A Set of Poker Games

Ahoy avid non-existent readers of my blog!

I'm having trouble sleeping and since I'll be awake with nothing to do, I think I'll write a new blog post! It'll most likely be full of ramblings and nonsense but nevertheless, I hope you enjoy it and would find at least one thing interesting :)

I've always loved to learn how to play new games ever since I was a small. It didn't matter whether they were board games, card games, video games or what-not, I loved them all. I get so excited when one of my poker rooms update their client with new poker games. I honestly think that if I only ever played NLH, I'll go crazy and I truly do believe to become a better poker player, you really need to be able to play all sorts of different poker games.

Let's take a look at the new games which were introduced by FTP and PS:

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Limit 5 Card Stud
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Looking at this list, most of the new games that were introduced were community card games. Heck, the only one that wasn't, was 5 Card Stud. You know, that game that they played in The Cincinnati Kid, Shade and Star Trek: The Next Generation. Speaking of which, I can't help but to reminisce of the final scene of TNG.

TROI

What's the game?

DATA

Five card draw, deuces wild.

The door CHIMES.

RIKER

Come in.

The doors open and Picard ENTERS. Everyone reacts in

surprise, sits up at attention.

RIKER

(continuing)

Is there a problem sir?

PICARD

No, I uhh I just thought that I might umm...

join you this evening. If there's room...

Surprised but pleased looks go around the table.

RIKER

Of course. Have a seat.

Picard takes a seat at the table. Data gives him the deck of cards.

DATA

Would you care to deal sir?

PICARD

Oh... thank you Mr Data.

Picard starts to shuffle the cards.

PICARD

Actually, I uhh used to be quite

A card player in my youth you know.

(pause)

I should have done this a long

time ago.

TROI

You were always welcome.

  Smile :)

PICARD

So, five card stud, nothing wild.

And the sky's the limit.

 

Oh! That reminds me. I saw a 5 Card Stud satellite running in the lobby for 1 entry into the MiniFTOPS event #25 (5-Card Stud, $20 + $2, 6-Max). It only had 3 people in it and had a buy-in of $2.00 + $0.20. I thought it had good potential with the overlay so I bought in. By the time that late registration had finished, 2 players had been knocked out and we were 3-handed at the final table.

In 5 Card Stud, after the 5th card is dealt, you have 80% of the information about your opponent's hand revealed to you. To be honest, I think its one of the easier poker games to play. Despite my limited experience with both 5-card stud and with satellites, I managed to win it and so thats pretty much the height of my 5-card stud playing career lol

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No-Limit 5 Card Omaha Hi-Lo/ Pot Limit 6-Card Omaha Hi
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My friend once mentioned that he played a home-game of 10-card Omaha. When he told me that, I started to think of how crazy the action would be and started to imagine all of the possibilities. You could flop the nut straight with a couple of sets, a mega wrap higher straight re-draw, a nut flush re-draw and a countless number of backdoor re-draws. Its kind of difficult to imagine what the all-in equity of the hands would be like.

As much fun as that sounds, I highly doubt that I'll ever be able to get a serious game of 10-card Omaha going. No matter though!, as I got a little taste of what it'll be like when Full Tilt Poker introduced 6-Card Omaha. I've played a couple of hundreds of hands of 6-Card Omaha hi so far and I have to say, I love it!

To be honest, I was a little bit disappointed when Pokerstars introduced 5-Card Omaha. In this game, you do get the equivalent of 10 hold'em hands but starting hands just felt...incomplete. For example, you couldn't make triple paired hands or triple suited hands. I wouldn't go as far as to say the 5th card is a hindrance or useless or a dangler but it just feels out of place. Perhaps, I just haven't played enough hands of 5-Card Omaha yet.

6-Card Omaha on the other hand (to me) feels like the true extension of PLO. In this game, you get the equivalent of 15 hold'em hands to play with. You can have hole cards which contain triple suited aces, triple suited 6 card run-downs and triple suited triple paired hands or just a combination of a little bit of everything.

I'll pick out a few hands I played:

No-Limit 5 Card Omaha Hi-Lo

This was deep in a No-limit 5 Card Omaha hi-lo MTT. There were about 15 players left. I had an above average stack, in fact, I think I was in the top 5 of the field.

About the table: They were pretty weak, especially the cutoff player. I'd seen him play aggressively with crap but got lucky over and over again.

In middle position, I was dealt A269J, I could do with the ace being suited but against these players who were playing 80% of their hands, I think its safe to say this was a good starting hand. I chose to opened to 2.5xbb due to the antes and due to my stack size but they weren't going to fold anyway and yup, as usual half of the table calls.

