impressed with anyone who's abilities are such that they expect a 11-fold return on investment. However, I haven't played on Poker Stars ("P*" as I've seen it referenced) in many years, so maybe the quality of games has declined to make this a reasonable expectation?
He's better at push-shoving than i am which is important in the 90 man turbos.
What's a "push-shove?"
So he's taken a early lead while I adjust my style of play. In normal slower tournaments I have a solid ROI but the Turbos are currently my nemesis. I hit a 5th and a 3rd last night in 2 90's to make them less painful. But as it stands, he is up 220 bucks 2-3 days in and I am down 8.
Impressive results on his part. Are those sustainable, or is that significantly better than one should expect? You're right to say that turbo tournaments require a completely different mindframe. When I played regularly, I had my best results at the turbos, as I found that I naturally ramped up my aggression much better than most of my opponents for that format. But I was playing either 9p SNGs or a 2-table 18p MTT exclusively. Not sure how I'd feel about a 10-table or 20-table MTT in that format. And I was playing on Full Tilt Poker ("FTP"), which I found to have fairly weak games in the early mornings and early evenings.
he had a run of solid cards and was able to whip through the ones quickly and the 2's inside 3 or 4 hours with a 3rd a 2nd and a first in like 20 tournaments.
I don't follow what you mean by "the ones" and "the 2's." Are those types of P* tournaments? My problem with the low-buy-in MTTs is that the payoff isn't enough excitement for me for to devote a few hours to a result. I'd much rather sit and play in 8-10 SNGs, knowing I can quit playing within 30 minutes (FTP turbos, here) of getting sick of playing. Slogging along for three hours in the hopes of pulling down $27 or whatever, didn't really do it for me.
My being down 8 is good since at one point I was over 30 down when I hit a run of luck so vicious it made my head spin and changed my style. I went 5-20 in coinflips and 1-7 in 75-25/80-20's. Quite literally at one final table, the other guy doubled up 8ish times, usually either in a coinflip or from behind (he was ahead twice when I was over 20-1 on his chips and ATC was a fine call.
I find it likely that you're running into some selective memory. To lose 15 of 20 50%-50% propositions has a probability of 0.014785767 (a little bit better if you use the probability of losing at least 15 times: 0.020694733) and to lose 6 of 7 75%-25% propositions, 0.001281738 (or 0.001342773 if you also include your chance of losing all 7). The parlay of the two most favorable conditions is 2.77883E-05 or one time out of 35986 times you put yourself into that situation.

Hard to believe is what I'm getting at.
The rules:
100 times buyin to move up : 100 - 1's, 200 - 2's, 300 - 3's
This is gibberish to me. :( Care to better explain? I see that Vorret is having the same difficulty trying to figure out the constraints of your endeavor.
You can move down if you have a bad run and drop half your stack
Freerolls are ok, unless they are invite only for cash and the other one isn't invited.
Screenshots are not required but are being given just on general principle.
I'm sure I am missing some minor ones
Seems like a pretty fun challenge, assuming that your rate of returns are such that you know you're not (basically) guaranteed to go broke. Would be cool to see a scientific breakdown of your wins (played 20 90p MTTs, finished 1st once for $XX.XX profit, finished 3rd twice for $YY.YY, etc.). What kind of notes are you taking?
Unfortunately for me he's better... He's been playing poker longer, so he can Multitab 10-12ish and I have to stop around 6 or I get so bad its not cost effective. 8 pretty much made me time out once or twice.
Pretty impressive nonetheless! I play at stakes such that it makes clear to me that I play for the challenge of the game, not with the intent of making it a primary source of income; so for me it's more fun to play such that I'm out thinking my opponents rather than just using a superior algorithm to roboticize my play. Because of that, playing on multiple tables at once is counter-productive. But that's just me, and I don't mean to take away from what you're trying to accomplish (facebook infamy!).
The other major adjustment for me is how _bad_ these poker players are until around the final table. I assume bluffs and no idiot will call Aces if I all in in the opening hand. After watching him I am realizing how wrong this is. He made a few comments and I did solid in just turbos last night... Now I just have to remember to stop playing Ace-Rag/JK until late game :)
This is certainly the case in the SNGs as well. I think that you'd have positive equity going all-in from UTG (9p table) on the first hand with as weak as TT, even if you neglect those times you suck-out on a better hand. That's some seriously loose calling.
Any thoughts/opinions/advice is welcome, I need all the help I can get :)
Not sure I can give useful advice for a multi-tabler, as my successful rate on SNGs involves learning how to exploit the opponents. Playing a jam-or-fold game (which the SNG turbo tends to be for all but a brief period of 3-handed and the beginning of heads-up play) is pretty mathematical, and making the proper adjustments for your opponents' deviation from the proper mathematical play (based on their jam/fold rates and the hands you get to see) is pretty second nature to me. Obviously you have to know how to play ABC to understand the best ways to exploit their shortcomings.

