the-poker-grafter

As I suggested last week ‘Rounders’, on the Microgaming network, provides a rare opportunity to win money with minimal risk through the process of token building. The best players reach the point where they may never lose any actual money in this format; surely a unique boast to be able to make in a game with the variance of poker. Of course the variance still exists, but the impact of it is absorbed by the token count not the bank balance. The Rounders ‘pros’ will simply play a few Round 5s a week or month after reaching their personal token targets courtesy of the lower levels. This way they effectively freeroll at games that can reap them $3000 on a regular basis. So how do they do it?

The secret of success is to never move up a level until you’ve given yourself a buffer of tokens to protect against a bad losing run. This way, if you are losing, you take the time to rebuild the token count while the bank balance remains the same. Psychologically, this is a huge morale-boost. Furthermore, you’ve almost inadvertently created good financial practice for your poker bankroll!

Another important benefit of this approach is that you’re not heading back to square one every time you have some bad luck. Many players come to Rounders for the first time and have three good games to race them through Rounds 1-3. They then go to Round 4 full of hope and expectation as the prospect of turning a small initial investment into a big cash prize looms large. One bad beat later and they are out with nothing to show for their efforts after three good games out of four. From excited, they become instantly demoralised and decide that Rounders are a waste of time, vowing never to play them again. This is a shame, but with their logic, quite understandable. Of course it’s unrealistic to assume you will have five good games in a row without bad luck destroying you at some point. But the canny players have taken the time and shown the discipline to ensure that they never have to play the lowest levels again.

Here is a token-building strategy that I would suggest, beginning on Round 2, where the entry fee is $27.5. (See last week’s blog for the full Rounders structure). As I’ve outlined already a novice will probably take the 124 tokens earnt by way of a top 2 finish and head for Round 3. Instead, resist the temptation and re-invest in Round 2. In the long term, given the relatively poor standard of opposition at this level, a good player could hope to finish in the top 2 once every three games on average. (Note that a 3^rd place finish redeems your tokens for another shot at Round 2 and therefore doesn’t count as a loss in this calculation.) So for every 72.5 tokens invested a return of 124 seems possible. If this did occur then the token count would be progressed from 124 to 175.5. At this rate of accumulation it would be realistic to play 14 or 15 Round 2 games to reach a token count somewhere in the region of 372. What’s the significance of 372 tokens? That’s the amount required to buy into three Round 3 tournaments.

At this point I would consider moving up to playing Round 3, although this decision is very arbitrary. I know for a fact that some cautious fellows would want quite a few more tokens before make the step up. I would argue that a good player wants to spend as little time as he can get away with at the less productive levels where his skills are being under-utilised. That said, I allow for the possibility of dropping back to Round 2 if the first couple of games go badly. There’s absolutely nothing to be gained from becoming impatient at this stage. If I lose the first two Round 3s then I can return to the previous level with 124 chips (or more if I’ve finished 5^th in either) and all is not lost. But hopefully this will not happen.

The beauty of Round 3 is that if you win one (top 4) and lose 1 (6^th or lower) you don’t just break even, you come out 55 tokens up (82.5 tokens up if you finish 5^th in the ‘losing’ game). So put simply, a player who can finish in the top 4 out of 10 half the time will accumulate tokens quickly. For example, let’s say with the acquired 372 tokens I finish top 4 in the first but get unlucky and end 6^th in the second game. That’s ok; I now have 427 tokens. If I hit the top four 50% of the time after 22/23 games I’ll hit the magic mark of 1000 tokens. Note that it only requires 605 tokens to play Round 5 but we’re looking for the best way to play lots of those with minimal risk. Consider also that a player with a 50% success rate on Round 3 will prosper even faster if he ‘bubbles’ in 5^th position very often at all. The booby prize of 27.5 chips seems irrelevant and disappointing when you just miss out on 300, but these consolation prizes still add up over time.

On Round 4 five out of ten players can earn the 605 credits that represent a Round 5 entry. This is my favourite level in many regards as the realisation that finishing 5^th out of 10 equals mission accomplished seems encouraging. A good player may realistically aspire to progress about 66% of the time or twice in every three games now. At this rate of success I would miraculously turn my 1000 tokens into more than 3100 in just 21 further games. That’s enough for five cracks at the big money of Round 5 there and then.

