turtleknife_poker_blog

About Knock-Out Tournaments at Full Tilt Poker

Pulled this from another thread...

The thing about KO's that is different IS the KO factor. Too many players go after the KO exclusively and lose sight of the goal, to win the tourney. This is ok to a degree but often gets a lot of people in trouble early. Here is where YOU come in and use Tournament Indicator to get YOUR KO's!

ALWAYS be aware of stack size of people entering a hand and yet to act. MOSTLY you want to be concerned with those that are already in it.

IF a short player limps or calls be willing to get in on a draw (LAG), if they shove and you have a strong draw hand be wary but willing to get involved if solo and it won't cripple you to lose a race OR you have a good draw, there is one or two other callers and potential to make a hand and THEN bet to get more in from the other players so even if you lose to shorty you win from them. (had one yesterday I lost to shorty with AA and thought I was out the game, but side pot and big stack lost to me so I actually came out the hand AHEAD even though I lost to shorty, I had 2nd best and 3rd best had more chips to give me.)

SO many of the "ducks, elephants, gamblers & ?" are willing to go in with any A, any K, any gapper/connector/suited because of shorty in it and the chance for a bounty! It makes it profitable to go in laggy with any of these at the top ends even to a raise. Because they are going to be in with crap and you will be in with a good draw. If you miss, you can get away if they get to betting stupid.

Look for hi VP, lower pfr and lower af on these types players. The higher the vp and lower the agression pre and post the wider range you can take a risk to see a flop knowing it won't be too expensive to draw later either. Mostly you are going to want to see it all anyway. There is an all in man. Idiots will bet anyway even bluffing, a good player will ONLY bet if they have a good hand and they want more in the pot OR there is a side pot in contention. So you know when they bet what it's going to mean to you post flop.

There are hands you would normally fold, like A9o when someone raises pre, but if shorty is in it or is the one that made the raise, you can be assured others smell blood and will jump in. Use TI to determine the type player they are and you go in too. The difference between you and them is that you have your "net/shield" and that is TI. You can see who they are and get into a pot and win the pot AND get the KO that you ordinarily wouldn't play. You are taking a calculated risk, they are gambling.

Avoiding bad beats in MTT`s

From JP in the forum who plays on Full Tilt.

I read this today by Nenad Medic, (FT pro), and found it interesting.

His first thought is make the money then go for the win. Concentrate on getting past the bubble. Then he went on to the final table aspect and that is where this hit me:

A hand from Event #1 of this year's WSOP illustrates my point. We had reached four-handed play where the difference in finishing first and fourth was more than $500,000 when I got involved in a pot with Andy Bloch. I was holding pocket 7s and led out at a flop of Q-Q-3 only to have Andy make a pot-sized raise behind me. Though I don't know what Andy was holding, I'm guessing that he may have had over-cards and, possibly, a flush draw. While my two pair of 7s and Queens may have very well been good, it would cost me my entire stack on what was essentially a coin flip in order to find out. In the end, I laid my hand down and looked for a better spot.

All too often my read is dead on, I know exactyl what they have sometimes and once called it out down to the suit and cards held! Yet I am constantly losing to being outdrawn, luckouts, suckouts, etc... Granted, both of us in with AK and losing to flush, ok, bad luck. KK losing to JJ flopping a set, yeah, bad luck. But the suckouts with them playing J4s or o and ending up with a drawn flush, sheesh, very bad beat. But then it dawned on me in the next paragraph!

First, I had a big enough stack at this point that I wasn't committed to continuing with the hand and, while folding to Andy cost me some chips, I could still fold and sit comfortably in second chip position at the table. Secondly, and even more importantly, even if I was ahead of Andy on the flop, my read gave him 13 outs (approximately, a 40% chance) to make his hand. With my tournament life on the line if I called, I just wasn't getting the odds to gamble.

I AM looking at the read and what he has but too often I am not looking at HIS outs. Only mine and if I'm ahead or not. The ONLY time I look to their outs is in the flop with an obvious flush or str8 draw. I know they have a lot of outs and if my hand is great like AA or AK and flop is AKx, then I am betting that flop hard with an overbet to make sure they have not odds to call for the fool running with 84s or 35s for example. But if it's the turn and say a str8 isn't obvious I'm still running my 2 pair or TPTK without considering the percent of chance THEY can hit. I am still looking at my percent to improve. If I put them on flush draw still, I do figure their odds and compare them to mine and the pot odds to stay involved. But I am not doing it on all their hands.

