Online Poker

I usually ignore table talk, but occasionally there's the odd comment that jumps out.  I strangely liked this one.  He'd been beat good and even though PokerRoom doesn't have a profanity filter, it'd slip through on any poker site.

Succinct, offensive and with capital letters in all the right places.  A trash talk gem.

PokerRoom 2/4 Hold'em (8 handed)
Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)

Preflop: is SB with As, Qh.
3 folds, MP2 calls, 2 folds, lucky_donut raises, 1 fold, MP2 calls.

Flop: (4.50 SB) Kc, Kd, 4d (2 players)
lucky_donut bets, MP2 calls.

Turn: (3.25 BB) Td (2 players)
lucky_donut checks, MP2 folds.

Final Pot: 3.25 BB
Main Pot: 3.25 BB, returned to SB.

Results:
No showdown. SB wins 3.25 BB.

Well I certainly can't complain. I just don't understand what hand he could have had here though to fold like that, on the turn and in position to take a free card. If it's worth $2 to call the flop, it's worth $0 to see one last card, surely? This wasn't a disconnect either, it was a pretty quick fold but he was around next hand and not sitting out.

I was in check-fold mode here, perhaps a little weak but thinking that there's not much I'm beating that can could call the flop bet - you have to expect a pair or better or a flush draw, which just hit. Best case is AJ or A9, which is pretty unlikely. For the size of the pot, I'm not going to throw chips away trying to take this one by force a second time. I can't call any bet with one overcard and a gutshot draw, none of which are clean outs.

I can't see a small pocket pair folding here to no bet - nothing to be embarassed about, and it feels like he was drawing to something, missed and then decided he didn't want to show. Occasionally you see this, however daft it is, just so players don't have to reveal their cards but it's always on the river - this was a card too early. It would have to be two cards lower than a K, which is a muppet call on the flop, but not QJ (which now has a straight draw), QT or JT (which now has a pair) - so what, Q9 or J9 calling a flop bet here and hoping to catch something?

I don't get it, but tyvm anyway

Hardly played any poker this week, but somehow managed to remember to register for all three of the PokerStars freerolls I was eligible for today - as I made GoldStar status last month during their double VIP points promotion I got to play the $5000 SilverStar Weekly, $7500 GoldStar Weekly and $100,000 VIP Monthly freerolls.

Two scores out of three aint bad.  A whopping $18.50 for the GoldStar (27th from 1138) and $100 from the VIP (218th from 2861).  The VIP freeroll, was one of the main reasons I went for GoldStar (amid, I'm afraid, several recitals of the Going For Gold theme whilst I was grinding it out).  I'm 3 for 3 money finishes in this now in the month's where I've been able to play it, and it helps to make up for the fact I dont do very well in fixed limit on Stars still.

The other incentive for me to get back up to a VIP level was because I have lots of Frequent Player Points to spend and many of the items in their store are available to VIPs only.  So now I have just 6 days left as a GoldStar player and it's unlikely I'll even retain SilverStar into next month I need to make some decisions.

Originally I was planning to cash in 15000 FPPs (most of my balance) for one of their single table tournaments with a world champion.  These happen every week and entry is equivalent to $225 - you can't buy in for money though, and can only redeem FPPs if you are GoldStar or higher.  This seemed like a decent option, as four out of ten places are paid something and there's a $250 bounty for eliminating the champ.  I've changed my mind on this though, after I realised that they're usually filled with the same players every week who I would expect to be very strong sit-and-go players and who would probably not be sweating a $1000 payoff like I would.  As I can only afford one shot at this, I'll pass for now.

So what's it to be?  I can afford an iPod Nano, but cool as they are, I don't really need one.  My Creative Zen still does me fine, although it's a bit of a brick in comparison to Apple's beauties, and I really don't fancy having to reload all my music back onto it, and actually face up to the fact that I have probably hundreds of hours of podcasts I still haven't listened to...

