Small stack cash game

I attended a home game recently, which was supposed to be a small stakes game.  The problem with the $20 buy-in, was that the blinds were announced after we had all bought in.  $0.25/$.50.  With a $20 buy-in, this gave everyone a stack of only 40 big blinds which is a very short stack for a cash game.  I had only brought $40 (my usual two buy-ins), and was irritated with the blinds.  But because I wanted to play and have fun, I didn’t worry about it.  I ended up losing both buy-ins, but had a nice time.  It was days later before I figured out what was bothering me about the situation. 

The problem is one of a stack-to-pot ratio.  The more money in the pot, the more gamble is required.  This goes against my initial reaction to the blinds at the home game.  Because the blinds were so small, compared to my stack, and because I had only brought enough for two short-stack buy-ins, I played really tight, not gambling at all.  Normally, with 100 big blinds, I don’t mind gambling, because I have plenty of chips.  But as my stack grows small, I tighten up.  But then I remembered that poker has forced blinds.  Without any money in the pot, it would be wrong to play anything but pocket aces.  If you bet your money, but there was no money in the pot to win if no one called, then either you play pocket aces, or you win nothing when everyone folds, and you would always get called by only better hands.  Playing anything else may be fun, but it wouldn’t be the right play to make money.  Of course, no one would play that game, which is why there are forced big and small blinds, to stimulate action.  Even with that small amount of money in the pot, it is enough to cause people to gamble to win it.  On the flip side, if the blinds are so high that you only have one big blind, or if someone was to add a bunch of extra money to the pot, it would be right to play any two cards.  Folding would not be the correct play.

There leads to the following: The smaller the starting stack, the more gamble is required.  If there is no money in the pot, no one would play.  As the ratio of what is in the pot grows, the more hands need to be played, until the pot is so large that playing every hand is the only correct strategy.  This means that, with the pot so much higher than a 100 blind buy-in, I shouldn’t have been playing tight.  I needed to loosen up and play a lot of hands.  That is where the problem came in, because gambling with marginal hands brings a lot a variance.  Only having enough for two buy-ins made it impossible to play correctly and also have fun and play all night long.

I ended up playing tight, flopping ATT with AKo and losing to QTs.  His loose call (which was correct) didn’t give me any room to fold, because after the pre-flop betting the pot was already so big I was committed.  I lost the second buy-in from flopping a set and losing to a runner-runner straight.  Again, a crazy loose player got ‘lucky’.  I don’t feel bad, because I played well, and got unlucky, but it doesn’t change the fact that they were playing correctly, and I was not.  Hopefully, next time I am able to recognize the situation at the time and adjust my game, or at least know that I’m not playing optimally.

Why poker still lives

I hosted a poker game last weekend.  It was an $11 buy-in tournament, with a $1 bounty.  Most of the people who attended had never played poker before.  Some of them knew the poker hands, but some of them needed the cards I had printed out with the hand rankings.  It was a lot of fun teaching a bunch of people the game. 

And then something amazing happened.  By the end of the night, everyone knew how to play, and they were even catching some things I had missed, with betting, and who beat who.  In the span of a few hours, people that had never played this game were enjoying themselves.  This game, which I have spent many hours studying and practicing, can be learned in just a few hands.

That is the beauty of Texas hold’em.  While it is easy to learn, it can never be mastered.  This is the requirement for a game to stand the test of time.  Just like chess, the moves can be learned in an afternoon, but a lifetime of study is not long enough to master the game.  I don’t know how the game was created, but whoever was responsible, I thank you! 

Online poker, how I miss you

This is my first blog posting without anything to talk about.  We have recently moved, and I have started another job.  Unlike my last job, this one requires me to get up in the morning and go to work, and I have been unable to play any poker in the last month.  Of course, it is not as bad as it sounds, because I have figured out how to survive since black Friday.

Before poker was shut down by the Department of Justice, I played online poker all the time.  To me, it was the greatest online multiplayer game of all time.  World of Warcraft is cool, but poker is king.  There is something so exciting about playing online with real money.  It doesn’t matter if it is dollars or pennies, people play differently when it’s real money.  I didn’t play to earn a living, but I did play every weekend.

