turtleknife_poker_blog

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.

Poker Bankroll Software

When Chris Ferguson blogged his Start from ZERO Bankrolling Quest, he proved that it could be done. You can start an online poker bankroll from ZERO dollars. The fact that a Full Tilt pro with the reputation of Chris toiling in the penny tables went through the whole process not once, but twice building an account surplus of Ten grand shows that with due diligence and dedication to the task, you can probably do it too.

But only with a lot of self control that is. When playing online poker especially at a site like Full Tilt, that skill far more rare than you might think. Listen, if 75% of online players lose money, then not many of them know how to manage a poker bankroll. Itès not like the information isnèt out there either because it is.

So many players though end up playing above their skill level and even worse, above their bankroll that inevitably, these are the players that end up in that 75% cluster of money losing fish. Yes you are essentially a fish by playing above your bankroll. Chris Ferguson didn’t build his bankroll with magnificent bluffing, power all-in betting, and underground intimidation tactics. Are you kidding me? Have you ever played in the $1 sit and go tournaments? Strategies like that are sure-fire ways to be searching for reload bonuses.

Chris Jesus Ferguson merely used fundamental poker skills to win as much as he could, but more importantly executed exceptional bankroll management with a strict set of rules that determined what his games of choice would be, and how far he would go in a hand or drawing situaiton.

Bankroll management is then, utterly important to your success online, and now there are software choices to help you keep track of that very aspect of your game. Personal Poker Pal is the latest in this market that with a variety of graphs, reports, and analysis tools can help keep your game moving up and build your bankroll the very best way – using OPM or other people’s money.

What a poker bankroll calculator can do for you is keep your skill set evenly matched with your bankroll. As your knowledge and understanding of the game improves, so then are you rewarded in your bankroll. It’s simple math really. If you jump too far up, you are penalized (eventually) for playing above your head and you take a hit.

 

However it is impossible to be consistently successful in the modern game without a detailed analysis of performance, highlighting the reasons for success or failure either in particular hands or over a session, with the aim of improving future results. There are many software tools on the market to assist the poker player, but at a price many players are unable (or unwilling) to pay.

 

You manage money everywhere else in your life don’t you? Unless you are just out having fun and you really don’t care about how much you spend on entertaining yourself playing online poker, then you need to start managing your poker bankroll, just like the pros.

Tournament Indicator Can Multi-Table.

Multi-tabling is one of the major issues when playing on the internet. It is definitely a skill in that it requires 100% concentration. Poker calculators fit very well with multi-tabling because they do a lot of the ground work for you in profiling and odds displays so that you are able to make quicker decisions which keep the flow of the table going while improving your hourly rate as well.

If you are planning to get a poker calculator for multi-tabling though you need one that you know can handle the task because many poker calculators simply cannot monitor more than one table because of something called screen scraper technology. Magic Holdem, Holdem Genius, Calculatem Pro all come to mind as poker calculators that are limited to one table only, because they are based on outdated software programming.

What this means is that the software you choose may very well not be what you are looking for. If you like to play at least two tables at a time, you need holdem indicator or tournament indicator both of which will automatically attach to all your open poker tables, while adding the further benefit of resizing to match your table or mini-sizing so that you can open it whenever you want a more full description of the statistics collected.

Most of the major poker sites allow for resizing now along with cascading or tiling instantly just by clicking a button. Since they are widely offering it, you know that a lot of players are multi-tabling then as then. I might caution you here though that it still takes a lot of skill and knowledge of the game. The more tables you play simultaneously, the more small edges you may have to give up to the table, playing more tight than normal.

In his book titled "Online Ace" Scott Fishman describes multi-tabling as part of the online rounder's game in that it evens out those bad beats you take. He invokes the bad beat variance as simply a part of the game and one of the best ways to get over it, is just open another table or tournament and start again. He regularly has 6, 8 and 10 tables going at one time, across multiple sites and several monitors.

The Trouble with Turbos

The following article was published more than a year ago now and I have been corrected on some issues in regards to it, mainly that pros don`t normally play them. Well along comes Colin Moshman and his brilliant sit and go strategy and now suddenly there is a strong contingent of highly competitive and bankrolled players that play turbos almost exclusively.

However, as for building your bankroll and working on your skill set while getting the most out of your investment turbos should be avoided. They have these inherent downward slides in playing them which could send you, your bankroll and your sanity running for cover.

-------original article below--------

You can easily find yourself in a trap in turbo sit and go tournaments, if you actually go on a streak and win a few. The truth of it is, they WILL eventually send you spiraling in such a way that can render you unfit for real life. That is not a prediction, but rather a mathematical surety.

To prove this point, do a little exercise by loading up and viewing a few 20+ buck sngs on any site. Select a few of what seem to be the more solid players, (rounders) and do a deep level search on their statistics at SharkScope. SharkScope can tell a lot of truth about a player and if you discover somebody’s ROI quite high, like 20% or more, check to see how many turbos they play.

What you will find, proof positive, is that winning players DO NOT play turbos with any regularity if at all. It is simply not mathematically profitable to do so, no matter how good you are. The main substance of this derives from the fact that after 3 or 4 levels your game is essentially left up to the randomness of the deck, thus virtually eliminating the skill aspect in the latter half of the tournament.

It is the same analogy between playing poker or blackjack. The best blackjack teachers admit your goal should be not to lose money since the odds (house) are always against you long term. Long term, it is a losing proposition. How many professional blackjack players are there?

