The other day, as I got all my cash in with AA vs KK and doubled up, it occurred to me that these big hands don’t really make me any money.

I just as often get all my cash in with KK and AA and lose the whole pull-up. Over time, it’s all going to even out. Only the poker site is a winner. All that the big confrontations give us is variance.

The profit comes from the little pots, a few cents here and a few cents there. Where you folded instead of chasing when you didn’t really have the odds. The re-steal where you calculated the stealer was probably “at it”. Doing the simple things well - getting the value bets the right size. And (in my case) simple continuation bets that exploit your tight table image. This sort of thing:

BossMedia Game #970790976: Table Table TH 804 - $0.25/$0.50 - No Limit Hold’em
Seat 1: CrumbleEMS ($62.55)
Seat 2: butikool ($63.90)
Seat 3: WalkmanF ($89.05)
Seat 5: Hanniba11 ($47.20)
WalkmanF posts the big blind of $0.50
butikool posts the small blind of $0.25
CrumbleEMS is the button
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to CrumbleEMS T♣8♦
Hanniba11 calls $0.50
CrumbleEMS raises $2.00
butikool calls $2.00
WalkmanF folds
Hanniba11 calls $2.00
*** FLOP *** 7♠4♦K♥
butikool checks
Hanniba11 checks
CrumbleEMS bets $5.00
butikool folds
Hanniba11 folds
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $6.20 | Rake $0.30
CrumbleEMS won ($6.20), mucks

Nothing clever, just recognising an ideal flop where a tight player can take down a pot but a looser player could not.

Drive for show, putt for dough, as the golfers say.

Okay, time for another update on progress in online cash.

As you can see, the steep ascent I had started off with has kind of degenerated into a bit of up and down:

Maybe I’ll try a tip someone told me recently: just sit down with 30-40 big blinds and top up to a full stack after 10 minutes.

It could work; I’ll let you know how I get on!

One of the nice things about using PokerTracker on your games is you can look back over hands and enjoy them all over again. Here’s one where aggressive play with the mighty AK didn’t bring home the money as planned, but it won anyway. Somehow it’s much nicer when this happens in a cash game vs when it doubles you up in a tournament

BossMedia Game #894956411: Table Table TH 239 - $0.25/$0.50 - No Limit Hold’em
Seat 1: andora ($19.75)
Seat 2: ilreleone1 ($86.40)
Seat 3: CrumbleEMS ($58.28)
Seat 5: julenisse ($57.46)
andora posts the big blind of $0.50
julenisse posts the small blind of $0.25
CrumbleEMS is the button
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to CrumbleEMS A♣K♥
ilreleone1 raises $1.50
CrumbleEMS raises $5.00
julenisse folds
andora folds
ilreleone1 raises $13.50
CrumbleEMS goes all-in with $58.28
ilreleone1 calls $58.28
*** FLOP *** 6♣K♦8♠

*** TURN *** T♠
*** RIVER *** 6♥
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $114.31 | Rake $3.00
Board: 6♣K♦8♠T♠6♥
CrumbleEMS won ($114.31), showed A♣K♥
ilreleone1 won ($0.00), mucks

Get in!!!

I mentioned in an earlier post that I have adapted a Cardrunners starting hands chart to work for 5-max no limit hold’em.

I’ve stuck it in a page over there on the right for ease of reference. ——>

It describes a tight, aggressive style that has been working very well for me. I’m finding that:

• I’m usually the tightest player at the table, so on average I’m playing better hands than the others, which gives me an edge;
• my play is more positional than most - tighter in early position, looser in late position - which trips some opponents into misreading me, which gives me an edge;
• I’m often one of the more aggressive players at the table, giving me two ways to win (I may have the best hand or they may fold a better one, which gives me an edge;
• I carry on the aggression through the hand, making it expensive for calling stations and giving me an edge.

Before adapting this style I used to limp into pots quite a bit. I’ve now seen the error of my ways. Aggressive play is easier to do and harder to play against.

I have noticed some subtleties in the construction of this chart that I will come back to at a later time. In the meantime I’m just happy to have found a profitable style at the $50 level!

In my first post in this blog, I said I was going to be concentrating on cash games this year. This is an update on how it’s been going.

