Live versus Online Poker

There is no real definitive answer to which form of poker is better.  The decision is largely academic  and down to your personal preferences.

Live tournaments allow you more data from your opponent's presence you can't get online. Live tournaments in general offer you more time to think, and consider your opponent. Live tournaments mean you are stuck playing one game at a time. Live tournaments require travel, hotel room expenses, away from home.  You miss out on your family and your home.

Online tournaments give you more computer tools to supplement the current hand. Online tournaments have the tightest rules on reacting, so much you will find yourself timing out with hard decisions. Online poker gives you multiple tables at once. In fact, in online poker you can play on multiple websites simultaneously. Online poker can be played in your bathrobe in the bathtub (Yes, I've done it). The most flexibility with the hardest rules governing your play.

Heads Up Final Table... Part 2

Ok I was playing just a generic $3.30  ($1000 guaranteed) tournament last night on Full Tilt Poker when I should have been sleeping.  I was just clocking some time on a cash table and said, what the heck, I'll just enter a cheap touranment just in case I get some really good cards.

Well, I played well and ran good so I ended up in the money.  At that point, instead of playing conservatively I played suicidal right after the money bubble because I wanted to go to sleep.  Well, this worked in the opposite way...  I placed second in the tourney.

I knocked out a couple of people in the process and had a table chip lead.  But I was super aggressive - going all in against players trying to make the the final table so they avoided me to a point.  It worked so well I sailed into the final table while the other players had to hang on to diminishing chip stacks. 

I could have won it had I played a little smarter with 3 people left, I doubled up the eventual winner a couple of times, but I was really really tired and wanted to sleep!  And I ran into Aces on the final hand, but I'm pretty happy with a $160 win for a $3.30 entry.

N.B.  It may seem magical to read how " lucky" I am in these posts, but you must consider I am a super-experienced player.  I just haven't devoted my life to being a "rounder".  If you start out and can't make a final table twice in two days it's understandable.  I didn't either a few years ago. But I have learned how to do it. Even with a low buy-in, in both tournaments the player field was about 300 people, not a sit&go of one table, so it wasn't that easy either.

Heads up Final Table

I just won the Extralator Sunday night on Full Tilt Poker.  No big deal.  I had played really tight until we were down to 64 of about 300 players. Paid $15 to win about $300.
Anyways, when I got to the final table it was all-in or nothing most of the time and since I had played so tight early on - I even took a half hour break playing no cards - that  they gave me respect.

But when I got heads up I was super aggressive.  Now, it wasn't without reason, I was using my player image and the other runner up had doubled me up calling with fours when I had Kings.  He had seen me only show top hands to win pots. This is the power of player image.  When we started heads up, he was slightly ahead of me in chips after knocking out the third player.  I had about 170,000 and he had about 190,000.  Now when chip stacks are about even it is really a question of who gets the best cards first.  It's sort of like a gunfight duel.  I had just gotten Aces and Kings at the final table so I wasn't expecting much in the way of cards. In heads up you both have position and both have the chance to represent the flop. So the only advantages you can get are luck - that you can't control - and skill.

It just so happened I made a full house Queens over eights while my opponent had the nut flush.  I wanted to go all in but that would have been too big a bet for the pot.  I wanted a call more than a fold and he hesitated so he didn't want to give up the lead either.  My third pot value bet got paid off by nut flush and I was the chip leader.

I decided not to rely on cards from then on.  In fact, I flopped three full houses in the next seven flops.  Total luck fest.  But that's not where I made most of my chips.  Those were call and fold hands. When I made chip leader I went all in with any suited cards and put the shorter stack to the test whenever I played. If he raised first I reraised all in to make him decide. Otherwise I folded. It worked. He folded lots of chips to me in the process of me working to about 140% his stack.

 He told me after, " I guess I gave you too much respect..."  He was right.  I reasoned that I need to lose two big pots to lose but he couldn't afford to lose one. So he folded until he had an ace and got fed up. I had 9-5 diamonds and he had Ace four offsuit.  I made the last full house Fives over Nines to win.  But if I had lost I would just go all-in and either regain even chips or lose.  Either way he had to beat me twice to win, but he couldn't afford one loss. That is the power of first aggressor as I call it first position. I went first all in or reraised all in to make the decision his not mine.  He played rationally and folded.  He didn't want to commit unless he was sure he was going to win. But those kind of hands are so rare he was going to be out of chips before that happened. In the end he made a pair of aces and it didn't matter.

Like I said with even chip stacks it's really a coin flip to win. But if you play smart you can increase your advantage to win.