I think that MAYBE, if I start counting their outs I might be able to make some better laydowns. I layed down QQ, set 2's and TPTK post flop yesterday. The end result was I lasted longer though it didn't do much else for me. Still, it was the point that I found something missing in my hand analysis/decision making process and that was including their outs ALL the time in any equation, not just some of the time. Long term this may yield decent results. If I can avoid a GCI and losing to yet another suckout. My friend/mentor has been telling me he don't understand it but I have GOT to be doing something wrong to lose so much and losing with good hands usually. Well, this MIGHT be what I have been doing wrong. Only time will tell.

Marty`s side note: GCI is a definition of a tournament hand that essentially represents a big decision in for a big chunk of chips in your stack. It is short for Game Critical Intersect where if you are green or yellow mzoned and the result of the hand you are participating will bring you to Orange, red, Grey or eliminated if you lose.

Arnold Snyder where are you?

Whatever happened to Arnold Snyder?

Somebody asked on the forum if anybody had read "The Poker Tournament Formula" by Arnold Snyder. Of course BaddBeatBobb and myself participated in Arnold's forum and were initially excited about how he was playing live tournaments. We really wanted to know if the strategy could be translated to low limit online poker and after several attempts to get data, we surmised it would not be successful. Arnold himself came back and basically said that he had no experience online with this system so couldn't verify it as a winning strategy online.

I would have really liked to devise an aggressive strategy for Full Tilt tournaments, but in trying so, it was more like smashing your forehead against a brick wall.

Here is BBB's response:

Ahh, Poker Tournament Formula, one of my favorite and enduring hobby-horses.

I really like the book, and think it emphasizes a few important ideas. If you find it startling and new, as I did when i first read it, then it may be the case for you, as it *certainly* was for me, that I simply hadn't played enough tournaments, nor thought about tournament strategy in enough depth to put Arnold's ideas into a bigger context.

The book is a bit like handing matches and gasoline to eight year old boys. They'll have great fun right up to the point where they set their own clothes on fire.

In a nutshell, the strategy is to break into unopened pots from position (hijack, cutoff, button) to try and steal. If you don't get the steal, then fire off a c-bet on the flop. If that doesn't get it done, jam the turn and pray.

Ok, obviously I'm being far too simplistic here. Arnold's a very good writer, and the book explores a great many lines of play, introduces the theoretical notion of speed of a tournament (rate of change of M, or the first derivative of M, dM/dt if you prefer a more formal expression), and it emphasizes that you have to stop being a timid weenie and start betting.

The main problem is, for all its elegance, it simply lacks empirical data of success. No one has actually come out and put their poker winnings record up for public scrutiny and said, "I did this all with the Snyder method." Marty, by contrast, has been very open about his own record (see tournament results) and the method he used to achieve the win-rate: mousie, patient, TAG.

Marty in fact asked right on Snyder's own forum for anybody to actually share some numbers and he attempted to collaborate with Arnold to adapt the PTF to small buyin tournaments where players are far too sticky to let anybody get away with a position-based steal strategy.

As for me, I attempted to formalize the mathematics in the PTF, to precisely describe dM/dt, and I discovered that the formulae break down in field sizes above about 300 players, when you need to shift from Arnold's (basically) quadratic equations to exponential equations. I'm referring specifically to his field factor equation. I asked about this on his forum and got no useful replies. So, since his strategy relies explicitly on tournament speed, which relies implicitly on field factor, and since many online tournaments have fields larger than 300, there's a pretty big problem here. The problem, to my knowledge, remains unacknowledged and hence un-addressed to this day.

Formalisms aside, the more basic issue is "Put up or shut up," and nobody has yet been willing to display their tournament success record while claiming it is based on a fundamentally PTF-based strategy.

TurtleKnife troubles at Full Tilt?

