Leaderboard 2010: Year End Results

Congratulations MrEMC2 on a well deserved top position for 2010! Your play was strong and your results were consistent all year - nice one! Congrats to MrSmith as well for a very close 2nd place finish. You would have won it all had you not missed two games...

Thanks to everyone who has played in the tourneys. It has been a fun and competitive year. Let's hope we can recruit a few more players for next year. I can organize the January tourney.

Here is the final leaderboard for 2010:

Roland GTX

HH Sunday's private game

HoldemProfiler

I received an offer the other day from PokerProLabs for their tracking software Holdem Profiler and Super HUD, and have been messing around with these for the last few days.

Benkogambit has spoken about poker software in an earlier post and I thought I would give some examples of what you can do with these things. I am just learning how to do this myself. This is just the tip of the iceberg as there are a ton of stats in these things.I started by importing all the games in my hand history folder (basically the 400 games I played in November). This was easy to do and worked automatically, but it took quite a long time.

SUMMARY

You can view your cash game results or tourneys. I’ll focus on tourneys, since that is what I play the most. Firstly, you can view a Summary of your results just like you can on PokerProLabs:

This works great especially for particular buyin levels. There are a million different stats you can choose from and sort by. However, a few tourneys such as Steps have not recorded results properly and are listed as ”na”. This draws your total results down since they seem to be handled as losses. Also, it lists the $4.10 Knockouts as $3.35 as you can see it the pic. You can click on a line and get up all the results for each game. And, you can click on a particular game and watch it in the built in replayer (I haven’t tested this yet).

LEVELS

Now we get to the good stuff. I can choose a buy in level, $3.35 for example and see how I have played all the hands in these tourneys. These are the standard stats that most people show if they use a HUD.

VPIP means voluntarily put money in pot. This stat shows how many hands you are playing and thus how Tight or Loose you are.

PFR% means pre-flop raise percentage. This stats shows how often you raise and thus how aggressive you are.

AF means Aggression Factor This stat is =  ( Total Times Bet + Total Times Raised ) / (Total Times Called )

W$SD means won money at showdown. AF for all the streets, and how often I Cbet the flop.

VPIP, PFR and AF are commonly used in HUD. I’m not an expert at interpreting these things, but we can make a few observations. I’m fairly tight. So, if an opponent has a lower VPIP than me, then they are tighter than me. The opposite would indicate a looser player. This can then be used to help put the opponent on a hand range. The PFR helps you see how passive/aggressive a player is. I am pretty passive early in the game limping pp, sc and AXs and have a low PFR. As you can see from the table above, the higher the blinds get, the more aggressive I become in the hands I play. From what I have read, if your AF is less than 0.5 then you are playing too passively. In other words, you should be the aggressor in at least half the hands you play...

POSITION

We can look at the same stats based on position rather than blind level too. This table is for all games played, not just the knockouts.

You can see that my VPIP and PFR increase when I get to the button. You can also see that I’m losing money with my sb play. I’m not sure how to interpret this yet, but it seems to be a huge leak that needs to be plugged.

The HUD also seems to work well. You can pick and choose what stats to have on screen. You can have VPIP, PFR and AF, but you can also have other stats like Total profit, Pokerprolabs ranking (A, K etc), Total games played, player type. Right now I just have a few stats showing. However you can simply right click on a player and bring up details stats for everything.

All in all these tools seem quite interesting and useful. Furthermore, they seem to offer pretty much the same stuff as PokerTracker and HoldemManager. My first impression in positive, but now I need to do the legwork and learn how to interpret all these stats properly.

If anyone else has tested these tools, let us know.

Roland GTX

Normal vs Knockout SnGs Revisited

After playing more than 750 single table $4.10 knockouts since August, I thought it was about time to take a new look at my results to see if knockouts are helping or hurting my winnings. I requested an account audit from Pokerstars so that I could see all the bounties, even from the tourneys where I wasn’t itm.

If we ignore the bounties and consider these to be $3.35 tourneys (this is what Sharkscope and Pokerprolabs do), then I have a 16% ROI which is equal to 0.52 profit per game. I’m happy with this and to see I’m at least making money playing these things.

If we look at the bounties alone, I have won 578 bounties in 765 games. I’m losing money on the bounties averaging less than one bounty per game (75%).

If we put it all together and simply consider these to be $4.10 games, then I have an ROI of 8% which is equal to 0.33 cents profit per game. In other words, I’m a winning player at this level, but the knockouts are taking a huge chunk out of my profit. I doubt the knockouts are that much softer than the normal sngs. The rake however is too high in the normal $3.40 sng. So, I need to move up to the $5.50 level.

I’m going to test the waters playing $5.50 normal sngs for the time being and see how they work out. I need a 6% ROI to equal the 33 cent profit per game I have had with the knockouts. Hopefully, I can manage a bit better.

I played two sets of $5 games yesterday. My first impression was that people were more cautious durng the early blind levels and not busting out as fast as they do in the knockouts. However, most players were also too passive on the bubble. I won money the firs set, lost money the second and ended the evening up one dollar – lol! Profitable, but not exactly 33 cents per game.

I’ll keep you updated as always.

Roland GTX

Improved Step Tickets

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I won a Step 1 ticket in a Pokerlistings freeroll last week. My goal was to convert this into a Step 4 ticket that could then be used to enter the Sunday Million. After bouncing up and down through 4 games, I still had a Step 2 ticket. Previously, there was no way to cash out these tickets before reaching Step 4 ($215). So, unless you were serious about winning a package like benkogambit, the Steps weren't a good investment.

However, last night I clicked on "Tournament Tickets..." in the Pokerstars lobby and was surprised to see a whole slew of cash prize tourneys that I could enter using my Step 2 ticket ($27).  Rather than taking the greater risk of trying to reach Step 4, I regged for a $22 buyin + $5 bounty knockout MTT with 15 minute blinds. There were about 250 entrants and the top 45 were itm. There were plenty of platinum and supernova vips in the tourney, but people were playing as if it was a $4/180.

I doubled up on the first hand of the tourney winning one bounty. Then stacked another guy winning a 2nd bounty a bit later and was among the chipleaders. With less than 100 players left a lot of middle sized stacks were getting desperate and all in shoves preflop were becoming the norm. A guy with 3000 chips shoved and it folded around to me in the bb with about 5.500 chips. I was holding KK and made the call but lost the hand and most of my stack with it.  I never recovered from that loss, but did manage to get itm ending up 34th. This was not my Sunday Million dream, but $44 bucks profit from a freeroll is definitely welcome.

Well, the point of all this is that the lower level Step tickets can now be used to enter certain other tourneys. This makes them a very interesting option. Let us know if anyone else takes this route.

Roland GTX

December Private Game

Seabreeze sent me the info for our last tourney of the season, and it is already set up at Pokerstars. Let's hope for a good turnout.

