The Previously Unseen Joy of Cascading Tables

January has sucked. Cash has sucked. Tournaments have sucked. I will save the real whinging for the monthly review. After three weeks of epic run bad I decided it was time to change tact and to do something I haven't done in a long while... that is to go bonus whoring. There are some good offers out there right now with people still trying to capitalise on the fall of Full Tilt. It is also January, the traditional month of poker sites trying to reactivate old accounts and gain new custom. So to that end I have a shiny new poker account that offered me a 400% match bonus up to a maximum bonus of $2,000. The rake requirements seem a little steep but once you factor in the VIP system of the site you can quickly envisage it as the equivalent of 35% - 50% rake back for the period of the bonus. Which is tasty.

Now I didn't deposit more than I needed to so I will have to spin up a roll to get the most out of it. To this aim I have been wanting to play a lot of tables at low stakes to get me started. Now traditionally I have always been a fan of tiling when multi-tabling, probably because I spend so much time on PKR. Even if playing 12 tournaments on Stars I prefer to have the tables tiled across my two screens. Except on some networks the software is just hideous for trying to play this way. When a table doesn't start flashing or beeping madly when your clock hits 5 seconds, and you have no time bank, you are going to end up folding a lot of hands without realising it.  A lot of hands. So for the first time ever I have really got my teeth into cascading the tables. The Ipoker software is clearly better built for this. Basically all your tables overlap slightly and it brings up tables to the foreground in order of the decisions you need to make. I'm now wondering why I never really did this before because I am finding a whole new world of benefits to this process. I have been 16 tabling, the maximum you can open, and I have been playing it comfortably.

Mmmmm... 16 tables :)

Clearly this is always going to be a slightly mechanical process. You cannot spend more than one second on a general decision or more than one second glancing at HUD stats. Clearly this would leave you open to being exploited at mid to high stakes unless you had 'mad skills'. You are not going to be aware of the general trends of what a fish at the table is doing unless the HUD makes it obvious. Beyond this though the benefits are huge. Firstly the sheer number of hands you are seeing instantly tightens your pre-flop range up.  It stops you getting bored and playing 10 5 suited in a spot you know you really shouldn't be.  It doesn't stop you bluffing but it does make you have a set of rules in your head for finding spots to attempt this.  I have been getting in 1,000 hands an hour with ease, this allows for some monster monthly volume figures should you wish to generate them. 

The best benefits for me are the following two.  The speed allows for a real zone of zen poker.  The first reason for this is that you rarely ever see the outcome of a hand during the session unless you specifically pull it up on HEM.  Think about this.  The number one fault most poker players have is that they are too results orientated.  They get bothered about losing a hand and it upsets their concentration.  If you cannot see the outcome all the time suddenly you are being focused on what you should be focused on... the decision making process.  Playing like this you are merely making decision after decision after decision and you are doing it in an emotionally neutral fashion.  There is also the added benefit of this process forcing you to spend more time reviewing your session afterwards.  Once you have finished the playing you can then review your decisions without the emotional attachment of the moment.  It makes it easier to be objective and easier to learn from your mistakes.  This has been a very liberating experience.  I will be focused on clearing the bonus for at least the next month, it will be interesting if my feelings about playing cash games on different sites have been permanently altered by the end of this experience.

The Hero's Journey

In 1949 Joseph Campbell published a book called 'The Hero With A Thousand Faces.'  In it he carefully sets out how a lot of different cultural mythologies going back to our earliest memories as a species share the same archetypes and patterns.  He showed how these still resonate very deeply with us to this day.  Hollywood in particular has proven skilled in using the ideas of the hero's journey to help audiences connect with films.  A whole host of cinema taps into this mythological well with 'Star Wars' and 'The Matrix' being several of the most classic examples, detailed in the Christopher Vogler book 'The Writer's Journey.'  If one plays poker for long enough you will see a group of players who never improve, never grow but always keep playing.  I have been trying to fathom what people get out of it to continue playing in this manner.  It recently struck me how the psychological resonance of the hero's journey fits in well with many of the levels of enjoyment people gain from playing poker.

Joseph Campbell

Whilst watching poker on TV can be fun the essential pleasure of poker is that you are a direct participant and control all the key decisions.  In this respect it is not unlike a video game.  Many people prefer this kind of 'active' entertainment to more 'passive' ones like watching TV.  So in your own poker journey you are very much the 'Hero' and control all the decision making of what that will entail. It is psychologically interesting  that when analysing hands the opponent is always referred to as the 'Villain.'  Normal life can be quite a drudge sometimes.  Getting up and going to work day after day to earn what small pleasures you can obtain can be hard. This is especially true if you don't enjoy your job, or are troubled by other issues of the sort that life enjoys throwing at people along the way.  Against this 'Ordinary World' background poker can seem like a big exciting challenge, a 'Call to Adventure'.  There is drama, intrigue and exotic locations.  There are superstars and there are parties.  When people first discover poker it can be like finding out a little bit of the Wild West still exists, that ordinary life can take extraordinary turns.  It can be Rock and Roll, and you don't even need to be able to play the guitar.  Of course the daily reality for most us that enjoy the poker lifestyle is anything but, however the image and the perception is strong and occasionally little bits of the magic are genuinely there.  The dream of winning the World Series of Poker Main Event is not unsimilar to those who dream of winning the lottery.  It is an escape, it is freedom, it is adventure... and above all it does actually happen to a lucky few.