There's a thread around here (search out "Rate of Return" and my name) detailing some of my Super Turbo (120 starting chips at T10/20 starting blinds, levels increase every 3 minutes) SNG play.

Re: Random poker nonsense.

Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 9:32 pm
by Semaj
The Meal wrote:
Semaj wrote:So I made a bet with my friend... Because I am a moron

The bet:
Each of us start with 100 bucks in our Account. We only play MTT's at pokerstars, and the first one to 1200 bucks wins. The loser, if he is in the positives has to buy the winners HUD (Holdem Manager) and the losers facebook status has to announce the winner as the manliest man alive... For 3 days, 3 hours and 3 minutes.
Sounds like a fun premise, though I'd be impressed with anyone who's abilities are such that they expect a 11-fold return on investment. However, I haven't played on Poker Stars ("P*" as I've seen it referenced) in many years, so maybe the quality of games has declined to make this a reasonable expectation?
Actually it's all about return on investment. If you play well enough to money in a specific amount, you will do well/make money. They key is where you place and how often.
The Meal wrote:
He's better at push-shoving than i am which is important in the 90 man turbos.
What's a "push-shove?"
Its a style where you get your cards in preflop all in. It happens when the blinds are so big you shouldnt bother trying to play fancy and you push/shove all your chips in the middle. (It might be called push/fold)
The Meal wrote:
So he's taken a early lead while I adjust my style of play. In normal slower tournaments I have a solid ROI but the Turbos are currently my nemesis. I hit a 5th and a 3rd last night in 2 90's to make them less painful. But as it stands, he is up 220 bucks 2-3 days in and I am down 8.
Impressive results on his part. Are those sustainable, or is that significantly better than one should expect? You're right to say that turbo tournaments require a completely different mindframe. When I played regularly, I had my best results at the turbos, as I found that I naturally ramped up my aggression much better than most of my opponents for that format. But I was playing either 9p SNGs or a 2-table 18p MTT exclusively. Not sure how I'd feel about a 10-table or 20-table MTT in that format. And I was playing on Full Tilt Poker ("FTP"), which I found to have fairly weak games in the early mornings and early evenings.
He's just moved up to 5 dollar tables. so he's +400 about a week in.
The Meal wrote:
he had a run of solid cards and was able to whip through the ones quickly and the 2's inside 3 or 4 hours with a 3rd a 2nd and a first in like 20 tournaments.
I don't follow what you mean by "the ones" and "the 2's." Are those types of P* tournaments? My problem with the low-buy-in MTTs is that the payoff isn't enough excitement for me for to devote a few hours to a result. I'd much rather sit and play in 8-10 SNGs, knowing I can quit playing within 30 minutes (FTP turbos, here) of getting sick of playing. Slogging along for three hours in the hopes of pulling down $27 or whatever, didn't really do it for me.
Bet premise, you cannot move up to 2 dollar tables (2's) until you have reached 200 dollars (100x the buyin). He got through 1 dollar and 2 dollar tables remarkably quickly. I understand about the 8+ sng's. But why cant you play 8 tournamentrs with the same level of ocrap! I guess tournament size and style will determine length of game. I have 27 man dollars that go longer than 90 mans.
The Meal wrote:
My being down 8 is good since at one point I was over 30 down when I hit a run of luck so vicious it made my head spin and changed my style. I went 5-20 in coinflips and 1-7 in 75-25/80-20's. Quite literally at one final table, the other guy doubled up 8ish times, usually either in a coinflip or from behind (he was ahead twice when I was over 20-1 on his chips and ATC was a fine call.
I find it likely that you're running into some selective memory. To lose 15 of 20 50%-50% propositions has a probability of 0.014785767 (a little bit better if you use the probability of losing at least 15 times: 0.020694733) and to lose 6 of 7 75%-25% propositions, 0.001281738 (or 0.001342773 if you also include your chance of losing all 7). The parlay of the two most favorable conditions is 2.77883E-05 or one time out of 35986 times you put yourself into that situation.