If your opponent has a better hand, you will hear about it

Good hands are rare.  So when your opponent gets a better hand than top pair, you will hear about it.  At some point you will be reraised.  Since good hands are rare then these are the times everyone will try to extract the most value. 

The most important fact is most people don't have the courage to bet like they have the nuts without it.

So in general, if you get reraised, you are being put to the test.

Tournament Chip Bully

You may not likea tournament chip bully - someone with 100 big blinds or more - but they serve a useful purpose.  It is annoying to be raised and reraised by someone who can price you out of a reasonable hand.  And it gets tiresome watching that person rake more and more chips in the early levels of a tournament. It seems like karmic redistribution left you out of the riches stacked up in front of them.  And it feels like everything you do when you oppose them is subject to be your last move at the tournament.

And that's exactly why you need them.

Tournaments are full of good players who can wait around with small stacks - playing disciplined poker -  waiting for aces or kings and survive into the money.  But not everyone can make it to the money - you don't want that.  You need people to be robbed of their chances ( their inevitable kings or aces) before they get there and double up.

Enter the chip bully. He or she will raise you with middle pair or call your all in with a straight draw not because they are foolish but because they are doing their best to eliminate players.  You want those players out as much as they do.  Chip bullies got their massive stacks by outsmarting or outlucking players early on and they just keep their foot on the gas pedal trying to  get rid of the rest of you.  That's the job of a chip leader - weed out the foolish.

Here is the reality: a chip bully may have a better chance of making the money than the average player waiting for good cards.  Sure, if they are not just foolish they can pause if their stack gets too small and just coast into the money.

But after the money bubble and before the final table there is no guarantee they will make the final table.  During the post-money bubble phase, there will be lots of people going all-in and doubling with races like Aces versus kings, suited connectors versus pairs and so on.  And so at this point people who were passively riding out the bubble may develop as many chips as an early chip bully. Suddenly a chip bully with a superior stack runs into aces, and then kings. Or loses a race and becomes just an average stack.  Then they have no more advantage than the rest of the players.  Sometimes they do worse than normal because they are so used to winning with marginal hands they don't know how to slow down and wait for cards.

So remember that next time you are frustrated by a chip bully.  They are your ally to the money.

Full Tilt Poker - Tournament Patience Factor

Full Tilt Poker - Tournament Patience Factor

I made a simple spreadsheet to calculate the patience factor for various no limit Hold'em tournaments for curiosity.  It was hard to find the tournament blind structures for all but I did manage to make a simple one for a generic 3000 starting chip tournament. 

As you may know, the patience factor is a number that is a rough guide to how patient you can be - basically sit and wait for a good hand - until your chips run out.  This is a measure based on your starting chips, the blind structure, how long you think a hand will take, and so on.  It's not perfect but it gives you an idea if you need to start making moves with weaker hands or if you can wait for the right situation. It can help you figure out which tournaments are better for you.

For an online 3000 chip tournament on Full Tilt Poker with an estimated 5 minutes to play each hand, then you get a patience factor of about 1.75 hours. 

The Bigger, The Harder

There are lots of truism about poker; the one the occurred to me today was just a simple as the bigger the buy-in, the bigger the stakes then the better the players.  That doesn't mean that all the players are on the same level.  It doesn't mean that you won't get lucky or unlucky.  It doesn't mean you won't have a good run of cards or not. 

What the better poker players means is that you will have to outthink, contest more, and risk more to do well. And the higher you go then the worse it gets.  People will figure you out if they have you outclassed, if they are a better memory, or if they are better at creating self doubt.  If you look around the table and everyone else is more experienced or skillful, then who do you think they are ready to prey on? 

So when you are starting out it would be foolish and costly to play at stake with players that are out of your league.  It's like trying to play against world class sports players when you started last week.  Play at the lowest levels first because that's where you can expect to almost break even. 

Trapping yourself

Poker hands are one form of gambling where the odds you are winning vary moment to moment but the payoff is capped. If you are playing against one opponent then the most you can win in any one hand (ignoring the blinds) is double up. And the worst you can do is lose what you have. 

If you were betting on horse racing and put $20 on a 100 to 1 odds (1% ) underdog, you lose $20 most times but maybe you can win $200 for that same race.  The fact is your odds don't change moment to moment.

Top pair, top kicker is winning most hands on the flop, with a winning percentage of maybe 60% or more. But with flush card or straight cards to draw to, your hand value can fall to 0%.

So while a sure thing like top pair, top kicker may be good on the flop, it tends to turn into a worthless hand from time to time.  Sinking more money on a beaten hand is worse than a low odds play- you may be trapping yourself to lose money on a worthless hand. 

