7 live hours later, slight profit, interesting lesson.

Sat again in the Auckland NLH100 game and after 7 hours of table time am pleased to report another modest positive result +$55.

I played more hands than my last session report thanks to good cards. Had my fair share of good and bad luck. Lots of little things didn't go my way and one big hand did to my amazement.

Dealt KK early position, raised to a relatively table standard $12 and got $5 callers. A pot sized bet is over 1/3 of my $170 stack. Flop AQ7 rainbow, so I c-bet $55 to get 2 callers and 2 folds, I'm OOP now. Turn of 9 is essentially blank, and it goes check, check, check. River J for AQ79J. I check, MP bets AI for $21, LAG calls $21 and I'm ready to fold when a player that I respect tells me that my pocket Tens are good. Great call and it got me thinking. Working it thru, he could be right and I'd given up with 2 x $55 flop callers.

Opps turned K2 for total bluff and QT which seems a pretty loose call to me. I won, but felt very lucky, even though I was ahead throughout.

Lesson for today - not everyone thinks or plays like me and I need to take this into account in big decisions!

Beating the rake ...

I chatted with the Poker Room boss last night at Auckland. It's a small room and they are playing with Tournament schedules etc and she was interested in feedback. Amazing how quick you become a local.

The rake is high at 10%, capped at $10 on a $1/$2, $60-$100 NLH table. She explained the financial realities and they need to take $200 per hr / per table. That still doesn't compete with pokie and other casino table revenue. Small tournies with 40 people and 4 tables for a few hours can generate less than $200 total. Not a good return, hence not many tournaments. They are running freerolls to help people transition from pub poker to casino poker.

So accepting that the rake is high - to play or not? I'm learning, so table time is an investment. My style reflects the challenge of beating the rake as I am the nittiest nit ever. I watch like a more experienced interested player though.

Last night, I am please to report that playing 5 hands and limping a few more netted me a profit of $74 over 4 hours of play. Had I played any looser, I would definitely have lost! I played pp pairs 3 times after flop. Once I hit and got a flop bet and turn fold on 89KT board, twice I raised preflop and c-bet and was folded to.

AA, I linped UTG (aggressive table), MP raise to $7, BB call, I re-raised to $27 as I would be put on a post flop c-bet if I didn't and I was getting away regardless of flop as it was such a loose / bluffing table. They fold, fold which was fine but dsappointing as I was happy to stack off on any flop.

That was essentially it. Very lillte risk and a successful result. As Blindman said, playing fewer hands I was up for less rake too!

More live poker coming up

Hi All, I may go walkabouts for a few days again as I am on another trip to Auckland for work and will no doubt hit SkyCity for a few more live games. The games there look soft, but I struggle to win there for some reason. I've had a chance to think about a few things since last time, so here's hoping!

All tips welcome for wild, loose, 7-10 x BB preflop raises not uncommn type poker with 25BB BI and a 10% rake. Only +EV I've found is the free diet cokes.

Risk of Ruin 101

One concept that struck me when reading the Mathematics of Poker is the "Risk of Ruin" (RoR), more commonly known as going busto.

Bankroll Management is extremely important and if you only ever sit down with 5% of the Bankroll, you will be down to 1c/2c before going bust. If you've been serious about poker and can't beat that game then you need to rethink why you are playing poker.

That stated, the first lesson on Risk of Ruin is that any game with a negative EV has a 100% chance RoR in the long term. 100%. Gambling 101, every other casino game is -EV, so don't play them when waiting for a table to come free. Sports betting, Betfair etc aren't because you can have an edge, unlikely but possible.

More on Risk of Ruin next time ...

Shortstacking and moving from Limit to NL

The Blindman had this blog entry today ...

http://raisingtheriver.blogspot.com/2008/10/am-i-playing-wrong-game.html

This was my response which I feel contains a few important points worth considering ...

There is no doubt that short-stacking is mathematically an advantage. Philosphically though, there is a poker economy that is enjoying a boom, but can be subjected to various threats online cheating, bad PR, legislation, abusive chat etc.

IMHO, short-stacking can fall into this category. There is probably nothing wrong with the individual financial instruments that caused the current financial crisis, but the net effect is dramatic.

The prevelance of short-stacking and the ease with which the strategy can be multitabled negatively skews the online environment.

Thankfully to combat this we are seeing the introduction of 50bb min BI tables. This is a positive move for those that really nejoy the game in its purest sense.

In terms of game selection, after 6 months, I really feel that I am starting to get a feel for NL. The transition is incredibly difficult and for me, expensive.

I jumped into NL200 from $20/$40Limit where $200 pots were commonplace. The step up was a quantum leap, so as you transition I'd recommend start micro and play full stack as mastering the game is the goal, not eeking out a few artificial mathematical dollars.

Finally, if you take the time to read the Law School Dropouts blog you'll be very keen to transition sooner rather than later. That was my inspiration, but it was Harrington that provided the key to holding my own.

Gotta give action to get action.

I think that I first read something similar to "Gotta give action to get action" in Super/System and again from Mike Caro. My propensity is toward TAG, so I struggle to get action fast playing trips, etc.

Now to the quiz (see last post), my SMS big winner friend sent me an email identifying himself. His poker history is literally no online poker, uses a poker program in MSFT Windows, watches it on TV and read one poker book on a business trip to Perth. He hasn't even played pub poker. At Perth casino, we played his only other live game and he exited early, probably TPTK loss, or similar.

On that night, my advice was to play tight just to rack up table time and experience. Needless to say, he bluffed me out of the 3rd or 4th hand we played. I recall laying down a good hand assuming he had the nutz. I was way off and he thought it was funny - I wasn't so sure.

Anyway, I have confirmed that there were many furious losers. At 2am he responded to one self-proclaimed English pro who was verballing him that he should consider another profession. At 4:00am, when cashing out, he asked if he could be watched to the cab rank by security. He was the last man standing having cleaned out both tables at that level.

Apparently, he rivered trips with 55 twice and another pair once more. He only lost a couple of hands all night and was a massive bully toward the end when he lost all track of chip to dollar values (a big advantage when it happens). The ultimate was a $1500 pot where he had KJ against AJ and got AI on a KKJ flop.

I can only imagine the scene as his chip stack grew. The regulars salivating when this recreational player sucked out on someone else knowing that the chips would eventually be redistributed. It just never happened.

I know it was a freak session, never to be repeated, but there is a lesson there with respect to speculating to prosper. May you have a quarter of my friends luck at least once in your poker career!

Community Quiz - Pick player type

I got the following SMS from an unknown number "Turned $100 into $3475 last night @ conrads. $2.50 - $5 no limit :-) 5 hours".

I set about trying to think who might have sent it. I have met quite a few people through poker. Conrads is a Casino on the Gold Coast in Australia which is a vacation destination.

My immediate candidates were a rich aggressive ex-semi-pro who played in the WSOP 15 years ago, an FX Trader who bluffs a lot and is loaded so doesn't give a sh**, a solid female who plays marginal hands fast and gets action because she's a female ... and then I ran out of likely candidates.

This is an incredible result. It was a 40BB $200 max buy-in table so that is 15+ BIs. I can't recall ever seeing a stack like this online. I'll be interested in guesses on playing style. Answer to follow when the regulars have had a guess.