Building the Stack

It has been a while since my last entry. I apologize for my absence. In my previous blog I talked about the importance of recognizing tournament blind structure and changing your game to fit the game structure you are about to play. For example, you have the freedom to play more conservatively during a game with long/slow blind levels then you do in a game where the blinds move up quickly compared to your starting chips. Most poker players who are serious about making money have took the time to read a few poker books. This is definitely a great guideline to get you started, but what you really need to understand is you need to apply what you learned in those books and adapt them to your current tournament. This sometimes means that you need to adjust your starting requirements slightly to take advantage of your situation.

In the coming posts I will talk about what I have found to be +EV hands to play when compared to your position and stack size. The information revealed is a meer guideline; your current situation always dictates whether a move is correct or not. I believe that not only will the amateurs of the game find the following information helpful, but it will raise questions for some of the better players. I am not claiming the information to be 100% accurate, and the information is catered to fast tournaments. Tournaments that will blind you out in an hour (hour & half) or less if you do not play a hand. Feedback is always welcomed and I hope you enjoy reading my findings.

The guy who got blinded away

I think every poker player has at least done the following themselves or know someone who matches this description. Usually the following player is new to poker and taking the first steps in bettering their play. This player is the one who reads their first Harrington and feels they now have enough knowledge to play some tournaments. They jump online and take their shot at a decently sized MMT. Next thing this player knows is he is down to an M of 4 and is getting desperate. "FINALLY! Pocket Queens, definitely a hand I am shoving all in on the cutoff", thinks the player. The table folds to our player and he makes his shove. Big Blind calls with 7-8 suited and nails a straight. Our player is now on tilt and goes running to his friends to tell them about his bad beat story. Usually these stories go something like this, "I didn't played many hands, I followed what Harrington said. Play premium hands and start to discount suited connectors if your down on your chips. Now I am down to an M of 4 and dealt pocket Queens on the cutoff. I shoved all in and the guy calls with 7-8 suited and sucks out. How can he call me when I been tight the whole game with just 8 high? This is the worse bad beat ever".

What our player's friend should do is tell him the truth, it's not a bad beat. In fact, it was probably a really good call by the big blind and he just got unlucky. I see these type of post a lot on message forums; go to any poker site that has a "Bad Beat" section in their forums and you will see post like this. A lot of players, claiming to be knowledgeable - knowing their Harrington, still get busted out in similar fashion time and time again. Why?

The problem these players fail to realize is that when Harrington, and most other professional poker players, wrote their tournament books they did so with in mind structures of big MMT games (WPT/WSOP). These games have long blind levels and deep stacks and because of their structure you can wait for big hands and play conservatively. You can even play the opposite and take chances to get chips... you can play however you want because you have a lot of chips and time. When you look at online tournaments, most of them do not have such a relaxed structure. The blinds come up fast and they do sneak up on a lot of players. For an example let's take a look at a live tournament structure and an online structure, then let's compare the two and see what differences they have.

For our live tournament structure, let's use the 2005 Caribbean Poker Adventure. Players start with 10,000 in chips. The first 6 blind levels are:

For our online tournament structure, let's use the $26,000 Guarantee on Full Tilt Poker. Players start with 1,500 chips. The first 6 blind levels are:

At first glance the online tournament doesn't seem so bad. After all your going bust in the 6th level assuming you do not play nor win a hand in the live tournament while in the online tournament, at the same blind level, you have $1,150 of your starting $1,500. This can not be a bad thing, can it? Actually, it's not as good as it seems. Before I explain the reasoning behind this, let's take a deeper look on what the chart is representing.

Each chart outlines the values of the first six blind levels. They then take the starting chip amounts and calculate the average amount of times one would sit through the blind levels. For an average we use 20 minutes an orbit for live games and 12 minutes per online orbit. These of course are just averages and for simplicity we consider ten players per table. What these charts actually reveal to us are the blind off times for these two tournaments. In the 2005 Caribbean Poker Adventure you can play 8.67 hours before being blinded away. In the $26,000 Guarantee on FTP you can play 1.81 hours before joining the rail, netting a difference of 6.86 hours. For fun factor, here is the chart showing when you would be blinded out from FTP:

What does all this mean? The most obvious difference is how long it will take before your blinded off. When playing in a tournament you need to consider how fast the blinds will be moving and calculate how much time it will take until your stack would be blinded off. Obviously the more time the better, but when your facing a difference of 6.86 hours of play - you have to make moves sooner then you normally would. The extra hands you get to play in an online tournament do not make up the difference of missing 6.86 hours of play. I'm not claiming that online tournaments are too fast and justify erratic play to ensure money. In fact, the $26,000 Guarantee tournament starting out with 75 big blinds is not as much as a speed tournament then others. Some might even say that this tournament is anywheres from a medium-to-slow tournament for online standards. Maybe a better example would have been to use a popular No-Limit Las Vegas tournament structure hosted at the Flamingo Hotel and Casino. Let's take a look at their structure: Each player starts with 1,000 chips.