I’ve been playing the short-handed cash tables on Virgin Poker, part of the Boss network. Their version is 5-handed. I’ve been sitting down at reasonably loose tables with blinds of $0.25 / $0.50 and with average size pots: not too small (tight) and not huge (overly aggressive).

This is a new type of game for me, so I’ve started out with a “strategy”:

• Use a modified version of the Cardrunners 6-max starting hands chart;
• Follow the chart religiously, at least until I have it memorised completely;
• Always sit down with the maximum $50.00 and keep it topped up if it drops below this;
• Play one table at a time so as to get the best reads on my opponents;
• Use pokertracker with the gametime+ overlay to help me read the opponents, especially when I come across them a second time.

After 1500 hands I’m really happy with how this is working out. Look at this graph:

I know it’s early days yet, but this is a great start. Let’s keep it going!

So, the EMS get-together at Slick Poker yesterday. What fun that was! An extra 25 people or so added to their usual Saturday game of maybe 12 people, so we kind of took over.

Although very pleasant, the Slick wasn’t at all what I expected. With it being part of the Gutshot empire I kind of expected it to be like a mini-Gutshot: Cafe-bar type place, but it turned out to be a private member’s club above a bookmakers with a buzzer door. The place consisted of several inter-connecting rooms on 2 floors, with poker tables, an internet room and a lounge / bar area.

As for the poker: the better players did themselves justice, with DeanP unlucky in the end to finish second to one of the locals; Supergran, Numero37, Tomo, Lucysaur and Mel all made the final table as well.

As for me: well I was all done after 40 minutes when the tournament was still on Level 2. I was at a friendly table with Crespo, Lesvic and four locals. I’d got involved a couple of times on Level 1, each time running into a better hand, so I was already down to about 2000 from my initial stack of 3000.

Shortly after Level 2 began, blinds 50/100, I picked up A♣A♦ in middle position and raised to 300. One caller: the small blind. One of the locals, he had been very active and had already built his stack to over 4000 chips. So far so very nice thank you very much.

The flop comes down K♣9♦9♠. Mr Active bet 500 into the pot of 700. I re-raised my last 1600 to either take the pot there & then with no risk or to double up against Mr Active’s kings-up.

But he called and shows me 9♥8♥; neither of my two outs hits on turn or river and I was gone. Cold-decked again, live poker is fixed. Time for a pint and another toastie.

Half an hour or so playing on the internet waiting for some other people to finish and there was enough of us to start a cash table with £25 buy-in and blinds of 50p/50p. As the tournament moved towards the business end a second cash game started up and we played a very pleasant game through the evening until 2:30 am. At which point I had a massive £28 in front of me, having seen little in the way of cards or exploitable situations all evening.

So there we are. Enjoyable, sociable: yes. Profitable: no. Maybe the next meeting will break my bad run - probably this will be the Virgin Poker Festival in Brighton in June. Can’t wait!

Some pictures of the day are on EatMyStack, here.

No online poker for me today - I’m off to the first EMS live meet-up of 2008. This one is in the Slick Poker Club in Chingford, Essex. It’s going to be fantastic!

This new club is owned by the famous Gutshot club, in fact Gutshot’s own Barry “The Bully” Martin will be joining in and sweetening the prize pool. With EMS / PNL’s own TallGuyUK (Neil) organising things it’s bound to be memorable. I’m looking forward to seeing some old chums and meeting a few new ones too!

My live game is in fact rubbish, so that fact combined with my dodgy tournament skills means my expectations might not seem to be the highest. But I have a plan - I am aiming to compensate for my lamentable skills by being the only sober one there (designated driver) so I’m confident that tomorrow I’ll be reporting success.

My other secret weapon: if you always go in behind you can never be sucked out on. Poker gods, do your worst!

A new year, a new poker blog.

2007 was a year of treading water for me, poker-wise. I feel I learnt a lot about how to play the game, but you keep the score with money and I broke even.

So at the end of 2007 I took stock. I’m good at:

• patience
• staying calm
• arithmetic
• playing tight.

I’m bad at:

• flair
• reading people
• changing gears.

So for 2008 I’m going to focus on cash games. I’m going to find a site and grind it out with PokerTracker to help me read my opponents. Tournaments - well I’ll play some EMS ones for practice with (hopefully) my cash winnings, but cash is going to be where it’s at.

Why not join me on the journey into the unknown?