So there's the jacket that I had my eye on since I started playing at Stars.  Pretty nice, but at 10000 FPPs, it's costing about $150 in terms of what else I could be spending the points on.  I'm not sure I like it that much, but have to decide quickly as it's another VIP-only item.  Amazon gift certificates are available now, but again you have to be SilverStar or above so I have to order them this week or wait and then get VIP status again.  Such a dilemma!

For as much as I don't like InterPoker (probably a separate rant) their monthly $100 deposit bonus is good and when you can clear this in conjunction with a second bonus it's really too good to turn down.

The second promotion was a bonus payout each time you are dealt poket kings.  After submitting your account number and the hand number, they promise to credit your account with $10.  The only condition is that the hand must have generated some rake.  In theory this is a great promo.  $10 free every 220 hands on average is worth roughly 1 big bet per 100 hands at $2/$4. I played 676 hands last night (ended up clearing about half of the bonus) during the promo period and was dealt KK just once, yet I saw AA and QQ 4 times each, and JJ a whopping 9 times.  A cynical player might say that all the KKs turned to JJ for the duration of this promo, and I did see others chatting about how they hadn't seen KK the whole time.  But this was an InterPoker promo only, so I can't believe that even if it was possible the whole Cryptologic network would put on a crooked deal just for one skin!  Of course, when they run this offer for just 5 hours at a time you're not really getting a very big sample of hands, and those that are seeing a rush of Kings aren't going to be complaining...

So, let's just see how badly I messed up the one KK hand I did see:  Remembering that the hand has to be raked to get the bonus, and with everyone folding to me leaving just two players and the blinds still to act, I decide to just limp in to make sure we get the flop and the hand is raked.  Just the big blind stayed in for a free play, and of course flopped 2 pair with his Q5o to relieve me of $20.

Only myself to blame, though I still think limping here is probably right.  With any other player already in the pot I'm raising, and from early position you don't want to encourage limpers to play against your big pair.  An open limp in middle to late position on a tight table gives up your the edge on a $2 bet preflop but locks in the extra $10 win-or-lose bonus.  It's just a question of whether the bonus compensates for letting in opponents with crud hands.  In my case it didn't, but I did only have one chance to find out.

I didn't last very long, but I wasn't really trying.  Don't see how they expect you to play it sensibly really when there's over 2200 players registered but only about half actually turn up.  I thought Stars had started to prevent such freeroll stupidity now by only allowing registration up to 1 hour before kick off but for this they registered everyone automatically just for showing interest.  Four idle players at a table was not unusual.

In fairness, I shouldn't have been allowed to play so I contributed to the farce.  You can see that my blog has only been running about 3 weeks, when their entry requirement was 3 months of regular posts.  But it turns out they didn't actually impose any entry criteria at all, so it's basically just a monster freeroll where you just have to make a little more effort to get a seat than clicking "register".

Nice to be on the receiving end of hands like this for a change. Twice today as well, with back-to-back big blinds having poor hands turn into winners...


PokerRoom $2/$4 Hold'em (9 handed)
Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)

Preflop: lucky_donut is BB with Jc, 9c.
1 fold, UTG+1 calls, 2 folds, MP3 calls, 1 fold, Button raises, SB calls, UTG+1 calls, MP3 calls.

Flop: (8 SB) Ks, 2h, 9s (5 players)
SB bets, lucky_donut calls, UTG+1 folds, MP3 calls, Button raises, SB calls, MP3 calls.

Turn: (7 BB) 9h (4 players)
SB bets, lucky_donut raises, MP3 folds, Button calls, SB calls.

River: (13 BB) 7c (3 players)
SB checks, lucky_donut bets, Button calls, SB calls.

Final Pot: 16 BB

Results:
SB has 8h Kh (two pair, kings and nines).
lucky_donut has Jc 9c (three of a kind, nines).
Button has As Kc (two pair, kings and nines).

Outcome: lucky_donut wins 16 BB.