I checked the flop for a little pot control and of course (the idiot) cutoff player decides it'll be a good idea to open shove on the flop. The SB calls and the BB calls which didn't bother me too much as I had them covered. What I had my eyes on was the side-pot of ((62,876 - 22,749) x 2 = 80,254 chips) which was being offered to me. In my mind, I was semi-freerolling as my low would most likely pick up the 40,127 in the side pot and as long as I hit a club or a T, I'll scoop the whole thing.

Worst. Turn. Card. Ever and thats that. This is as far as I've gotten in a 5 Card Omaha hi-lo MTT. Pretty anti-climatic if you ask me.

Pot Limit 6-Card Omaha Hi 1

To be honest, this hand played like a normal PLO hand.

I have a triple suited hand able to make K, Q and Q high flush draws. Theres not much to say about this hand to be honest. I had been playing pretty aggressively throughout this short-handed session. Which is probably why he thought I was full of shit when I check-raised the flop. When he called my flop raise, I pretty much thought he had the hand that he had.
- The paired 5 is pretty much useless in this case and in fact does hurt my hand.
- The K also doesn't do much except block KK for a higher set, blocks a wrap draw from completing and adds about 4% of equity from the backdoor flush possibility.
- The 84 picked up a useless gut shot straight draw on the turn, since he would've made a higher straight had it completed.

I could pretty much only rely on the strength of my top set. I don't think there are any 6-card omaha equity calculators out yet so I'm not exactly sure how far ahead I was. I can calculate it though, so lets see his outs:
- Any T or 6 for a straight (Th, Td, Ts, 6h, 6d, 6s)             6 outs
- Any club which isn't a J or a 7 (Ac, Tc, 9c, 6c, 4c, 3c)     6 outs
- 12 outs in total
52 cards - 16 known cards = 36 remaining
So:
(12/36) x 100 = 33.3%

As I said before, its like a normal PLO hand.

Pot Limit 6-Card Omaha Hi 2

This hand feels more like a 6-Card omaha hand, although the pair of Jacks in my hand become almost useless from the turn onwards.

This was a 6-max table which withered down to HU play.
My opponent: A passive donkey. He only had 4 moves in his arsenal which were: fold, check-fold, check-call and bet pot. The latter of which he didn't do often enough.

I picked up AJJ754 suited to the J and A on the button. I opened to pot i.e. 3bb and he calls. I flopped top 2 pairs, a gut shot straight draw and 2 backdoor flush draws. I make a standard C-bet and he calls.

Since he is a predictable donkey, I can rule out a straight with 34 with about 98% certainty due to him not donk pot betting or raising pot on the flop. The turn 6 didn't change the current nuts but it did vastly improve my hand which meant I could still safely represent 34 while setting up a legitimate bluff opportunity on the river should I brick my draws.

I had 2 pairs + an open ended straight draw + the nut flush draw on the turn, with that many outs, how could I not hit? 

A lovely 8d falls on the river giving me a disguised 2nd nut straight followed by a value bet. My opponent makes a higher set on the river and pays me off. A couple of hands later, I stack him and then get accused of being a bot lol ahhh~ that brings me back to my 888 poker days.

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7 Card Stud
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You know, it might seem stupid but I've always wondered what would happen at a full-ring (7 card) stud game if all of the players decided to stay in till 7th street.

What I mean is, with 8 players x 7 cards each = 56 cards = 4 more than a full deck of (52) cards. I happen to find the answer to this while observing a milestone hand in the pokerstars 100 billion hand promotion.

Boom! The last card is dealt as a community card for everybody to use as their 7th card.

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PokerStars 100 Billion Hand Promotion
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Yes! It was that time again when PS gave out free money! Unfortunately I didn't get dealt into a milestone hand but that doesn't necessarily mean I didn't profit from their promotion.

For the 100 billionth hand, they introduced something called 'Stake Share' where ALL of the players playing at the same stake and game as the 100 billion hand table would share $830K amongst themselves. I thought it was a pretty neat idea, so I got to work.

From my observations of previous milestone hands, I'd say about 90~95% of them were at Hold'em tables which only meant one thing:- I had to multi-table hold'em at all sorts of different stakes.