PS: I'll be gunning for you MrE and I'll be playing to win! I've been working on my Gus Hanson maniac style preparing for the December game. If you are ahead of me, be prepared for some action if you dare raise. If you are after me, be prepared for being forced to call a preflop shove for all your chips. One of us will be the first man knocked out out of the tourney if I have my way - LOL!

Roland GTX

Step 1 Rollercoaster

I played a PokerListings freeroll on Sunday and won a Step 1 ticket which I put to use last night while playing a set of $4.10 knockouts. It was a good evening all around, but as this game shows, I had some huge swings in luck! I haven't reviewed the game myself yet, but I was happy with my tight-aggressive play.

Step 1

November Leader board

Here is the updated leader board with MrEMC2 sitting rather comfortably on top - congrats! Seabreeze in in charge of the December game, our last tourney of 2010.

Private game november 2010

Hi,
here's the hh for yet another exciting private game. It turned out to be as expected, with MrS, Roland and myself playing extremely tight, just to make sure we're not running into some nasty early bustout :-)))
Haven't analyzed the hh yet, but I was getting lucky at the right time, and managed to knock out Roland on a coin flip. I'm not certain about all the other hands as I was playing a 10/27 at the same time, where I made it HU and 2nd place with a nice cashout of $72.
I was lucky to get either the right hands, or the right hits when needed, and knocked out the others one by one. Sorry for the Ax ag Kx, seabreeze. Congrats to Wollmar and Seabreeze for itm, it was 2nd in a row for u, seabreeze?

Tough Competition in a 2/180

Well, I was going to post a hand history from the end game of a 2/180, but could get the replayer to work. I ended up 2nd at any rate. It was a typical donk-fest and I got quite lucky myself a few times. Anyway,  even though most of the players in these things are horrible, there are always some scary-good players lurking as I realized at the final table of this one.

I had a huge chip lead at the final table and was getting playable hands. However, after getting an all in reraise response to my first steal attempt vs MRL123 (he was to my left) I knew that he wasn't to be messed with. I decided the best course of action was to put my big stack to use and deny all reraise opportunities by going into push - fold mode. This worked nicely until we were down to the final three. I was still chipleader with about 120K and the other two each had about 75K. I was steadily wearing them down when I shoved from the btn with 99. yadonesun11 final picked up a hand and called with AA. MRL123 got knocked out shortly thereafter and I was heads up with about 1/4 of the chips.

 In the first hand heads up, yadonesun11 completed from the sb and the flop was KK2. I thought my 52s looked pretty good so I shoved in all my chips. He insta-called holding K5o and won the tourney.

Check out the stats on these two TAG players: MRL123 and yadonesun11 - yikes!  I didn't check them until after the game, but I'm glad I avoided trying to outplay them post flop - they are not what I typically expect in these tourneys!

I hope to see you in Sunday's Private Game!

Roland GTX

Uncomfortable Spot with 1010

I'm curious how you would have played this hand. I find these middle pairs tough which can be seen by my smallish preflop raise. Typically I raise 2.5x or 3x so early in the game. However, I wasn't completely sure what I was going to do if I got reraised. Well, that is what happened of course. So, now what do I do?

9 man $4.10 knockout



If we ignore the donk short stack and assign the reraiser Ax, any pocket pair or any two broadway cards, then I'm a 64/36 favorite. If we assign a random hand to the shorty, then I'm a 50/30/20 favorite.

Bubble Play: Calling with a Strong Hand or Shoving with Crap?

EDIT:The November Private Game is set up at Pokerstars. The password is: Attack the leaders!


Here is a little food for thought that has little to do with ICM :)

Let us imagine that we are on the bubble with 4 players remaining. UTG shoves, the next two players fold, and you are holding AKo. What are your odds of winning if you call?

This is what I got after running some ranges on Pokerstove.

• 1.    You have a 63% probability of winning with AKo if he is holding Ax, any two broadway cards or a pocket pair. This is the top 28% of hands and seems fairly realistic.
• 2.    You have a 64% probability of winning with AKo vs a completely random hand.
• 3.    You have a 67% probability of winning with AKo vs 72o.
• 4.    You have a 73% probability of winning with AKo vs Ax with a weaker kicker.

There is surprizingly little difference between the first three scenarios.

Now let us imagine the following hand. The first two players fold and you are considering shoving from the small blind holding 72o. What are the odds that the big blind will fold? What are your odds of winning if you get called?

• 1.    The big blind calls 30% of the time (meaning they call with the top 30% of hands). Your 72o has a 29% probability of winning a showdown.
• 2.    The big blind calles 40% of the time. Your 72o still has a 29% probability of winning.
• 3.    The big blind calls 50% of the time. Your 72o has a 30% probability of winning.

Now we need to combine the chance of being called with the chance of winning a showdown to determine the overall probability of the possible outcomes.

If he calls 30% of the time then we can say the following:

• 1.    70% of the time he folds (and you successfully steal the blinds)
• 2.    9% of the time he calls, and you win the showdown
• 3.    21% of the time he calls, and you lose the showdown

We can add the times he folds to the times you win to say that you increase your stack 79% of the time with the worst possible hand vs a bb who will call you 30% of the time.

For a 40% calling range you will improve your stack 72% of the time.

For a 50% calling range you will improve 65% of the time.

Finally, we are ready to compare the two hands. Is it better to call an all in holding AKo, or is it better to shove 72o? Stack sizes effect the calling ranges and the number of chips to be won, but have no impact on the starting hand odds themselves.

In other words, shoving 72o into a tight bb is more likely to be successful than calling an all in with AK vs a hand that you have dominated! Fold equity is huge and perhaps more important that your cards when playing the bubble.

Roland GTX

ICM and the Previous Post

Well, I have done the ICM calculations. Now let’s walk through them. Firstly we need to assign a raising range for the big stack. He is pretty standard so let us say:

• 25% holding Ax or Kx making me a 73/27 favorite
• 25% holding a pocket pair making me a 43/57 underdog
• 50% holding ATC, other than the ones above, making me a 65/35 favorite
• (Numbers above come directly from Pokerstove)

Secondly, let us assume that he will call my all in reraise 100% of the time (and that the bb folds 100% of the time). Thus, we can do the math and see that I’ll win the hand 62% of the time.

Now we can take our stack sizes for winning, losing and folding and put them in an ICM calculator.

• FOLD: If I fold, I’ll have 1275 chips and have an ICM of 17.3%
• LOSE: If I get all in and lose, I’ll have no chips and have an ICM of 0%
• WIN: If I get all in and win, I’ll have 2950 chips and have an ICM of 26,0%
• (Numbers above come directly from www.chillin441.com)

Finally, we can combine our ICM values with the probability of them occurring.

Winning(62% x 26%) + losing(38% x 0%) = ICM 16.1%

Folding has an ICM of 17.3 and is more profitable than reraising all in which has an ICM of 16.1

In other words folding AK in this spot is slightly better than reraising all in!

Actually, this is so close, that any changes to the assumtions at the start may very well make this slightly profitable, for example there is always a tiny chance that he will fold to my reraise.

