Hand replayer problems: UPDATE

UPDATE: I still haven't figured out what the problem is with the replayer. However, I have determined that the problem is with the replayer itself and not something with Pokerstars hand histories or something we are doing. I've posted on their forum and hope to get an answer soon.

In the meantime we can try another option. Myhands.com is a fantastic replayer, if you use it directly on their site. Every time I try to embed or link, I only get one hand. Not the whole tourney. If you got to Myhands.com and click on "Latest Hands" tab, then look for an 84 hand game by Roland GTX.

The great thing with this replayer is the "keyboard" below the video which is color coded to show hands played, won and lost. Thus, you can skip ahead to interesting hands while ignoring all the preflop folds if you choose.

I'm not sure if you need to register with them before being allowed to import hands. Let me know if this is a viable option at least for the time being.

Sorry!
Roland

Hand Replayer

Roland, quick tutorial please! When I try to convert a tournament hand history, it just redirects to a blank white page and says "Done". This happens whether I cut and paste the text from an e-mail or upload from my hand history file. Any idea what I'm doing wrong? Thanks!

Position, Position, Position....

I haven't played online lately so for my first post in Roland's Room, I propose to write instead about the system I use to designate the individual seats at a nine (or ten) player table. The terms Hijack (HJ) seat, Cutoff (CO), Button (BN) and of course Small Blind (SB) and Big Blind (BB) are now commonly used to designate the last five players to act pre-flop but for some reason the other four (or five) seats have not been so blessed, with the first player to act pre-flop being dubbed Under The Gun (UTG), the next player UTG+1, followed by UTG+2, etc. Aside from sheer length and clumsiness, the drawbacks to this system are obvious since UTG does not refer to a fixed seat (in contrast to HJ, CO, BN, SB and BB) but instead depends upon the number of players at the table.

In the past, I have mostly played nine player tables at PokerStars and to any sports loving American, the number "9" immediately brings to mind the game of baseball. This association suggested a solution to the seat naming problem, namely, to name each seat after a position on the baseball field. Thus, First Base (1B), Second Base (2B), Third Base (3B), Shortstop (SS), Leftfield (LF/HJ), Centerfield (CF/CO), Rightfield (RF/BN), Catcher (C/SB) and Pitcher (P/BB). Coincidentally, then, the three infield "base" positions correspond to the early and early/middle poker seats, the three outfield positions correspond to the late/middle and late poker seats, with the shortstop acting as a dividing line in between. (I also think of the shortstop or SS as the "Swing Seat".) And the battery of catcher and pitcher then corresponds to the blinds. Ten players at the table? No problem! Just follow the American League's lead and add a Designated Hitter (DH) before 1B.

Interestingly, Daniel Negreanu has popularized a poker playing style known as "smallball", which is also a term commonly used in baseball to describe a strategy based upon hitting singles, getting walks, stealing bases and making sacrifice bunts rather than hitting homeruns (which would be a "longball" approach). I don't expect baseball parlance to take over the world of poker but don't be surprised in a future post if I write "2B minraised to 40" instead of "(9 players) UTG+1 minraised to 40"!

Tourny History

Hand hstory, testing!

Welcome on Board Benkogambit

Not that Benkogambit has disembarked from that cruise ship, let's welcome him on board our blog as a new contributor! I'm looking forward to reading your first post :)

Roland

Review my game

Just for fun, kind of. Here is the whole hand history for my first ever attempt at a $6.50 6-max sng. Tell me how to beat these things Benkogambit!

Roland

Hand Replayer - cool!

I found a free replayer that works with PokerStars AND can be embedded in a blog! This can be quite useful not to mention fun :)

I tried it out in my 30K post, but had to write the whole thing by hand (not something I suggest). You can pop your whole tourney hand history into it, copy the embedded html part and paste it directly into your blog post (in html mode). This might sound scary, but it is pretty easy after doing it the first time. Let me know if you have any problems.

Here is the site. www.pokerhandreplays.com

I didn't even register there. I also put them in our links section for further use.

Now, who dare be the first to post a whole tourney for us to dissect?????