Here's a set-up of the tables I had open during the promotion. I started the session when there was about 10 million hands to go and played for roughly 3 hours 20 tabling like this.
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Top 10 tables:
From left to right:
2 tables of No Limit Hold'em $0.01/$0.02
2 tables of No Limit Hold'em $0.02/$0.05
2 tables of No Limit Hold'em $0.05/$0.10
2 tables of No Limit Hold'em $0.08/$0.16
2 tables of No Limit Hold'em $0.10/$0.25
(one table $0.10/$0.25 was substituted for a $0.01/$0.02 half way through the session as can be seen in the picture due bankroll reasons)

Bottom 10 tables:
2 tables of Limit Hold'em $0.02-$0.04
2 tables of Limit Hold'em $0.05-$0.10
2 tables of Limit Hold'em $0.10-$0.20
2 tables of Pot Limit Omaha $0.01/$0.02
2 tables of Pot Limit Omaha $0.02/$0.05
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It was pretty interesting playing NLH cash after such a long time. I started off losing a $20 pot at 10NL (KK>QQ AIPF) but after that, I won a $50 pot at 25NL (AA>AQo AIPF) thats when I realised I needed to keep some funds back to top up the other tables should they become short. Thats when I broke up my bigger 25NL table.

After the session was finished I ended up in +$$ playing NLH but -$$ playing PLO (Lost a big 65%-35% flip as usual). Which meant the whole session was about break-even.

The 100 billionth hand was dealt at a 6-max 5NL table. Which meant that anybody playing 5NL, whether 6-max or full ring had a claim of the $830K being offered. I had 2 of them open yet, I had been fast folding most of the hands when it got towards the 100 billionth hand. I didn't realise it took into account the number of VPPs you had made at the table within the last 49 hands.

So...my prize was:

Hahahahaha! $9.93 when they said the average was $87 per person. I guess thats what I deserve for playing like a nit.

Ah! Also, one of my horses came 2nd in the 100 Billion Special Edition Sunday Storm! He played amazingly and was awesome to rail!

I had 25 shares invested in MondSpieler for 2.5% of all of his action. With the added make-up from the previous event, each share came to $30.16!!

I withdrew $300 and transferred $200 over to Full Tilt Poker to balance my poker accounts. What am I going to do with the rest? Who knows, I'll probably lose it through investments or probably end up donating it back to the poker community through my poker playing.

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Observations PokerStars.fr
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Anybody who lives in the EU can sign up to Pokerstars.fr but the problem is that you're required to send a copy of some form of identification and a copy of your bank details. These are some real annoying hurdles to overcome to be able to play real-money games especially for lazy poker players.

I managed to do it though! and I took advantage of their 'La maison du bluff' promotion to receive €20 for free. My bankroll at PokerStars.fr now sits at a healthy €50.

Other than the obvious language difference, there are quite a few other differences which I've observed between PS.com and PS.fr such as:
- PS.fr requires you to input your date of birth everytime you log in.
- PS.fr offers (FL, NL) Hold'em and PLO ONLY. This is due to PS.fr only being allowed to offer poker games which can be played in French casinos.
- On PS.fr, there is no option to let you transfer real money funds to other players.
- PS.fr has most of PS.com 'Pros' albeit with just FR at the end of their usernames.
- Micro-stakes tables have a maximum buy-in of 100bb rather than 250bb.
- Earlier promotions on PS.fr? PS.fr had the 'Golden SnG week' one week PS.com.

The level of play is similar to micro stakes on PS.com as I expected but I just wanted to see what the fuss was about. Take this hand from a €1 45 man SnG I played in for example. On the very first hand I'm in the BB and am dealt QQ. Middle position limp, call call, 20bb raise, all in, fold and the action is on me. lol what? that escalated quickly. I thought about folding for a second but then I realised this was the micro stakes. I call.

I call, fold, fold, fold, call. Ah crap, first guy had KK the other guy....97o lol

 

 I came in a respectable 3rd place with my QQ. It seems to be like this all the time I play NLH on PS.fr, my JJs running into AA, my AAs being cracked by Q9o etc.

So, I'll leave you with this hand of 2PLO I played at PS.fr

Hehehe He was actually an okay player but I think I just got under his skin a little bit too much from previous hands. Oh...and this hand definitely did put him on tilt lol!

So readers, until next time!
Wishing you good luck at the tables, :)
BluffTwice

Investing My Roll

I've decided to dedicate this post to write about what I do with my poker bankroll other than using it to play poker.

While I do have poker accounts in sites which also provide additional gambling services (i.e. Blackjack, Roulette, Slots etc), I tend to stay away from those house/casino games. This leaves me with limited options in what I can and can't do with my poker bankroll.

1) Withdrawal my bankroll.
-  After my march heater, I decided to withdrawal about $800 from my bankroll. I used most of it to buy an iPad mini.

