The big final

So I played the $100k final on the weekend. In fact, it was 130 players for a $130k prize fund. My first tournament at a really serious level. It was a deepstacked tournament - 10000 chips with 45 minute levels, so also pretty slow going. I was prepared to play pretty tight, solid poker for the early stages.

I did pretty well early on, winning a couple of decent pots to go to around 13000. From there it was treading water for a long time. I didn't see a lot of playable cards, and when I did get playable starting hands I nearly always missed the flop. When the blinds got bigger, I made a few bluffs but a couple of times I ran into big hands and had to give it up.

There was one old guy on our table who was just playing insane poker. On one hand I saw him call huge bets on the flop and turn, and check the river. He had a bad ace high against top pair jacks and hit his ace on the river - the other guy was furious. He very frequently played any two cards to a raise preflop and played passively postflop whether he had hit or not. Despite the atrocious play, he was chipleader on our table for most of the day.

In the end it was the old bloke who put me out. He limped in middle position along with the SB when I was on the BB. I raised for about half of my smallish stack (about 3x the blind at this point), holding A4 suited. Flop was J99, check-check. Turn was a small card giving me a flush draw and I move all-in. Guy shows J7 offsuit, and my outs don't show. I think I played it right, and was just unlucky that he hit his rags.

Overall, I played seven and a half 45 minute levels, for maybe 240 hands or so. Summary of the cards I saw:

Pocket pairs: KK (raised, no callers), JJ (won on an A high flop), TT (raised, no callers), 99 (made a boat and took a big pot), 66 (limped, no set), 44 (limped, no set), 33 (folded preflop), 22 (folded preflop).
Decent starting hands: AKs (raised, no callers), AKo (raised, no callers), AQox2 (one time raised and folded to a massive reraise, another time missed the flop and folded to a big bet), AJs (won on A high flop), AT once or twice, can't remember what happened, A9s (nut flush on river, small pot since it was early).

Flushes: one, straights: none, full houses: one, sets: none, trips: none, two pair: none, top-pair-top-kicker: none..

I think that's a bit of a dry run for over six hours of play...

Lies, damn lies...

Pretty huh?

I've been doing a few stats. The above images represent the preflop statistics of each hand against respectively one and nine random opponents. Suited hands are on the horizontal axis, and unsuited hands on the vertical. AA is in the top left corner. Red and blue indicate respectively high and low win rates.

Walking back to Houston

They say that AK is also known as "walking back to Houston".

I played two freerolls last night: A $30k WSOP freeroll at Titan, and a $5k freeroll at Pacific. I did well early on Titan, doubling up with KK and winning a few small pots. But the cards dried up approaching first break, and I busted out in 122nd (out of 270) with an AK coinflip vs 66.

On Pacific I fared better, making it to the last 28 with an above average stack (about 7k). With the blinds at 200/400 and two limpers, I raised to 1000 with the magic AK again. All fold to UTG who pushes all-in. I put it down to a bit of a tilty push as a result of a pot I pushed him off a few hands earlier. I call, and he shows KJ. Naturally the J shows up on the flop, I fail to improve, and exit in 28th.

Had I won the pot, I would have been roughly tournament leader and in with a good shot at the $1500 first place. Oh well, I'm saving all my luck for the $100k event next weekend anyway..

Bankroll management

A poker player's bankroll is the total amount he or she is willing to risk playing poker. Once the bankroll is gone, the poker stops (in theory at least).

Bankroll management is one of the most important skills for a successful poker player. Many a winning poker player has been undone by playing at too high a level for his bankroll. The reason is that poker is still a game of chance - even if you are a winning player, a bad run of cards will cause you to lose money. You need to play at low enough limits that your bankroll is able to absorb the bad runs, and keep you in the game until the cards turn good again.

My rules of thumb are as follows:

• Playing no-limit, pot-limit or SnGs, I am will not usually put more than 1/20th of my bankroll on the table
• Playing limit, I usually buy in for 15 big bets, and again put no more than 1/20th of my roll on the table
• For MTTs, I usually risk less - perhaps up to 1/50th of my roll
• Perhaps most importantly, only play at a limit or table that I am fairly confident of beating. This sometimes means playing for a lot less than 1/20th of bankroll, if I am not yet confident of beating the next limit up.
  

These are only guidelines, and I may break them in the right circumstances. For example, I may play a higher limit if I am chasing a big fish, or if it looks like a particularly profitable game. When my bankroll was very small, I was often playing for more than 1/20th, but in games that I was very confident of beating. Another occasional exception is chasing bonuses - where playing super tight at a higher level table can be the most profitable strategy.

The most important thing is to be disciplined about bankroll management. If you move to a higher limit, and find yourself losing, it is very important to move back down a level when your bankroll is no longer big enough for the limit. It is very easy to bust out while chasing your losses at a too-high limit.

There is nothing magic about the 1/20th ratio, it's just what is comfortable for me. Others may be comfortable risking more or less. But if you do risk a higher percentage of bankroll, discipline in moving down a limit is even more important.

Note: These strategy posts may sound as if I am preaching to an audience. I am quite aware that my blog audience is approximately zero. These posts are written with the purpose of clarifying my own thought, and keeping track of my own progress and thinking in poker.

Cashout race

Two nights ago, I processed simultaneous cashouts from four different sites: VC, Titan, Bodog and Pacific. I thought it would be interesting to compare the cashout times.

The surprising winner was Bodog, which processed the payment in only about two hours. Titan was next at around 24 hours, followed quickly by VC. Of course I am still waiting forPacific, with it's terrible policy of not even looking at cashout requests for 3 days (even then I needed to contact support last time).

Bad Beat!!

I played another live tournament last night, and as you can probably deduce from the post title, things didn't go quite so well this time.

I think I played ok on the whole. I doubled up early with a couple of good hand including a nut flush.

I had one brain fade in the middle, playing A8 suited on the button with about four runners. Flop came AQJ, and I bet my top pair and four flush. Turn was a T, and it was checked around - was the K slowplaying? I was happy to take a free card. River 9, and there was a modest bet to me, which I called. I completely failed to notice I had made the 8-Q straight, but luckily I showed my cards after the first player showed his QT two pair.

After that, I had a run of great preflop cards (AK, AQ, AJs etc), but hit no flops. I was unwilling to push it on a calling table. Speaking of the table, I saw some of the worst plays from two big stacks, including a preflop call of 1000 all-in (blinds 75/150) with Q9 offsuit! The same player later made a similar call (1125 all-in) with JT 0ffsuit. Sadly I was unable to capitalise on such dreadful play myself.

Later on, I was moved to another table, where the chipleader was having an extraorinary run of big pairs. He claimed to have played AA seven times in the 3 hours the tournament had been running. Judging by what I saw, I believe him!

And so to the bad beat. I was pretty short stacked by now (2700 with average over 5000), and was delighted to pick up AA on the button - my first decent pocket pair all night. Not only that, but UTG goes all in for 2800, and short stack to my right goes in with his remaining 800 or so. Inevitably my chips go in, and the other players show KK and A6s. I am a huge favourite, but sadly the poker gods are not smiling as a king appears on the flop. A second spade appears on the turn to give outs to the second player, but neither of us found salvation on the river. Busted with AA - at least I went out with the best of it. I finished 27th out of 100, which wasn't too bad. If my aces held up, I would have been in pretty healthy shape to make the final table. Mac made about 34th, another respectable effort.