Roland

Deep in the Daily 30K!

I was ITM in the Daily 30K last night and will let you know how I finally ended up at the end of the post. First, though, I would like to discuss a very critical hand. I'd like to hear your thoughts on how I played it. Here is the situation:

We were already ITM with 200 players remaining. I was middle of the pack at this point. The blinds had just gone up to the 1250/2500 + 310 ante level and increase every 10 minutes. I had an average stack size with 56K giving me an M of 8.5. There were 9 players at the table making the pot 6540 before the action started. I had been at the table a while and had decent reads on the players plus a very TAG image myself. (Klokkhammer, my floprate was 9% after several hours of play)

The hand folded around to me in the hijack seat and I look down at AKs - oh yeah! The CO and BTN each have about 34K remaining and both are tight aggressive. The sb was also pretty tight-aggressive, but had recently doubled giving him a big stack of 140K. He had been using his stack to bully people, but was still playing quite smart. The bb was already blinded out with less than 5K remaining.

I knew I would need to double my stack if I wanted any chance of getting to the final table and decided that I wanted to gamble with this hand. So, the question was how to best go about it. I had three options:

1. Limping: This can't be good. I don't want a string of callers and I don't want to play this hand out of position. I have to raise and make them pay to play against my premium, yet vulnerable hand. Plus, I want to get more chips in the pot.

2. Raise all in: I considered this but there are several problems. Firstly, my M is 8.5 which is a bit high for open shoving. More importantly, if I shove then I am quite sure that everyone will fold giving me too little value on the hand. I want to win chips with this hand, not just steal the blinds.

3. Make a solid raise: This seemed like the best option. None of the remaining players ought to flat call with mediocre hands. Hopefully, my raise will look like a steal and one of the tag players will reraise all in on me with a worse hand or small pocket pair. This seemed like the best way to go.

The CO and BTN each had about 34K and were getting desperate. I raised to 9999 chips or about 4x the bb. I opted for 4x rather than my standard 2.5x for several reasons. Firstly, I didn't want to risk a string of callers, especially the big stack. Secondly, I wanted my bet to be large enough to be pot committing for the CO and BTN if they decide to play against me. Thus, the all in reraise that I want from them would be their only viable option. Finally, a larger than normal raise often looks like a steal with a low pocket pair or mediocre suited connectors. It looks like you are afraid of getting some action. Thus, once again making the all in reraise seem like a smart move with a pretty wide range of hands.

So, I raise to 9999 chips. The CO folds (no luck there). The BTN folds (no luck there either). The big stack small blind flat calls. Hmmm... I am convinced that if he had a premium hand that he would have reraised all in then and there. So, I assume that he has a small pocket pair, two broadway cards, A-rag suited or suited connectors. That is a pretty wide range of hands. I am also convinced that if the flop doesn't show an A, that he will bet the flop no matter what hoping to steal the pot. I didn't really want to get in a post flop war with the big stack, but that is what I got. The bb folded (even though he was left with barely an M of 1 in chips - lol)

There is now 26K in the pot. The flop shows QJ9. I have two overcards (maybe 6 outs). The Q9 are the same suit as my AK giving me 9 outs for the nut flush. And, any of the non-flush 10s will give me the nut straight (3 outs) . This is a solid flop even though my AK didn't hit. Unfortunately, the flop also fits well with many of the hands the small blind could have played. K10, KQ, QJ, J10s, 99 or A9 for example. These are all hands that would be consistent with his flat call preflop. He could aslo have a bunch of other hands that missed this flop completely. Let's see what he does.

The small blind was first to act post flop. He bets 10K. Hmmm... what does this mean. Well, if he had two pair or a set, I would have expected a larger raise (at least 50% of pot) to make my calling with a drawing hand a mistake. If he had K10 and flopped a straight, I think he would have checked hoping to reraise my C-bet. Finally, the bet size looks like a probing bet at 30% of the pot and seems most consistent with a semi-bluff steal. His bet is small enough he can get away from the hand if need be. Yet, it is large enough to be pot committing for me if I flat call.

