The cards mock me.

Congrats Glop! ♦

This is a repost of an item I put up on the general pages in connection with the impending changes on i-poker.

The changes: how do they benefit us?

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A question -

Could somebody from, or on behalf of, the i-poker/Playtech management explain in detail how the proposed changes will benefit the player community?

The impression I get is that i-poker/Playtech has, first, made a decision not to attempt to engage with the US/Canadian market in the foreseeable future. Otherwise, why eliminate the $[US] as a table currency?

Second, it appears i-poker/Playtech has judged that poker is a contracting business. Therefore it has started 'sweating the assets' [which means us] to maintain profit, hence the changes.

One sign of this, obvious to even my uneducated eye, is that the daily freerolls have been amalgamated. 1800 people are now competing for one prize-pot of $100 per day, when previously several bunches of people, totalling 1800, were competing for several pots of $100 per day. That saves the network at least $70K per year, probably more.

I await a reasoned reply with interest.

I thought I would try a new path to degradation.

I have been attempting HU SNGs. The reasoning was that I might find it easier to deal with just one son of a bitch at a time, instead of nine sons of bitches at a time.

Inevitably, it has not worked out that way. I have been watching some of the PS HU videos, but the things that you really need to know, they do not teach.

For example: I bet YOU did not know, dear readers, that 72 is a monster winning hand? Did you know that the 7 is a lonely card? The videos will certainly not tell you that: only practice reveals these ultimate truths.

I found myself playing HU against some South American last night. Initially, I suspected that his brains had been rotted by cocaine, but now I see that he simply understands the game much better than I do.

Finding myself short of chips, and with the blinds creeping ever upwards, I see 99. I stick it all in. Horror!!! I am called!!!

Speedy Gonzalez turns over 72. The 7 is a lonely card. It cries out for the company of its fellows. Sure enough, by the river, two more 7s had dropped by for coffee, biscuits and conversation.

The cards, the cards, they mock me, they mock me ...

So glad I stumbled upon your blog Glop - your humour is spot on and your blog deserves a 'chuckle of the day' award!

No offence - but I hope the cards continue to mock you for a long time to come...

I have been pursuing my theory that it may be easier to deal with one son of a bitch at a time, rather than nine, so I have been continuing to blunder around in the micro-HUSNGs on i-poker.

I have OF COURSE ♦ been using PS's/770's money rather than my own to learn - always the best way.

I am down, but getting there. The adjustments are interesting, having played full-ring SNGs before.

# The normal thing is to min-raise ALMOST anything, and not to 3-bet a min-raise with anything except premium cards. [The temptation to 3-bet a min-raiser with rags therefore arises ...... hmmmm........]

# Sometimes, you just call an opening min-raise, even with monsters. [This may even be the best play, to trap .... ?]

# There is some need to develop serious post-flop skills. [Oh dear! X(]

# With high blinds, full ring SNG experience is so useful, even at this level. You have to stick it in , if you are short, with any decent hand. There are many who do not understand this, and many who will call a shortie's all-in with utter rags, which is profitable for those of us who are moderately educated.

# The hidden set is a real threat, much more so than in other NLH games that I have played. Why? At low to middle blinds, you open-raise and call raises with a much broader range of cards than elsewhere. When a pair of rags manifest themselves on the flop, there is therefore a real risk that someone who has raised/called with one or two rags has gotten luckeee.

Anyway, the main point of this post is to report on events earlier this evening. Against some random chappie, I had taken a serious chip lead, and found myself with JJ. I three-bet a minraise, and got called. There was no paint on the flop. Everything went in, and I found that I had been trapped by aces. Back to evens again.

Same match, I called a min raise with 9-10o, and found a 9-high dry flop.I bet out, and got resistance. At that blind level, I could not back down, all the money went in, and OMG I found myelf facing Aces again. This time, a 10 dropped, giving me two pairs, and leaving the enemy too short for anything except extinction.

It's good to suck out on people for a change ...

Further to one of the notes in my previous post, it's just happened again!

I saw a flop with K2o. The thing is that a pair of twos manifested themselves on the flop, and I stacked my man off. This must be a real feature of HU at these levels, if even I have started noticing.

