October in Review

October had a lot to live up to after Vegas, Ireland and China and a solid period of PLO on Full Tilt last month. It has been an eventful roller-coaster month.

Crown Casino Melbourne Trip Report
Another trip report for Yorkie. Crown Poker Room in Melbourne is the home of the Aussie Millions. It is undoubtedly one of the world's great poker rooms. Crown décor is well above average. The spacious well lit room enjoys a salubrious sobriety conducive to poker. Crown has secured approval to extend with another 15 tables and will be spreading further toward the PokerPro area.

The staff are knowledgeable, friendly and for the most part in control. I’ve been impressed over the years with many of the rulings that are made and how they are made. On this trip, we had a big stack chip down from ~$400 to below $100 when he went to the bathroom. We all knew and the dealer asked him and he denied it. The supervisor was informed subtely a few hands later and very effectively with a 30 second quiet conversation away from the table which probably went along the lines of “we can go to the cameras and ban you or you can take the chips out of your pocket”, the chip stack was sheepishly restored from the previously vocal player who never spoke from that point forward.

Crown players for the most part respect the etiquette of the game. Dealer and player abuse are kept to a minimum. Talking about the current hand is prohibited and policed for the protection of recreational players. In general, newcomers are very welcome and made feel at home. This is great for the local poker economy. I suspect that the original players established this culture early and the poker room management built upon it over the years. I really recommend Crown as a top poker destination to anyone. The only drawback for overseas visitors is the excessive Australian rake structures.

I was lucky in the couple of days that I was there and won a few buy-ins at the $1/$2 NLH tables. I played in the $2/$5 but got outplayed and scraped a breakeven session. Then I played the most gut wrenching form of poker ever. Before scrolling down, see if you can guess what it was. It’s the game and its structure that made for the most heart thumping session I’ve ever played. And I wasn’t even involved in most of the hands being the only nit at the table.

APPT Freeroll at Star City
Star City has opened a new poker room with a bit of fanfare and a mid-week freeroll that you needed to sign up for in person a few days before. With a field of 250 and 150 more alternates it was always going to be a crapshoot. Our starting stacks were 2000 and the blind levels 15 mins. We lost half of the 400 runners within 3 levels and were at 120 players by the 2hr break. Final table of 10 got paid, top 3 with APPT packages and next 7 with $330 Satellite tickets.

Back to the logistics, Star City shouted beers, champagne, wine and nibblies before the event which they really didn’t need to do but was a nice gesture. May seem like an odd thing to write for you overseas folks but here in Oz, the casinos don’t do anything for the poker players other than run a good,clean game. Not a whinge, just an observation. Eric Assadourian and Grant Levy, two Team Pokerstars locals and room ambassadors said a few words. The event was a big success and Star City got the full room photo shoots that they were looking for.

As for the room, they’ve tried to do the right thing with décor. They’ve retained the rigid chairs from downstairs which are adequate but no more. The biggest issue is the room that they’ve allocated. With its low ceilings it is very claustrophobic. There is no rail worth talking about which will be a big issue for the upcoming APPT and will minimise the likelihood of recreational passers-by giving live poker a go.

Despite being free, my experience left me as flat as I’ve experienced only twice before in my six years of live poker. Once in the Fitzwilliam Club, Dublin, when my K9 ran into KK on a K99 board after 7 hours of building my stack to 5xBI. Similarly, at Crown in the early hours one morning, the two big stacks went AI with my flopped 2 pair facing pocket rockets. The blank Turn wasn’t so blank when the river came runner runner 4s for my largest counterfeit to date. On both occasions, hours of solid grind went down the drain. I’ve had the opposite happen, but that tends to be mid-session as I rarely quit as a monster stack.

Back to my freeroll experience. Crapshoots don’t suit my nitty tournament style so I was pleased to negotiate the early rounds, picking up a couple of hands and stealing selectively to stay above average for every level. I had one mega suckout making my overset on the river against a flopped set.

We were down to 34 players and all was going well until the player to my right sat down. He was AI 4 out of 7 hands and showed pocket 66s, and 8 and a 3 in 3 of the hands. I stayed out of his way. Then a guy opposite led out AI from UTG with an M of 6. He hadn’t played a hand in 3 or 4 orbits so my pocket 99s were a coinflip at best I thought and folded in late position as I didn’t need to get involved. Two hands later and aggro on my right is AI from the SB when I look down to find AK. I thought about it for a little while but never really considered folding. Blinds were 1500/3000 and I was above average with 19.5K but my M was less than 5 given the crapshoot structure. Needless to say, he had 86o and flopped an 8 and I was crippled. I did triple up and managed to make it to the last 24 but I was never a threat again. I must confess that I was flat until lunchtime the next day as I’d worked so hard and played pretty well, I thought.

It was an insight into what the Poker Road guys talk about a lot. Live MTTs are brutal. Mike and Adam on the 2+2 Pokercast had a good session on the viability of MTT pros recently and copped a bit of criticism from listeners for being too negative. In my opinion it was spot on and no-one knows more about the subject than their guest, Sheets. Check it out if you haven’t already.

Online Omaha
My online game is exclusively PLO now. I’ve had a good month with brutal variance. I feel like my game is improving and I’m likely playing too many hands. I could benefit from better game selection but I’m taking on all-comers at the minute. My HEM alerts me to who’s who though. I’ve been a more regular player at the PLO100 level and haven’t lost my shirt as muh as the past. I have run good and my AI EV has balanced back level after approx 20000 hands.

