Right Then! The Month is Up!
February 6, 2007
Bit of a long one today..Right then! The month playing the strategy is up and the consensus is….
Inconclusive…Sort of…In parts…
One of the hardest things for me to do, was deciphering my own notes. I had created a text document and I just opened that whenever I entered a MTT game and added a line or two of comments.
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Yet when I tried reading back over my comments document, there were totally obscure words thrown in there on separate lines, like “Power-Regeneration”.. “TPS”.. something about a player called “MadMickey” etc.After 15 minutes of wracking my brains I just deleted these entries and put them down to random doodling of the 4am, 8 beers and a couple vodka shots variety. Anyhow on with the results and analysis.Let’s get the results out of the way first. All of these games were NL Hold’em. The asterisk (*) denotes making the money.
That is not a bad set of stats to be honest, making the money 8 times out of 11 is pretty good going. Each game had it’s own foibles and story to tell and I did desperately try to stick to the strategy of very open play during the opening 25% of the game. This was not always as easy as it sounds, a couple of the bigger games I played along with some friends from my poker league. They will attest how difficult it was to open up the game book, because there were literally troops of monkey’s in the games. Particularly games 2, 3, 5 and 6. In a couple of those I went audio with Gopher and we were stunned at the number of all in bets flying around the felt. We fully expected this early on, but it persisted right up to the last 25% of the game. It was simply impossible to open up the game under these circumstances. As it was we both boxed clever and were sitting mid table when we both went out at the exact same time. I lost to quads with a full house and Gopher lost to erm.. I forget, but it was something like flush to a full house. What is of note amongst that list of results is the games where I made the better money, (top 4 finish) each and every time I was a dominant chip stack from very early on. I made nice stacks early from playing very open hands, mid suited connectors, ace 8, 9 that sort of thing. Once I had the stack, I found it is usually pretty much a cruise then through to the final table. You still have to dodge the monkey’s along the way, but with the large stack you can call the shots, take some hits and make some hits, yet maintain some control of your table. Here is a direct quote from my notes on the one tournament I won, just to show an example of my mindset at the time and how that game progressed. Excuse any typo’s this is a direct cut and paste from the comments document, which was written live.
I wasn’t overly concerned on my overall standing in the competition, though I did keep on eye on it. I was more concerned with my standing at my table, it is a pointless distraction fretting over who has what on the other tables, you can have no influence on any table except the one you are playing on. All you can do is win your table until you are moved and then start over again. So did the strategy pay off/work? Well, yes and no. When you get the right cards at the correct time and play them hard as the strategy suggests you can hit very big very quickly. It seems the key is, at the very least triple up from your starting stack as quickly as possible, from that position you are usually chip leader or thereabouts on your table. This obviously enables you to take a hit or two when playing an open book strategy, but by being selective on when and who you open the book up against the odds are that you’ll make more than you lose over those early hands. From here on, you are far more in control of your tournament life, you can change gears as and when you decide and not when the dealer decides. I found that after risking my tournament life early and tripling up there was no need for me to go all-in again, pot raises and large bets were enough to do the job from then on. What it comes down to at the end of the day is this; no matter what strategy you employ, be it open book aggressive, tight passive/aggressive, if you do not get the cards you simply do not have a strategy in play. Yet that is not totally true, what it should say is if you do not get the right cards then a fixed strategy will not work. I think the key is to have more than one strategy, several in fact. As I entered the tournaments with the fixed idea of playing this open book strategy, it soon became apparent that at many times that strategy was the wrong one to be applying. Adaptability and flexibility is of the utmost importance if you want to be able to progress through a tournament. Recognising when the open book strategy is not suitable is something you have to be very aware of and react accordingly and swiftly. Yet you also have to be able to recognise when it is suitable and similarly act swiftly and decisively. This is easier said than done, 45 minutes into a tournament and you have roughly the same amount of chips in front of you as when you started, it is very difficult not to clamp down and protect your stack even though the table is screaming for someone to make those moves. So in summary; open book works with caveats, those caveats being, having the ability to recognise and switch strategy, swiftly and decisively. I’ll certainly be starting all my MTT games with the open book strategy, but it will not be a fixed strategy. If I have to sit back I will, but I’ll also be looking all the way to get back to the open book game as soon as possible, it will not always be possible of course but if the opportunity arises… well.. 8 times in the money out of 11 seems to me at least something was working right. As all the pro’s tell us “aggression is king”, get an early stack and swing that sword folks it seems the pro’s might be right… As for the rest of the month. Aside from those MTT games I have not really played a lot of poker, a couple of cash tables here and there, a couple of sit and go’s. I am in profit for the month but nothing overly exciting. I am having a hot streak in my league at the moment, out of 8 games entered I have won 6 and placed top 5 in another. Won a ticket to a tournament that pays the winner buy ins to $1000 games at Las Vegas with expenses. Not bad for $2 buy in. My online poker buddy Dog is back and starting to get warmed again (took me out in a sit and go last night where we ended heads up against each other, he was overdue one though hehe..) so I’ll have to keep an eye on him. Sat and chatted through a MTT with my mate Gopher during the month just gone and watched him take down $300 for a $5 buy-in. Nice one Goph! Guess that is about it for now folks.. good luck on the felt and watch out fer them monkey players in the MTT games, especially early on and especially if their name happens to be Blagger.