Nice bit of fishing - yay me. It's close, but the pot's a bit too big here to give up second pair on the flop even with the two-suited board. After the raise though, I figure I need to improve (unless he's raising a spade draw), but boy do I... The overcall on the river from the small blind holding top pair and no kicker is pretty nice - he can surely only hope to be splitting this pot three ways?

Preflop: lucky_donut is BB with 7s, Qs.
2 folds, MP1 raises, MP2 calls, MP3 calls, 3 folds, lucky_donut calls.

Flop: (7.50 SB) 9d, 5s, 6c (4 players)
lucky_donut checks, MP1 checks, MP2 checks, MP3 bets, lucky_donut calls, MP1 calls, MP2 calls.

Turn: (5.75 BB) 3d (4 players)
lucky_donut checks, MP1 checks, MP2 checks, MP3 bets, lucky_donut calls, MP1 folds, MP2 calls.

River: (8.75 BB) Qh (3 players)
lucky_donut checks, MP2 checks, MP3 checks.

Final Pot: 8.75 BB

Results:
BB has 7s Qs (one pair, queens).
MP2 has Ad 4s (high card, ace).
MP3 has 8c 8d (one pair, eights).

Outcome: lucky_donut wins 8.75 BB.

Little draw, slightly better draw, oh ok then, top pair will do. I'm getting 8.5-1 on the inside draw, a bit low but with 4 players still in I figure a straight on the turn would be good for at least 2 more big bets. The double-gutshot on the turn has plenty of pot odds though. However when the hand I made was just a pair of queens, I really didn't know whether to bet this out of position so I craply check - I'm happily calling one bet here but if I bet and get raised things get expensive with a very mediocre hand, totally weak. Figure I probably lost a bet from 88, who might well make a crying call.

Coincidence?  First hand I play on PokerStars today and my premium hand loses to connected garbage.

PokerStars 2/4 Hold'em (8 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)
Preflop: Hero is BB with Qh, Qd. MP1 posts a blind of $2. UTG raises, 1 fold, MP1 (poster) calls, 3 folds, SB calls, BB 3-bets, UTG calls, MP1 calls, SB calls.
Flop: (12 SB) 5d, 4s, 7s (4 players) SB checks, BB bets, UTG calls, MP1 calls, SB calls.
Turn: (8 BB) 7c (4 players) SB checks, BB bets, UTG calls, MP1 calls, SB folds.
River: (11 BB) Ac (3 players)Hero checks, UTG checks, MP1 bets, Hero calls, UTG calls.
Final Pot: 14 BB
Main Pot: 14 BB, between Hero, UTG and MP1. Pot won by MP1 (14 BB).
Results: Hero has Qh Qd (two pair, queens and sevens). UTG has 6s 6h (two pair, sevens and sixes). MP1 has 7d 8s (three of a kind, sevens).
Outcome: MP1 wins 14 BB.

OK so he'd posted to play and it was only one bet to call.  But with 78 offsuit.  Out of position.  And to an early position raise.  I have to be pleased about having this player at the table though really, and what's more pleasing is that he didn't raise when his hand improved to a certain winner, giving me a much cheaper showdown than I should have had, and letting me check-call the scary river.  Admittedly, with any card other than an Ace on the river and I'd be coming out firing, allowing him to raise but surely the smooth call - particularly vs two opponents - was a big mistake.

I don't think you can fold for one bet on the river here as many players would bet regardless after I check the scare card.  Leading out might be better to gain extra bets from worse hands (in this case, a juicy 66 makes a crying call).  However I still don't know if it's an easy fold for one more bet and a big pot - can we be sure a raiser actually has a pair of aces or better, or is just taking a stab thinking I probably do not have an ace after betting all the way so far.

You just can't beat free money from Party Poker!  Their reload bonuses are very easy to clear even at the low limits, so when a 20% up to $100 bonus popped up on my account yesterday I got busy.