Played 31 $1+0.05 HUSNGs today, regular speed. You will laugh, but for me this counts as 'volume' =).

Won 20, which tends to show that I am coping. Am appalled by how badly I play, and yet show a profit.

# I call too much on the river, even when I strongly suspect I am beaten, on suspicion of maybe being bluffed some of the time.

# I suspect I give up to re-raises on the flop too readily.

My thinking is that I have to guard my stack - you are so short even on the regular speed HU tables. A re-raise on the flop represents the nuts or a mega-draw. The opposition can't have that every time they bet, so I expect I am being seriously exploited, but I don't have the guts to 4-bet with air or with marginal hands. Suggestions?

The latest despatches from the micro-HUSNG battlefront -

Volume is the enemy of quality. I have deliberately been stepping up the volume in the last few days, with the result that my win-rate has come down from about 65% to just over breakeven.

Lessons, thoughts... ?

# Well, a big bet on the turn or river means that top pair is not good enough.

# I should think more than I do when calling on the river in general.

# I am still overplaying AK.

# If I lose two in succession, I should automatically take a break.

# At low to middle blinds, the smart thing may be to just call an opening raise if you have absolute monsters like KK or AA, maybe QQ also. Why tell the enemy, up front, that you have a hand that could immediately win the tournament?

Cooler.

Sometimes, things work out. In HU, you often have to raise with rags, because that's mostly all you are dealt.

I was ahead in chips this morning, and feeling comfortable with my opponent. I had one of these raggy hands, so I put out the 'normal' minraise and was called. The flop came down 456, rainbow.

My opponent put all his chips in. As I had raised with 37[offsuit! ♦] I felt tolerably comfortable about the call, and my opponent's A10o was crushed.

The bankroll has been ticking gently upwards, but I do not have the i-poker $1+0.05 level crushed yet. [FYI, that is the basic level. There are no lower ones ;).]

There is one 'difficult opponent' in particular. I keep getting chipped away in the small pots and sucked out on in the big pots, so that I have a serious minus record against him/her/it. Now, should I keep pitching myself against this player, until I have got him worked out, or should I give up and move on?

Extra! Since posting the comments above, I have looked up the miscreant on Sharkscope, and found that he is a massive overall loser, thousands of £ down! This really adds insult to injury. It's so bewildering that I cannot grab this player's pennies, when the rest of the world experiences no such diffculty.

Originally posted by Glopslart
Now, should I keep pitching myself against this player, until I have got him worked out, or should I give up and move on?

Figure him out and soak him.

Set yourself a limit against him though, if things don't start to turn around for you by that limit, move on, get more experience and then find him again down the road.

Originally posted by Glopslart

Extra! Since posting the comments above, I have looked up the miscreant on Sharkscope, and found that he is a massive overall loser, thousands of £ down! This really adds insult to injury. It's so bewildering that I cannot grab this player's pennies, when the rest of the world experiences no such diffculty.

It appears it's not only the cards mocking. You might be single-handedly keeping this guy/gal/it in the game.

Originally posted by Ramble

Originally posted by Glopslart
Now, should I keep pitching myself against this player, until I have got him worked out, or should I give up and move on?

Figure him out and soak him.

Set yourself a limit against him though, if things don't start to turn around for you by that limit, move on, get more experience and then find him again down the road.

This may not quite be the way things should be done, but whatever ...

I just deliberately sat with the 'difficult opponent'. After a few inconclusive exchanges, we saw a flop where my pocket 9s formed 2nd pair. He stuck everything in. As he is a shameless bluffer, I called. HORROR!!!! He had top pair. Fortunately a random straight formed itself around my hole cards and he was out.

Usually this happens the other way round....

♠_biggrin:I have decided to double my stakes! - I have moved myself up from the $1.05 NL HUSNGs to the $2.10 variety.

Having played 10 games at this limit over a couple of evenings, I feel able to share my profound experience with the community. Seeing as how I won NO FEWER THAN 6 of them, my insights will surely be valuable.

I play the regular speed SNGs, but the other players I have encountered play them as if they were turbos.