Well, all of this analysis seems pretty standard and these thoughts took about a micro second for me to run through while playing the hand. Even discounting my overcards, I was going to improve to a straight or flush about 50% of the time. Plus, I thought it very likely he was bluffing and that my hand was already ahead. I was taking my shot at getting deep in this tourney. Doubling now would put me in the top 30 players with a real shot at a major cash. So, I instantly reraise all in with my remaining 46K!

There is now 82K in the pot and it costs him 36K to call. I expected him to fold, but he thought for a while and made the call. He turns over 102s !!? He has an open ended straight draw, but wrong suit for any flush chances. I could not believe he called my preflop bet with such trash! He had been pretty tight and sensible up until this hand.

Pokerstove puts my AKs as 77 % probability to win the hand on this flop.

The turn shows a beautiful big A solidifying my lead in the hand - yes! Pokerstove gives now my hand an 86 % probability to win. I'm going deep in this tourney. I can feel it in my bones! Only One card remaining and he must catch one of the two remaining Ks or one of the two remaining non-club 8s. The 8 of clubs gives me the nut flush.

And the river is ...... the 8 of diamonds - F***!

He caught his card and sent me to the rail in 200th place. I cashed for 50 bucks, which is nice, but I'm getting tired of getting rivered by trash late in the game.

Anyway, I thought this was an interesting hand dealing with the issue of relative stack sizes in MTTs. Should I have played it differently? Do you see any problems with my analysis? Or, was this simply another case of "right move, wrong result"?

Let me know what you think:)

Roland

PS: Anyone know if Benkogambit is back from their cruise?

Great game last night everyone!

Here are the results, if you didn’t stick around to the end:

1st Roland GTX
2nd Klokkhammer
3rd 33seabreeze

Our level of play has seriously improved since we first started playing a few years back. Long gone seems to be the tight-passive, loose-passive or loose-aggressive donk play that prevailed back then. MrSmith, MrE and myself have finally become tight-aggressive and Seabreeze is clearly heading in that direction. Klokkhammer on the other hand has continued with a looser style. Nothing wrong with that if you can play post flop. In fact, I find you the most difficult to read. As a result, I’m left feeling that I too often fold the better hand preflop, or worse I end up shoving into your slowplayed monster.

The cards were falling my way last night, however. I don’t think I’ve ever had so many A10+ hands in a game, and I was hitting the flops. The final hand heads up allowed me to slowplay you for once klokkhammer. If I remember correctly, you completed from the sb and I checked with 78o. I flopped the idiot end of a straight and you had middle pair high kicker. I checked-called when you shoved your last 1000 chips and my straight held up to win the tourney.

I don’t recall the blind level, but I do know that I had enough of a chip lead that had you shoved preflop, I would have taken my ”free shot” at knocking you out and called.

I have been keeping a leader board for our Roland’s Room tourneys. After four events the standings look like this:

Question: How often do you want to have these tourneys? Use the poll to let me know :)

That’s it for now, I’m actually quite busy at work today.

Roland
PS: My new card setup arrived. They are better than expected! Home game anyone...?

It is Just a Pair

Tilting after getting my AA cracked

I don’t tilt often, but I sure did last night! After my post yesterday, I was feeling pretty good. I fired up a set of games last night including the $10 Daily 30K. Things started off well. I got dealt KK my second hand, but A67 suited on the flop and I had to let the hand go. At least I didn’t get stacked. Two hands later I got QQ and had to let that one go too on an AKx flop. By this time I was short and got all in with AKs and lost to pocket 3’s. Fair enough. I was irritated by the missed flops but still playing smart poker.

Well, one of the other games I had started was a $12 180 man turbo. I lost half my stack fairly early after flopping two pair with AK and losing to a set, but managed to keep my head and got back in the game with some great reads and aggressive play. The cards started falling my way and I had a good feeling about this tourney.