People talk about trapping with big hands, sets, straight flushes and so on.  But the most important trap detection skill is the everyday avoiding bad board textures that will beat top pair hands.

Tilt Factor

I guess the one human condition that can be exploited universally is when people lose control. We ALL lose control; some are better than others at containing their emotions.  Some are masters of repression. But in general; most people have a range of feelings that will come on under stress, duress, hurt feelings and the like. Emotions lead to the older biological side of our brains taking over and suppressing the cooler rational parts of our brain.

One of the worst things to do at the poker table is lose control of your emotions.  That is the easiest way to make a mistake. Mistakes are made when people don't think about all the factors that go into a big decision; they just make a decision.  Big mistake.  When your livelihood rests on interpreting others then you have to think through all their actions, and why they made them.  How can you do that if you are not sane?

Look at the elite poker table and the players there all look like they got free samples at the Zoloft convention. Not a lot of action going on even though people are winning other people's money or tournament chips worth $1000's of dollars.
Imagine what it would take a to make a bunch of millionaires become unemotional drones?  Simple, it's a learned response.  They all had great victories and crushing defeats and came to the conclusion that hey, it's a lot easier if you are not fighting your emotions along the way as well.  They realized it just makes more money for them if they turn it off at the door. Put another way, of all the poker wannabes out there maybe the best of them prevailed BECAUSE they could keep their emotions in check?

So if you know you can put someone on tilt - to play emotionally - then why not do it?

If you know that you can be put on tilt, then why let them do it to you?

Phil Hellmuth: Upper Class Twit of the Year

I've always marvelled at the ego and arrogance of the greatest poker players. Yes, some of them are nice people - most of them I'm sure - but some of them simply can't fit in the same room with their ego.  Sometimes all the glory that comes along with just being luckier from time to time can mistake that fortune for pure skill.

Take Phil Hellmuth.  His over the top antics have amused me for years. He feels the need to explain to everyone that tricks him how badly they played and how much he deserved to win instead.  Funny stuff.  Just look at the video( Phil Hellmuth, cry baby! ) to see what kind of antics follow being outdrawn. Of course Tom Dwan doesn't lack ego either but at least he's got some perspective.

...or...

or

I could go on...

But now I've figured out what Phil Hellmuth's problem is.  He has become so used to the rarefied air of professional poker players is that he feels entitled to win.  He has an entitlement to your money.  In his eyes, you only have a slim chance to beat him while you are basking in his magnificence.  It's not a competition, it's a donation.

This explains why he has such a problem with people fighting back. They didn't read the memo, it's simply not done!  There was a comedy skit that, to me, reminds me of the antics of Phil Hellmuth:   Upper Class Twit of the Year

These twits couldn't figure out the rules either.

The professional advantage

There are two traits that can separate the good from the bad, and the ugly when it comes to poker skill.  To understand and to master them is the goal of any good player.

What they aren't is luck. Luck is universal.  Bad luck too. The card distribution you see is going to make you lucky and unlucky - make you look like a genius and a fool alternating with a roller coaster of swings.

The two key traits are patience and observation.

Patience means the willingness to wait for better times, better cards or better opportunities to make things happen. If you get upset or flustered and just do something stupid it will cost you more. It means taking a bad beat with a smile and laughing it off. It means pushing back from the table to regroup.

Observation means the willingness to watch and record everything you see, hear and smell at the poker table.  You need to go over and over the hands as they played out and understand why they did what they did when they did it. Does that make sense? Maybe you weren't paying attention?

You need to know if the player understands what a flush is and whether or not they are afraid of one. You need to know if they will call you with just one pair on the board.

How to Deal With Donkeys

Poker is full of people with different experience, skill, and comprehension.  It's a skill like riding a bike and some people can jump a gorge with a bike and others can barely deal with keeping it upright.

So the question is, when it comes to bad players, is how do you deal with them?  There are some that will not understand why their play was foolish, or how you tricked them into doing something dumb.

Here is the reality; some of them will never understand how badly they played. Some will get it and look back and realize the stupidity.  Hitting a 2 outer or even a one outer to beat you may not have been realized, but they are so busy raking in the chips they won't consider the incredible luck they had.

The reality is: every one who sits down is dangerous.  You cannot stop that. You cannot avoid risk in a risky endeavour like gambling. 

Since you can't change anything about either the cards or your opponents then you have to be able to overcome the adversity and not let it affect you.  Instability leads to bad decisions on your part that you will need luck to sort out. And if you're good you are trying not to just "get lucky". You are trying to exploit the weakness when the advantage is yours.