UPS and Downs

Say Cheese!
This photo was taken as I'm consoling my friend (off camera) who just had an awful bad beat. A friendly man comes up to me and insists that I was a perfect picture moment! Not one to take such a compliment passively, I thanked him and quickly handed him a camera, saying that he couldn't just make that comment and walk away! :)

After what seemed like twenty minutes of hilarity from an old dog learning new tricks, (his words describing him learning to take a photo with a digital camera) he was unable to snap a photo that met his high standards of quality. Alcohol might have been a factor. My friend, eager to be rid of the man so he could continue his bad-beat story then stepped in to save the moment and the day.

All the man wanted in return was advice on how to keep his dog from barking at the UPS man, and since I just happened to know that one, I gave him a couple of methods, one based on the psychology of dogs, and the other based on the technology of humans, but neither method seemed to interest the man as much as the casio, so we parted company and my friend continued his story, as will I now.

Day 2: $300 No-limit Hold'em
Poker is a game of skill, but there is still an element of chance involved. In general, tournaments have a higher chance/skill ratio than live games. This is because in a live game, the ante and blinds (the amount players have to pay before receiving any cards) never go up. Plus, in a live game, you can rebuy, so your stack is essentially infinite (assuming you aren't playing beyond your means). Finally, in a live game, you are always playing against a maximum of just 9 other people.

Thus, for any given tournament, there are two main factors that affect the chance/skill ratio: the initial stacks, and the rate in which the blinds go up (called the blind structure). The more chips you start out with, the more skill comes into play. The slower the rate the blinds increase, the more skill is a factor.

Yesterday's tournament had a starting chip stack of 3,500 and the blinds went up every 40 minutes. Today's tournament started with 2,500 chips, using the same blind structure, but with the blinds going up every 30 minutes.

In other words, today's tournament had smaller starting stacks and faster blinds, two factors which make chance more of a factor. Finally, there were more players than tables, meaning new players were being added after existing ones dropped out.

It was a fast tournament, and to win, fast play was required. There wasn't time to wait for premium hands because if you did and the blinds didn't eat you, you'd be playing with people who would have ginormous stacks compared to you. Obviously then too, in a tournament, the more players that enter, the more chips you have to collect to win.

So I played fast and cultivated the perfect table image. There were three pros at my table, all sponsored by online poker sites... but everyone feared me. I had the best of it! :) I was making great reads and even better plays. All was good until the fourth hour of the tournament.

I was around double the average chip stack and the other players were getting antsy because of the blinds. With pocket 10s, I smelled an all-in with just two face cards. This situation is called a race, because 10s are just better than even money to win against say, AK.

Before I can call, the player to the first player's left raises - but just barely. Here's where I made my mistake. Why just the raise? Why did he put in 2/3 of his stack on the raise, but not all of it? He's trying to isolate, for sure, but why? What does he have?

I hemmed and hawed, tried to get a read on him, but he was stone faced, which means he had a hand, but he would still interact with me, meaning he didn't think he was a sure winner. In fact, he nearly folded to just a 2,000 raise on a 20,000 pot because he wasn't sure! Long story short, I put him on a small pair. Short story shorter, he had KK. Bad girl! Bad read! Pay attention to your gut!

Actually, I overplayed the man. My reads were right, but I assumed he was a better player than he was... he was genuinely afraid to put all of his chip in on KK where a more seasoned player would do that in a heart beat at this stage in the tournament. He wasn't acting, he was genuinely afraid, and I misinterpreted that as him being a good player with a beatable hand rather than a very dicisplined mediocre player with a monster hand. Noted.

Oh well, like I said, it was a fast tournament. If you think I was playing too fast, I actually felt I wasn't playing fast enough for this tournament... just prior to going out, two people got moved to our table (because I had just put out two) and they had huge chip stacks... like, 20 times average. I went from being leader at our table to way behind in the tournament and at the table!

Anyway, I didn't put him on Kings and that was stupid, and that's why I went home early. He immediately came over from across the table, hugged me, and told me he thought I was the best player there. Shrug. Maybe, but I made a stupid play in an otherwise flawless game.

(Tomorrow's tournament has a slower blind structure and should have a smaller field.)