But having put in all this hard work to set-up this position it would be almost criminal to play five big games in a row and return to 0 tokens. My suggestion would be to only play the money level when you hit your target buffer level – for me that’s 3100 tokens (more than 5 buy-ins). After playing that first Round 5 I’ll be down to 2500 chips, regardless of the outcome. Hopefully I’ll have another $3k in the bank but no matter I want to return to 3100 tokens before I play that level again. At this stage I may opt to only play Round 4s in the interim, and this target may be reached again in just a few games. So my reward for all that slog and patience is that I can now be regularly playing Round 5s, effectively as freerolls, for the foreseeable future. You can’t argue with that.

Simon Ballou writes for Oddschecker Poker

Poker is a very frustrating game. I can’t help thinking I may have mentioned this before; conceivably every time I’ve come to write on the subject in fact. But this inescapable truth masks the flipside that the glory days can be all the sweeter as a consequence. It’s the thrill of the chase that makes achieving the goal in the end even more special. Take Lewis Hamilton for instance. It would have been extraordinary if he’d won the Formula 1 World Championship in his very first season behind the wheel. But ultimately he narrowly missed out, ensuring that a future triumph will mean even more to him, having endured his own nasty ‘badbeat’. In poker, all long-term success seems to be hard-earnt.

So it came to be that this week provided me with some all-too-rare moments to savour of my own. Having endured a fortnight of lucklessness I entered a Blue Square sponsorship freeroll with the nagging feeling that I was due a change in fortune. In fairness, I’ve felt this way on many occasions and it tends to make very little difference. With 13 runners competing for one prize the odds didn’t look too promising. But after a few early casualties and an hour of quite uneventful play the interest level began to rise. Then, in my first significant moment of the tournament two players moved all-in while I waited in the big blind with KK. The first all-in looked a little desperate and the second all-in came from the chipleader who was in a position to call with an unspectacular hand. Given this, I had no hesitation to throw in all my chips knowing that if I was beat I was very unlucky. The KK held-up and I instantly became the chipleader myself. It seemed too good to be true and it was.

With confidence levels soaring I began to fancy my chances with 7 players remaining and a decent stack behind me. Having been very inactive for the first hour of the game the KK bonanza seemed to spark a card rush for me. I raised with good cards on three of the next four hands and won every pot uncontested. This was a little disappointing because although I won the increasingly desirable blinds it would have been nice to get some action with the great cards I was being dealt. Furthermore, my table image had transformed in an instant from a rock to a big stack bully. This is ok, but can make it harder to genuinely steal blinds from suspicious opponents later on.

Moments later I was dealt QQ on the button and immediately sensed that this could be a pivotal moment. The play was folded round whereby I raised the pot by 2.5 times the big blind hoping that my recent play pattern and the bet size would create maximum suspicion. I was hoping to entice an all-in re-raise defence from the relatively aggressive big blind but instead he flat called. The flop came 6-6-10 and I bet out for half the pot. The big blind immediately moved all-in and I had little hesitation in calling. To my joy he turned over 3-3. If the turn and river came without a three then I would have four times more chips than anybody else at the table and more than half the total chips in play with 6 players remaining. Of course I was spiked by a 3 on the river. It was the classic 2-outer badbeat and all that hope and expectation vanished in an instant.

When the dust settled and I tried to regain my composure I grudgingly had to tell myself that I still had a playable stack, which was true. It was time to stop feeling sorry for myself and to go about trying to rebuild a stack all over again. There would be plenty of time for self-pity and licking of wounds later on. Things quickly picked up again, even if it still felt like the world was against me. I seemed to be getting more good start cards than most of my rivals and with the obvious exception they were winning. I knocked out two players with A-J against very little and with J-J against 10-10 when we were 4-handed. There’s no doubting that this timing was lucky even though the best hand won. My most pleasing move was to come shortly after the play became 3-handed. I re-raised my ‘nemesis’ (who had 2-outed me on the river earlier) with a check raise bluff after which he had to move all-in or fold. Fortunately he folded, and once again in this rollercoaster contest I was chipleader.