Roland GTX

Bubble Play vs the Big Stack

Things have been going well lately in the $4.10 knockouts for me. However, with my tight style, I often end up being one of the short stacks on the bubble. I’m trying to work out what my preflop reraising range should be when I’m reraising the chipleader.

Here is a specific example that occurred last night. We were on the bubble and the blinds were at 100/200 but would soon be increasing to 100/200 + ante. Everyone left at the table has played fairly normal. They have been slightly looser than me, but still fairly tight, and they have been slightly more passive than me. The shortstack seems passive hoping to squeak into the money. The chipleader has not been overly aggressive with his big stack.

UTG (6350 chips after raising) raises to 500

BTN (820 chips) folds

Roland GTX in SB (1275 chips after posting)

BB (4255 chips after posting)

There are 800 chips in the pot and I am holding AKo. What should I do?

I can’t call off a 3^rd of my stack and then fold on a missed flop so calling is out of the question.

I can fold and hope that I survive longer than the short stack. Or, I can reraise all in knowing that there is nearly no chance that the big stack will fold? At best he has Ax making me a 70/30 favorite. Two random cards make me a 60/40 favorite. If he is holding a smaller pocket pair then he is a 52/48 favorite. The only hand I’m a dog to is AA.

This situation is clearly Ev+, but I don’t know if it is smart according to ICM. Any takers?

Roland GTX

November game

Hi everyone,
I don't recall whether we should be trying to play another midweek game, or if we should stick to the sundays?
In case sunday fits everybody, I'll suggest Nov 7th, 9pm as usual.
If you gentlemen prefer a midweek game, we could do that on Nov 3rd, same time as last time.
Up 2 u guys :-)

October Game Replay

October Leaderboard

Thanks for another exciting game yesterday! I'll post my game-related comments once MrSmith gets the hand history up. MrEMC2 is responsible for the November private game. Here is the updated leaderboard. Click on the pic if you want a larger image.

Roland GTX

Playing the BIG stacks

Here's a hh from yesterday, from a $5/9 tourney. The first 3 hands are originally #15, #39 and #56. Hand 4 is basically #63, and from that point, we were down to 3 players, and me having a huge stack.
Player 4 was pretty short stacked, but playing extremely tight, and basically folding almost every small blind when I was in big blind, at least it felt like it.
During the 45 hands, player 8 was getting pretty annoyed by my play, claiming that I should have been doing more to take out player 4.
As it felt yesterday, I didn't have the hands to call the couple of AIs raised by the ss, even if I was holding a big stack. Looking at the hh, I wonder if I should have called the AI in #20? I'm pretty sure the villain had a 'better' hand, and folded without hesitation. Appreciate any comments on that decision.
BTW, the first hand is actually the first time ever that I pull off a showdown with equal pp due to a flush :-)
And yes, #42 was pretty dumb play as well :-( Don't need comments on that one, lol.
My only excuse, as usual, is that I was BUSY in a $5/27 at the same time, which I managed to win, but I managed only second place in the $5/9.

October game..

I got seasick of all the comments, so I am posting a new one :)

In principle I should not treat anyone differently by changing the date. However, an upcoming holiday, the fact that MrSmith has a chance to win overall and the fact that he has suffered more from the dates then the other two leaders have convinced me to change the date to the 10th. Hope everyone can make it. Given that we have played 9 out 11 games - I think we should keep the games as they have been so far. Thus I suggest to stick to 5$, and encourage anyone to present ideas on how the games for 2011 should be organized. I am open to good ideas incl 10$ games.

So, if everyone are pleased - I will suggest the 10th of October. Password stays. Gl everyone!

September Leaderboard

Thanks for an exciting game yesterday and congratulations once again to MrEMC2! I'm glad you acknowledge that I was ahead when you called my all in on the last hand, but never apologize for winning. Presumably that is exactly what you wanted to do. Luck is an inherent part of the game as we all know all to well. Besides I seem to recall rivering you once or twice during our Drangedal trips. Perhaps we are even now :)

Here is the updated leaderboard at any rate. Our positions are unchanged except for Barbapaps whose itm finish moved him up the ladder. Good game Barbapaps! MrE has retained his top spot, but I doubt that he leads by enough points to feel too comfortable...

Klokkhammer is in charge of our October game. Let me know the details and I can set it up at Pokerstars.

Thanks for the quick posting of your hh MrE. I'll be studying it carefully :)

Roland GTX

Hand history private game September 2010

Here's the hh for the private game. I had a bad start, tons of crap cards, and seebreeze calling or raising all my steal attempts. On the other hand, you do need the good cards at the end of the game, not early :-)
Poker gods were smiling at me this time, and I was lucky to hit the right cards at the right time.
I'm really sorry for the last hand, Roland, but I think you would have called your AI as well, wouldn't you?
As I said, I do know by far too well how it feels to get rivered :-(

I checked the blogg as well, and it's klokks turn to schedule the next game.
Just to add my 0.02$, I'm fine with 10:30pm, especially on wednesday and thursday nights.

Next private tourny

Is scheduled for Wednesday this week (22nd) at 22.30 CET. Alarmclock required for Benko. I upped the stakes to $10,-. Registration is available in the lobby. Password is "suitedgapper".

Next private game.......September

Since I am arranging, I would like input from Benko and Seabreeze on what timezones they are located in + times during weekdays (Note; only weekdays, FRI-SUN = banned this time) they are able to play.

Final Table - Finally!

Sorry for not posting lately. I've been quite busy turning a string of bad luck into an even worse string of tilting losses - LOL! Hopefully, my mindset is improving and I can put all that behind me now. In fact, last night I achieved a small milestone. I made my first final table of an MTT. 180 man sngs, freerolls and FPP tourneys don't count :) It wasn't the big payout we all dream of, but just getting there felt pretty good.


The tourney was a  €2.00 buyin, 10 minute blind MTT with 512 players. I played my standard TAG mtt game. I tripled up fairly early with KK for once which allowed me to play all the Axs, sc and small pp hands. Unfortunately, nearly every time I raised preflop with a premium hand, everyone folded. All my big pots came from flopping flopping sets or better as well as pretty aggressive blinds play. My stack size was hovering around the average for most of the mid and late game.


When we got down to the final two tables, nearly all the stacks were equal. The chipleader changed every time someone got knocked out. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to double up at this point. When we got to the final table I was in 5th place with about 150K and the top two had just under 350K chips. All of the players at the ft were passive. Some were tight passive while others were loose passive calling stations. The guy to my right and the guy to my left were huge calling stations. This made stealing difficult, but value betting was profitable. Both had larger stacks than me.


We were down to 8 players when I picked up AA in the small blind. The hand folded around to me and I made a standard 2.5x preflop raise. The bb called and the flop was a K92 rainbow which seemed decent enough for me. I made a pot sized bet on the flop committing me to the hand and the bb called again. The turn  was a J and the pot was now slightly larger than my stack. I knew he would call a shove if he had any pair or a drawing hand as well. I shoved and he called turning over Q10 for the straight - ouch! 


