Home game blues

My home game successes came to an abrupt halt on Friday. Good news is that the stakes were a lot lower. I'd also under-estimated the opposition and tried to pick up a stack early. This was costly on two fronts, I was limping in to family pots trying to hit and leaking a few dollars. I was overbetting to protect hands and getting sucked out on.

From there it was downhill as I stayed shortstacked all night and picked spots to gamble on making a stack. I'd get successful my fair share, but never two in a row to allow me to play sufficiently deep for my usual game.

The combination of high expectations, bad play and a relatively cool deck didn't make for a particularly enjoyable evening. The major scalextric track did though.

FATROLL Trying to get back in shape. Pleased to report that my 82kg to 74kg goal is heading the right direction, I'm on 79.5kg after 11 days.

Laff's Hand History

Laff posted a few hands looking for comment, so this post is to be read in conjunction with Laffs entry ...

http://hmmog.blogspot.com/2009/01/i-am-fish.html

By way of disclaimer, I always struggle with hand histories on forum posts as I believe that there are many valid lines to take with any hand. The result should be secondary, its the decision making that counts. In isolation though, I find myself only able to make obvious observations such as fast playing trips, protecting TPTK etc. That said, here goes. I'd welcome any comments on my commenting.

Hand 1: I always play flopped trips fast. Partially to avoid this disaster but primarily to capitalise on my good fortune. The River escalation was a little crazy as it started with a check and got out of hand. No hand that we were beating was calling that AI.

Hand 2: I don't have too much problem with this hand. I'm guilty of crying calls on the river. The Turn check was good and the river call only needed to be right 25% of the time.

Hand 3: Opportunity lost pre-flop. A big difference between Limit and NLH is the relative strength of TPTK. In NLH, your stack is always at risk. This hand would have played itself out at Limit and no-one gets hurt. NLH is different. Preflop, thin the field with a potsized 50c bet. 9c7c may have called, maybe not, I would have looking for a solid hit. Let's assume $1.50 in the pot, that was a perfect flop to lead out for the pot again. I would have passed on my middle pair in that spot. Selective aggression is the key to NLH, don't slowplay. An aggressive style lets you get away from more hands too. When people tangle, they generally have the goods or air.

Hand 4: Similar to Hand 3, betting the flop would have put pressure on. When the A came, you had a big enough pot to fire again and price out the gutshot. As it was, you got lost, slow played a great turn card and it all became costly. Playing trips fast you can throw in the occassional bluff when you have taken the lead early pre-flop like this. Don't worry about being re-raised, then it is up to you if you want to play for stacks at that stage or fold (see Hand 1).

Hand 5: Another case of slowplaying. NLH is a case of Big Hand, Big Pot, Small Hand, Small Pot. This is only a subset of your hands, but try not to get too clever. Simplify your decision making on all streets by taking the initiative. You need to find out where you are at before the significant bets start flying.

Hand 6: I liked your bet-size bet here and you have to call in this spot. Opponents AI was a classic case for playing fast with an overbet and simplifying things - imagine a TJQ or flush flop making a flop decision a little tougher. These hands just happen and you'll have plenty more in your favour in your career. Would you shove in his spot on what looked like a steal? I'd suggest that it is a good play as it smells of a re-steal.

PLO Heater?

From the first page of the PLO Strategy Primer "Low and mid pocket pairs are close to worthless. A hand like 5588 belongs in the muck. Even if you hit a set, you can easily lose to a higher set, straight, or flush."

Alas, I hadn't been asked yet by Laff for a primer, so when I seen 2 x AI from short stacks in front, I reasoned that I could be up against anything and if I hit my trips I could be good. I now realise that this thinking is totally flawed and expect never to make this mistake again.

One more leak plugged, and I have plugged so many very quickly. With PTO, I immediately discovered my biggest leak which has yet to be plugged but I seem to have slowed the flow to a trickly.

An excellent starting hand category as the name implies is Premium Aces. After being dealt this 13 out of 4500 hands, my Net return is a loss of $270, or $20 per hand. That's almost 13PTBB/Hand or 1300PTBB/100.

I have now committed not to lose my stack with these hands unless holding the nuts post flop. Sub-optimal, I'm sure, but until I learn a better way, I'm in damage control mode. Yesterday I referred to SuperSystem/2 and was pleased to read the page on AA. Paraphrasing, whilst a strong hand preflop, most players lose much more money with these hands than they win. That's me, I won a little 8 times, lost a little twice and lost my stack 3 times :-(.

So now that I've shared with you how crap I am. How did I go last night? Honestly, I just ran good once again. I dropped to 2 tables of PLO25 as I was getting a bit of work done at the same time. A couple of hours later I stood up with approx one BI profit on one and five BIs on the other. I can't remember the last time I've won 6 BIs with ease in a NLH session.

I'm convinced that this wasn't all good play or good cards. As in all poker, most of your profit comes from the mistakes of others. I'd encourage you to think about swimming with the fish before the well runs dry.