When I wasn’t doing chores around the house, I was playing poker.  I used to work a 9/80 schedule, which meant I worked nine hour days, and took every other Friday off.  I spent those extra days off playing poker all day, and I really miss it.  Also, every Sunday morning, I would get up extra early, sometimes at 4:00 am, and play as long as I could.  I could usually get in four or five house before everyone got up and started the day.

Now I have to find other things to do.  I have tried playing freerolls, but they don’t do it for me.  I’ve realized in the last few weeks, that what I really love about poker is the grind.  I have no problem losing a hand or a tournament if I can just fire up another game, or buy back in, and keep playing until I’m not having fun anymore or my wife makes me leave the house (damn wives).  The problem with freeroll tournaments is that there aren’t that many of them out there, and they are scheduled, so I can’t play when I want to.  I have to structure my fun around the schedule of the websites.  That doesn’t work for me.

So instead of playing poker, I do the next best thing.  I think about it, talk about it, write about it, watch it, and read about it.  Patiently waiting until it comes back.  It seems to be on its way.  Already, there are now some intra-state licenses for Nevada, and with Pokerstars buying Full Tilt Poker, it seems like they could be back in the states in no time.

So until then, I watch “High Stakes Poker” and wait…

Freeroll Strategy III

There are some situations that you can look out for to help maximize your chance to cash and get some free money.  Just remember to assess the situation, don’t be afraid to make a mistake (it is a free tournament, after all), and have fun.  Free-roll tournaments are the perfect place to practice your craft with some of the worst players in poker, because face it, they are the source of a lot of chips, and learning how to get some of it is part of the fun.

Limping Every Hand

A lot of free-rolls, have a lot of multi-way pots in the first few levels.  Normally playing weak hands like 75o or K4s would be wrong, but if you hit your hand, you can double or triple up.  Don’t be afraid to see some cheap flops.  If you hit the flop, you should get paid.

The All-in Monkey

There is usually a few of these players floating around.  They think the best way to play is to push all-in every hand.  They do this because people get irritated and call the all-in with cards just as crappy.  This lets the monkey win too often, so they keep doing it.  Stop it!  Keep your cool, and wait until you have a great hand.  Then just limp.  When they shove, show them pocket kings, and take their stack.  If someone else calls the monkey first and wins, at least the monkey is gone, and you can play poker again.  And if the monkey wins, there are just more chips for you to take when you wake up with a hand.

The Nine-Round Rule

At what point do you have so few chips that you should push all-in with any two cards?  If you only have enough chips for one round, then you must play, otherwise the blinds will come around, and you’ll be gone.  Even if you double up, after the blinds, you’ll be back in the same situation, with the clock counting down until the blinds rise again.  So clearly, even enough chips for two rounds is too few.  Even with three rounds, and a double up to six rounds, you are still in danger, and waiting for great cards is only going to drop you down to a stack too small to scare anyone.  I have found that the magic number is ten rounds.  Once my chips drop below that, to nine rounds or less, I either fold, or push all-in.  A lot of times, it seems like a huge amount of chips to push in, but that’s the point.  You want a stack big enough to hurt them, so they will think twice about calling.  And every time you win the blinds and antes, you give yourself more big and small blinds, so you can continue as long as possible.  And if you get called and double up to 20 rounds, you gain some room to play poker again.

Big Bet Poker

As discussed in “Power Hold'em Strategy” by Daniel Negreanu, big bet poker is played with the five-times rule.  Play tightly, and when you enter the pot, bet five times the blinds.  If someone has limped, bet seven times, and if two or more limpers are in, bet nine times the blinds.  This means that if the blinds are 100/200, with two limpers, you would raise to 1800 chips.  And if the raise is 25% or more of your stack, then just push all in.  This of course is a simplified version of the strategy, so feel free to read the book, which has some great advice.  After a few times of doing this, and following it up by shoving all-in no matter what flops if you are called, people will stay out of your way.  But remember, you must play tightly.  Trying this with two napkins is not going to work (that’s what everyone else is doing).  Because you are playing great cards, you’ll be a huge favorite, and stand a good chance at making the final table.  Give it a try when you find yourself at a table of limpers.  If no one is folding, be glad to find yourself at a table where people call large raises with crappy cards.  Don’t be afraid to push all-in with AJo.  It’s probably the best hand out there.