I decided to play for this bonus using $25NL only.  I wanted to see how no limit compared to fixed limit hold'em as I've mostly played $1/$2 to clear these bonuses so far.  Because the wagering requirements are based on a number of raked hands, regardless of the actual amount of rake paid, the limits do not really matter.  In fact a quirk of this system is that you have to play less hands at $1/$2 to clear a bonus than at $2/$4 - although you pay more rake in total, $1/$2 games are raked in 25c multiples, whereas $2/$4 is raked $1 at a time.

I thought you would probably need to play more hands at $25NL than $1/$2 as there would be fewer flops, but really this doesn't seem to be the case - I'd usually bank on slightly more than 50% of hands being raked at $1/$2.

Stand by, stat fans - here's how I did

Hands played:  1540 (for 1000 raked hands)
Hours played:  23.63 (approx 6 hours @ 4 tables)
Rake paid:     $30.10 (so Party Poker lose $69.90 on this promo!)

Amount won:    $35.52 (4.61 BB per 100 hands)
Win rate:      $5.92/hr
Bonus awarded: $100

Rate w/ bonus: $22.60/hr

Certainly not bad for the smallest game in town.  And for those who like even geekier stats, here's how I was playing:

Vol. Put $ In Pot:       14.29%
Pre-flop Raise:           7.21%
Post-flop Aggression:     3.72
Won $ When Saw Flop:     33.59%
Went to Showdown:        20.99%
Won $ At Showdown:       50.91%
Folded SB to Steal:      87.50%
Folded BB to Steal:      80.00%
Attempt to Steal Blinds: 18.57%

So it's a fairly small sample size, but the diagnosis looks pretty good - firmly rooted in the Tight/Agressive camp.  Poker Tracker gives me a little cash bag icon - result!

If I try to be objective, my blind play looks kinda weak, although 8 times out of 10 is probably nothing to be concerned with.  Need more input.  When there are a lot of limpers, as you get in these low limit games, there's not too many opportunities to steal.  I could be raising a bit more pre-flop, but again with lots of limpers I'm aware that my range of hands to raise with is tighter than usual, and limping into multiway pots with small pairs and suited aces becomes attractive.

Oh, and I appear to be rather aggressive post-flop.  That one really surprised me as I still think I check/call too much on the river.  The aggression factor is calculated as the number of times you bet or raise divided by the number of times you call (checking is ignored).  A number between 2 and 3 - betting twice to three times as often as you call - is thought to be nicely aggressive.

Grrrr, then.

Until I started writing this blog all I had put under this domain was a very short page stating that I will buy PokerStars T$.  I never really thought much of it because I never really took it any further - I was thinking about building an automated exchange process like on www.cashmanbrian.com, but that's just another project I never got round to finishing.  But checking the usage statistics, I'm actually still getting a fair bit of traffic to that page.  So I thought I'd put the exact same rushed and pretty unhelpful wording back up.  Here is is :

If you win a seat in a satellite on Poker Stars you can unregister from the event you qualified for and collect the value of the seat in tournament dollars, or T$.

You can then sell your T$ to me for real cash!

I will be putting more information on this web site shortly, meantime contact me at sell@luckydonut.com if you have a seat to sell.

So although the main reason I've done this is to try and keep that position in Google, the offer still stands.  I'll pay $200 real money for T$215 (the value of a Million Guaranteed seat) with transactions done through the PokerStars lobby.

The good fortune continues.  I am H-O-T-T.

Back online this time, and I was logged into Blue Square Poker.  I hardly ever play here - most of the tournaments have rebuys and are complete donkfests.  Potentially profitable, but very frustrating, and there are many other games I'd rather play.  The strong contingent of British players doesn't help.  Makes it a totally different game, and not in a good way.  I'm bound to rant about this some other time, so I'll leave it at that for the time being

I'd actually logged in to check out the satellites for Poker 6, which sounds like a great tournament and I wanted to qualify to have a crack at this.  With live qualifiers as well as online, I was planning on having a few attempts.  However I've since realised I can't play on the second day (going to see Pet Shop Boys) which would make it all a bit pointless.