PLO Strategy Primer

I love Google; it never fails to impress me. So when Laff asked for a Strategy Primer, off I went to look for one. The first suggestion for "Omaha Strategy" on Google was this post by NOFX PUNK on the Full Contact Poker Forum.

www.fullcontactpoker.com/poker-forum/index.php?showtopic=66345

I must confess, I have stopped my search for a better primer. It's not perfect and statistically (like life on other planets) there is probably better out there but this is a great benchmark.

Having played for a couple of months here, this post is full of all of the things that I have been picking up through experiential learning. I'm convinced that if you follow this advice and play microstakes you will be a winning player almost immediately without any table selection. The micro stakes are full of competent Hold'em players regularly making the mistakes contained in this article.

I'd welcome any strategy questions that the article prompts to further my thinking process as I continue to learn.

Psst ... Don't tell anyone

Having purchased PT Omaha, I finally have an idea of how I'm going. With Badugi, HORSE and all sorts of other distractions that I allow myself, including a Tilt at NLH400 which was a disaster my bankroll just doesn't give me that view.

I've always watched risk of ruin and been happy to step down, but when I get a few extra dollars in the roll I tend to splash it about (invest it) trying different things.

The good news is that I have a broad understanding of the mechanics of a number of the games. Bad news is that I still can't retire and play full time. Hopefully I am incrementally better positioned to transition to Bobby's Big Game though. Can always dream.

So what did I discover ...

- Badugi I didn't enjoy;
- Stud potentially has the complexity I like but I can't see it ever having the $$$s to go professional;
- FLH I really enjoyed but reached levels that I outgrew my ability / potential / bankroll;
- My transition to NLH was incredibly hard but Harrigton sorted me out with a break even TAG style so I can hold my own online and in card rooms now at sociable stakes. Best case, it was only a matter of time before I hit my ceiling in a "solved" game.
- Split games I think I could get to like. Balancing scooping with nut lows is deceptively difficult. This is on hold for now.
- PLO8 combines a lot of concepts, is a lot of fun and is way too complex for me to transition to straight.

PL Omaha, I love! After only a short period I feel that I can hold my own at meaningful levels.

In September I had no real clue about PLO and had only just had my first shot at 4-tabling NLH100. Last night I 4-tabled PLO100, PLO50 and 2xPLO25 for a modest profit on all 4. How can that be? I know I'm making lots of mistakes.

I set up my PTO Categories last night - groupings of hands like Strong Aces. According to 2+2, you should be positive in all categories. I'm way off that. In fact the best hands Strong Aces I'm down almost $300. Clearly overplaying them post flop losing to flushes on co-ordinated boards and trips on uncoordinated. Like slowplaying AA in my early NLH days, I'm clearly making some very costly basic mistakes, yet after 4000+ hands I'm up over 8BB/100 - almost breakeven now on $$$s.

Now for the psst ... Online PLO must be really, really soft right now ... because I suck at that game compared to my 4 years of NLH study and experience ... or I've experienced a variance heater as a fish.

My prediction ... the games are only going to get softer. It is such a buzzy gambling game, I'm convinced that it is the game of the future.

Best of all ... it is a long way from being solved so it is intellectually stimulating.

PokerTracker Omaha

New Years are good for fresh starts. And one of mine was getting serious about PLO. I've been playing and really enjoying the game on and off for a few months now. I got the mechanics at micro stakes and quickly started playing way beyond my bankroll for the variance of the game. I decided to try and ramp up my learning curve even if it cost me a bit - which it did initially.

So I purchased PokerTracker for Omaha yesterday and instantly gained an insight. When I imported my Hand Histories I realised that I was a winning BB/100 player but a losing $ player. Needless to say that what I win at PLO25, I lose at PLO100. That said, my PLO100 is showing signs of breakeven. This is over 3000+ hands so isn't yet a statistically significant sample size.

Omaha is such a different game that I didn't know where to start looking for leaks. No starting hands dominate as much as Hold'em so your pushing smaller edges all the time. If you hate bad beats, you'll hate Omaha. If you realise that no poker beat is really that bad, you'll do well.

In my search for guidance for analysing my play, I stumbled across the best little website I've found in a while. Check this out! I wish I'd known this when I was playing NLH.

http://www.hand-histories.com/opp_prof.html

I'll write some more on PLO when I learn some more ... I really feel like I am only starting out as I now have the tool to study. I can't believe that I routinely push $$s in a single bet greater than the cost of PokerTracker and have never before purchased it.

Go figure ... or go buy!

New Year resolution

I've never had a resolution before, but when thinking about my goals, the only important SMART goal that springs to mind is to shed a few kilos (while adding the pounds).

I am currently a slightly out of breath 82kgs and would like to be 74kgs by Easter. To achieve this, I'd like to diet and exercise. So far the diet is on track but I'll need to include a bit of exercise. This public forum will hopefully help me stay motivated. Weigh-ins will hopefully be Monday mornings.