I had to get this excellent question in on the blog for those inquiring minds. I don't know if Official Poker Rankings can do anything about this, considering the popularity now of tokens and satellites, but the results DO distort to be sure.
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BaddBeatBobb writes: Our fearless leader has some interestingly divergent stats on OPR. On Full Tilt he battles as Turtleknife. On Poker Stars he's Bonovox33. Here's the data as reported on Official Poker Rankings using Full Tracking (instead of last 120 days):

First, Turtleknife on Full Tilt:

Prizes:  $4093
Profit:  <0
ROI:  -20%
ITM:  99/556 (18%)


Next, Bonovox33 on Poker Stars:

Prizes:  $4891
Profit:  $1175
ROI:  32%
ITM:  114/660 (17%)


Has the fabled Full Tilt Kill Switch spelled doomsday for our favorite turtle?  Inquiring minds want to know. . .
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Very astute observation BBB and thanks for brining it up as there may be some who subscribe to my video/strategies that might be wondering the same thing. There IS an explanation not readily evident in OPR stats, but through no fault of their own.

I looked at this a while back and had to figure it myself as well because the numbers didn't add up. At first I thought it was Full Tilt!! However, I assure you I am profitable at MTT AND STT play with both ID's and both sites, in spite of these numbers.... allow me to explain.

Firstly, if we can add my Ironduke64 ID from party Poker I would like to compare all 3 ID's to prove my low-limit strategies work for bankroll building and OPM.

1- Bonovox33 on Stars
2- Ironduke64 on Party Poker
3- TurtleKnife on Full Tilt

The following stats correspond with each ID as position 1,2, and 3.

ITM                = 17%, 18%, 18%
Early Exits      = 5%, 7%, 4%
Early Middle    = 15%, 16%, 14%
Middle            = 42%, 39%, 44%
Middle Late     = 25%, 21%, 24%
Late               = 14%, 17%, 13%

These stats have a relatively tight range that to me, represent a consistent style of play, that is without looking at the results.

However, Full Tracking ROI for NL Holdem = 33%, 106%, -16%.

It's the -16% at Full Tilt which doesn't belong. Even though OPR has an accurate record of all my tournaments, it is not the whole story, becuase with these range of stats, so closely in step with a consistent strategy, you would think FT should be a profitable site for me. It is.

I know what you are thinking, its because of bad beats, but really, no.

If you cue up TurtleKnife, full tracking on OPR, then go to just above the tournament results display and change the first drop down menu option to "Buy in, Prize", change the second drop down menu setting to "*All (Show $0)".

What the tournament results now show are the highest buy in tournaments I have played on Full Tilt. (I know, sad, but its where I LIKE to play..)

If you glance down the first range of tournaments it probably shows 70 or 80 tournaments with a $26 entry fee. I can tell you now that I have NEVER PAID full price for one of these tournaments. I have entered each and every one of these tournaments with a $6 sng token win. It is true, I dont win ALL the sng token tournaments I play, but that is reflected in my sharkscope record too, just for clarification.

OPR counts this directly to my profit and loss as if I paid the $26. Really, what other choice do they have? But for someone likes me who toils in the low entry-fee tournaments, that many buy-ins, (let's say 75 x $20) is $1,500 directly to my bottom line in MTTs.

Factor in my regular participation in KO tournaments that normally yield a profit before I make the money, and the bottom line at Full Tilt is very much the same as at Stars.

Might I also add that at Poker Stars, I don't think I have ever played a token or satellite, at least not regularly. If you calculate and compare the average finish numbers above, and then look at the results, there needs to be another explanation. This is mine, and though I hope you all understand, I welcome further comments.

Pocket Pair Forum Discussion

JP started this topic in the poker forum and it has grown into a full discussion. I like to see as many flops as I can with ANY pair, but not to raises and re-raises unless I am short stack or big stack. To me the idea is to keep the cost small enough so that when your set does hit, all the previous times you missed it will be made up for.

JP Continues here....
In 21,000 hands
Had 1,168 pp as hole cards
Won 59.93% of them for 584,440 T$
Of all PP 99 had it 100 times winning 62% but net loss of 15,000 T$ Went to showdown 70% of the time with it.
AND 22 had it  84 times winning 32% but net loss 1,185 T$ went to showdown 35% of the time with it.
So these two of ALL PP were the ONLY pp played with a long term net loss and compared to total won is VERY small.