2) Invest in other poker players by using player-to-player in-site transfers.
- This is where the majority of my bankroll is.

I typically try to keep 50% of my poker bankroll invested in other players while I have 50% for myself to play poker but currently, about ~75% of my bankroll has been invested while the rest is sitting in my poker accounts gathering dust.

As you can see, I'm just waiting for my horses to finish their events before I get any of my money back. In the meantime, here are my top 3 investments so far:

Number 3:

This player plays under the name MondSpieler on most sites. He is amazing at most non-NLH games especially PLO8 and Stud Hi-Lo. Railing him and watching his live streams has truly helped me improve my PLO8 game. He shipped this year's FTOP event number 13, the $215 Stud H/L for $11,275.

Number 2:

To be honest, I don't know much about havenrl. In this event, he shipped FTP's The TenneR for $3,500.

Number 1:

Telefonkiosk is on par with the elite online tournament poker grinders in my opinion. He had lots of 4 figure scores in this event and in the end he shipped a tournament worth $23,000.

I found that investing in other players can become very addictive and if you aren't careful then you could end up losing a lot of money. In fact, even though I have these huge ROIs in some staking events, I'm still slightly down overall after investing over $2,000 in total.

It seems that, I still have a very long way to go before I can reach the level of these players in my own game.

March MTT Heater

The main reason for this post is to go through some exciting tournaments I've played this month but before I do that, I want to share my experience of the PokerStars 95th billion hand milestone promotion.

Leading up to the 95th billion hand, I never really had much interest in trying to win any of the milestone hands. I'm not sure exactly why but while the promotion was running, my urge to play poker diminished and the thought of playing just put me off completely. This way of thinking changed near the end though, the thought of winning $10K (or $20K+ if I won the hand) made me change my tune.

I gradually added more and more tables as the time drew nearer. I went from comfortably playing 12 tables to semi-comfortably playing 15 tables.

and then on the next day, as the 95th billion hand was approaching, all the way up to the maximum allowed! 24 tables! This was the first time ever that I'd played on that many tables at the same time. I seriously couldn't keep up with that many, I really don't know how nanonoko does it.

Anyway, I just wanted to share my first experience of multitabling 24 PLO tables with y'all. So on to the main topic of this post!

It seems that I was correct in my assumption that the big bucks are to be made in tournaments. I've complied a list of all of the poker tournaments that I've played this month and I must say I'm impressed with the results. (Click On The Image To Enlarge)

Before this month, my biggest cash was $48 in a $2.20 8-game MTT I won on Pokerstars. I topped that this month by winning a $1.10 Rush On Demand for $98, then 6 days later I won $130 in a No Limit Omaha hi-lo tournament and then that was followed by a 4th place finish in a Turbo $2.20 tournament for $166. The total Return On Investment (ROI) for these past 2 weeks was 831%!

I'll run through some of the tournaments I played in:

$1.10 Multi-Rush OD

I came into the FT as 2nd in chips, I was feeling confident and happy with how I'd been playing throughout this tournament.


After a couple of orbits, my stack is cut down to 70,000~ in chips after I bricked on my flush + gut shot straight draw. I slid down to 4th in chips with 9 players left.

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A few hands later, I'm in the big blind (~14BB) with A2o and the cut off shoves for 12,000~. The button folds and the small blind just calls, its an easy call for only about 7,000~ more after posting my BB of 5,000 and so I do but I had 2 options:

1) I could shove on the SB and isolate the cut-off but the SB had already invested ~21% of his stack. I don't think I had enough fold equity to justify a shove in that spot.
2) I could call and check it down, hoping that my hand holds up to try and eliminate the cut-off shover.
I chose the latter more cautious option as the board ran out 6c5cKc Td Ad, SB showed KJo for a pair of kings, CO showed 97o and I won with a pair of rivered aces.

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With 8 players left an interesting hand came up. I'm now 2nd in chips with 19BB and I pick up 77 in the cut off position. The UTG (10BB) player limped in and a middle position player shoved all in for ~13BB. This is a pretty tricky spot to be in, I had to really think about the hand.

1) UTG's limp was really suspicious. I'd seen him raise all in with ~4BB with JTo and he was capable of making normal raises preflop which didn't get contested, so why limp now???
2) The middle position shover had been pretty active recently sometimes raising to 2xBB or 2.5xBB but this was the first time he'd gone all in preflop. I was trying to decide whether he had adjusted his hand range to compensate for the UTG's limp range and if so, what hands would he be shoving with? or did he just see it as a chance to get an extra BB? I really didn't know what to think.