Surprisingly the blind off structure for this game is 1.26 hours, 0.55 hours shorter then the online tournament on Full Tilt Poker. Even more surprising is that such structures are common in casino's across the world since the poker boom. Casino's want fast tournaments so they can run more daily and accumulate more rake. It makes sense for the casino, but it doesn't make sense for a player to use the same strategies in the Flamingo tournament as they would in the Caribbean tournament.

What a player must realize is when your faced with rapidly increasing blinds, you must make some moves and turn on the aggression switch faster then you would in a slow tournament. Every tournament; whether a slow tournament or a fast tournament, has a point where everyone at the table tightens up allowing an alert player opportunities to accumulate (steal) chips. In Sit-N-Go's this is usually the bubble position. In MTTs this might not be the case and some times happens a few places away from the bubble. Great poker players know when such nirvana is in effect and act on it immediately. Decent players act on this as well, but usually get involved a little later then they could of and don't fully exploit the situation. Weak players miss this opportunity, either too scared or don't even realize it's there. I am assuming that almost everyone reading this blog post knows what I am talking about. But what I want to stress is that unless you are a complete master in recognizing when this happens, and can fully exploit this time period to build enough chips for a healthy final table battle, you need to start accumulating chips earlier in a fast tournament. You are just not going to be able to collect the chips needed in this time period to build up a decent stack for a final table battle and still fight the ever increasing blind levels. You want / need chips going into that final table - more then you would when the blinds are slow and long. You need to have the cushion to play strong poker and be able to put pressure on your opponents. It does no good if your final table seats 10 and you have a short stack and need to make a move in the next 3 orbits. You have no fold equality and no one is folding to your all in. This is a common situation for many players that can be avoided.

This blog has seemed to become pretty long therefor in a following post I want to talk more about what types of "moves" and "shots" I mean when playing in a fast tournament. What I am hoping you gather from this post is the understanding that when you are about to play a tournament you need to analyze the blind structure. Is this a fast or slow tournament? What is my blind off time? What is my starting stack divided into the starting big blind? When do I need to start making moves so my chips mean something when I make a play? These questions can help you focus on a game plan and not be another player riding the short stack hoping to fold their way into the money.

Arnold Snyder's website, Poker Tournament Formula, is focused around his book with the same name. In his book he describes the differences of slow tournaments and fast tournaments in greater detail. I recommend anyone interesting in learning more about why it's not only important to change your style of play in a fast tournament then if you were in a slow tournament, but also how you should do it. Arnold's website also includes the excel spreadsheet used to calculate the blind off time. I think you will find the information in his book and on his website very informative regardless of your skill level. I look forward to further discussing how to overcome fast tournament blind structures in future post. Until then, may your Aces hold up (mine never do) :-)

Roshambo

In The Poker Tournament Formula author Arnold Snyder brings a new, simplified way of looking at poker. In the book, Arnold compares poker to the famous game Roshambo, or otherwise known as; Rock, Paper, Scissors. I believe this to be an interesting concept, one that I been wanting to discuss for several weeks now. In the book, Arnold makes claim that for you to win at a poker tournament you need to understand what weapons you have available. When you look at poker, look at it as a game of roshambo. For those of you who may have forgot, roshambo is a game of three weapons; rock, paper, and scissors. You and your opponent count to three and use your hand to make a symbol representing one of the three weapons of the game. The following structure determines who wins the round:

• Rock beats Scissors
• Scissors beats Paper
• Paper beats Rock

When you look at poker you can consider that the game has a similar structure. To understand how poker is similar to roshambo you need to understand the three primary weapons you have when you play poker; chips, cards, and position. Now we need to understand the relationship between the three weapons of roshambo and the three weapons of poker. If you consider chips being rocks (easy to remember because you can throw both of them), paper being cards (cards are made from paper), and position being scissors (you can cut any one's action in poker if your in position) you should have no problem figuring out what has strength over the other. For those of you who'd like to see the relationship let's put them into a similar structure as we did with before:

