She Plays Poker

Since I know next to nothing about either the WSOP nor the US internet gambling ban, I’ll let someone else do the writing today.

The best of the WSOP coverage - and links to everyone else’s - is at Tao of Poker.

Meanwhile things are looking bad in the States for online poker as the Senate gets ready to follow the House and vote for a ban. Iggy has some good stuff - the guy sounds seriously worried, and he’s been around forever. Even The Economist is on the case. However Lou Krieger however says don’t worry.

I guess the only place you should really follow the action is on an online betting exchange making a market in its own demise.

Posted by nick jacob at 11:11 AM | Permalink |

So maybe I've been running hot, so what? Two days back in, I'm at 5BB/100 and can hardly remember what a bad beat is. Perhaps I learnt more than I thought over at 6-max. 

Posted by nick jacob at 06:54 PM | Permalink |

I’ve now played around 87,000 hands of 6-max at various levels since the beginning of the year, after switching from full-ring at which I played around 50,000 hands. That’s a lot of times to decide whether to check, bet, raise or fold. I wonder how many people in normal jobs have made 240,000 decisions that affect their take-home pay. Ever.

But break it down. By far the hardest decisions are the ones that occur post-flop. Pre-flop play is usually straightforward: you know which hands you like to play and where, and just do it on auto-pilot. So what’s the difference between full-ring and 6-max for post-flop decisions (let’s call them PFD’s)?

It works out that I’ve made 30,000 post-flop decisions at full-ring playing in those 50,000 hands, seeing 245 hands per hour. That’s 147 PFD/hour. I’ve won at 1.2BB/100 hands during that time, so each 100 PFDs have earned 2BB.

At 6-max the corresponding numbers are 80,000 PFDs, 313 hands per hour, 287 PFDs/hour, a winrate of 0.87BB/100 hands, and just 0.91BB/100 PFDs.

Are you still with me? It means that not only am I forced to make twice as many stressful decisions in each hour of 6-max play, but each one has been earning me half as much as in a full-ring game.

Theoretically each PFD you get to make correctly earns you money against opponents making PFD’s wrongly. So the more PFD’s you make, the more money you make. It hasn’t worked out like that for me, and I wonder if has for you? I’d speculate that it doesn’t quite happen like this because a large portion of winrate comes from pre-flop not post-flop decisions.

I’ve learnt a lot playing 6-max. All the usual things about isolation, aggression and blinds-play. I think that it is still the most potentially profitable way to play limit hold’em. But you have to be able to sustain an absurdly high decision-making rate. And I can’t keep doing it.

It’s time to get back into the full-ring.

Posted by nick jacob at 07:30 PM | Permalink |

I’ve been tinkering with the website. Commenting by Haloscan is now active - so please, somebody say something sometime.

If you’re interested in me, there’s now a short bio here, and on the re-jigged sidebar.

And I’ve added a review of The Man Behind the Shades - The Rise and Fall of Stuey ‘The Kid’ Ungar, Poker’s Greatest Player, to the Books section, also on the sidebar.

Posted by nick jacob at 05:11 PM | Permalink |

Three days back and what a start. It was you playing Pacific 3/6 on Thursday? So you thought it would be funny to super-semi bluff your gutshots at my trips. And hit. And hit again. And again? No fucking way. Did you feel no compassion?

That was a pretty big hole to climb out of. That was a lot of marginal value bets worth of climbing. But I made it, and then some more, and then I went on a roll of my own. Who’s laughing now?

Seriously, when I left I’d been playing against a line-up so passive you‘d think opium was cool again. Someone bets into you and it can only be quads. Get check-raised and it’s the royal. Suddenly I come home, tanned and relaxed and it’s like Zinedine Zidane caught me in a threesome with his mother and sister. Plus ça change.

Posted by nick jacob at 05:06 PM | Permalink |

Just back. Two articles I filed before I left were published while I was away.