According to the book 'Kill Everyone' with the opponent shoving ~5CSI (or M) from middle position, I should be calling with about the top ~10% of hands i.e. 55+, ATo+, A9s+ and KQs+. So if I followed the book, I should call. I think most of the time, he would show up with 99/TT/JJ. The best case scenario is that I'm in a race against 2 over cards and that UTG didn't do the whole limp preflop with a monster routine. If I lost the hand, I would be down to 6BB. I decided to wait for a better spot and fold my hand, so did the UTG limper.

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After the blinds increased, we're still 8-handed and I'm 3rd in chips with ~13BB. I pick up 99 on the button and the action is folded around to me. The SB has ~7BB and the BB has ~10BB. In this spot, I like to open shove to maximise fold equity and to avoid any ugly stop-and-go situations such as where you raise to 2.5xBB, the BB calls and open shoves on a board of AKJ.

So, I go all in and the SB called with KJo. The board ran out 2d5c6s 4s 4h and I won a nice 94,000 pot and eliminated another player.

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My ~17BB stack withered down to about 15B when this hand came up:

I pick up A2o on the button and UTG min raised. I most likely have the best hand right now 5 handed but with 2 super short stacks still around, ICM effects come into play and this is an easy fold.

The chip leader knocks out 2 players and we're down to 3 handed.

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 3-handed play lasted for 5 hands when the short stack shoved over the chip leader's min raise. The short stack showed KQo and the chip leader showed A5o. The board ran out 9hJs9s Jh 2d, the short stack busted and we're now heads up.

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 I had 94,246 in chips and my opponent had 495,254 in chips with the blinds at 8,000 and 4,000. On the 1st hand, I picked up K4o on the button and decide to open shove. My opponent quickly calls with Q9o and the board ran out JhKc4d 4c 9c and I won with my full house, closing the gap.

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We went back and forth for awhile trading blinds when this hand came up. I min-raised Qd7h on the button and my opponent called. The flop came 5d 9s Ks, my opponent checked and I checked behind. The turn was the 6s (putting 3 to a flush on board and completing a 78) and my opponent checked. I took a stab at the pot with my gut shot straight draw with a bet of 16,000 into 34,000 and my opponent called. The river was the 8h and my opponent checked again, I made my straight and bet 32,000 into the 66,000 pot and my opponent called with As6h.

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A couple of hands later, I took a similar line with another hand. I min raised on the button with Ah6h and my opponent called. The flop came down Tc Ad 2d, my opponent checked and I checked back with my top pair, weak kicker. The turn came Jd (again bringing in a 3 flush and completing the KQ) and I bet out 16,000 into the 34,000 pot and my opponent called. The river was the 5h, my opponent checks and I bet 24,000 into the 66,000 pot and my opponent called with Jh6d and mucked. With that pot, I'd taken over the chip lead.

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My opponent changed up his play for 1 hand making it 3xBB instead of 2xBB preflop. Luckily, I picked up JJ and decided to jam over his open. That was the last time he opened to 3xBB, I also open shoved the very next hand when I picked up AJo. I wanted to give him the impression that I was trying to run him over, especially after he saw me shove preflop with K4o.

He resorted to limping on the button, which to be honest, I didn't mind too much as I got a see a free flop with my 83s.

On the last hand, I picked up 55 and my opponent min raised on the button. I shove over his open and he snap called with T9s. Wow, really? T9s?? I was in disbelief with his snap call and even more in disbelief when the flop came down Kh 7d 9c to give my opponent a pair of 9s. Ah well, Turn As....GG....River 5d! Boom! annnnnd I won with my set of 5s.

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No Limit 2-7 Triple Draw $150 Guarantee

I'd been practicing for this tournament by playing 10NL27TD ring games. I had been doing really well recently and I even managed to run one session up by 5 buy-ins. I was clearly the favourite going into the final table.

I'd knocked out the 5th place finisher by slow playing the made wheel on 2nd draw and raising when we both stood pat on 3rd. My opponent called with 876.

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When we got down to being 4 handed, I lost a medium sized pot by drawing against a pat hand with my 2347X and bricking on 2nd and 3rd draw. I got pushed back to 2nd in chips with 55,000~ when this hand came up to knock me out.

I drew 1 and made the nut 8 and my opponent drew 2. After he drew 2, I knew that I was a huge favourite over his hand with my pat 854. Unfortunately, he coolered me by drawing perfect-perfect to make a 765.

Theres nothing I can do about it really as I don't ever see myself folding in that spot against him. Time to move on to the next game.