This is JUST for PP starting cards.  Now to look at 3 of a kind numbers:
This 3 of a kind includes PP and other 3 of a kind possible hands with me holding 1 card and two on the board and me with AK or something and 3 of a kind on board with my A hi winning it (extremely rare) But of ALL 3 of a kind hands I had 510 with ONLY 205 going to flop. That is because a hand I held and folded developed into a trip or set hand but it was weak and I never played it or for whatever reason did not go to flop with it but the hand played out and if in I would have had 3 of a kind.

All PP do NOT develop into sets BUT still do develop into winning hands either as parts of flushes, str8's, boats and even 2 pair. I don't know how or if possible even to set filters in Poker Tracker to isolate only PP hands that turn into sets. I can't find it. However, MOST 3 of a kind I get are from PP. I know if I hit a set in flop or turn I'm going all the way with it. Therefore I will look at the 205 hands that saw a flop and seeing that I folded 12 on the flop I did not flop 3 of a kind and it came later. I also folded 5 times on the turn meaning I still had no trips. That is 17 times folded out of 205 with 6 more being folded on the river. That means I folded 3 of a kind on the river knowing I was totally beat and couldn't or wouldn't put my life on the line or waste chips. Probably open end on board or 4 to flush on board or bigger boat I know I'm in the bottom of. I can only remember folding a set of T's once on the river but obviously there have been a few other laydowns.

So that means 182 3 of a kind hands went to showdown and I folded almost 300 preflop that became 3 of a kind hands. Some of those mucked would have been small pairs out of position and most are junk cards the developed trips rather than pp that became sets. But I know myself as a player and while I may end up with trips, unless it's a great hand I don't put much faith in it like AQ and QQ is on board. Most 3 of a kind hands I end up with at showdown are from PP starters. I also know I folded countless small pairs preflop never even limping in. I can only estimate that of about 300 mucked, 100 were small pairs and of the 200 played to showdown 150 were pp for 250 total. Which would give us close to 1 in 4.75 PP (1186) becoming sets.

I reset the filters eliminating big pairs from starting cards so PP 22-99 shows 736 of them dealt winning 49% of them and going to showdown with 53% of them. 22-33-44 go to showdown the least, 35% and under. With PP 99 and under overall as starting cards, of all those I played winning half the time 256T$ avg. per hand I have to say it is profitable in poker tournament play.

I can isolate further with PP 22-66 and position = UTG, UTG+1, Middle showing 192 times dealt, winning 42% and per hand avg +77 T$ so it is PLUS EV to be playing them.

I also like to limp with AK and AQ in early tournament play so as to disguise my hand strength and keep opponents wondering if I am strong or weak. Its just part of my early tournament passive play mode, where really I am more or less waiting to trap over-aggressive wankers. If my poker calculator (tournament indicator) shows me still green mzone, I figure I have a lot of time still to wait for a big hand.

HOWEVER! The KEY to playing them is post flop skills! Being able to get away and surrender losing the least amount as possible AND turning a loser into a winner anyway through betting/maneuvering. Only 39% of these specific hands actually went to showdown. Only the 22 was a loser with these specific filters for -6400 T$ but half that was in one hand, late stage high blind tournies losing 3500 and folding to a bet on the turn.

Early with a low pair you limp or raise with intent to bluff/steal post flop, must be opening the pot if raising, mostly limp to see, call raise IF no more than 10% of opponent stack AND it won't cripple you. As 22-44 are the worst performers, they are easy to muck UTG/UTG+1/Middle. More and more I have been mucking them without pot odds to limp in as there is no benefit otherwise.

Tough to build a bankroll on Full Tilt in MTT's

A very insghtful post from JP in the forum reads:

There's always talk of ROI and how long it takes to make a profit. It's not a job for most of us and we aren't going to make $20 an hour average or more to have a great ROI, quit our day jobs and become a pro with poker our new living. Most of us can make a darn site more money in our work than we have at poker. If it was easy, everyone would do it. If it's only about ROI, there's better ways to consistently earn decent hourly returns that don't include poker.