By the time we were ITM, the blinds were 1000/2000 plus ante. I had a slightly less than average stack with around 10K and was doing well stealing blinds. We were down to 15 players when I picked up AA utg. I shoved and got insta-called by a slightly larger stack holding KK. Oh yeah, perfect situation! I was convinced I was going to get my revenge against the hand that has cost me so much lately. Plus, doubling up would put me in the top 3 of the tourney with a real shot at a record high payout. Obviously, it wasn’t meant to be. He flopped a K giving him a set, and just to rub it in he rivered the 4th K for quads sending me to the rail. You better believe that I seriously tilted at this point – LOL!

I ”sat out” of my other games for a few minutes and tried to mentally regroup, but when I returned I was spewing chips left and right losing those games too. At this point, I should have simply turned off the computer and found something else to do. However, being in tilt mode, I decided it would be better to fire up 6 more 3/45’s simultaneously so that I could ”win back” my loses! Yeah, that worked out nicely – lol! I don’t think I made it even to the top 18 in a single one of them.

I’m no longer tilting (I think), but I may play some single table sngs tonight just for a slower tempo. Look me up if you want to play a game together. I’m even up for a 25 cent game Seabreeze. How did you end up in the 90 man last night. Last I saw there were 35 left and you were middle of the pack?

Roland

Half Year Reality Check

I’ve been reviewing my 45 man results for 2009 and trying to patch holes in my game. I was running hot at the beginning of the year, but had horrible results in June and July. What happened and how do I fix it?

Was this downswing the result of poor play or a change in my game? Was it due to multitabling too many boards, switching from $3.25 to $6.50, or due to playing while heavily medicated? Or, perhaps, it was due to an incredible string of G**D***M****F******* river suckouts – LOL! ”Right move wrong result” does seem to be my motto lately... Or maybe, just maybe, the change in results is simply the randomness of poker.

Well, let’s see what the numbers indicate. The first set of tables ”Roland’s 45 man finishes” compares the last 120 days to all of 2009. Statistically, all the numbers are identical except for my ROI down at the bottom. It seems strange that it is up for the year, but down for the last 120 days when all the other numbers are identical...hmmm.

I did make the move to the 6/45s in June, perhaps the answer is there. I have played about 500 $3 games and 500 $6 games so the results are quite easy to compare. Take a look at the second table with this comparison. My ITM rate is 21% for both, yet I’m crushing the $3’s and giving away money on the $6’s. What’s up?

We find the answer by looking at my final table finishes. You see that I make the top 3 places much more often in the $3’s than in the $6’s. 7th place pays $12, yielding less than one buy in profit. Whereas 1st place pays $84, yielding a 12 buyin profit. This difference is huge and is a clear reminder that you have to play to win these tourneys rather than crawling into the money!

500 games may seem like a lot. You would think that it should give me a good idea of where I stand at this level. However, I only need two 1st place finishes to bump my ROI back up to the plus side – only 2 games! When every final table is guaranteed to end in a series of brutal coin tosses, two different outcomes out of my +100 final tables is simply a random element. (Did I mention my 14 consecutive losses with KK in all in situations...argh) Thus, variance is still quite high even after 500 games and my ROI will continue to bounce around for the rest of the year.

So, now I know that my ITM rate in the 6’s is good, but I’m not finishing often enough in the top 3. What is this the result of? Probably a lot of things. There are more good players at this level. I have lost too many all ins at final tables where I was ahead preflop. And, I’ve been playing on a laptop in front of the TV rather than on my stationary PC. The smaller screen and other distractions have surely caused me to miss some reads and resteal opportunities that I should have taken advantage of. However, variance is still such a huge factor that I’m not going to start doubting my game.

After all this, I feel confident that I am still on track, and that the right move will over time give profitable results. I must continually work on my game, adjusting shoving and calling ranges in particular. Moreover, I need to consider if it would be better to drop the $6’s and focus on the $3’s, or perhaps drop the high octane Turbos and move to something with a different structure and less variance. Let’s save that discussion for another day.

Roland
PS: It was fun to be seated next to you last night Klokkhammer :)

Typical bigstack suckout!