Big Stack Bully

If you are lucky enough to double your stack a couple of times, you can be the big stack at the table.  Make sure to start raising it up.  Sometimes everyone is waiting for big hands, and you can raise almost every hand.  If you can steal half the blinds every round for even 15 minutes, your stack will grow quickly.  Sometimes being the bully is the right play.

The Ghost Town

Sometimes, after raising a few hands, you realize that everyone else at your table is gone.  They’ve all shut off their poker program, and you are the only one not folding your hand.  It is great when this happens, and while this is rare in real-money tournaments, it is not that uncommon in free-roll tournaments.  Sometimes there are a couple other players at the table.  Pay attention to these situations, because even if the table has ten players, if seven of them are sitting out, it is really a three-handed table, and starting hand requirements can be loosened. 

Multiple Big Stacks

When there are many big stacks at your table, all betting and raising, don’t get discouraged, cursing your luck for not getting a table full of small stacks.  The more stacks at your table bigger than yours, the more stacks can double you up.  Get in there and see some cheap flops.  A huge double-up in the middle of the tournament is all it may take to cash.

The Waiting Game

While the nine-round rule is important, always pay attention to your position in the tournament.  Sometimes the best strategy is to simply fold every hand and wait to cash.  Even if you only have enough chips for seven rounds of play, if you are 13^th in chips out of 50 players, and 40^th place cashes, then just let everyone else go crazy.  You’re guaranteed to cash if you just wait.  Until you drop below the cashing point there is no reason to risk it (unless you wake up with pocket aces).

Bluffing

Here are some things to think about:

• 
  

  Semi-bluffs work because the chance of winning the hand, plus the fold equity, can turn a hand like a flush-draw, which is only about 30% to win after the flop, into a money maker.  In free-rolls, people hate getting bluffed, and almost never fold, which makes semi-bluffs much less profitable.

  
  

  Top pair, good kicker is usually enough to win the hand, even if they push all-in.

  
  

  If you can’t beat top pair, don’t try and bluff, because most free-roll players are NEVER going to fold.

  
  

  Try to re-raise to isolate bad players.  Just don’t try to bluff them

  
  

  Expect more bad-beats than any other tournaments in history.

Here is an example.  Blinds are 50/100.  Hero (me) has 4,200 chips.  UTG has 11,000 chips, and plays every hand.  UTG limps for 100.  Fold.  Fold.  Hero has:

 Ks Jd

and raises to 400 to isolate the bad player.  Everyone folds, and she calls.  Pot is now 950.  Hero’s stack is now only 3,800.  Flop is:

2s 6c 9s

 Check.  Hero bets the pot: 950.  UTG calls.  Pot is now 2,850, and the hero has 2,850.  Turn is:

               2s 6c 9s 6d

Check.  Hero pushes all-in, and UTG calls with:

               2c 4s

River is:

               2s 6c 9s 6d Ad

Hero just shakes his head, and tries to stay positive.  The hero didn’t follow his own advice.  “Never bluff.”  Some days it is harder than others.

Freeroll Strategy II

 Freeroll Strategy I - Go here to read the original strategy for winning free money in freeroll tournaments.

After 62 tournaments, I was able to cash, coming in 20^th place and earning a whopping $2.00.  I would love to tell you that the strategy I outlined in part one is the secret to winning free money.  However, I learned something even more interesting.

When it comes to poker, there are no systems, or full-proof schemes.  For a while I believed that the system was going to work.  But time after time I found myself banging my head against the wall, watching idiots and donkeys suck out over and over again.  The harder I tried to prove that my system would work, the quicker I would lose my whole stack.

It seemed as though, with all the crazy people, calling crazy bets preflop with 94o, and pushing all-in on the river with nothing, that this was closer to a slot machine than a poker game.  This is not far from the truth, but it doesn’t mean all is lost.


When trying to formulate a strategy, I failed to take into account is how quickly the blinds rise.  I have played many online tournaments, but never any with a structure as fast and light as some of the freerolls I have played in the past few weeks.  Most are so quick in levels that before the bubble was even reached, everyone in the tournament except the top 5 players only had between 2 and 10 rounds of chips.  It didn’t matter if I saw every flop and built a huge stack, because that huge stack ended up being only 12 big blinds before the bubble.