Out in 8th place, but not much I could have done differently given the situation and villian's style. I won a whopping € 23, but as I said, it felt good to finally make a final table.


Roland GTX


Edited a whole bunch of typos including the flop on final hand.

Light at the end of the tunnel...

My 10 match losing streak finally came to an end with this $6.60 6-max, the longest 6-max I've ever played (180 hands, ending at Level VIII) due to the lengthy bubble which starts at Hand 66. I didn't screen this one and Player 5 turned out to be a very strong multi-tabler. It ended well but I have a nagging feeling that my 3-handed high blind play is still not aggressive enough....

SharkScope

I only recently noticed that the Tournament Selector feature on SharkScope is free for tourneys with a buy-in of less than $10. Those searches don't even count against your 5 free searches per day. So I can use SharkScope to screen all the $6.60 6-max SNGs. I used a few of my free daily searches to take a look at the $13 and $25 6-max SNGs -- there are so many strong multi-tablers earning a living at those levels that it's not unusual for SNGs to have a 4-or-5 shark rating. Needless to say, the difference between that and a 1-or-2 fishbowl rating is several magnitudes of positive expectation so I think I'm going to have to start paying more attention to game selection than I have so far.

Rivering quad

Sometimes the poker gods aren't easy to understand. Roland had some of those recently, and I also had the pleasure a couple of weeks ago. Same thing happened again in a $15/18 Turbo this week :-(
Not easy to get away from those kind of hands. I could have raised a bet after the flop to secure the pot, but when you flop a full house, you want to get the most out of it, lol.

At the end of the day, I managed to recover from that one, even if I had to play short stacked for a long period. Made the 4th place which gives $27.

$13 6-max and $5 knockout

I got inspired by Benko's hand, and since I've been suffering many losses in the 5/27, I decided to give it a try. I fired a $5 knockout and played them simultanously.
I couple of bad decisions, but at the end of the day, it went my way.
But again, I needed the river A for my AA ag QQ in the last hand, since the villain of course got his set on the flop, lol.
I'm not to pleased by calling the J top pair with 3 clubs on the table in the $13 either (hand 78), but all in all, it ended well.
I'm still not certain whether I should have called hand 19, with AKs. There was one AI already, and player 7 reraised prior to that, so I was pretty sure he would call the AI as well. At least one of them had either Ax or big pp, and a 3 player AI is not in my comfort zone, especially if at least one player has me covered. How whould you guys have played that hand?

$13/6


$5/9

$13 6-max

I thought my decision-making and bet-sizing were pretty good in this one (for a change!). Things don't really get started until Hand 66 and then it ends quickly.

Playing Sets on Suited Board

In reply to MrEMC2. I was not allowed to post it as a comment because of the length. Thus, I had to make a new post. Perhaps the software is trying to tell me something...

PS: I like the hands you added! I haven't gone through the big hh, but will get to it later. Here are my quick thoughts regarding your original question.

The situation is we are in one of the first 3 blind levels in a tourney holding a small/medium pocket pair and facing a btn minraise preflop. We call the raise, flop a middle set on a suited board. Since this is early in the tourney we probably don’t know much about the other player(s). Furthermore, the preflop raiser’s range of hands is huge at this point.

Regarding playing hands out of position, Moshman says (and I fully agree) that you should choose to be the aggressor and make a 50% pot raise yourself in any situation where you would call a normal raise from another opponent (this means drawing hands too!). Most importantly, being the aggressor gives you fold equity that you give up by checking. Remember, a scary flop for you is often a scary flop for your opponent too. Your bet is large enough that anyone chasing a flush is making a pot odds mistake by calling.This is pretty straight forward, but most people don’t do it at the lower levels. In the situation above, I would always raise against 1 opponent and usually against two in btn, sb, bb situations. Furthermore, if the villian already has the nut flush, they will often slowplay their presumed monster and simply call your bet rather than reraising. Thus, giving you the chance to stack them if you hit.

If you check hoping for a free card, your opponents may still raise putting you in a difficult situation. I would only call if the odds are correct. If you check and do get to see the turn for free, your hand is reduced to bluffing status if a 4th suited card shows up. It is also worth noting that you have 7 outs for a house, whereas the villian has 9 outs if drawing for a flush. A free card is helping the villian more than you.

Summing up the flop.Your hand is presumably the best at the moment, but very vulnerable. Try to take the pot down now with a raise, but fold to a reraise.

If your flop raise gets called by the bb and the btn, then I would check/fold any turn card not giving me a full house. With three players, the pot will be getting so big that a turn bet may be pot committing you in an uncertain situation too early in the game.

Now, the tricky situation is where your flop raise gets flat called by the btn only. It is still hard to put the villian on a range. If the turn puts a 4th suited card on the table, then I check/fold the hand. If the turn makes my full house then I fire out another bet. This time around 30% of the pot hoping to get some action. If any other card shows up, you have a difficult situation. If the blinds are low, against 1 opponent I will make another 50% pot raise here, but folding again to a reraise. You still have 10 outs to make your full house on the river.

Finally the river, the pot is probably about 350 (10/20 blinds) chips now vs 1 opponent. I’m probably firing out a defensive bet of about 100 on any missed river, even a 4th flush card. If you don’t bet, the villian probably will bet (and often pot sized) no matter what he is holding. By betting small, they will often call with any hand other than the nut flush which they will reraise. I fold to any reraise. If I catch a card and get my full house, I’ll probably bet about 250 and move all in if the villain reraises.

You have invested about 450 chips, a third of your stack, in this hand. It will be a nice pot if you win, but not too devistating a blow to your stack if you lose. I won’t get pot committed with this hand. So, if the pot at any point reaches a third of my stack, I am going to slow down and accept check/folding rather than committing to an uncertain hand.

In a high blind situation, shoving these pocket pairs preflop is probably best. However, if I do get myself involved in a situation like this then stack sizes, the blinds, and my reads become important factors. If I’m already pot committed then I’ll simply shove the flop. If I’m not pot committed, I may check/fold the flop if I believe the btn will check. At this point in the game we should have some idea how aggressive the btn is.

Finally, let’s look at the situation above when the roles are reversed. Let say that I am the btn and have limped preflop with a pocket pair early in the tourney. I’ll call a raise if my pot odds are good, or if the sb raises and the bb calls giving me nice implied odds. However, if the flop is checked to me, now I can consider taking my free card in order to keep the pot small.

Well, now you know what I do, let us see what Benko has to say. I would probably listen to his advice over mine :)

Roland GTX

Set ag flush or str draw on the flop

Hi guys,
I've tried to find a HH for this kind of situation, which has happened to me several times lately, but I can't find it :-(

Anyway, we had almost this sort of hand in our last private game, so here's the scenario:

I'm sitting out position, i.e. sb/bb, and do have a small pair, let's say 77 like Benko had on sunday. No limpers, but button places min raise. It's still early in the game, so I simply call.
Flop is i.e. 710K, all same suite. I've got my set, but there's a possible fl draw on the table. In general, I would check, and wait for the button to act.