Anyway, I sit in their freeroll with a $200 prize pool - eventually I finish up with $3 from this - hoorah! - and an alert pops up for a $100 freezeout about to start.  The prize pool is $3.5k guaranteed and there were only 19 players registered at the time.  I'm thinking this could be a great way to press up my winnings from the Party Poker shootouts and I just can't resist.  I scramble for my switch card to get enough money in my account to play and just make it.

One of the annoying things about Blue Sq is that you have to do transactions in £ but then play games in $.  I have Neteller in USD, which is not accepted, and two visa cards on USD bank accounts.  No good - I still have to play in pounds and be at the mercy of their exchange rates.

At kick off there were 26 players registered, but that's still a good overlay on the prize money - works out at $34 each and even with a $9 entry fee they are giving me $25 to taking part, which I always like!  Top five were getting paid, and the top prize of $1470 was as good as my coveted seat in WSOP Event 37.

This game was amazingly different to anything I'd played on Blue Sq before.  People folded.  People knew when they were beat.  There were some very strong players who managed to not go broke with hands that would cost many players their entire stack.  I was pretty impressed.

I was more impressed that I managed to get to the final table with a decent stack remaining.  I was even more impressed that I scraped second place, after being short stacked with 4 remaining.  Two of the big stacks went against each other, leaving three short stacks and a big stack who didn't really want to play any more. 

I think I had quite a tight image, judging by the dialog between Conbert (3rd place finisher) and some railbird. 

conbert : im well ***** off
conbert : lucky donut mr i need a hand to raise
conbert : n sumhow gets thru
SammyArry6 : maybe luckydonut is better?!
conbert : win 55 coinflip
conbert : i had the worst cards when it went 3 handed
conbert : by far
conbert : feels well sick though
conbert : luckydonut thinks a rag ace is a fold heads up

Here's why I'm a bad player too.

conbert : the j9 was turnin point
conbert : bets 288 flop
conbert : 228 flop
conbert : i have 89
conbert : call to trap
conbert : ne he turns j
SammyArry6 : sick
conbert : first time in my life its happened to me

Wow, nice trap with a shit pair.  First time in his life someone hit a 3-outer on him without making them pay for the next card?  I got real lucky.

SammyArry6 : i'm layin fu muppet at 1/100 to win
SammyArry6 : luckydonut available at 25's
SammyArry6 : perhaps it should be 10000000000000000000000000/1?

So they don't fancy my chances.  Well the other guy only had a 3-1 chip advantage...  It actually lasted just one more hand so he woz right innit.

Seat 5 : LUCKYD0NUT has $10,680
Seat 6 : fu muppet has $41,320
Stakes: 600/1,200 Current level: 9 Level up in: 14 min. Break in: 56 min.
LUCKYD0NUT is the dealer.
LUCKYD0NUT posted small blind.
fu muppet posted big blind.
Dealing Hole Cards.
Seat 5 : LUCKYD0NUT has Qd 9c
LUCKYD0NUT called 600 and raised 9,480 and is All-in
fu muppet called 9,480
Showdown!
Seat 5 : LUCKYD0NUT has Qd 9c
Seat 6 : fu muppet has 5s 5d
Board cards [8c 3c Ah 4h Th]
LUCKYD0NUT has High Card : Ace
fu muppet has Pair: 5s
fu muppet wins 21,360 with Pair: 5s

Anything wrong with the push here?

Anyway, 2nd place got me $875.  Total profit from Blue Sq: $766

ANTES/BLINDS
jcc_paco posts blind ($1), akagomme posts blind ($2).

PRE-FLOP
draver calls $2, bluespirit3 folds, Swaps folds, paganini69 calls $2, Spartacus2 folds, vpmaniac folds, lucky_donut bets $4, UFL_Gators folds, jcc_paco folds, akagomme calls $2, draver calls $2, paganini69 calls $2.