It's about playing right and winning, coming out on top. Sure, the more on top (ROI) the better. But you have to have a start point and a goal. If you are building a br then you have to be concerned with results in the br, not the roi. As long as the br is moving up then the roi is meaningless unless you have some time frame in your equation to meet. People that go for the quick build may get hot and fly but they may also flame out, crash and burn.

First build the skill sets. Then build the br (bankroll). Then worry about roi what yields the best results based on what you have already laid out and done using your own data for analysis.

The 45 seater has a nice payout structure for the top 3 only, the other 3 suck. You have to outplay 39 people just to cash in a 45 in a STT you only need to beat 6 to cash. 45 seaters normally run about 2 hours, 9 seaters about an hour. Pay slots only reward the top 13.5% in a 45 seater. STT's reward the top 33%.

It takes 1 win to wipe out 20 loses in a 45.  You have to win 1 in 4 to break even in STT's.

The $1 90 seater has a good pay top 5 slots but it takes 4 hours usually as it's a deep stack. Perfect game for solid ABC poker and TAG/Rock players and skill building. Donks flame out first hour with rapid climbs then death. Some flash out first hand chasing to a made hand. I don't like the $1 stt at all. I would rather play the $1 turbo first it's just as much a luck fest. My preference to "build" starting with $50 is the $2-$5 sng. I wouldn't multi-table until I got my skills better. I didn't multi-table for a long time and even now some days I prefer to concentrate on one at a time. Sometimes I'll play 2-3. 6 has been my max. But I found that multi-tabling trying to build from starting br was the quick way to reload. Any flaw in my game was multiplied and losses mounted faster. First fix flaws, have consistent results, then branch to multi-tabling.

It's possible to "own" the $5 games. Once in a while you hit a zone and just can't be beat at the stt or mtt-sng $5/18-45 seater game.

I DO like the $2 180 seat sng-mtt on Full Tilt for br building as part of the plan. 1 win is very good money. Affordable to play 1 daily as part of the stt mix and a nice break from the $2 stt insanity that is often found.

I found the same that you did in the $6 turbo's. Cashing/winning 8 of 10 then hitting the skids the next 10-20 then again cashing consistent. It was a real roller coaster. Tho I suspect a good part of that was also mistakes on my part. I haven't played them in a while and my game has improved. However, I don't like the play in the $6 turbo but do like the $5 and $10 regular along with the $11 turbo. My opinion is the $11 turbo is a softer game. Too many in it normally that don't belong there but think moving up will be better for them and too many that did better lower and have the br level but not the skill level yet. That's my opinion of course and jaded by my own play and success/failure at them

I have had mixed results in the 18 seaters. Mostly I used them to build skills for bigger games. The pay is a little better, don't take that much longer than a stt and the opponents are mostly luck seekers it seems. (perception is they are also lucky in them but that's just my perception )

I think the best all around for me was the $2 sit and go regular to build from tiny br then the $5 games.

My "goal" is to get my br on Full Tilt back in the 2k+ range again, then begin the "ringfencing" and taking out the profit rather than try to keep going up. I beleive that was my downfall the last time. kept going up and up before I took out but didn't drop back when I did and just plummetted.

Sort of like pot control. If I manage my br and keep it in target, AND if I stay in my established limits that GOT me there, I can control it, keep it there and start siphoning off regularly. That's my goal for that site.

Full Tilt MTT math and other...

From Richard in the poker forum:

MTT have a larger element of the statistical misfortune (or luck, to those that believe in it) factor than cash games, because of their time span and rising blinds - as this forces you to play a different style and take risks.

Therefore you need a poker edge. How do you get an edge?

Plan ahead.

Know the MTT structure
Know the number of hands to antes/ITM/FT
Know the expected M Zone levels and at what stage they may start to apply
Know the number of PAIR/RED/BLUE hands you expect during each stage
Know the EXACT hands you will push with or make a stack committing call/raise with at each stage, in each position - at each M Zone level.
Know the type of style you will play and the point at which you will change.
Know the EXACT number of chips you need to reach ITM and the expected number of hands you will play
Know the mix of blind/pot steals you will need at each stage.
Know the MINIMUM number of chips you should need to reach ITM (slightly different from EXACT above)
Know the target number of chips you need at the end of the average M Zone colour change.