This demands adjustments.
The normal thing in HU is, as far as I understand it, to minraise from the SB, with just about anything. The normal reply from the BB, as I understand it, is to call, and sometimes to put in a small 3-bet. I am not saying this is optimal, for I wouldn't know :f_biggrin:, I am just reporting what goes on.

Sometimes the 3-bet is fat and intimidating. I have come to suspect that these plays are steals. My own opinion is that the logical reply must be to stick it all in with any ace, any pair, middle to high suited connectors and any two Broadway cards. This is against my normal inclinations, but I think you just have to close your eyes and pull the trigger.

So far, nobody has called my 4-bet shoves, because all these 3-bettors have been swine thieving with rags, so I plan to keep this up.

Now, pondering the logic, there is a case for saying you can [should?] make the 4-bet shove with ATC. If the fat 3-bet is a pure steal, the shove will never be called by any "thinking player".

One problemmo is that some of the people on the $1 and $2 limits are NOT thinking players: I know this for a cold fact, for I am one of them. A further problemmo is that sometimes Mr 3-bet will have a hand, and will call the shove.

I expect the clever people here have worked out whether a universal 4-bet shove has a "positive expectation" and I would be pleased to be enlightened.

Aces and other top pocket pairs.

What do you do with these normally? You raise, or reraise BIG. In HU, if you do that, you telegraph your hand, and get no action. Therefore, I find people limp, and seek to trap. I am now doing this too. The downside is that you get outdrawn.

This past evening I won a pot which I had limped into, or minraised into [cant recall, don't care], with two raggy cards. Each rag had paired by the river, so I was confident about putting chips in. I wondered why I was getting so much abuse afterwards, so I looked at the hand history - the chappie had gone into the pot with QQ.

But it can get worse than that. I was in the BB of a $2.10 SNG this evening. It was the very first hand. The SB limped in for 10 and I checked, for I only had J7o.
The flop came down 6,Q,10, rainbow. I checked and called the SB's pot-size bet. First, it was only 40, second, the chances of a the bet being a steal or a drawing bet were good. Third, my hand had enough potential.
An Ace came on the turn. The pot was now 120.

I checked, and called the SB's bet of 20, not believing he had an ace. [In this, I had read the enemy's hand absolutely correctly.] The river was a K. There was no flush possible, so I bet the pot, 160, seeing as how I had sleepwalked into Broadway.

To my surprise, I got a fat raise. I assumed the other man also had a jack. Naturally I was not backing down, and shortly all the chips were in.
To my surprise I found myself shipping the contest, for indeed the other chappie had not started with one ace, but rather with two.

I mustn't be too big-headed about this: I had busted out in an earlier match this past evening, calling a big river bet with 2 pairs when I had every reason to suspect the other chappie had made a straight .....

OK, I am now on 7 wins out of 11 at my new $2.10 limit, so obviously the sun shines out of my butt.

I took down that 7th win despite accidentally disconnecting myself [thereby saving 770 the trouble]. Fortunately, I had just ravished the opponent with a backdoor diamond flush. He thought I was bluffing. ♠_biggrin: Now, let it be known, I am the doughty sort who NEVER bluffs - ♠_cool:

The upshot was that I was so far ahead that, when I reconnected, I still had 1000 more than the opponent. I played my good cards and folded the bad ones. For a change, that was enough to win.

However, this entry is mainly to report on a $2.10 HU superturbo that I railed, while waiting for regular-speed action.

I was just curious - I know there is a lot of action at superturbo HUSNGs. I have difficulty understanding what skills and dynamics might be involved, so I watch them from time to time to see what I can pick up.

In this one, I turned my head away, just briefly, while the first hand was being played out. When I turned my head back, ay caramba, the match was already over! ♠_o: I checked through the hand history, and here's why.

The SB had started with KQ and had minraised or limped. The BB had checked or called with 9,5o. The flop came down KQ and a non- 9.

The BB put out a bet: after all, he had found a pair. The SB raised, and the BB stuck it all in!. You may not be surprised to hear that the SB called the shove. The KQx2 held up and finito.