But yet again disappointment was waiting just round the corner. I lost two coinflips against the smallest stack who consequently became the chip leader while I faltered. The new chipleader then continued his momentum by knocking out my ‘nemesis’ in third place. That should have been my job really but no matter, at least we were heads up now. There was just one problem. This was a winner-takes-all contest and my one remaining opponent had a 4:1 chip advantage. The situation looked bleak but I knew that if I could get lucky and win one all-in showdown then I had a chance. I pushed a few hands later with A-rag, was called by K-10 and narrowly won with marginally the best hand. After that I managed to win a few more of the small pots, edging me into a narrow lead before one massive hand decided matters. My opponent made a standard raise, off which I pushed all-in with JJ. He called for the rest of his stack with 6-6 and on this occasion there was to be no more two-outer heartache. Victory was secured and with it a $5000 sponsorship package, and a chance to mix it with the big names. Good times indeed.

Simon Ballou writes for Oddschecker Poker

Satellite tournaments are run to give players the chance to win big cash prizes for a small initial investment. The prize pool in a £500 entry event may seem very alluring but not that many of us want to put up that £500 to chance our arm. But a satellite tournament might give us a chance to turn £50 into £500 and then a few thousand more after that. This format appeals to the greed and vanity of any player who rates himself pretty highly but may not a have a sizeable bankroll behind him. The structure is equally attractive to the shrewd and thrifty individual who may have sizeable funds, but is protective of them, and likes the idea of a cheap shot at a hefty prize. All and all, satellites gain a lot of interest from punters across the spectrum.

The drawback of these events is that the juicy, dangled carrot of big-time success will seldom be munched, even by good players. If we assume that a typical satellite will reward about 10% of the field with a place at the main event, we begin to see why. A decent player may reasonably hope to qualify about once in every three attempts with this ratio. Then, if the top 10% of players receive all the money in the main event, a similar conversion rate could be expected. I would suggest that these success rates are still optimistic for most mere mortals, but even they indicate that money back from the initial investment may only occur about once in every six attempts. This may all sound quite discouraging but slow conversion rates will be the last thing on your mind when you see that £50 turned into £8000.

Another pleasing revelation is that many players are simply horrendous at playing the satellite format, with its unusual dynamic. The key concept to grasp, and it sounds patronising to spell it out, is that there are no winners, only qualifiers. If 20 people earn a seat at the main event then 20^th is as worthwhile as 1^st. Yet unbelievably there are always clowns in these events who are determined to risk everything to have the biggest chip stack. ‘What can I tell you, I’m a winner. I play to win,’ is the sort of ludicrous twaddle I’ve heard too many times to count. What could be more impressive than beating a group of individuals who don’t mind being beaten? Well, pretty much everything. If I’m in 12^th position and have accurately calculated that I can qualify from this spot without playing another hand then that’s what I’ll do. Mission has been accomplished. It’s what any sane individual would do. Poker prowess has very little to do with it.

Satisfyingly, if you play even a few satellites I can almost guarantee you will witness one of these macho bullies knock himself out when he could have left the room and still qualified. Adrenalin junkies feel compelled to play average hands when they should even be throwing away aces. Then, at the opposite end of the scale, but equally incompetent in their own way, lurks the satellite coward.

An online satellite I was recently in had a rather generous 100 seats to be won with 130 players remaining. Surprisingly, the blinds weren’t too high yet so most of us weren’t feeling much pressure. Then the rather inactive player to my left sent a message saying ‘Let’s all fold every hand and we’ll all qualify.’ This sentiment was soon followed by ‘Ok? Is everyone agreed?’ Only two other players were keen to join his gang largely because it was far too early for most people to coast home without playing. He simply had no idea how long these 30 people would hold on for and how the blinds would inevitably reach nosebleed territory. The result of his initiative was predictable. A couple of us stole his blinds every time round and he was the first at the table to bust out. He might as well have posted a note saying ‘I’m nervous about playing and will fold everything unless I have a monster.’

It’s always amusing to see a player try to organise a communal pact in an internet game. It may be possible if attempted in a live game by a large, unforgiving fellow who seems adamant about people toeing the party line – but not online. It seems to be the height of optimism to expect a group of poker players to abandon their natural instincts to join a socialist movement.

Satellites may be lucrative if played sensibly, yet not fearfully. Only time will tell. Success can’t be analysed in anything but the long term and may suit one individual more than another. But one thing is for sure, the format brings out all the game’s odd characters.

Simon Ballou writes for Oddschecker Poker