newp, one day I was counting. Needless to say, I lost a bit of change. We decided to check later on holdem manager and my expected chip win amount was 150k and my actual win amount was -13k. So I got all in with the best hand and lost enough to win 2 or 3 tournaments. It wasnt a happy time in my life. I do however have selective memory.
The Meal wrote:Hard to believe is what I'm getting at.
The rules:
100 times buyin to move up : 100 - 1's, 200 - 2's, 300 - 3's
This is gibberish to me. :( Care to better explain? I see that Vorret is having the same difficulty trying to figure out the constraints of your endeavor.
You can move down if you have a bad run and drop half your stack
Freerolls are ok, unless they are invite only for cash and the other one isn't invited.
Screenshots are not required but are being given just on general principle.
I'm sure I am missing some minor ones
Seems like a pretty fun challenge, assuming that your rate of returns are such that you know you're not (basically) guaranteed to go broke. Would be cool to see a scientific breakdown of your wins (played 20 90p MTTs, finished 1st once for $XX.XX profit, finished 3rd twice for $YY.YY, etc.). What kind of notes are you taking?
Holdem manager in theory does it for you, but it's not working right for specific tournaments screwing up out stats. I should probably take better notes, but when you have 6 or 7 tables flipping around, who writes down a 15th place finish?
The Meal wrote:
Unfortunately for me he's better... He's been playing poker longer, so he can Multitab 10-12ish and I have to stop around 6 or I get so bad its not cost effective. 8 pretty much made me time out once or twice.
Pretty impressive nonetheless! I play at stakes such that it makes clear to me that I play for the challenge of the game, not with the intent of making it a primary source of income; so for me it's more fun to play such that I'm out thinking my opponents rather than just using a superior algorithm to roboticize my play. Because of that, playing on multiple tables at once is counter-productive. But that's just me, and I don't mean to take away from what you're trying to accomplish (facebook infamy!).
You do lose some skill playing multiple tables, but some of us at 80% are still probably noticeably better than most people at 100. And after playing a few tables you know exactly what I mean I assume. I very much play poker live the way you do. Sitting at a table, watching people, trying to get reads, trying to get in their heads and figure out what they are doing and why. I also do it at the bar or wherever I am... it's my mentality. This as a source of income would be pretty sweet however. It means when other people go to work, I can stay home, fire up a pot of coffee and play poker for a few hours, make some money and then watch TV or something.
The Meal wrote:
The other major adjustment for me is how _bad_ these poker players are until around the final table. I assume bluffs and no idiot will call Aces if I all in in the opening hand. After watching him I am realizing how wrong this is. He made a few comments and I did solid in just turbos last night... Now I just have to remember to stop playing Ace-Rag/JK until late game :)
This is certainly the case in the SNGs as well. I think that you'd have positive equity going all-in from UTG (9p table) on the first hand with as weak as TT, even if you neglect those times you suck-out on a better hand. That's some seriously loose calling.
You get people shoving with nothing trying to make that big bet. You get people calling with a hope and a dream all the way to the turn. You get some guy who folds all his equity away and finally goes all in with 100 chips and 49. I all in with aces and someone with 35o calls. I just stare at the screen dumbfounded, until he hits 35 on the flop and I understand while it sucks then, I hope this guy enters 30 more tournaments with me.
The Meal wrote:
Any thoughts/opinions/advice is welcome, I need all the help I can get :)
Not sure I can give useful advice for a multi-tabler, as my successful rate on SNGs involves learning how to exploit the opponents. Playing a jam-or-fold game (which the SNG turbo tends to be for all but a brief period of 3-handed and the beginning of heads-up play) is pretty mathematical, and making the proper adjustments for your opponents' deviation from the proper mathematical play (based on their jam/fold rates and the hands you get to see) is pretty second nature to me. Obviously you have to know how to play ABC to understand the best ways to exploit their shortcomings.