Early in the process of proving my strategy I started getting frustrated, and found myself folding often from early position.  And when I had a big hand, like QQ, I would re-raise, only to be called by three people.  Even though the queens didn’t hold up, it was enlightening. The answer revealed itself to me as I played, slowly giving up on winning, giving up on my strategy, and just enjoying the game.  I found myself playing poker again, assessing the situation, keeping an open mind every time I was moved to another table, and paying attention to all the crazy moves everyone was making.


Don’t get upset or go on tilt when you suffer a bad beat.  This is easier said than done, because I have gone on tilt myself plenty of times.  But this is something to strive for.  Every time this happens now, I remind myself of this: Bad beats can only happen when your opponents play bad poker.

That’s why the word “bad” is in there.  Getting your chips in the pot when you have an 85% advantage, and getting called by a terrible hand only to have them suck-out, is a wonderful thing.  Bad beats happen because of bad players.  Great players don’t call with bad hands.  They might bet or raise with them, but even when they bluff, they believe they are making the play with the greatest positive expectation, not because they are a goof.

People complain about the same kinds of things in micro and small stakes cash games and tournaments.  I have found myself saying the following more than a few times when I was first starting out.  “These people are idiots.  They call with anything.  They don’t respect my raises.  They don’t play real poker.  It is impossible to push them off a hand.  No one can make money at this level.”

I have already learned this lesson.   Those games are beatable, and they aren’t even that hard to show a profit, because a lot of the people play so badly.  However, what seldom works at the small-stakes level is the super-advanced, deep-stack small ball strategies, with three or four levels of thinking.  If you are playing $0.01/0.02 and you find yourself thinking “What does he think I think he thinks I think he has?” you are giving your opponent WAY too much credit.

In fact, no strategy is going to work.  By constraining yourself to a thought out strategy set in stone, you prevent yourself from being able to make the correct moves at the correct time.  So relax.  Don’t look at freeroll tournaments as anything more than what they are: A great learning tool that costs a few hours, and teaches many of the virtues that make a great poker player: patience, aggression, observation, and humility.  If you can’t stop from tilting during a freeroll tournament, then maybe poker isn’t your game.  Just wait until you suffer a bad beat with all of your money on the table.

 

Freeroll Statistics

I haven’t had a lot of time for playing freerolls, but my stats are below.  The times I got close, I did exactly what I outlined in the Freeroll strategy blog.  Even if you only win that big stack 20% of the time, that is every 5^th free roll, which could be twice a day depending on how many you are playing.  If only half the time you go deep, you have a rather good shot at winning some of that free money.

Update: So far, all the times that I went deep, I ended up all in against another big stack, and the winner of that hand would be in the top ten chip leaders.  Every time, I have had the best hand, and have lost.  Sooner or later I will win a couple of those key hands, and have a shot at the tournament.

I will continue to post updates as I play more tournaments...

Freeroll Strategy

Freeroll tournaments at online sites are an interesting animal.  Some people believe that they term comes from the early days of Las Vegas, when people would receive a free roll of nickels to play in the slot machines when they checked into the hotel.  People would ask for their “free roll”, and the term became slang for gambling for free.  Regardless or the origin, (and even if the above story isn’t true, it sounds good), these tournaments, that are free to play but pay out real money, have aspects of play money games and real money games.  Let’s look at the differences:

Real Money Poker

This is any kind of poker game where real money is on the line.  It doesn’t matter if you are playing a deep tournament with a buy-in of $10,000, or a home game with friends for $50.  When real money is on the line, people play real poker.  The degree to which they play depends not on how much money is at stake, but how important that money is to the player.  Everyone at a casino $1/$2 no limit cash game could have the same amount of money in front of them, and yet they could all play very differently, based on how important that money is to them. One lady may have suffered a huge loss, and has dropped down to these super “small” stakes to regain her confidence, while another player could be playing cash for the very first time, and has saved the $400 they brought to the table over the last six weeks.  While it isn’t possible to predict how everyone is going to treat their buy-in, one thing is clear: when real money is on the line, people play real poker, to some degree.