Roland mentioned shoving, since you do have 25% chance for a full house? Basically, I would prefer to see the turn and river without risking too many chips, but how to act on big raises from the villain?

The same sort of scenario applies of course to str draw as well. And it certainly depends on position, stack size etc.

Anyway, this is pretty tricky, and not very easy to act correctly. What do you find in your books about that :-)

Update: Had the opposite situation yesterday



CL and BB had been playing tight indeed, and I was simply trying to steal blinds.
Of course, the villain didn't played too smart, by simply calling 2BB raise, instead of reraising, and betting only 1BB when I checked the flop.
Don't slowplay your monsters, MrS stated a while ago, didn't he? :D

Here's a summary of the same tourney as well. Take a close look at hand 12 :D
This was long time before the magic str against the set, lol.
I skipped all hands I wasn't involved into b4 we were ITM. There were many crazy hands there as well, but it tipped my way, for once ;)

PS.: There was also a potential candidate for this type of situation (#69), although I folded my 22 due, since 2 players went AI before me :-) Would have flopped a set, and lost to a flush :D

Non-Nut Flush

Roland, you will appreciate this hand from a $13 6-max. Around the same time I busted out of two SNGs with sets when my opponents back-doored a flush so it all evens out....

Updated Leaderboard

Congratulations MrECM2! You are officially the new tournament leader. That means we are all out to get you now. I hope you aren't too paranoid:)

MrSmith is in charge of organizing the September Private Game. The details will be posted as soon as possible.

Roland GTX

Hand History for Sunday's Game, August 22, 2010

Private Game on Sunday!

Hi guys

This is just a friendly reminder that the August private game is scheduled for this coming Sunday. Benko has approved the date and should be making an appearance. Check the upper left hand corner of the blog for the password.

Also, I wanted to mention the set of $4.10 knockouts I played last night. I had 6 tables playing and things were going well in most of them. It looked like I was heading for a profitable evening when things went horribly wrong - LOL. I don't like to rant, but this was rather unusual.

There were 4 players remaining at one table and I had the shortest stack with about 1200 chips. UTG big stack raises and I reraise all in from the sb holding AA. Big stack calls and turns over 44 - oh yeah! The flop runs XX4 giving him a set. Now I'm in trouble. However, the turn is my miracle A giving me set over set. Then the river came and yes he landed the final 1 outer 4. His quad 4s beat my As over 4s full house! Well this roller coaster ride of a hand seemed like a random piece of bad luck. It was also the first time I recall losing a full house to quads though. This seemed like a pretty rare event. I didn't have time to fret about the bubble loss because the action on another table required my attention.

The first hand to pop up after losing to the quads was in another bubble situation. I was in the big blind with the 2nd largest stack and the loose aggressive big stack was the sb to my right. The other two stacks were very short and on the very of being blinded out. The two short stacks folded to the chipleader who minraises from the sb. I look down and see pocket 7s. My stack is so healthy that I decide to flat call and see what the flop brings. The flop was perfect for me A47 rainbow! I flopped my set and am just preying that the villian is holding an A. I lead out with a minraise hoping to entice a reraise. It works perfectly and he makes a solid 3x reraise. Now the pot is huge so I simply 3bet all in and the big stack calls. He shows A10o and I'm way ahead - nice! The turn is another A giving him trips, but giving me a full house - oh yeah! I'm already starting to envision the rest of the game with my monster stack versus 3 micro stacks. Unfortunately, the poker gods had other thoughts in mind. He nailed his 1 outer when the final A was shown. Once again my set turned full house lost to quads.

LOL, sometimes lightning does strike twice...

Seriously though, I wonder if ICM says I should have simply folded my 77 in the second hand and avoided the potential tourney threatening confrontation.

See you on Sunday!

Roland GTX

"On tilt" performance

After losing 2 x AA and KK in cash gaming, lol!

Back to the Action!

I hope everyone has had a nice summer. I sure did! After 5 sunny weeks in Florida, I’m recharged and ready to get back to the tables.

 I started off the fall by breaking my one of my own rules (typical). Rather than sticking to the single table knockouts, I played a slew of $4/180 man sngs and $10 mtts. I had several final tables in the 180s, but no top 3 finishes. I also got deep in one mtt busting out 29th out of 10 000 players. Unfortunately, it was a freeroll and all the real money was at the final table. All in all, I donked off too much of my bankroll without any significant results, but did have a lot of fun doing it! After that misstep, I moved back to the knockouts.

I have been running a 22% ROI at the $1.40 knockouts, but dislike playing at that level. The ROI is nice, but the amount of real cash has made me impatient. To remedy this situation, I started testing the water at the next level which is $4.10 ($3 buy in + 0.75 bounty + 0.35 fee). My first few attempts went well. So, I started running sets of 4 which is much more comfortable than the sets of 12 at the $1 level. I then moved up to sets of 6 and am now testing sets of 8.

Multitabling 6-8 tourneys seems to be my current sweet spot. I can comfortably follow the action on these. Moreover, by the time I’m ITM, usually half the tables have closed. Thus, I can have 4 tables open without any overlap on my screen which allows me to get the reads necessary for the endgame play. I don’t plan on adding more tables.

My results at the $4 level are nearly identical to those from the $1 level. I have played just over 100 $4 knockouts and including bounties have a 19% ROI. More importantly, my actual profit per game has more than doubled. I have had too many 4th place and 2nd place finishes though. I’ll probably play another 100 or so of these before considering the next level which is $6.75 (5 + 1.25 + 0.50).

I have been rushing to get to the $6.75 knockouts simply because that is the first level where the Pokerstars fee is down to 10% of the buyin. As I’ve said before, the high fees at the micro levels eat up too much of your ROI. Also, there doesn’t seem to be much difference in skill levels between the lower buyin amounts.

It is worth noting that I have also played a handful of normal single table sngs at the micro levels, usually due to registering for the wrong tourney... Anyway, I have noticed that the knockout games are much more aggressive during the early stages of the game. The play resembles that of a tubo, except that the blinds are moving nice and slow. By the time the blinds get to 100/200 in a knockout, the tourney is at the bubble or already ITM. Whereas in the normal sngs there are still 6 or 7 players left at this point. I believe this difference to be important.

In the knockouts, I play ultra-tight the early levels only playing hands that I know exactly where I stand postflop. Sometimes I’ll get big hands and double up early, but typically, I get to the bubble without having played many, if any, hands. The blinds are still so low that this is not a problem. One well timed reraise against the sb who thinks he can steal from you every round and you are back in the game. In the normal sngs however, you are forced to shift gears while there are 6 or so players left which seems to make it slightly more difficult to get itm.

To sum things up: single table tourneys are building my bankroll and multi-table tourneys are depleting it. I guess I’ll stick to the sngs then for the time being :)

Good Luck at the tables!

Roland GTX

PS: We need to schedule the next private game for August. Benko asked me to suggest a date. How does Sunday 22 August at 9 PM work for everyone? Benko’s answer will take priority. So, I won’t set up the tourney until I hear from him.