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 No Limit Omaha hi-lo $400 Guarantee (Rush)

This was a pretty exciting tournament. I applied the knowledge that I'd learned from the book 'Kill Everyone' to No-Limit Omaha Hi-lo (NLO8) and it worked wonders. Alot of the players leading up to the final table were pretty timid and wouldn't tend to call an all in preflop. I stole quite a few blinds and came into the FT as 3rd in chips.

There were a mix of players at the final table. Some preferred to limp in to see flops, while others regardless of their stack would shove all in preflop. My tactic for this final table was to play it just like I would a turbo NLH MTT. If the big stacks folded, I would play aggressively against the shorties to apply maximum pressure but if the big stacks were still in, I would raise preflop and try to outplay them postflop.

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I got some good info when one of the larger stacks shoved over a raise and a call preflop and got called by one of the medium stacks. The chip leader showed Ac8dJsQc and the preflop caller showed Ah3s5s7s. The board ran out Kh9s3d Tc Qs and the big stack won with the nut straight.

I now knew how wide the chip leader was shoving so I made a note of it.

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We got down to 4-handed play and the action hadn't let up. Somebody was all in on almost every hand! I'm on the BB with As5s6sJh and the very active SB shoved into me. If it was anybody else, I would've folded but given that I didn't think he knew about NLO8 hand ranges, I decided that this hand was good enough to make the call. The SB showed 4s6d7hTh and the board ran out 3s8s9h Qs 2h and I scooped the much needed pot with my nut flush and 8532A low.

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Another player busted and we were down to 3. I had been doing my fair share of open shoving, mostly uncontested as were the other 2 players. There wouldn't be anymore chances to play postflop with these 2 other players and so I adjusted my game accordingly.

I picked up AhAs6s7s in the BB and the SB, once again shoves into me. I snap call and he showed KhKd2s3s and the board hand out 9c3c4c 2s 5s and I scooped the pot again with my 7 high straight and 6432A low. With that win, the SB was left crippled and I became 2nd in chips.

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Just 2 orbits later, I pick up Ac3d6sJs in the BB and the SB open shoves into me again. I snap call and he showed 2c5s8c9s and I was delighted when the board ran out 7s4h5d 8s 4d to give me a 7-high straight with the 7542A low to scoop the pot and bust the very active SB.

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Only 2 hands into heads up, my opponent asked me if I would like to deal.

If my opponent had been as active as he had been during 3 handed play, then I would imagine that HU would become one massive coin flip. So my options were either to:
1) Play on and flip for either $105 or $160
2) Take $130 now, while giving my opponent $134 and the win.
Against a more passive (non-shoving) opponent who I could easily outplay postflop, I wouldn't deal but this time, a deal made much more sense. I took the deal and so did the opponent and we both left happy.

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 $1,500 GP Speed R/A

To be honest, the only reason I played in this tournament was to bust my William Hill Poker account. I didn't have much left in it and I didn't think that I would ever deposit on it or play on it again.

I'm happy that I did though as I made a very deep run in this tournament. I'm just still pissed off with the last hand I played though as if I had folded that, I could've easily won the $400+ 1st prize.

As you could imagine with a turbo MTT, the play was very very fast. Lots of all ins and lots of action. This is a screencap of the last 2 tables and I have a decision to make with my AJo. I'm 2nd in chips of the tournament.

The UTG player raises, UTG+1 shoves and the cutoff player calls. You know the UTG player is going to call, so you have to call off 1/3 of your stack to try and eliminate 3 players with AJo which might or might not be dominated. Effectively 5 players are all in on both tables (out of 11) and the final table houses 9 players.

The UTG +1 player had been playing quite tight and the UTG player might be steaming a bit after they lost a big pot against me (My KK Vs their AKs preflop). I know what I did in this situation, but what do you do?

After that hand, we arrived at the final table. I was joint 4th in chips. A few hands into it, an early position player shoved all in for 15BB, the chip leader re-shoved over his open and a short stacker called.

EP: AJo
CL: KQo
SS: AKo
Board: 58Q 6 5

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and with that had, we went down to 6 handed. One more player busted and I become quite active, stealing quite a few blinds. I picked up A8s UTG and open shoved, the short stack in the SB called with Q6s and I won on the board of A4J8J.

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I picked up T4o in the SB, the BB had around the same size stack as me (~10BB) and was also the tightest player at the table. It was folded around to me in the SB and I was going to fold when I thought this was an excellent opportunity to pick up the BB and antes. I open shoved my ~10BB stack into the BB and he snap called with ATs. My hand was dominated and I couldn't find any help on the board of 75K 9 2 and just like that, I was out in 4th all due to 1 small mistake.