There's a thread around here (search out "Rate of Return" and my name) detailing some of my Super Turbo (120 starting chips at T10/20 starting blinds, levels increase every 3 minutes) SNG play.
[/quote]

Pokerstars has this event now where you can try to win a job with them. you get 1000 chips and the blinds raise every 3 mins. I was up to 100/200 blinds before I saw a hand that resembled playable. Went all in with KK, AQ and AQ, was ahead all 3 times and only won one :) I dislike fast BB rising early. What it means tor me is everyone see's noticeably less hands since with 20 BB's you can spend 3 minutes on 2 or 3 hands. So if your table is chocked full of slow people who like to limp in and no one ever raises 15 or 20 mins later your table could have seen maybe 20 or 30 hands. I like to see hands early, it's my best chance for an easy double up :)

My usual MO seems to be, lose chips early due to looking at a hand, not catching stuff and folding. Once bbs hit 100 or 150, I usually have 1200ish chips. I wait for a decent hand and double up. Once I double up I can work on building it up more. If I can hit 6k-10k chips, I'm probably well into the money and I can go for a win. Otherwise I try not to play decent hands(although very strong ones will see playtime) until a few other people are out. Once I make the money I tend to make my moves, good or bad. If I am the chipleader however, I do a monster good job of leaning the table into blind oblivion. :)

Thus, I dont mind quicker blinds later when people are just trying to fold out into the money and the people can play quicker so I can see a decent amount of hands in 3-5 minutes.

Re: Random poker nonsense.

Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 10:17 pm
by Semaj
Semaj wrote:
The Meal wrote:
Semaj wrote:So I made a bet with my friend... Because I am a moron