The art of c-betting

that I'm not handling well, at least not in the 5/27 :-(
A classic sample: final table, mid size stack, blinds 100/200, getting A10o which is folded to my. Players in the blinds are both short, so I raise 3BB. This is probably too small already. All players fold, BB hesitates, and calls, and probably has a small pocket. BB checks the flop, and now what? AI, check or c-bet?
Again, I picked the worst alternative, raising another 3BB, which of course is reraised with an AI. I guess he would have folded an AI from my side.

Simply poor play from my side. No wonder that I'm having a negative stat on the 5$ tourneys :-(

Enjoy the summer everyone! AA fun hands

I look forward to getting back in action....in the meantime.....be careful on slowplaying those monsters.....


Some more AA fun here. Same tourny a couple of hands inbetween these two

Sundays private game result

First of all, sorry for being so late, but it has been quite a busy week.

I managed to make some steals due to fairly good hands during the early rounds.
Having Roland and MrS to my left, and Klokk and Seabreez, limping and raising a lot of hands, was an akward position, though.

I played tightly, successfully c-bet some A hands. I maybe should have waited with betting my AJ in sb, when I hit the top pair with J on the turn?

Roland managed to steal a couple of bigger hands, before I got AJs in co. I made my standard 4BB bet, 200, and got an instant AI reraise from Seabreez. I had him covered with 360 chips, and was pretty sure that he had a small pp, leaving me with 2 overcards. I decided to call, and was horrified when he showed his AQo. Luckily, I was saved my a magic J on the turn. I have faced quite a lot of such losses myself, so I know how it feels. Sorry Seabreez.

Klokk started to playing more aggressive when blinds were 50/100, betting and calling a lot of hands. Painful to have him just to my right. At the end of the day, he took out Roland with a nice straight, and I was heading for my standard 3. place.

Not this time though. MrS shoved with K10, and Klokk took him out with a KQ, leaving the two of us HU.

I managed to win the first flip with A9 (Klokks favourite hand), against his A5.
The next flip was my 77 against his Q9, the standard 50/50 situation. For a change, my low pp held up, although I was pretty sure that Klokk would make his inside straight on the river.

For the first time, I was in the lead, and got an AA on the next hand. Unfortunately, Klokk didn't take the bait, but I should probably just have called his min raise. As a matter of fact, I was busy on a final table in a 5/27, which took quite a lot of my attention. I missed to bet an A3, with a 3 on the flop, at the same time when I messed up badly on the other table with AK. I didn't notice that
there were actually 3 players left, and called an AI. I can't understand how you manage 12 tables at same time, Roland. I make mistakes already with 2 tables, lol.

Finally, I busted out of the 5/27 with A10 against AA, so I could concentrate on HU against Klokk, who continued to play aggressive, and pulled out almost half of my stack, just by betting harder, or playing better is probably the correct term :-)

I managed to stay alive though, doubled up with AK against A8, bluffing an A, and finally getting another monster KK, against K9.

All in all, I did play ok, but there are several hands I could/should have played differently.

Nice to have ended the 3. place streak, finally.

Last not least, here's the AK term once again: Anna Kournikova, looking good, but (almost) never wins.

Suggestion for tournies the rest of 2010

Although most of our players are located in the same timezone, I suggest that we alternate on picking the day/time the rest of the year in order to increase attendance and fairness to the players.

My suggestion is that Benko picks date/time in August.
MrSmith selects September.
Klokkhammer selects October.
MrE selects November.
Seabreeze makes his pick for December.

If one of our non-regulars (Jane, Wollmar, BeatFreak, Barbapaps.....) wishes to arrange an extra tourny inbetween, that would also be welcomed. A tourny every fortnight works for me.

Any thoughts?

First attempt at $4.10 Knockout

This will probably be my last post before taking a break for the summer. I took a small break from multitabling and played a single $4.10 knockout. This was my first game at the next buyin level. I didn't notice any difference between the play here versus the $1.40 games. However, playing only one table made making aggressive steal raises much easier. Poker is easy when the cards go your way! 

I hope every has a great summer!

Roland GTX

$4.10 Knockout

June Private Game Results

Congratulations to MrEMC2 for taking down his first private game - GG! The final results were 1st MrEMC2, 2nd klokkhammer and 3rd MrSmith999. I donked off my stack on a bad read vs klokkhammer and ended up as bubble boy (nh klokk). Letting MrSmith overtake the top position on the leader board has put me on a serious tilt lol! Now I have to worry about MrSmith and MrE. I'll let the itm guys fill you in on all the details from the game. Here is the current leaderboard.

PS: Our next private game will be in August. We are taking a summer break in July.

Roland GTX

Back in action on the 3/45 turbo's

Bad Set of Knockouts Yesterday

I played a set of 12 again yesterday. The blinds were up to 25/50 on all the tables when within a two minute span I picked up QQ on two tables, KK on a third and AA on a fourth - oh yeah! Three of the hands, all but the AA, were quite similar situations at full tables with me sitting as btn+1 with more or less my starting stack of 1500 chips and two or three players having limped ahead of me. I made a standard raise of 3x plus 1x for each limper and in all three the action folded around to the 2nd limper who flat called with a stack similar to mine!? Had the first limper check-raised me from early position I would have been wary. Limp-calling from the 2nd just smelled weak and I assumed they were most likely sitting on a medium pair, KQ or Axs type of hand. Now there is about 600 in the pot and I have 1200 chips remaining.

I got low unconnected flops in all three and the villian checked to me. I made a standard 50% raise and got reraised all in. I called and lost in all three. The QQ hands both ran into AA and the KK hand lost to a flopped set of 6s. Now, I could cry (even more) about getting unlucky, however, in retrospect I played these hands horribly!

As I'm now learning from Flynn's Professional No Limit Holdem, my bet sizing created a horrible situation where I allowed for the villian to move all in after my c-bet forcing me to call for all my chips rather than being the aggressor. Secondly, yes this is a $1 tourney, but calling off my stack so early with only QQ is still spewing chips. The KK was harder to get away from, but I have extensive experience showing that KK doesn't always hold up - LOL!

The AA hand was folded to me on the btn. I made a standard 3x raise and the bb called. The flop was K103 rainbow and the bb led out with a 30% pot bet. I made a 2.5x reraise which he called. The turn was another low card and he moved all in. Yes, I called off my stack again to see that he really did have K10!

After reminding myself not to overplay my hands so early, I managed to get the remaining 8 tables to the bubble. I bubble boyed three, but was happy with my play. AKo lost to A9s, AQs lost to A10s and a short stacked shove with A5s got called and lost to A9o.

With the 5 I cashed in I had one 1st, three 2nds and one 3rd. In two of the heads up matches I got stacked after moving all in with top two pair on the flop. In the game won, I also got all in on the flop with AA, while the villian had two pair. I rivered a set.