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One thing that I'd noticed by playing in all of these tournaments is that I never used my PT3 HUD. I would usually use it for PLO cash games but for some reason, it wasn't working. No matter though as I did things the old fashioned way by watching my opponents play and by making mental notes on them.

I'm also happy that I managed to make my biggest score on a site which I hardly ever play on as it makes it less likely that I was just boom switched on one site. I suppose, all of the reading and studying I'm doing is paying off :)

and before you go on thinking that I don't have my share of bad luck and negative variance, check out this hand I played on Pokerstars:

http://www.boomplayer.com/poker-hands/Boom/2468911_839B356D57

98%+ to win and lose to runner runner (bigger) full house lol sickness~ Its the worst bad beat I've had in awhile, I think Poker Stars hates me.

The Road To $1000

I finally managed to make $1000 in winnings playing PLO on PS! This is the amount I've made since I got this new PC and does not take into account MTTs, winnings made from other games, other sites, bonuses nor promotions.

If I had to guess how much I've made in total from all sites including everything, I'd have to guess I've made about ~$2000 but who knows. I wish I knew the exact figure.

I'm still too much of a bankroll nit to move up in stakes though. I've gone busto too many times after withdrawing that I don't want to risk it again. 

So whats new for me? Let's see..... after chatting with my poker idol Telefonkiosk, I've decided to try and take my NLH MTT and SitNGo game more seriously because I feel that, thats where the big bucks are to be made. Currently, I'm practicing playing 90 man NLH Turbo SnGs while watching the video series The Top 0.56%. Once I play 500 or so games, I'll move on to concentrating on 180 man SnGs, MTTs or higher stakes 90 mans.

Fear not though! I haven't forgotten the theme of this blog :) I'll continue to play PLO.

I'll even post this weird hand I played today:

I wouldn't usually play this hand this way but for some reason (probably tilt) I thought I'll give it a shot. I was multi-tabling at the time but I was observing this opponent and I thought he was kinda solid....but I guess I was wrong.

Let's go through my thought process:
My table: Full of passive nits that wouldn't continue without a good draw, a set or the nuts. So easy to steal from :)

My table image: I dunno...probably crazy LAGtard who raises preflop relentlessly but knows what hes doing (most of the time).

Preflop: Dealt AJT2ds -
Pretty looking hand.  Most of the cards mesh well and work together (Except the Ts and 2c). I have the button so a raise is super standard for me... bigger pot + position.

Flop Ac 5s 6s-
I flop the nut flush draw + Top pair with a Jack kicker. With just the bare nut flush draw, I'll be more inclined to check behind on the flop about...50% of the time but given my top pair and the kind of hands I can represent by betting early on, I think its a good spot to c-bet. I pick up one caller. Standard so far.

Turn 5c-
I pick up a 2nd flush draw on a now paired board. But whats this? The villain donk bets into us! He bets about 1/6 of the pot... wow, How am I suppose to interpret that? I see it as weakness but what would he be doing that with? A weak 5XXX? 2 pairs that just now filled up? A draw with 478X? AAXX that played it tricky? Ok, I admit, that bet did confuse me a little bit. I didn't want to call and play the guessing game should he bet again on the river.

Given the line I've taken in this hand, it wouldn't be difficult for me to represent AAXX and thats what I tried to do by raising pot. The villain obviously didn't get the memo and calls...uh oh.

River 2d-
Villain checks to us. Now this is a tricky spot for me because I actually do have showdown value with my top pair, jack kicker. The question that went through my mind was, should continue to turn my hand into a bluff and try to blast him off his 5XXX hands that didn't fill up??

Given that he called my turn raise, I would've thought that he didn't believe that I did have AAXX so he'd most likely call again should I bet the river. After all, what hands could he call a turn raise like that with? A slow played AA, 55, 56, A5 or any 5... I wouldn't really think he'll call with just a straight or a flush draw.

I decided to cut my losses if he was trying to trap me but luckily my top pair was good :D


Heres another hand:

Now, I'll be honest, I don't 3-bet preflop that often. I feel that when I do 3-bet and create a mid/low SPR situation, my opponents tend to play more correctly against me. I'd rather keep the pots smaller and use my edge to outplay opponents postflop.

This hand is different though, for some reason I knew this opponent knew that about 95% of the time, a 3-bet preflop (at this level) means AAXX and that most of the donks would commit themselves on the flop with just a pair of aces (Even if they did have 250BB). For that reason, I decided to 3-bet and represent AAXX should it come ace-high or continue on should I actually hit a decent flop.