When the game’s structure reduces or eliminates the skill factor, then the rounders will know it just by glancing at this information window, and thus, by and large avoiding that type of tournament. Luck is not part of the rounder game. Rounders dwell on winning percentages, return on investment and bankroll strategies and because they do, a random winner type format just cannot fit into that overall plan.

The only time I find turbos poker tournaments acceptable is for fun or social event. If you are going out with the guys or girls, most home style, one table tournaments are well suited for turbo style blinds if only to prevent the last 2 or 3 players left don’t monopolize the poker table too long. Consider your 10 or 20 bucks in those situations entertainment. Oh yeah, and you better know what chance your 76 suited has against AQos.

If you want some silly fun and are drinking with your friends, by all means go turbo. If you want to build your online bankroll, get a brain on.

FTOPS # 9 May 11/08

Solid play in this FTOPS event by the eventual winner. This is the final table that includes all the big hands.

1st - 263,500 - _FlaxmarZ_
2nd - 159,600 - MK376
3rd - 102,600 - xqsays
4th -  80,200 - nfa1080
5th -  60,300 - JBS07
6th -  40,000 - lonolin
7th -  35,100 - pocket-five
8th -  26,700 - papychulo777
9th -  19,800 - Highbury90

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.

Happy Hour Full Tilt Player Points

Have you seen the smiley faces in the lobby at Full Tilt Poker? I guess they are trying to build traffic at certain times, possibly looking to attract more European players, an area of sales Full Tilt has been trying to improve this year. Anyway, if you do play one of the ring games or tournaments that has a happy face alongside, it simply means you can earn up 3 times the amount of Full Tilt Player Points... 

Full Tilt Points can be used to enter tournaments, especially qualifiers, and you can also shop online at Full Tilt's store for poker related apparel and gadgets.

Sit and Go Bankrolling

Playing Sit and Go Tournaments at Full Tilt Poker with Proper Bankroll Management is still a BIG mystery to most online poker players.

I loaded up my tournament indicator poker calculator and played a full slate of sit and go games over the weekend at Full Tilt, Poker Stars, and Cake Poker. I am happy to report that I made upward trends in the bankroll at each website, but not without the usual frustrating bad beats and random coolers getting in the way on occasion.

The good thing about bad beats is that someone has made an error playing against you, so really, they are bound to give their winning back simply because of indisputable laws of poker math. Poor decisions will result, over time, in losing money. However, the poor decisions do not necessarily start at the table. As I found while playing this weekend, table buy-in and competition is your first big decision.

You can view the lobby of a sit and go tournament while it is filling up, so when I play the $20 and $30 buy-ins I sharkscope my opponents before I commit. There was one 9 seated $30 table that had 4 players patiently waiting for 5 more entries. I scoped each one of those players to find they were all sharks with rounder style graphs reaching for the sky – all four of them I am not kidding. Even when I play my best, these guys know how to adapt and exploit my weaknesses to the point it made no sense for me to join that table. In fact, I think at least two of them should have reconsidered playing that sit and go. I mean why seek out the toughest competition? So that was a good decision for me.

In joining other games that day at these levels however, the above example was actually rare. I researched every opponent I had that day and found that the majority of players were playing above their bankroll. How do I know this? Well sharkscope does offer information like ROI%, but it also shows total profit and from there it’s easily discernable that a player sitting down at a 30 buck sit and go table with a lifetime earnings negative $338 simply shouldn’t be there.

At $20 and $30 sit and go tournaments your bankroll should be at least $500, To me a $1,000 is probably more like it, especially if your skills aren’t up to par with a bankroll you may have padded with a “fortunate” win.

Here are some other observations of random players I saw at these tables:

Total profit of $112 over 2,354 games.

Total profit of (negative) -$3,225 over 1,821 games.

Total profit of (negative) -$1,003 over 231 games.

It went on and on. Is it any wonder then that the majority of players lose money playing online poker? You simply are not giving yourself a chance to win in the long run, by playing tables higher than your bankroll allows. Astoundingly, at least 4 of every 9 players at at each table I searched over the weekend were there above their poker bankroll and long term losers at sit and go tournaments.

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.

Eddie S.

Hey Marty.. Love the MZone videos they were great... I have bought the sit and go 3PAKK and the MTT5PAK videos and the poker calculator Tournament Indicator. Also I have signed up for the sit and go report and the MZone report. I play almost always sit and go tournaments though never multi-table.... Well I mean sometimes ... but I am trying to find further reading on sit and go strategy... I am a winning sit and go tournament player but of very small stakes. I have read Collin Moshman's Sit and Go tournament Book... which was very good. I also bought Johhny Rothman's sit and Go Pro, after hearing good things about it ..... but i was very disappointed about it lack of information and it only tells obvious things that most people know already. Other than that i cant find anything that has to do with sit and go's.  I seem to only find multi-table tournament strategy's and i thought maybe you might know some books i could buy or maybe some other places to look. I saw on your site that you read Dan's Harrington's books. Is that to do with Sit and Go's to or just Multi-table Tournaments... I also signed up for real poker training but i found there sit and go tournament teachings to be a bit basic...... If you know of any sources i could look into or programs to buy on the internet or any good books, you have read that might be useful to me ... I would greatly appreciate it ....
    thanks for your time ....
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And I look forward for the next Mzone point series video.......