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Five games played and I've still not cashed

Posted by nixie on April 12th, 2009. Tagged:

It seemed quite trivial, after my first game, to just go one better…but I now know it's not quite that easy. Just getting to the "bubble" is becoming an ordeal. After five games it now seems that my 4th place was beginners luck as I've not managed to beat or even equal it. SharkScope classes my form as TILT Sad

The first thing I've noticed is that I'm getting dragged into all-ins that I think I can win, only to find-out that luck is either not on my side or that my pocket was simply not as good as I thought. Did I really need to get into that position? It certainly seems that instead of playing for peanuts, a few well-timed all-ins would allow me to play less hands. The problem is that when I put the scenario into an odds calculator afterwards, I realize that most of the time I was the wrong side of a coin-flip. It seems clear that to be able to win consistently you have to avoid this.

I'm also overvaluing a pocket-pair. Having an actual hand in the pocket is giving me great confidence with pre-flop betting, except that more often than not after the flop I seem to be in no-man's land. I also think I'd prefer to be all-in with suited connectors than a pair too; when seeing five cards there just seems to be more possibilities.

One of my other numerous deficiencies in the game still seems to be evaluating my stack against the rapidly increasing blinds of a turbo game. So I tried a non-turbo game...Wow, was that boring!? Not only did the game seem to take forever, but there seemed to be very little urgency to win a pot; consequently the whole game seemed a bit subdued for my liking. It’s amazing to think I found that first game too fast, as I now think the game-play could be a bit faster! What really annoys me are those people, generally on large stacks, that have clearly buggered-off for a while, so when the betting gets round to them they take their entire countdown to just fold. You just need a few people in a hand doing this and the game-play really suffers.

In order to turn my form around I’ve consulted with an “expert” on poker. I’ve been given a couple of URLs regarding “card classification” and its association with your position in the hand. It looks intriguing, but actually at this point I’m willing to try anything!

I've finally cashed!

Posted by nixie on April 12th, 2009. Tagged:

I’ve cashed! I came third but I cashed! It probably won’t come as news to people who have been playing a while but “card classification” really seems to work. To be honest I didn’t even really adhere to the actual classifications either (as that seemed like a load of effort) I just used the basic concept.

The classifications are really just common-sense, although there are a few pocket combinations which you would expect to be ranked higher than they are, A9 for instance. I think, when you distil the strategy down, the real difference is not playing mediocre hands in early/mid position. As a beginner I don’t think you can really understand how that helps unless you actually try it, but the most important side-effect is that it stops you playing too many hands. The second, and more subtle effect, is to reduce the possibility of you calling a blind and having someone put in a big raise after you, that you ultimately fold to because your hand isn’t that good. By reducing the occurrence of this you lose a lot less pre-flop chips.

The problem is that the game will never be the same again. You actually become more of a spectator than a player because you’re playing so few hands. It’s funny though because I could see the effect straight away. I didn’t play a hand in the first ten hands and yet I had the 3rd biggest stack! After three people had gone out two chip-leaders emerged and yet I’m still in 3rd place with roughly the same amount of chips I started with. As crazy as it sounds I was already in with a shot at the cash just by folding nearly every hand!

I got caught-out at the end though. I know where I went wrong; I didn’t change my tactics as the number of players reduced. It was stupid really but I just kept playing the same game at the end that I’d been playing all along. The blinds were going up and up, and of course the blinds come round more often as players go out, and I’m still there folding average cards until it was too late.

I realize now that you need to adjust how to classify the cards based on the number of players and, although I don’t know how to do that yet, I’m happy that I’ve finally got some cash back. Even more importantly I’ve now got a strategy to develop…

The comeback

Posted by nixie on April 18th, 2009. Tagged:

Hot on the heels of my momentous 3rd place cash, I played again to try and develop the card-classification/positional strategy. In the meantime I'd read-up from several different sites on "card-classification" and read those instructional pages on the poker network's own sites, some of which had some good tips and are well written. This time I was going to play the classifications properly particularly at the start, 9-handed...Unfortunately, I was not in the game long and I was all-in!...and was beaten. I had AQ from under the gun and so I raised it up 2x the BB. A raise came from the puck of 4x the BB. I called and the flop was Q, 10, 8. I bet half the pot and they went all-in. I'm still surprised I went all-in at that point, I'm not sure what I was thinking, but when I saw the hole cards I was pleased: They had QJ suited without a flush draw. That positive feeling left swiftly with a 9 on the river that I didn't see coming. I turned away in disgust that my cashing-streak, of 1, had ended.

When I turned back I was surprised to see I was still in the game; of course I was now big blind but I only had 40 chips and the BB was 50! I think I was a bit embarrassed to still be in the game with such a small stack and that was compounded when I'm given my own pot on the table! Still disillusioned from my beat, it barely registered that I won the side-pot. Although my stack had tripled, I was still down on most by an order of magnitude. Now small blind I didn't even look at my cards I just went all-in - yet another side-pot won. Without a glimmer of a hope, and a willingness to leave this game, I go all-in on the terrible 64 I've been dealt. But fortune favours the brave and I have three 6s after the flop and my stack in now over 800.

Still the short-stack, I pull myself up in my chair and start to really concentrate on the game. I play tight, start to get some good cards and start to win a few hands. Using the card-classifications as strictly as I can remember them I start to claw chips back and eventually came second. I have double euphoria; my first 2nd and a great come-back when all was lost.

After it all subsides it strikes me what a poor heads-up game I played. Maybe I could have won it...nah, I'm happy to have cashed from there...