This is the typical hand when u some times wonder whether the site is rigged. It just happens 2 many times and pisses me off;

************** PokerStars spill #31801004388: Turnering #188375404, $3.00+$0.25 USD
14 players left in the 45 pl. turbo
Hold'em No Limit - Nivå IX (300/600) - 19/08/2009 4.38.03 ETBord '188375404 1' 9-max Sete #5 har knappen
Sete 2: hans3754 (5695 i sjetonger)
Sete 3: Kowboys4 (16705 i sjetonger) Bully!
Sete 4: corposano (4160 i sjetonger)
Sete 5: MrSmith999 (3580 i sjetonger)
Sete 6: Terong66 (4105 i sjetonger)
Sete 7: DIHATSU (1850 i sjetonger)
Sete 9: porscheless (1045 i sjetonger)
Terong66: poster liten blind 300
DIHATSU: poster stor blind 600

*** HÅNDKORT ***
Utdelt til MrSmith999 [Kh Kd] A dream hand late
porscheless: høyner 395 til 995 og er All-In ATC, strong solid player
hans3754: kaster
Kowboys4: høyner 2005 til 3000 Bully trying to elimate
corposano: kaster
MrSmith999: høyner 530 til 3530 og er All-In If I had like 8K chips, I mighta only called and shuved post flop
Terong66: kaster
DIHATSU: kaster
Kowboys4: syner 530 Well, he's priced in
*** FLOP *** [4s 3s 5c] oops, the gutshot 2's + the A's and running J's
*** TURN *** [4s 3s 5c] [9s] so far so good!
*** RIVER *** [4s 3s 5c 9s] [2s] Yeah right!
*** VISNING AV KORTENE ***
Kowboys4: viser [Ah Jc] (straight, ess til fem)
MrSmith999: viser [Kh Kd] (par i konger)
Kowboys4 innkasserte 5070 fra side potten
porscheless: viser [7h Js] (flush, knekt høy)
porscheless innkasserte 4235 fra hoved potten Lol, good for him!
MrSmith999 [tilskuer] sa, "lol, gg & fuc that! rigged site favours bigstacks l8"

Nice run by Roland yesterday + MrE got deep in the Daily 30K!

I had the pleasure of railbirding Roland late last night in the 3/45 turbos. I was planning on getting some z's, but had to hang around as I felt he was going deep. A very nice performance at two ft's gave a 1st and a 2nd. wp! I am away on a businesstrip until Sunday evening, so no guarantees that I can make the private tourny. GL all if I don't!

A couple of days ago I was railbirding MrE in the Daily 30K (4K+ participants). He performed real well and was top 50 with approx. 100 left after more than 4 hours of play. An unfortunate QQ sucked out to a shortstack A-ragger and he was crippeled from there. His table had 4 Norwegian players who all played well, and I found out that I had played one of the guys from Arendal "live" last summer. MrE still finished strong approx. 80th. for a nice cash. wp!

Sunday's Tourney Details

Here are the details for our next private tourney

NAME: Roland's Room $5.50
DATE: 23 August
TIME: 9:00 PM Oslo time
PASSWORD: neptune

As always, simply go to the Tournament tab in the PokerStars Lobby, then the Private tab and find Roland's Room. The tournament is nr 188182746. Now, run over and register!

Benkogambit might be interested to know that Neptune is the planet represented by one of the alchemical symbols on the mage chip:)

See you on Sunday!

Roland

Weekend update

Good morning

I didn’t get in too much poker over the weekend, but the little I played was profitable. I had one 1st, one 2nd place finish, I was itm in 6 of the 14 games played, and I managed a much needed 140 % roi. It looks like PokerStars has finally turned the Doom switch off for me.

I don’t want to rant (too much), but I have lost 14 consecutive all in situations with KK since the start of July. Four of these were lost after flopping a set! And nearly all of them were near the bubble. Talk about right move wrong result – LOL! Although, I have luckboxed a few river suckouts myself too.

I didn’t see MrSmith last night, but I did follow Seabreeze in a 90 man. He showed some nice tight-aggressive play and a lot of patience late in the game. He had a survivable stack with 16 players remaining (top 12 itm) when I went to bed. Let us know how it turned out...