The bet:
Each of us start with 100 bucks in our Account. We only play MTT's at pokerstars, and the first one to 1200 bucks wins. The loser, if he is in the positives has to buy the winners HUD (Holdem Manager) and the losers facebook status has to announce the winner as the manliest man alive... For 3 days, 3 hours and 3 minutes.
Sounds like a fun premise, though I'd be impressed with anyone who's abilities are such that they expect a 11-fold return on investment. However, I haven't played on Poker Stars ("P*" as I've seen it referenced) in many years, so maybe the quality of games has declined to make this a reasonable expectation?
Actually it's all about return on investment. If you play well enough to money in a specific amount, you will do well/make money. They key is where you place and how often.
The Meal wrote:
He's better at push-shoving than i am which is important in the 90 man turbos.
What's a "push-shove?"
Its a style where you get your cards in preflop all in. It happens when the blinds are so big you shouldnt bother trying to play fancy and you push/shove all your chips in the middle. (It might be called push/fold)
The Meal wrote:
So he's taken a early lead while I adjust my style of play. In normal slower tournaments I have a solid ROI but the Turbos are currently my nemesis. I hit a 5th and a 3rd last night in 2 90's to make them less painful. But as it stands, he is up 220 bucks 2-3 days in and I am down 8.
Impressive results on his part. Are those sustainable, or is that significantly better than one should expect? You're right to say that turbo tournaments require a completely different mindframe. When I played regularly, I had my best results at the turbos, as I found that I naturally ramped up my aggression much better than most of my opponents for that format. But I was playing either 9p SNGs or a 2-table 18p MTT exclusively. Not sure how I'd feel about a 10-table or 20-table MTT in that format. And I was playing on Full Tilt Poker ("FTP"), which I found to have fairly weak games in the early mornings and early evenings.
He's just moved up to 5 dollar tables. so he's +400 about a week in.
The Meal wrote:
he had a run of solid cards and was able to whip through the ones quickly and the 2's inside 3 or 4 hours with a 3rd a 2nd and a first in like 20 tournaments.
I don't follow what you mean by "the ones" and "the 2's." Are those types of P* tournaments? My problem with the low-buy-in MTTs is that the payoff isn't enough excitement for me for to devote a few hours to a result. I'd much rather sit and play in 8-10 SNGs, knowing I can quit playing within 30 minutes (FTP turbos, here) of getting sick of playing. Slogging along for three hours in the hopes of pulling down $27 or whatever, didn't really do it for me.
Bet premise, you cannot move up to 2 dollar tables (2's) until you have reached 200 dollars (100x the buyin). He got through 1 dollar and 2 dollar tables remarkably quickly. I understand about the 8+ sng's. But why cant you play 8 tournamentrs with the same level of ocrap! I guess tournament size and style will determine length of game. I have 27 man dollars that go longer than 90 mans.
The Meal wrote:
My being down 8 is good since at one point I was over 30 down when I hit a run of luck so vicious it made my head spin and changed my style. I went 5-20 in coinflips and 1-7 in 75-25/80-20's. Quite literally at one final table, the other guy doubled up 8ish times, usually either in a coinflip or from behind (he was ahead twice when I was over 20-1 on his chips and ATC was a fine call.
I find it likely that you're running into some selective memory. To lose 15 of 20 50%-50% propositions has a probability of 0.014785767 (a little bit better if you use the probability of losing at least 15 times: 0.020694733) and to lose 6 of 7 75%-25% propositions, 0.001281738 (or 0.001342773 if you also include your chance of losing all 7). The parlay of the two most favorable conditions is 2.77883E-05 or one time out of 35986 times you put yourself into that situation.
newp, one day I was counting. Needless to say, I lost a bit of change. We decided to check later on holdem manager and my expected chip win amount was 150k and my actual win amount was -13k. So I got all in with the best hand and lost enough to win 2 or 3 tournaments. It wasnt a happy time in my life. I do however have selective memory.
The Meal wrote:Hard to believe is what I'm getting at.
The rules:
100 times buyin to move up : 100 - 1's, 200 - 2's, 300 - 3's
This is gibberish to me. :( Care to better explain? I see that Vorret is having the same difficulty trying to figure out the constraints of your endeavor.
You can move down if you have a bad run and drop half your stack
Freerolls are ok, unless they are invite only for cash and the other one isn't invited.
Screenshots are not required but are being given just on general principle.
I'm sure I am missing some minor ones
Seems like a pretty fun challenge, assuming that your rate of returns are such that you know you're not (basically) guaranteed to go broke. Would be cool to see a scientific breakdown of your wins (played 20 90p MTTs, finished 1st once for $XX.XX profit, finished 3rd twice for $YY.YY, etc.). What kind of notes are you taking?
Holdem manager in theory does it for you, but it's not working right for specific tournaments screwing up out stats. I should probably take better notes, but when you have 6 or 7 tables flipping around, who writes down a 15th place finish?
The Meal wrote:
Unfortunately for me he's better... He's been playing poker longer, so he can Multitab 10-12ish and I have to stop around 6 or I get so bad its not cost effective. 8 pretty much made me time out once or twice.
Pretty impressive nonetheless! I play at stakes such that it makes clear to me that I play for the challenge of the game, not with the intent of making it a primary source of income; so for me it's more fun to play such that I'm out thinking my opponents rather than just using a superior algorithm to roboticize my play. Because of that, playing on multiple tables at once is counter-productive. But that's just me, and I don't mean to take away from what you're trying to accomplish (facebook infamy!).
You do lose some skill playing multiple tables, but some of us at 80% are still probably noticeably better than most people at 100. And after playing a few tables you know exactly what I mean I assume. I very much play poker live the way you do. Sitting at a table, watching people, trying to get reads, trying to get in their heads and figure out what they are doing and why. I also do it at the bar or wherever I am... it's my mentality. This as a source of income would be pretty sweet however. It means when other people go to work, I can stay home, fire up a pot of coffee and play poker for a few hours, make some money and then watch TV or something.
The Meal wrote:
The other major adjustment for me is how _bad_ these poker players are until around the final table. I assume bluffs and no idiot will call Aces if I all in in the opening hand. After watching him I am realizing how wrong this is. He made a few comments and I did solid in just turbos last night... Now I just have to remember to stop playing Ace-Rag/JK until late game :)
This is certainly the case in the SNGs as well. I think that you'd have positive equity going all-in from UTG (9p table) on the first hand with as weak as TT, even if you neglect those times you suck-out on a better hand. That's some seriously loose calling.
You get people shoving with nothing trying to make that big bet. You get people calling with a hope and a dream all the way to the turn. You get some guy who folds all his equity away and finally goes all in with 100 chips and 49. I all in with aces and someone with 35o calls. I just stare at the screen dumbfounded, until he hits 35 on the flop and I understand while it sucks then, I hope this guy enters 30 more tournaments with me.
The Meal wrote:
Any thoughts/opinions/advice is welcome, I need all the help I can get :)
Not sure I can give useful advice for a multi-tabler, as my successful rate on SNGs involves learning how to exploit the opponents. Playing a jam-or-fold game (which the SNG turbo tends to be for all but a brief period of 3-handed and the beginning of heads-up play) is pretty mathematical, and making the proper adjustments for your opponents' deviation from the proper mathematical play (based on their jam/fold rates and the hands you get to see) is pretty second nature to me. Obviously you have to know how to play ABC to understand the best ways to exploit their shortcomings.