FLOP [board cards AS,QC,AD ]
akagomme checks, draver checks, paganini69 checks, lucky_donut bets $2, akagomme folds, draver folds, paganini69 calls $2.

TURN [board cards AS,QC,AD,4H ]
paganini69 checks, lucky_donut bets $4, paganini69 bets $8, lucky_donut bets $8, paganini69 calls $4.

RIVER [board cards AS,QC,AD,4H,4C ]
paganini69 checks, lucky_donut bets $4, paganini69 bets $8, lucky_donut bets $8, paganini69 calls $4.

SHOWDOWN
lucky_donut shows [ QH,QS ] 
paganini69 shows [ 6S,AH ]
paganini69 wins $67.

Talk about spewing... it was pretty obvious this guy had an ace and I was in great shape, so how come I didn't notice that the river card killed my hand?  I guess 6 tables at a time is too many for me right now... I wouldn't normally crank up that many, but I was just starting out and all the waiting lists came available at once.  I figured I'd sit for an orbit at each table and see which ones looked the best...

Still can't believe I didn't see it!

This post is serialized and I've already posted the next parts.  Just a cheap trick to try and get you to come back tomorrow really

In case I didn't mention it yet, I'm going to Vegas in the summer and whilst there I will play in at least one WSOP event. Whilst Claire was on a mission to get into the Main Event (and yay! she did it!) I've only had a few goes so far and haven't done particularly well.  I'll still have a few cracks at this, probably on PokerStars or Full Tilt, who are running satellites on the weekend before the event with 150 and 100 guaranteed seats respectively.

I also wanted to try and justify to myself playing a satellite in Vegas.  These come in two flavours - $225 with $200 rebuys (1 seat for every 50 buy-ins) or a $1060 freezeout (1 seat for every 10 players).  Strangely, I'm much more comfortable with the idea of the freezeout than the cheaper rebuy.  It's not a bad structure and a one-in-ten chance of getting through seems achievable if the wind is blowing in the right direction.  Plus, so close to the main event, these games are going to be buzzing, and if I can't make it this ill still be a great experience.

I wanted to win entry to WSOP Event 37 - $1500 No Limit Hold'em, which begins 2 days after we arrive in Vegas and is the last Hold'em event before the big one.  It's not a brilliant tournament with just 1500 starting chips, but a slower structure than the $540 and $225 second chance tournaments that take place every night which I'd also looked at as alternatives, just so I could get a piece of WSOP action.  This one also has the added bonus of being an actual bracelet event!

There are a couple of ways to qualfiy directly for the preliminary events - Bodog and Pokershare both have satellites, but they're at silly times.  You can also use PokerStars FPPs to buy in, but I would need to go flat out, and I'm still getting killed in their limit games (you don't earn points half as fast playing no-limit) so that's not an attractive option.

So I decided to just pick some tournaments and go for the cash to make my entry fees.

First blood was last Monday 22nd May - I played a $20+$2 shootout on Party Poker, which if you've not seen these is quite a strange format.  Each round is a single table tournament with the top three winning money and progressing to the next round.  The game ends as soon as there are three players remaining, with the highest chip count taking first place, which coupled with the fact that you take your chip count to the next table means you can't just sneak through.

I finished 1st in round one for $44.31, second in round two for $47.06, second in round three for $90.36 and 3rd in round four for $201.06.  Total profit on the night was $360.79 - not a bad start at all.  The eventual winner was super-aggressive and that strategy worked for him.  I actually lost with 99 against his 96 offsuit.  What can you do?

I do like this format, and the strategy to not only survive but win enough chips to be able to survive in later rounds is an interesting one.  I've played a couple more since - getting money from rounds 2 and 3 respectively.  I'll win it one day

Total profit (so far!) from Party Poker shootouts: $411.30