All in all a pretty horrible evening! I spewed chips with bad play, I was unlucky in several spots late and my heads up play still needs improving. The good news is that even after such a dismal set, I ended up with a whopping 25 cent profit thanks to the bounties - LOL! More importantly, I didn't tilt and convince myself that my mismanagement of the big pairs early were actually bad beats.

Getting away from an evening like this break even makes me optimistic about the future :)

Roland GTX

More on Knockout Tourneys

After rereading my previous post I realized that 40% ROI sounded a bit outrageous and thus needed an explanation. I have played 47 $1,40 Knockout single table SnGs this week (4 sets of 12). I have been ITM 55% of the games which is pretty standard.

If I ignore all bounties and only look at my ITM prize money then I have a 19% ROI which is better than when I was 12 tabling the standard $1.20 sngs.

($78.30 in ITM cash) - (47 games x $1.40 = $65.80 invested) = 12.50 profit / 65.80 = 19%

Now let’s look at the bounties. Since I play so tight, I have been worried about earning enough bounties to make these knockouts profitable. Typically, when I move all in before the bubble I have less chips than the villain and don’t win a bounty even though I double up. (There is an interesting strategy note connected to this, but I’ll talk about that another day.) Most of my bounties have come from the end game. Furthermore, if you win a bounty but don’t get ITM, it is difficult to track them since you don’t get the e-mail notification. I’ve started noting my exact bankroll before starting a set. Then I can calculate how many bounties I’ve won from the non-itm tourneys by looking at the difference between the e-mails and my roll.

On average my bounty wins look like this:
3 bounties when taking 1st place
2 bounties for 2nd
1 bounty for 3rd
0,25 bounties for non-itm finishes

In total I have won 58 bounties throughout the 47 tourneys for $14.50. That is more than I have profitted from the prize money! Now when I add the bounty money to my itm profit my ROI jumps to 41%!

Previously I was concentrating on the $3.25 45 man turbos. I would have to have a 17% ROI in these in order to equal the profit from playing these $1 knockouts. Furthermore, I would have to manage that while multitabling 12 tables. I can’t do that.

I think I’m going to continue playing these for a few months to get a better estimate of my ROI at this level. I would like to get about 500 games under my belt. Hopefully, I can use this time to build my bankroll and improve my multitabling end game. The next buy-in level is $3.00 buy-in + 0.35 fee + 0.75 bounty = $4.10. Remind me not to start testing these until I’m rolled for it:)

Roland GTX
PS: I’m going away for the weekend. So, no poker for me.

Multitabling $1.40 Knockout SnGs

I have gone back to the basics the last few days multitabling the new $1.40 knockout single table sngs. I like these for several reasons. Firstly, the fee is 15 cents rather than the 20 cents you pay for the standard $1.20 sngs. This doesn't sound like much, but as I've said before, it makes a significant difference in you ROI. Secondly, the knockout amount is 25 cents. This is quite high with respect to the $1 buy in amount. Thus, if you are consistantly winning bounties, then you are really helping your profit. Finally, the opponents are so weak that multitabling sets of 12 has become quite comfortable.

I am running about 60 %  ITM and nearly 40% ROI. The worst set I've had still had a 10 % ROI. Now, what I have noticed is that getting down to the bubble playing standard TAG is easy. All the games thus far have gotten to the bubble while the blinds are still relately low, 100/200 in the worst case. Smart aggressive bubble play works well, but there are always a few players calling extremely light. So, you can't just blindly shove ATC into the middle stacks and expect them to fold. You need some sort of hand that has a chance of winning a showdown.

The biggest problem I am having is playing heads up on multiple tables. Winning these is where you are making the most profit, especially these knockout tourneys. When you take 1st, you win the villian's bounty as well as your own. I usually don't have much of a read on the villian at the start of heads up play. I notice that I end up 2nd much more often when I have 10 tables still running and 2 or 3 are already heads up. Whereas near the end of my set when I only have 2 or 3 tables open and all of them are heads up, I have been winning nearly all of them. This points clearly to the problems with multitabling (for me at least). These tourneys make for a good area for me to improve this weakness.

Anyway, if you want to have some fun, give these things a whirl :)

Roland GTX

PS: The June Private Game is already set up. Go register now!

May Private Game Results

Congratulations to Seabreeze for winning our May private game! As you will quickly notice, there were only 4 registered players in the tourney and that includes yours truly who sat out the whole game. I apologize to seabreeze, Janemarie and MrEMC2 for the lack of competition, but hope you had an enjoyable game nonetheless. Bad planning on my part is the main reason for all the no shows. Monday was holiday in Norway. As a result, most of the Norwegain players made use of the long weekend by travelling to their summer places where they either had guests, poor internet connection or simply got their days mixed up. In an attempt to avoid such poor turnout in the future, I'll be posting the date for the June game later today.

Here are the updated leaderboard standings with all the adjustments to the points system :) MrSmith and I are actually tied for first now thanks to my valueable 1 point for sitting out on Sunday. It is purely a random act of chance that Roland GTX is listed above you MrSmith, almost... The same goes for JaneMaria and Barbapaps with 4 points each. JaneMaria has played in more games, and therefore is listed above Barbapaps. MrEMC2 has taken 3rd place in every tourney this year!

Finally, here is seabreeze's hand history from the game. Part 1 runs from the start to where the game gets heads up. Part II is only heads up play. I haven't looked at it yet and am quite curious to see how things went down.

Part I



Part II


Once again congratulations seabreeze - Good Game!

Roland GTX

Turning top two pair with AK (continued)

Here's my AK top two pair hand from yesterday...but with a happier ending!

Another AK Question

What do you think the villian is holding and what is your suggested line? Here is the situation and my thoughts:

$82 Step 3 single table regular speed sng. 1st and 2nd win Step 4 ticket, 3rd-5th win repeat of Step 3. There are 8 players remaining and the blinds are 25/50. The villian has bout 1900 chips and I have just over 1600 chips. The villian, UTG +1, limps as he has done several times already. He seems ok, but plays more loose-passive than I play. It folds to me in btn +1 and I am holding AKo. I raise 200 (4x) and it folds back around to the villian who flat calls.  I estimate his most likely holding to be a medium pocket pair, maybe sc like KQ and at worst AQs. He seems too passive and out of postion to be playing a premium hand. The is now 475 in the pot.

The flop comes KJ5 rainbow and he checks to me. I have TPTK and make a standard 300 raise. He flat calls again. I'm not too sure what to think now. He could have a set of Js, but why not check-raise with the non-nut set? KQ or AQ still seem possible giving him a drawing hand or top pair with second best kicker. Or something like a middle pair (10s) if he thinks that I have and A, missed the flop and am making a standard C-bet. There is now 1075 in the pot.

The turn is an A giving me top two pair. His line thus far makes him holding Q10 seem unlikely. So, I'm not worried about a straight. The villian checks to me again. I have about 1100 chips remaining. What is my best line?