There's a thread around here (search out "Rate of Return" and my name) detailing some of my Super Turbo (120 starting chips at T10/20 starting blinds, levels increase every 3 minutes) SNG play.
Pokerstars has this event now where you can try to win a job with them. you get 1000 chips and the blinds raise every 3 mins. I was up to 100/200 blinds before I saw a hand that resembled playable. Went all in with KK, AQ and AQ, was ahead all 3 times and only won one :) I dislike fast BB rising early. What it means tor me is everyone see's noticeably less hands since with 20 BB's you can spend 3 minutes on 2 or 3 hands. So if your table is chocked full of slow people who like to limp in and no one ever raises 15 or 20 mins later your table could have seen maybe 20 or 30 hands. I like to see hands early, it's my best chance for an easy double up :)

My usual MO seems to be, lose chips early due to looking at a hand, not catching stuff and folding. Once bbs hit 100 or 150, I usually have 1200ish chips. I wait for a decent hand and double up. Once I double up I can work on building it up more. If I can hit 6k-10k chips, I'm probably well into the money and I can go for a win. Otherwise I try not to play decent hands(although very strong ones will see playtime) until a few other people are out. Once I make the money I tend to make my moves, good or bad. If I am the chipleader however, I do a monster good job of leaning the table into blind oblivion. :)

Thus, I dont mind quicker blinds later when people are just trying to fold out into the money and the people can play quicker so I can see a decent amount of hands in 3-5 minutes.

Re: Random poker nonsense.

Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 10:29 pm
by Semaj
The Meal wrote:
Semaj wrote:So I made a bet with my friend... Because I am a moron

The bet:
Each of us start with 100 bucks in our Account. We only play MTT's at pokerstars, and the first one to 1200 bucks wins. The loser, if he is in the positives has to buy the winners HUD (Holdem Manager) and the losers facebook status has to announce the winner as the manliest man alive... For 3 days, 3 hours and 3 minutes.
Sounds like a fun premise, though I'd be impressed with anyone who's abilities are such that they expect a 11-fold return on investment. However, I haven't played on Poker Stars ("P*" as I've seen it referenced) in many years, so maybe the quality of games has declined to make this a reasonable expectation?
Actually it's all about return on investment. If you play well enough to money in a specific amount, you will do well/make money. They key is where you place and how often.
The Meal wrote:
He's better at push-shoving than i am which is important in the 90 man turbos.
What's a "push-shove?"
Its a style where you get your cards in preflop all in. It happens when the blinds are so big you shouldnt bother trying to play fancy and you push/shove all your chips in the middle. (It might be called push/fold)
The Meal wrote:
So he's taken a early lead while I adjust my style of play. In normal slower tournaments I have a solid ROI but the Turbos are currently my nemesis. I hit a 5th and a 3rd last night in 2 90's to make them less painful. But as it stands, he is up 220 bucks 2-3 days in and I am down 8.
Impressive results on his part. Are those sustainable, or is that significantly better than one should expect? You're right to say that turbo tournaments require a completely different mindframe. When I played regularly, I had my best results at the turbos, as I found that I naturally ramped up my aggression much better than most of my opponents for that format. But I was playing either 9p SNGs or a 2-table 18p MTT exclusively. Not sure how I'd feel about a 10-table or 20-table MTT in that format. And I was playing on Full Tilt Poker ("FTP"), which I found to have fairly weak games in the early mornings and early evenings.
He's just moved up to 5 dollar tables. so he's +400 about a week in.
The Meal wrote:
he had a run of solid cards and was able to whip through the ones quickly and the 2's inside 3 or 4 hours with a 3rd a 2nd and a first in like 20 tournaments.
I don't follow what you mean by "the ones" and "the 2's." Are those types of P* tournaments? My problem with the low-buy-in MTTs is that the payoff isn't enough excitement for me for to devote a few hours to a result. I'd much rather sit and play in 8-10 SNGs, knowing I can quit playing within 30 minutes (FTP turbos, here) of getting sick of playing. Slogging along for three hours in the hopes of pulling down $27 or whatever, didn't really do it for me.
Bet premise, you cannot move up to 2 dollar tables (2's) until you have reached 200 dollars (100x the buyin). He got through 1 dollar and 2 dollar tables remarkably quickly. I understand about the 8+ sng's. But why cant you play 8 tournamentrs with the same level of ocrap! I guess tournament size and style will determine length of game. I have 27 man dollars that go longer than 90 mans.
The Meal wrote:
My being down 8 is good since at one point I was over 30 down when I hit a run of luck so vicious it made my head spin and changed my style. I went 5-20 in coinflips and 1-7 in 75-25/80-20's. Quite literally at one final table, the other guy doubled up 8ish times, usually either in a coinflip or from behind (he was ahead twice when I was over 20-1 on his chips and ATC was a fine call.
I find it likely that you're running into some selective memory. To lose 15 of 20 50%-50% propositions has a probability of 0.014785767 (a little bit better if you use the probability of losing at least 15 times: 0.020694733) and to lose 6 of 7 75%-25% propositions, 0.001281738 (or 0.001342773 if you also include your chance of losing all 7). The parlay of the two most favorable conditions is 2.77883E-05 or one time out of 35986 times you put yourself into that situation.
newp, one day I was counting. Needless to say, I lost a bit of change. We decided to check later on holdem manager and my expected chip win amount was 150k and my actual win amount was -13k. So I got all in with the best hand and lost enough to win 2 or 3 tournaments. It wasnt a happy time in my life. I do however have selective memory.
The Meal wrote:Hard to believe is what I'm getting at.
The rules:
100 times buyin to move up : 100 - 1's, 200 - 2's, 300 - 3's
This is gibberish to me. :( Care to better explain? I see that Vorret is having the same difficulty trying to figure out the constraints of your endeavor.
I'll Try to explain later...
You can move down if you have a bad run and drop half your stack
Freerolls are ok, unless they are invite only for cash and the other one isn't invited.
Screenshots are not required but are being given just on general principle.
I'm sure I am missing some minor ones
Seems like a pretty fun challenge, assuming that your rate of returns are such that you know you're not (basically) guaranteed to go broke. Would be cool to see a scientific breakdown of your wins (played 20 90p MTTs, finished 1st once for $XX.XX profit, finished 3rd twice for $YY.YY, etc.). What kind of notes are you taking?
[/quote]