When I first started playing online poker, I won some money playing tournaments for $0.10 and $0.25.  I tried playing cash games at the $0.01/$0.02 tables, and I was amazed at how many people were playing real poker (and way better than me).  I got destroyed the first few times I played, and while there were always some crazy players popping in, for the most part, people played real poker, even with two cent blinds. 

Play Money Poker

To say it another way, when there isn’t any money involved, people do not play real poker.  Sometimes I am sitting at the kitchen table dealing poker hands to myself and thinking about the game (what do you do on the weekends), and my kids come over and want to play a few hands.  Without any chips, we deal some cards and play, saying things like “I raise,” and “I call,” but there aren’t any chips on the table, and we really don’t care.  At some point, one of my kids will say “All in!” and then when they lose, remark how it’s all fake anyway, and go outside.  But when they win, they get very excited to have kicked daddy’s butt.

Just try playing some real poker for play money on a social networking site and you will see what I am talking about.  Everyone just pushes all in, and they don’t care what happens.  They just keep playing until they get lucky.  Without real money on the line, poker goes from a game of skill to a game of luck.

Luck vs. Skill

I can’t tell you how many times I have been talking about poker, only to hear someone say “I don’t play poker because I don’t gamble.”  I used to respond with “But poker isn’t gambling.  It’s a game of skill like chess, or golf.”  This would spark a debate that, in relation to how much alcohol was being consumed, could drag on for hours.  And yet, I would never be able to change their minds.  This is why I now just nod my head.  Because they would push all-in with any two cards, and turn the game from a skill game to a slot machine.  This is what makes freeroll tournaments an interesting animal.

Freerolls start out as play money games, and then transition to real money games.  At some point, which is different for every tournament, it looks like this:

This is why my strategy might seem weird.  To win the tournament, players need a huge number of chips.  If someone were to simply watch what is happening during the tournament, they would see, at the beginning, a few players gaining a huge amount of chips.  While chip accumulation like this doesn’t happen as quickly in real money tournaments, at the beginning, it is play money, without regard to skill.  Unfortunately, to make it through the transition from luck to skill, and to have enough chips to play real poker, a player needs to get lucky, multiple times.

Freeroll Strategy

My strategy is, in the beginning, to see as many cheap flops as possible, regardless of starting hands or position.  However, it is important to remember to never give up.  If you call with 53o, only to face a re-raise and an all-in, just fold.  Don’t get frustrated and tilt, pushing in chips with crappy hands.  It can be irritating, because the play is still in the slot machine zone.  The goal is to flop 2 pair or better, and then get all your chips in, hopefully against multiple opponents. 

Now this is not a money making strategy, but there isn’t any money at stake.  You can play freerolls all day long.  Sacrifice some tournaments for the chance, once in a while, to end up with a huge stack early on.  Once an initial large stack is acquired, perhaps twice the size of everyone else, then start raising every unopened pot, regardless of starting hands or position.  And, just like before, without giving up and dumping off all your chips, see as many flops as possible while stealing the blinds, and driving all the people trying to play real poker right to the edge of madness.

At this point, many people will have already left the freeroll, and many others will have turned off their computers, their online avatar slowly losing chips each round.  Those people trying to play real poker, folding all but the best hands, will have dwindling stacks.  As the blinds continue to rise, they are forced to wait for great cards, and even if you call and double them up, they won’t even dent your stack. 

During this transition phase, many people drop out, and big stacks start appearing at your table.  As you continue to try and get lucky, pushing all in with two pair or better, you will, at some point, end up all in against a big stack, and whoever wins that hand will end up in the top 10, and stand a good shot at making the final table and winning the tournament, or at least getting some of that free money to start climbing the real money ladder.  And everyone likes free money (except babies).  At this point, it is time to start playing real poker, reading your opponents, and adjusting your game from tight to loose depending on the other players at the table.  There is no guaranteed strategy at this point, but getting here is half the battle.

Next time I will post my stats for freerolls, so you can see how this strategy is working…

Ciao,

ZenToad 

Freeroll Strategy II: http://zentoadpoker.blogspot.com/2012/07/freeroll-strategy-ii.html
Freeroll stats are here: http://zentoadpoker.blogspot.com/2012/06/freeroll-statistics.html