I can't work out whether the BB was a nutcase to have stuck it all in, or whether he was 'correctly' applying some weird superturbo theory which may be sensible for tournaments with 800 chips each.
In an 'ordinary' game, SB's raise of the BB's flop bet would normally indicate a hand with some equity - a good draw at least. Even if the SB was betting a 9, it would most likely be a better 9 than the BB had.

Can anyone enlighten me on the quality of the play here?

Now it's 8/12, so I am obviously a total expert.

I took a fortunate fat pot early from this chappie playing under the Brazilian flag, when the board paired not only his King, but also my two rags. After that, he started raising his SB on most hands to 90, with the levels at 10/20. I had no cards sufficient for a major PF confrontation. When I saw a couple of flops, I had to give them up as they didn't help my hole cards. Pretty soon, he had clawed back the chips he had lost earlier, and had taken the lead.

Then I found myself with AKo in the BB, and received yet another raise to 90. I stuck it to him. He had been 'doing the 90' so often he could not conceivably have had a decent hand every time.

He called, and turned over KQo. My hand held up, and he was left with a pathetic handful of chips which vanished under my ace a couple of deals later.

No rematch, I am tired and bothered by work and family affairs. The rest of this month will probably be taken up by concerns more pressing than poker.

Next month, I can think about grinding the $2.10 HUSNGs up to gold level, and maybe getting enough status on i-poker to unlock a cash bonus. It's been pleasant stumbling into the HU format, because it is profitable for me at these levels and I like watching the cash counter on the home screen ticking up in the right direction.

I have now acquired two $1.10 tournament tokens on 770's Advent Calendar promotion, and am looking forward to deploying them.

Originally posted by Glopslart
I have now acquired two $1.10 tournament tokens on 770's Advent Calendar promotion, and am looking forward to deploying them.

...and some other rare gems I seem to recall

I had a major and unpleasant 'life event' just before Christmas. Quality of life and quality of play each suffered. My mindset is largely gone.

# I have dropped a level, and am back playing at $1.05. That way, you lose your money more slowly. ♦ The process is not helped by the fact that I am still keeping up a bit of volume ... ♦

# I have decided to drop out of the Christmas coaching programme, as my brain is not currently in any shape to benefit.

Last time I lost it I took my stack all the way down to $8. I just hope I don't do that again.

'Life Events' can be challenging times - I wish you well.

I have been getting my head back together, to the point where its condition is no worse today than it was just before when the unpleasant 'life event' hit me before Christmas.

There is a lot of discussion about psychology and mindset in poker, both on PS and in general. I offer the hypothesis that it all boils down to the dictum of the old-time US poker players: "Play happy, or don't play".

That dictum is harder to follow if you have made this game your profession, so that you have to play whether you are happy or not. The only rider that the dictum needs is that anything more than a nip of alcohol while playing will slaughter you.

I have kept on playing the entry-level $1.05 HUSNGs on i-poker. I have gone back into profit, and had a 9-match winning streak last night. The quality of opposition varies. It has to be remembered that, in many of the parts of the world where i-poker operates, $1USD is serious money, and that many of the people out there are using [horror] their own money, rather than the fruits of PS's beneficence, which is what I am doing.

Two points arise. First, just because the opponent is playing for the lowest stake available, it does not mean that he has no skill and no commitment.

Second, the opponent's overall level of skill is, arguably, of secondary importance to the question of where he stands in relation to you at the time you are playing him. Any style of play, "correct", "incorrect", or in-between, will be effective against you, if you do not have it worked out and adjust to it.

That means absolute concentration on the opponent is demanded at all times. The older you get, the harder that becomes - like tennis and chess, this is increasingly a youngster's game.

In the last couple of days, I have played 90 i-poker $1.05 regular-speed HUSNGs.

And I have won only 43 of them :(. At my age, there is a tension between volume and quality of play. I suspect I have sacrificed my own interests to the [doubtless noble] aim of earning 770 insane amounts of rake.

One problem about getting tired is that I don't notice I have become tired until the weariness has already sapped my concentration for some time.

What to do? Maybe I should put myself on a timer, and just stop after a pre-set period, whether I am doing well or badly. Another idea may be to stop posting here after I have had a good session, for posting good results only seems to provoke the cards to commit acts of extreme mockery.