Holdem manager in theory does it for you, but it's not working right for specific tournaments screwing up out stats. I should probably take better notes, but when you have 6 or 7 tables flipping around, who writes down a 15th place finish?
The Meal wrote:
Unfortunately for me he's better... He's been playing poker longer, so he can Multitab 10-12ish and I have to stop around 6 or I get so bad its not cost effective. 8 pretty much made me time out once or twice.
Pretty impressive nonetheless! I play at stakes such that it makes clear to me that I play for the challenge of the game, not with the intent of making it a primary source of income; so for me it's more fun to play such that I'm out thinking my opponents rather than just using a superior algorithm to roboticize my play. Because of that, playing on multiple tables at once is counter-productive. But that's just me, and I don't mean to take away from what you're trying to accomplish (facebook infamy!).
You do lose some skill playing multiple tables, but some of us at 80% are still probably noticeably better than most people at 100. And after playing a few tables you know exactly what I mean I assume. I very much play poker live the way you do. Sitting at a table, watching people, trying to get reads, trying to get in their heads and figure out what they are doing and why. I also do it at the bar or wherever I am... it's my mentality. This as a source of income would be pretty sweet however. It means when other people go to work, I can stay home, fire up a pot of coffee and play poker for a few hours, make some money and then watch TV or something.
The Meal wrote:
The other major adjustment for me is how _bad_ these poker players are until around the final table. I assume bluffs and no idiot will call Aces if I all in in the opening hand. After watching him I am realizing how wrong this is. He made a few comments and I did solid in just turbos last night... Now I just have to remember to stop playing Ace-Rag/JK until late game :)
This is certainly the case in the SNGs as well. I think that you'd have positive equity going all-in from UTG (9p table) on the first hand with as weak as TT, even if you neglect those times you suck-out on a better hand. That's some seriously loose calling.
You get people shoving with nothing trying to make that big bet. You get people calling with a hope and a dream all the way to the turn. You get some guy who folds all his equity away and finally goes all in with 100 chips and 49. I all in with aces and someone with 35o calls. I just stare at the screen dumbfounded, until he hits 35 on the flop and I understand while it sucks then, I hope this guy enters 30 more tournaments with me.
The Meal wrote:
Any thoughts/opinions/advice is welcome, I need all the help I can get :)
Not sure I can give useful advice for a multi-tabler, as my successful rate on SNGs involves learning how to exploit the opponents. Playing a jam-or-fold game (which the SNG turbo tends to be for all but a brief period of 3-handed and the beginning of heads-up play) is pretty mathematical, and making the proper adjustments for your opponents' deviation from the proper mathematical play (based on their jam/fold rates and the hands you get to see) is pretty second nature to me. Obviously you have to know how to play ABC to understand the best ways to exploit their shortcomings.