I flop top 2 pairs and a gut shot straight draw which I think is well disguised if my plan succeed and he did put me on AAXX. The only problem now was trying to decide if he had a hand which beat my top 2 pairs. With blockers to a set of Kings and a set of Jacks, the only set I was worried about was 8s. Or I would've been a slight favourite should he have a monster draw like 9TQA but if he also had a flush draw to go with it... I would've been about a 37% underdog.

The SPR in this situation is just less than 3 but given what he perceived my hand range to be, I can understand him getting it in with worse hands i.e. K8, J8 etc.

We get it in and he has the same hand as me! Top 2 with a redraw to a higher 2 pairs (with his ace). I'm a 55% favourite though with my gut shot and redraw to a higher 2 pairs (with my queen) annnnnnnnd boooom a queen on the river! I succeed in winning the pot and putting my opponent on tilt :D

The PLO8 MTT Experiment

This December, I decided to put my science degree to some use and conduct an experiment, albeit a poker related one. Since this is an experiment, I'll write it out as a mini-report.

Just to reiterate: I am not a MTT or SitnGo player, usually I might play 1 or 2 tournaments a month depending on how I'm feeling.

The PLO8 MTT Experiment

Abstract

 This study concentrates on the amount of profits generated from Pot Limit Omaha (PLO) cash games compared with the amount of profits generated from Pot Limit Omaha Hi-Lo (PLO8) Multi-Table Tournaments (MTTs). This experiment was conducted purely for me to observe how well I performed in PLO8 MTTs and whether or not I should continue to play them. One MTT was played daily over a 30 day period. Five cash games tables were generally played simultaneously to the MTT and ended when I busted in it. The MTTs' buy-ins ranged from $1.10 to $4.40 and on average took about 3 hours to complete. After all the MTTs were played, it was found that In The Money (ITM) was 33.3% while Return On Investment (ROI) was 53.34% with total profits of $134.94 and net winnings of $46.94. Winnings for the cash games were $124.27.

Introduction/Method

This experiment will compare the amount of money made from 5 PLO cash game tables compared with the amount of money made from 1 PLO8 MTT each day over a 30 day period. The buy-in amount of the MTT was chosen from whatever Pokerstars had on offer at the time of starting my session. My laziness would somewhat hinder my progress and cause havok for consistency. Five cash game tables were chosen because thats the amount needed to prevent boredom and the spewing of my chips in the MTT. All of the MTTs were 'Guarantees' ranging from $500 to $1000.

Results

The PLO8 MTT Results:
I cashed in 10 of the MTTs and bubbling or finishing just outside of the money on about 5 occasions. I did manage to make the final table 3 times and bubble/almost bubble the final table twice with a 10th place and 15th place finish. My highest finishes were 7th, 9th and 9th which is extremely frustrating as 1st sometimes paid over $300.

Total In The Money (ITM) was 33% which was not too bad but my aim was to get that number to at least 50%. Total Return On Investment (ROI) was 53.34%. Total won was $134.94 and net winnings were $46.94

I got somewhat flustered towards the end. I felt extremely unwell all throughout the last week. That could explain the poor results towards the last 2 weeks but who knows.

The Cash Game results:
Total number of hands played 20,305 and total profit made from ring games was $124.27. The trend of running below EV is standard for me and perhaps everybody who plays PLO as you can notice towards the last half of the graph.

I was playing well and even had enough time and profits for a flip with a former regular. (For those who do not know what a flip is. Its mutually agreeing to go all in preflop with another player without knowing what your cards are). Fun times~~

Conclusion

There isn't much to say really. There are way too many variables and inconsistencies to make this a fair test but that wasn't really my intention. I made more money in cash games which is what I had expected so no surprise there. Although if I did bink one of the tournaments then that would've been a different story. So in conclusion, I'm good at PLO8 MTTs but I'm better at PLO cash games.

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That was a pretty fun experiment and I hope you enjoyed reading up on it. I may continue to play the PLO8 MTTs once I understand all of the differences between PLO8 MTTs and ring games (i.e. whether or not to raise or limp preflop (and at what stage in the MTT), bet sizing with a bluff and with the nuts (would you need to compensate for balancing your play?), to bet, check or raise with the one-way nuts in a multiway pot (For example A24Q on a board of 346J7 with 3 other players), hand selection in relation to position (I need to find out if this is actually that important because any hand you choose to play would be miles ahead of the 90/0/30 donks) etc, etc)

So this is it. My last post of 2012.
Happy New Year Everybody~ I hope you all run good and avoid those bad beats in 2013,
BluffTwice