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Comments
6 Responses to “Right Then! The Month is Up!”
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Great going in the results mate, so the open book strategy did work to a certain extent. I agree with you though that you must be able to adapt your strategy to certain situations. There’s not a lot you can do if you aren’t getting the cards.
I find, when I’m ‘card dead’ I will eventually get a very good hand like QQ only to find someone holding AA or KK. I’m wise enough in this situation not to go ‘gung-ho’ pre-flop but usually end up busted out anyway after seeing a good flop only for it to be even better for my oponent.
I like the idea of notating the hands you played during a tournament, even if you have little ramblings along the way! I just can’t be bothered going through a sites hand history to see whats went wrong or went right during a tournament. Reading your own notes taken for the hands that YOU play, (as well as any observational notes) would be interesting. One to try in the very near future!
Once again, well done on the placings mate! A highly succesfull strategy trial with a lot of things learned in the process. Surely the way to becoming a better player!
Hi Gopher! … yeah there was a lot more I wanted to write about the month’s experiences, but I didn’t want to turn the blog into a serialised novel.
I’ll make another blog entry towards the weekend and try to include some of the things that I think were of note, whilst playing the wild bingo MTT games. Particularly the sort of hands you just mentioned QQ, KK etc.
What did emerge through the month is that there is no definitive magical formula, not a precise science is it. You are correct it was a good learning curve and I should keep the notes and stuff as an ongoing exercise, it can only have a positive effect eh..
Getting the cards and a little Luck is the key isn’t it?
When you say “opening up” I assume you mean that your starting hand requirements “open up”. You will call more hands and see if they hit. If they do, you aggressively play the hand.
I say luck because I was playing a little last night and was trying that too but even with a good hand it is hard to get the Monkeys to fold.
For example: I was starting to get a liitle low stacked. The guy to my left was calling almost every hand and whether he hit or not, if no one bet, he would bet and keep betting until the river.
I was in the small blind. everyone else folded. I had A Q off. Pumped it up to 4 or 5 times the big blind. He calls. Flop comes A Q rag. I go all in. He calls with A K. I figured I was about to double up until a K hit on the turn.
So, the plan was in place, the trap was set, the conditions were right, but luck kicked me right in the…well you know.
The opportunities are endless. You get the ones that think a A rag is an all in hand or, calling with a K 7 on a raise is a smart play, chasing flushes, chasing str8’s, etc. But, you still need the cards/hand to win.
It is very frustrating to know what is happening but being powerless to take advantage of the situation.
Good job on all of the high placements!
Hi Dave
Well I would agree with the sentiment “you cannot beat luck” and certainly getting the cards really helps, I am not sure if this what I would call “key” though. Of course if you are drawing stone cold cards hand after hand then there isn’t much you can do, agreed.
What I think is key when playing bingo monkey players, is which cards you do play, not necessarily the cards you’d think either. I’ll touch on this ‘idea/theory’ on the next blog entry.
Yes, by opening up the book I mean opening up the number of starting hands I would play, instead of maybe only playing top 20+ starting ranks I will push that to the top 40-50 rankings and even maybe up to the top 70 rankings at times.
The example you gave of your beat, though unlucky wasn’t a stupid luck beat. Without knowing the suits the opponent was probably around 13-15% so a real dog to catch yah out, but not massively so. If he had flush draws or backdoor flush draws that will obviously pump his % a little more.
But I hear yah frustration man.. Just played a SNG a few minutes ago and totally played my ass off, managed to get to heads up from a stack of 300 with 5 left in. I couldn’t have played it better, get to heads up and take the lead with 11,000 chips the opponent had gone from massive chip leader to 3000. Pulled AQ in the hole he went all in and I lost to his 10-J. A few hands later holed a 10-10 he went all in I called he showed Q-9 and I lost again to a Q on the turn. Very next hand he is all in again I had holed A-10 he shows A-8 and yup.. an 8 hits the river..
Nope you cannot beat luck but you can work very hard to eliminate luck out of the game as much as possible and that is all you can do.
Later bud..
I myself will never believe any one formula works with a contributable profit, with one exception, “Experience”
You have percentage players, numbers (mathamatical) players, odds players, collusion players, and so on and so on.
Not one single type of player wins consistantly enough to prove anything to me.
Some players are easily locked into one style of play because it worked long enough to convince them that this was the only way to play, only to get clobbered to the point that the realization finally sets in that it INDEED aint.
One only has to watch poker on TV to understand that even the pro’s throughout several years of viewing change their ways of thinking.
We’ve all seen all types of numbers players, rocks, loose, or whatever , have to bow to reality and shift strategies.
One factor in poker never has and never will change. “LUCK”
That’s whats so fun about it.
I have had times where a bad beat really use to piss me off. Anymore, say within the last month or two, I am not suprised by anything. So I have learned to pretty much laugh it off now.
Pretty much agree with that Lippy.. As I said in the main post “Adaptability and flexibility is of the utmost importance if you want to be able to progress through a tournament.”
Experience isn’t exactly a formula as such, but I know what you mean, experience equates to being able to mix the strategies/formula’s up, as and when the table dynamics dictate.
The “Luck” element will come bite yah in the ass or kiss yah on the cheek, and you have no control over when it will pop up either.
But over the course of a year’s playing, if you play it right, the luck should even itself out and your skills will determine your profit/loss.
In theory.. lol