There's a thread around here (search out "Rate of Return" and my name) detailing some of my Super Turbo (120 starting chips at T10/20 starting blinds, levels increase every 3 minutes) SNG play.
Pokerstars has this event now where you can try to win a job with them. you get 1000 chips and the blinds raise every 3 mins. I was up to 100/200 blinds before I saw a hand that resembled playable. Went all in with KK, AQ and AQ, was ahead all 3 times and only won one :) I dislike fast BB rising early. What it means tor me is everyone see's noticeably less hands since with 20 BB's you can spend 3 minutes on 2 or 3 hands. So if your table is chocked full of slow people who like to limp in and no one ever raises 15 or 20 mins later your table could have seen maybe 20 or 30 hands. I like to see hands early, it's my best chance for an easy double up :)

My usual MO seems to be, lose chips early due to looking at a hand, not catching stuff and folding. Once bbs hit 100 or 150, I usually have 1200ish chips. I wait for a decent hand and double up. Once I double up I can work on building it up more. If I can hit 6k-10k chips, I'm probably well into the money and I can go for a win. Otherwise I try not to play decent hands(although very strong ones will see playtime) until a few other people are out. Once I make the money I tend to make my moves, good or bad. If I am the chipleader however, I do a monster good job of leaning the table into blind oblivion. :)

Thus, I dont mind quicker blinds later when people are just trying to fold out into the money and the people can play quicker so I can see a decent amount of hands in 3-5 minutes.[/quote]

Re: Random poker nonsense.

Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2009 3:33 am
by Semaj
ok lets try re-explaining the bet:

Both of start with 100 bucks...

We can only play dollar MTT/SNG's (27 man min, no max size) to start. Until you hit 200 bucks, you cant play anything but dollar (and under).

Freerolls are ok, as long as they are not special invite. (FPP tournaments, Sattelites, etc.)

Once you hit 200 (100x the buyin) you can move up to $2.
' ' 300 ' ' $3.


Once you hit 1200 bucks you win said bet.

You need 100X the Buyin to move up, and you can move down if its a bad swing.

We are trying to get into tournament playing shape. Because in theory the 45-180 mans are very soft for a while and decent money if you can play reasonably well.

Re: Random poker nonsense.

Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2009 10:39 am
by Vorret
Well ok, with this in mind, while turbo tournament *can* net you more money your inexperience make those a bad choice. (As you said, your push-fold poker isn't up to par - I have the same problem)

I'd avoid double or nothing as the ROI is really, really crappy. And last time I checked I don'T think there are dbl nothing mtt.

Can you play satellite and sell the credit?
Some of those are really, really soft and can net you some decent money, fast.

Can you play rebuy?

Re: Random poker nonsense.

Posted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 1:43 am
by Semaj
We never decided in rebuy, since in theory you can rebuy 5-15 times in the same tournament and thusly 100x the buy in seems a bit off... I guess we could agree you'd need 150 or 175x the Buy in.


We can enter the FPP events.

As for playing satellites and selling the credit, I assume we could, no agreement was made, but since this isnt a huge monetary bet, we dont really care. I am still irked I was one fold away from making a serious chunk of change... lol

Re: Random poker nonsense.

Posted: Fri Oct 11, 2019 5:02 pm
by Pyperkub
Thread Necromancy for all things Poker.

Poker Cheating scandal in Sacramento (h/t - Bill Harris of Dubious Quality):
The Cheating Scandal Rocking the Poker World

How a Twitch-streamed no-limit hold’em player found himself at the heart of one of the most fascinating gambling controversies in years
What's really fascinating is that apparently he hasn't bee caught yet.