Roland

May Private Game Details

The May private tourney is now set up at Pokerstars. Go and get registered :)

Roland

Live Poker Update

None of us has managed to post much lately so I thought I would give as short update on our last home game. Several of the regulars weren't able to make it, but we did get two newcomers at the table. They both had poker experience and seemed like good guys. Thus, I hope they will make the transition from being guests to being regulars... We had only 6 players, but it was a good evening with one regular tourney and one turbo shove fest afterward. NOR69 played smart aggressive poker and got good cards resulting in his winning both events! Congrats on your first live win(s) - well played!

I was pretty much card dead all evening except for a few pocket pairs, including 3 AAs - LOL! They didn't help as much as one would think though. I shoved my first AA on a K104 rainbow flop. TL had flopped a well timed set of 10s and stacked me 5 minutes after the one hour rebuy period had ended- ouch! Luckily all the players convinced me to extend the rebuy period for another 30 minutes. I don't like breaking my own rules, but this did allow me to rebuy back into the game. two more rebuys from other players, including MrSmith, follwed shortly thereafter. By the time we were ITM, NOR69 had most of the chips in play. While MrSmith and I with our short stacks ended up slugging it out for 2nd place. I won the cointoss vs MrSmith but lost the cointoss vs NOR69.
(Tourney Results: 1st NOR69, 2nd Roland, 3rd MrSmith)

The turbo tourney (no rebuys, top 2 payout) was crazy with the 10 minute blinds quickly making everyone short stacked. By the time we were on the bubble, all three players were blinded out with the btn forced to shove ATC pretty much every hand. Not much skill was involved, but it was a lot of fun. The results were a repeat of the first tourney.

On a side note, I can happily report that the number of visitors to our site is higher than I expected! I have had to expand the number of countries shown in the counter three times now. If any of you unknowns are reading this, then feel free to drop a comment. Furthermore, feel free to play in our next Private game over at PokerStars.

Speaking of Private Games, we are due for our May installment. It is a bit short notice to run it this Sunday, so I'll set it up for sunday 23 May. I'll post the details later tonight :)

Roland

Thoughts on Alternative Systems

"I suggest we stick with what we have for the rest of the year. However, I will implement Klokkhammer's point about showing the number of games played since this only effects the way the results are presented and not the way they are calculated."

I've done some looking around at various systems and here is what I have found.

1. Many poker leagues use the points system that we currently have:

Points = p - (f-1)

p is the number of players

f is your finish place

This gives a linear result that looks like this for a 9 man sng:

This accounts for 3 elements:

• Number of players since more players means more points to the top spots. This reflects the increased difficulty in placing higher as the number of players increases.
• Your finish place. Obviously the winner needs to get the most points.
• Number of tourneys played. You get at least 1 point just for showing up.

Now, all this seems like a waste of blog space until we look some other systems. The most popular league system seems to be DrNeau's system which looks like this:

Points = (sqrt[(a * b) * (b / c)] )/ (d+1)
a is the total number of buyins in the tourney

b is the buyin price
c is the total price for the player (2*buyin if you had to rebuy for example)

d is your finish place

This system is great if you are running rebuy tourneys like we do in our home games. It also takes into account the buyin amount. If we get a regular home game league going, I'll probably use something similar to DrNeau's system. Since our private games don't include rebuys we can move on to another well know system.

Pokerstars tournament leader board uses the following fomula:
Points = 10* [sqrt(n)/sqrt(k)]*[1+log(b+0,25)]
n is the number of players
k is your finish place
b is the buyin amount

The pokerstars system results in a non-linear graph that looks like this:

As you can see, the top places get more points. I've actually adjusted their formula in the graph above. The last part of the folmula [1+log(b+0,25)] is only needed to account for different buyin levels. We have a set $5.50 buyin so I have dropped this from the eqation in the graph above. So, quit Googling what a "log" is:)

Notice that the minimum number of points you can earn is 10. the 10* at the start of the formula simply controls the baseline number of points. . This is important for the "no show" issue that we have been talking about. Missing a tourney means losing out on at least 10 points. This seems a bit harsh so we can take it out of the equation as well. It doen't effect the actual curve, just the points on the y axis. 30 becomes 3 as the top score and 10 becomes 1 as the bottom.

Now we are left with a curve that only accounts for the number of players and your finish. Just like a payout structure, the top spots earn earn the most. So, moving up from 2nd to 1st results in significantly more points than moving up from 9th to 8th. This would put me ahead of MrSmith and would put seabreeze ahead of Klokkhammer in the standings.

You may have noticed that these other systems all use square roots in their equations. This is good for narrowing the gap between 1st and last, as well as, for weighting the curve. We could adapt our current system to something similar like this:

Points = sqrt[p - (f-1)]

p is the number of players

f is your finish place

This results in an interesting curve.

We can now see that the gap between 1st and last has narrowed and that the lower places are weighted more than the top places. This would not change the standings. However, it would put even more value on playing in tourneys since last place gives 1 point which is huge on this scale.

Summary

DrNeau and Pokerstars systems would be great if we were running multi-table tourneys with rebuys and varied buyins. but they don't work that well for our current situation. Furthermore, these systems as used today only give points to ITM players. By including all players, we create a very negative situation for missing one of our private games.

Furthermore, I really don't want to change our current system mid-season without a clear reason. After reviewing the diffent options, I suggest we stick with what we have for the rest of the year. However, I will implement Klokkhammer's point about showing the number of games played since this only effects the way the results are presented and not the way they are calculated.

It is still quite early in the season. We all have some skill. You have beaten us (me) enough times live Klokkhammer to prove that you are still in a serious threat. Not to mention benkogambit whose sng skillz are light years ahead of the rest of us. I have gotten lucky in 3 games thus far, but that can change fast. The title is very much still wide open. There may even be new unknowns from the blog showing up. if we assume that MrSmith, MrEMC2 and myself are better players than the rest of you, we could consider a bounty system where whoever knocks us out of the tourney gets an extra point (or fraction of a point). Although I don't care too much for this route.

MrSmith suggested that we drop a low score or no show. Let's look more closely at this. Assume we play 11 games this year, 1 each month with a break in July. We can then take the top 10 scores to determine the champion. If everyone has at least 1 no show, then this is good. It helps balance the scores and creates no problems. If however several players have made every game, then it can have a serious impact on the standings.

For example, let's assume that the season ended now. MrSmith, MrE and I have played all games thus far. currently MrSmith is leading over me by 1 point (bastard lol). if we drop our lowest score I drop my last place finish from February (1 point) and MrSmith drops his 2nd place finish from April (4 points). Thus, I would win the championship by two points! MrE would also lose a 3rd place itm finish for 3 points. How this will play out at the end of the season is impossible to predict at this point. However, if we want to make this change we ought to agree on in now rather than later. I don't have a strong preferance regarding this point. Let me know if this is something you want to implement.

Finally, since we have used so much space on the leaderboard, perhaps we should discuss what we are going to do with the year-end results. I can arrange some sort of award and immortal fame on the blog. However there are plenty of other options. Come with ideas if you have them, but this doesn't need to be decided any time soon.

I need to get back to work! Let me know you thoughts...

Roland