• Chips beat Position
• Position beats Cards
• Cards beat Chips

If you really think about the above three lines it actually makes a lot of scense. If you have enough chips someone playing position doesn't matter, it's harder for him to put pressure on you when you have 10k in chips and he has 2k and in position. However, someone playing their position correctly can make a player fold good hands or good cards before and after the flop. For instance, someone drawing to a flush or maybe has a high pair on a scary board the person in position can charge them to draw if he feels his opponent is weak forcing his opponent to fold with absolutely nothing himself. As well, if you got the goods it doesn't matter how many chips your opponent has your not going to be intimidated. The same player with 2k chips and the nut flush is looking to double through the player with 10k chips.

While there are definitely differences from roshambo and poker, the concept of the two being similar is awesome. Now obviously you can't choose your weapons in poker, it just sort of happens. You might be in position now with a small stack and a few hands later be out of position but have a huge stack. As well, your weapons don't hold up 100% of the time. Whereas scissors always beats paper, someone on the button pushing all in against a UTG limper with pocket Aces, paper isn't loosing (unless he's dealt my Aces in the whole *s*).

I really think this whole concept is brilliant, yet so simple. If more beginner players just realized this sort of relationship they'd strengthen their game almost immediately. Why? Because it's a simplified way of knowing how poker works. Everything we read in poker books can almost be related back to this simple concept of poker being a game of roshambo. We just add more complexity and weapons to our arsenal as we become more skilled at playing the game. But all these extras are still built off the basics of poker; chips, cards, and position.

February is Over

February is officially in the books. The month started out as an attempt to make some great goals. Let's revisit them briefly to see what we set out to accomplish:

• Read Mathematics of Poker
• Post more poker strategy talk and hand analyst on the blog
• Take down 4 Guarantee tournaments on WPEX
• Final Table a Mookie on FTP
• Get back on track with my exercise
• Build more confidence in my game
• Visit A.C. at least twice

What actually happen is February turned into a training month and none of the goals really got accomplished. I spent tons of cash this month practicing new theories, playing games blind (practicing position), and working on strategies discussed in books and on the web. It's amazing how much money I spent on "finding out what works" I am surprised I finished in the money for the month. Before we get into my Win/Loss record for the month, lets look at what we did accomplish for the month.

• Read "The Poker Tournament Formula"
• Reading "Mathematics of Poker"
• Played more live games (just not in AC)
• Practiced playing blind and worked on position
• Watched hours of videos from PokerXFactor
• Started note taking and critical analysis of my SNGs

Over all I feel that I still have a lot to learn about SNG playing and feel I can really turn SNGs into huge profits. SNGs are so different then normal poker it's really not even poker. It's about time, patience, knowing when to bet and how much to bet. It's really a different animal all together. My leaks are definitely closing up, but I don't feel like I am as solid as I can be. Most of the time I bust out by making the right move while some donkey makes a horrible call and sucks out. I turned this into an "F Results" matter. Before I would be pissed that a guy would call my all in with A-2 OS and bust my pocket Queens; now I say, "good luck to ya" and hope I play him again. As long as I make the correct moves all the time, I will be the one in the positive at the end of the month/year. I consider it a donation to the poker community, one that I know I can get back when I am in another game.

On the downside of things I installed a fresh copy of Vista Ultimate and forgot to backup my player notes. So now I am starting fresh on all my player notes. Really sucks because I had tons of people labeled in WPEX. Almost every table I sat at I knew how they played, now I am clueless or guessing... "I think he's super aggressive, or is he a fish...."

Well while I am on no set topic I will also say I still do have tons of material I want to discuss on my blog. It seems that every time I want to blog something comes up, or I get wrapped into things. One night I spent 9 hours running push/fold EV calculations and didn't realize it was 2AM in the morning with work in about 4 hours. I lost that night and the night after (sleeping!) I guess you can say I been really wrapped up on studying the game and what's behind it than I had time to play and write. Even with the limited play time this month, most of the action I played was to learn and not win which makes my record this month look pretty bad. But without further ado, here is my Win/Loss record for the month.

Tournament Count: 79
Total Buy-ins: $1,186
Total Payouts: $1,380
Total Won/Lost: $194
Average Won/Lost: $2

Like I said, nothing spectacular, but as I mentioned before I am really surprised I came out ahead this month. I am, of course, hoping for a better month in March - we will see what happens. Even though I anticipate a better month I still will be focusing on new tactics and strategies that might end up costing me money. Time will tell what happens.