Sweetest pot came where I was down 4 BIs after genuinely being smacked by the deck when I flopped middle pair and the NFD. Preflop raiser, raised the pot again. His range includes rundowns so he may have a set of AAA now, or not, I called to see what the flop would bring. Actually, I flopped a set 555 to go with my NFD and it obviously blanked the villain. He pushed AI somehow and we went to the river which gave him a FH. Very luckily, hero caught runner, runner quads for a $331 pot and it was game on again. I went on to build my stack up to $650+ before needing to step away from the table for real life reasons.

It’s taken a while, but I can’t see me returning to NLH again. It’s like riding a bike in terms of beating recreational players and I recognise that I’m never going to be able to compete with the internet kids that take the game seriously. Omaha, I’m already ahead of the inevitable wave of recreational migrants that the next few years will bring. I want to be able to compete effectively at PLO200 (a tough goal in my opinion) and then I’ll look at the next logical progression, PLO8.

Friday Night Home Game
My favourite form of poker is without a doubt our Friday night home game. We had two this month and as usual I managed to finish up. Unless you get unlucky, with a solid style of poker you should pull out a profit almost every game as it is so loose. The big pots can be dangerous because you can be up against anything. Playing against the other guys range probably needs to be done sparingly as it is so wide you’d be playing way too many hands to showdown.

The last game was the harder night at the office. I was card dead for the best part of 4 hours but managed to eek out tripling my stack to ~$150 when I flopped a set, built the pot and then got it AI on the Turn. I was called by a bare gutshot by a bigger stack (not atypical in our game) and my stack was gone when it hit on the river. I reloaded for the allowed double BI which kicks in after a few hours (blinds stay at their irrelevant same).

We’d started at 6pm and finished at 3am. When I cashed out, two double ups had me $350 in profit. This is the one game on earth that Phil Hellmuths book can teach you to beat.

Home Game Invitational APPT Teams Qualifier
No home games next month as we’re moving to a 16-player Invitational format to put 3 teams into the APPT. $230 each will raise the $3300 required. The winning 6 players will get a piece of each others action. Teams will comprise first and second etc. Any team cashing will keep 50% of winnings with the other two teams getting 25% each. With 6 out of 16 getting through the odds are good. The blind structure will be slow with a 7pm shuffle up and deal and approx 2am finish. Cash game will start up as people are knocked out.

If you have a chance to think about strategy, I’d be grateful. The points on the first night are … and the second night, doubled to reflect … Essentially the first night is like a barrier draw and will likely just go toward separating places 5 thru 8 on the second night. I’d be interested in your opinions as to how I should approach the first night. Ultimately the cards will decide, but in the case of coin flips etc, should I just make sure to get in the top half, top 6, go for the win or what? I’ll probably post how I go after week 1 and look for advice on making the top 6 overall in week 2.

Local Live Tournament Chip Chops
These are a fixed time tournament with a $50 BI, 25c/50c blinds and a pro-rata pay structure. Essentially a rake free cash game apart from a $5 admin fee for the Tourney organiser. The finite time period makes it a tournament and legal in NSW. In my opinion, continuing to push the boundaries of legality may result in further regulation in the not too distant future as Casino lobby groups etc may start to be impacted. Until now, they’ve been a beneficiary of the poker boom and recreational players, but creating significant competition is a different matter.

My results over the month were positive with 2 biggish wins $200+ (which is an obscene BB/100 rate) and on one occasion a $50 loss. I spend most of my time getting the game going and organising the cashing in/out of chips etc, with rebuys, so I’m not giving it my full attention. Consequently, there is little of no fancy play syndrome. Just basic T/A ABC big pot deep stack poker. If only the cash games were this good online.

Most Exhausting Poker Session I’ve Ever Player
OK, at the Crown Casino, I took my first crack at live Omaha. It was a form that I’d never played before, Limit Omaha. I’ve played PLO and Limit HE, so it can’t be much different, right? Wrong! This game was wild and GUT WRENCHING. I wasn’t in most of the hands but it’s as close as I’ve seen to grown men crying.

At least once every two orbits, we’d see a pot capped 7-way. In a $10/$20 game, we’re talking $280 preflop up for grabs. Needless to say, in Omaha, if the other streets weren’t getting capped too you’ be getting the odds to chase runner runner quads every time nearly. Raise, re-raise was the order of the day. Or raise, call, call, call, call, call, call was another likely scenario. If you had the nuts on the Turn you were trying to fade well over half the pack nearly every time.

I seen monster stacks crippled in just one orbit. The worst suckouts ever. The most tilt ever. They dropped like flys and the cash accumulated. I don’t know how this game keeps getting up. Luckily it was my first foray into live Omaha and my propensity was to learn from the experience. I played ultra tight, maybe VPIP 15% and score a very easy $350 profit. I wish I lived in Melboune and got another crack at the game.

I was literally exhausted after the session. It was such an emotional rollercoaster for those around me and every turn of a card brought drama. If you’ve never experienced live Limit Omaha played like this, I recommend trying it at least once in your life.


Conclusion
Being a slacko with updating my blog has had the benefit of allowing me a high level perspective. Overall, a very positive month where I feel that I can hold my own in a number of environments. Poker as a career is no longer something I aspire to. But poker as a very profitable and stimulating pasttime seems very attainable. Given that this journey all started with a very at risk $25, I may well have exceeded my expectations already. Let's hope my good fortune continues throughout November.

It will all kick off for me in Macau where live poker is only just starting to mature amongst $41b of gambling revenue per annum which generates $5.1bn in government income. Wish me luck with the crasians.