The above is the MINIMUM you should know before having an edge. Have you ticked all the boxes above? If you have, very good. I haven't yet and I am sure very few have.

It is not about a poker formula (that gimmick only sells books), but forward planning and applying skill and knowledge through a large number of games to go deep ITM and/or onto a final table - because statistically, only 15% get paid.

Full Tilt Tournament Win

200 players, $2 bucks to get in. Rarely do your hands survive (even when ahead) this frequently playing at Full Tilt, so I was feeling good as there were no game-ending suckouts. Even better, I was getting good hands and position to raise frequently and that resulted in some opponents simply losing thier cool with me and they ended up handing me their stack. Of course used the poker calculator Tournament Indicator for reads, odds, and assessment of what to do based on my MZone and GCI hands.

MZone Poker Strategy: Ignoring your Hourly Rate at Full Tilt Poker

You may have read in poker forums or tips from the pros about keeping track of your hourly rate when you play poker. The idea behind this is to help the professional player (rounder) understand where he plays best, playing which poker game, and under what structure in regards to limits, tournaments and cash games.

Upon knowing such information a player should trend toward where his hourly rate is most profitable. For example, if a player has figured to earn an average of $17 an hour at the local casino playing the 2/4 limit hold’em game and compares it with his hourly rate of $29 multi-tabling online at the .50/1.00 NL hold’em tables on Full Tilt, then barring any other factors this is clearly a decision for playing online that night.

Monitoring and determining your hourly rate however at different games and locations is one of those concepts though that some new players get too caught up in and which may result in poor decisions because of it, when really they should be paying very little regard to hourly rate. Let me explain.

Professional rounders should absolutely be keeping close tabs on their hourly rate, because it is part and parcel of making good decisions in poker. It increases the odds that they will be profitable and since most pros rely on being profitable, this becomes a simple “business” decision.

However for new players in the bankroll building stage, other issues are more important, like learning the game for one. Playing at the right level (usually low) lends itself to learning the more intricate parts of the game like patience, position, timed aggressiveness, reading opponents.

Since a new player is far more prone to making errors in the game, it will likely cost money, but the idea is to keep that cost low while getting as much value from your bankroll as you can. This translates to playing time, which in turn builds on your ability to make the correct play at the right time.

As for hourly rate, you should be paying no heed at all while bankroll building, especially if your game is to beat multi-table tournaments since it may take you 50, 100, 150 or more tournaments for a substantial cash.

When you have learned enough of poker, and moved up a few levels and are firmly using OPM, (other players' money) essentially playing free poker - then you can surely adapt an hourly rate strategy into your game, but until then your hourly rate should focus on what you learn, not what you earn.

Big decision, early in a Full Tilt Tournament

A GCI decision at Full Tilt Poker from one of forum members.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2426632


In a hand like this, I would have been scoping my opponents on OPR to see what kind of record they had. 180 chips is like 4 1/2 times the BB at this stage and there were two other callers beside you. With a 4-way pot you are now concerned about not only an over pair to you, but a made set on the flop. Remember OPR is Free Poker information, so use it for God`s sake!

Given that this is a 5 buck tourney, your reraise that Raz is suggesting may only be able to determine if you are up against some wanker riding it with AKos, so that isn`t very realistic really at this level. MOST players will shove their QQ, TT, JJ, at this flop, and a good number will also push AK, even if it is a reraise, which is why you needed to be investigating and using your time button on this.

As you may remember there was a QQ hand in the MZone series that lent itself to folding, but only after I saw the opponent`s stats AND after I had reraised him preflop and he shot back another raise.

The other point about this hand is that you are of course green mzone in early stages, and a lot of pros will tell you to not let your tournament ride with QQ early. That is true for the most part, but again you are dealing with 5 buck weekend wannabes here and you shant be faulted for thinking you were ahead after the flop. You did mention however that you had a `feeling` and this comes up a few times in the MTT5PAK series where intuition plays a key role as well as other hard evidence, of which, you may have not had enough in this situation. Had your instincts served you well, in that sense, reraising was NOT your mistake, NOT folding after the flop pressure was.