By the way, I must say that I like the 90 man blind structure better than that of the 45 man tourneys. Both use 5 minute intervals, but the 90’s increase lesser amounts when they go up. This seems to allow for more post flop play than in the 45’s Any thoughts?

Klokkhammer should be back at work today. So, hopefully he will get set up here soon. Benkogambit is still on vacation though. He should show up next week.

I would like to set up a private PokerStars tourney for Sunday 23 August at 9 PM Oslo time. Let me know if this works for you (use the ”comment” function).

I just ordered some new cards for our next home game, too. These Copags have the yellow faces I like. I should have them in a day or two :)

Roland

more chip pics

Roland's chipset pics

Oh Yeah!

I really appreciate this inititiative Roland! Looking forward to both meaningful and meaningless posts by all members.

Custom Ceramic Poker Chips

My custom ceramic chipset is finally finished! 

I wanted to create a set based on the thematic similarities between poker and D&D games like Baldur's Gate. I also wanted a set that is truly my own and original.

Early last fall, I started hand sketching the artwork and design for the chips. However, I wasn’t able to draw artwork digitally. So I contacted the chip designers over at ChipTalk. They are magicians with chip design and manipulating existing art in Photoshop, but I couldn’t find anyone who could create the actual artwork. Therefore, I went to the forum over at rpg.net and hired Ricky Hunter who is an amazing rpg artist. He, however, had never done a poker chip before.

The colaboration went great! He posted updated artwork and I sent him lists of changes. He managed to turn my sketches and textual vision into reality, and added a few improvments of his own! He created everything you see on these chips specifically for this set.

Well, this process was a lot of fun and it did result in some fantastic artwork. Unfortunately, it also resulted in some unpleasant surprises regarding the rolling edges and colors when the chips first got printed.

I chose Palm Imports in Florida to do the actual printing of the chips. They are one of the best in the business if you are going custom. They also offer the 43mm chips that I wanted. These are larger and heavier than the standard 39mm chips.

They printed my order in May, but my design was flawed. When the set arrived I wasn't happy at all. The colors were too dark and the edgespots were messed up. I had fallen into some serious newbie pitfalls. The only solution was to adjust the designs and reprint the whole order!  (I take full credit for the design flaws). It must be said that the difference between a bad design and a great design can be quite subtle if you don’t know what to look for! If you are planning you own custom set, make sure you know what you are doing or get an expert to help you - and make sure you get prototypes first!

I reached a fair deal with the printer and Ricky adjusted the designs. My reprint order was placed in the end of June. This time things went flawlessly with the printer. I approved the prototypes and two weeks later the chips were on my doorstep. When I opened the box this time, I was thrilled to see the chips and quite satisified:)

The chips arrived on 10 July, the same day as our last home tourney, and brought me quite a bit of luck. We played three rounds and I managed two second place finishes and one first making for a memorable inaugeral event!

This was a pretty ambitious project. It took a year to complete, not to mention a few dollars being spent, but it was well worth the effort.

Enough said, I’ve got to get back to that dealer button design now... 

Roland

Roland's First Post

Well, just to get the ball rolling, let me welcome you to our blog. This is meant to be a safe place for us to keep in touch - so use it! Don't fret over short posts or long posts. Don't fret over speling mistakes. And don't fret over spewing some poker wisdom that turns out to be flawed.

Talk about poker, talk about family, talk about whatever is on your mind. Just make sure you stay in touch!

Now, on to a few practical matters. Firstly, send me the e-mail address you want to use and I'll get you set up as an author here. I will be referring to our PokerStars names for all activity here and hope you do the same. You can also upload your avatar if you want.

Secondly, I'll be posting the password for upcoming PokerStars private tourneys here, as well as, our results. 

Finally, if you want something changed or added to the blog, just say the word. As I said, this is intended to be our blog, not just mine.

I've been having arguing with my PC at home all week. It has insisted on irritating me with a random blue screen of death. I think that I have finally knocked some sense into it though. If it will play nice with me, then I'll get the pics of my new chipset posted this weekend.

Enough said for now.

Roland