The first, this piece about coaching, is the best I’ve come up with yet - certainly the one I learnt most from, for which I have to thank Tommy Angelo, Bob Ciaffone, Donovan Panone, Eric Lindauer, and, once again, Stoxtrader. All their websites are more than worth looking at, though I could spend all day reading Tommy Angelo’s work. Check out ‘Stuck’ for a taste.

Is it time I got some coaching myself? Not quite. There are still plenty of things I’m doing wrong that I know how to do right. But when I’ve ironed out a few of those I think I’ll be giving one of these guys a call. I’d be interested if anyone reading has had any experience getting coached - use the comments link below. Somebody has to say something sometime.

The second piece is about poker software. At least it looks nice. Thanks though to all those who took the time to help, I hope I've done justice to your work.

No poker on Samos, but played plenty of gin with the huggable one. Favourite hand, I’m drawing live to about 5 outs with more than half the deck gone, but I can hardly peg her on anything. I make gin, she frowns and, for once, shows me her hand. “So frustrating, I was so close,” she sighs. I look and giggle. She’s got the 4 fives, 4,6,7 hearts and 7,8,9 clubs or something. She’s had them for about ten turns but still can’t see it. I’d better go win some money on Pacific now - I’m in trouble for telling that story when she gets home from work. It might need some serious making-it-up cash.

Posted by nick jacob at 04:10 PM | Permalink |

Samos was the birthplace of Pythagoras. By a unique geographical quirk of nature, the island is formed in the shape of a perfect right-angled triangle. Pythagoras, who liked to stroll around the island, soon realised that when he walked the long beach as many times as it was long, it took the same amount of time as when he walked each of the two short beaches as many times as they were short. Geometry was born.

Pythagoras later trimmed his beard and became a poker theoretician.

Damn I need this holiday. Back in a week.

Posted by nick jacob at 12:12 PM | Permalink |

At last. I’ve put together a five-day winning stretch and started to rebuild after June and early July had me on my knees. Lots of hand history reviews, reading on 2+2 and watching coaching videos have helped, though mainly I think it’s going back to Pacific. The games play at an average 40% VPIP 12% PFR, compared to say 35%/15% at Crypto - and all those extra loose-passive opponents make it much, much easier to play confidence-building poker. Yes, they have the worst software on the net. Yes, they take more rake than anywhere else. No, you can’t get a rakeback deal. But they really do have all the fish.

I recommend taking a look at Stoxtrader’s low-limit videos. Even if your game is already perfect - which I guarantee it’s not - it’s just good to see a great player in the same games you play, making the same decisions you do. Stox’s commentary is clear, and he never makes a decision without giving a reason. Too often when I play I’m on auto-pilot, excusing myself because I’m playing three or four tables. Watching Stox play the same number of tables, though without even heads-up display, but still taking his time, thinking everything through and articulating the decision-making process shows what can be done and what needs to be done. Check out the site, he also does no-limit cash games, and the high-stakes videos are eye-opening. They’re also near enough free if you have a This Is The Nuts rakeback account.

Posted by nick jacob at 02:57 PM | Permalink |

Still spending most of my time writing. I’ve resolved to play only one table at a time, and a hundred hands maximum in a session (instead of 1500 hands a day), reviewing every hand until I’ve cleared my desk and can properly focus on what - if anything - is going wrong. It went ok this morning, up 13BB, no drama and no particularly interesting hands or villains.

Elsewhere in poker-land, I’ve been listening to Zog and Henry and their PokerDiagram podcast show. It’s a fun set up (“This is London calling… raising and folding.“) where they chat over a game, usually a PokerRoom multi-table tournament. Haven’t heard them win anything yet, though.

Finally, SunPoker have upped their monthly bonus to $150. Click here to get the details and here to download the client.

Posted by nick jacob at 03:16 PM | Permalink |

Who are these other guys playing online for a living? I thought I’d find a variety of geeky college students and McJob drop-outs but, no, if this is anything to go by, (and take away the kids) they’re not a world away from me. Published today, here’s a full-colour PDF scan of my latest article.

Posted by nick jacob at 11:07 AM | Permalink |