It Could Be You ;)

The idea of being the hero in your own poker adventure is very much tied into the concept of ego.  It is easy for bad players to carry on when as a species we are very good at being egocentric.  Most people have a strong view of themselves, some are better at self analysis than others.  There is a small percentage who see themselves in a way that is quite at odds with reality.  There are always examples in the forums I frequent of players who burst into their first post decrying a flurry of bad beats.  'The site is rigged', they would win 'if it wasn't for the donks'.  They 'never have any luck'.  99% of them have never even stopped to consider that what is holding them back is their own play, their own lack of ability, attitude or understanding.  Their own sense of ego and bloated self worth stops them from questioning this.  They may have only been playing poker for three weeks but they are the next Phil Ivey.   They will play Tom Dwan heads up for rolls.  They will win the WSOP Main Event this year.  Self belief is important in this game but it must be moderated with either a large dose of hard work, or of pure enjoyment, to keep the ego in check. 

Poker is getting tougher all the time, smart people are developing the game with smart concepts and analysis.  I am not ready to jump ship just yet though.  Whilst the good players get better there are too many egotists out there on their own hero's journey too unwilling to engage with reality.  It is why there is still so much value in the fields at the WSOP.  It is why Chinese business men are throwing away millions of dollars to the high stakes pros in Macau cash games.  It is why poker is not yet dead.  Enjoy poker and be the hero in your own adventure.  Unlike the egotists though pay attention to other facets of the hero's journey.  Make use of 'allies' and 'mentors' to develop your skills.  If you receive a 'boon' or 'reward' make the most of it, do not squander it.  Eventually, if you are really lucky, you might be able to return to your ordinary world from your adventure with knowledge that will make a difference to your day to day life.  Maybe you will be more confident, maybe more zen, or perhaps you will just have won yourself enough money for a really cool holiday.

PKR Cash Game TV 8th November 2011

Ahhhh PKR Cash Game TV.  The eternal wonder of what Ashley Hames is on about and whether he will get sued by the end of the episode :) ...  Once again the hand selection taunts me by missing out the three hands I played extremely well and showing the one I spent the most time questioning myself about following the end of the session...

http://www.pkr.com/en/community/news-events/pkr-tv-14-01/

This was an interesting session for a number of reasons.  You can sit down with a starting stack of 250 big blinds on the the Cash Game TV tables which makes for a much more interesting game and allows for more complexity of play.  I sat down with the standard 100 as the table was full of tricky opponents and I didn't want to go nuts, especially as I was in a lot of tournaments at the time.  The table dynamics were interesting as in Destacker and ForFoxSake you have two excellent tournament players who play very little cash.  mudbone is awkward and tricky at the best of times.  Elz442 is dangerous regardless of the format.  PokerrPro is one of the most solid low stakes cash gamers on PKR.

Clearly there are often shenanigans present in these TV games that don't exist at a table normally but some very interesting hands came out of this session.  The mudbone/Destacker hand is a corker for teaching purposes.  There are very strong cases to be argued that both players played the hands brilliantly and that both played terribly.  Neither line is something you would suggest a beginner to be taking with 4 2 and A K but neither of these players are beginners.  They end up in a spot where you either look like a genius or a donkey depending on the outcome.  If Destacker folds on the river then Mudbone has the moral victory.  If Destacker calls the river bet and it turns out he has the worst hand then his line looks a bit silly.  Destacker ends up looking like a genius in the hand but on the flop and turn he really could be anywhere.  The turn bet is quite small though so having called the flop bet it is difficult to not call the turn one.  Then the river doesn't really change a lot so I think it makes the call easier.  I do wonder if Destacker finds a fold if Mudbone shoves the turn or the river?  I think definitely so if done on the turn.  I think Destacker might still call if it was done on the river.

The hand between myself and Destacker is an intriguing one.  I have raised A Qo and Destacker has flatted 10 7 in the blinds.  On the K 6 A flop he has flopped the flush and I have top pair, top kicker, with the nut flush draw.  Both hands are monsters at this point. Normally I would be quite happy to get a lot of chips in on this sort of flop but the whole hand became unusually interesting.  When Des leads out I know that I am either way in front or way behind.  I don't think raising achieves much for me.  He is likely to fold out worse aces and worse flush draws, and definitely all his air ball bluffs, if I raise, but he is going nowhere if he has flopped the flush or a set of sixes.  The turn card is an absolute brick and changes nothing so again I flat the bet.  The river is the best spot.  It is another brick... and then he over bets the pot.  I don't think he did this at any other point in the two hours.  It absolutely polarises him between bluffs and made hands he is turning into a bluff versus a super strong monster hand.  On reflection I think the over bet puts it more firmly in his value range than his bluffing range so I dislike the call.  It is a tough one though.  Either he is trying to extract value from sets, two pairs and smaller flushes or he is turning a hand like A 10o with the ten of diamonds into a bluff.  I don't hate the call as the strength of my own hand has been somewhat hidden but I do think I should have erred on the side of caution.  This hand also shows exactly how a session can revolve around one hand.  I finished with a $14 loss and if I had found the river fold I would have finished with a $74 profit for the two hours.

These sessions are good to play once in a while, they get you thinking to a degree you often do not have to bother with in a standard low stakes cash game.  It isn't profitable playing good players all the time but in small doses it is beneficial to your thought process.

The Small Margins

Most poker players, professional or amateur, are aware of the small margins that exist in the game.  The nights when an entire session ends up revolving around the outcome of one hand.  When the cracking of pocket aces deep in a tournament stop you from getting a top three finish.  When you end up in coin flip spots where you know the pocket pair almost always has a fractionally slight edge.  Most of the tilt inducing frustrations in the game come out of the small margins. 

There are times when I have felt this awareness before but rarely as keenly as today.  If a pair of pocket sixes had held up against Jack Ten off-suit I would today be playing in a 2,500 euro event at the PKR sponsored WPT Ireland.  The hand didn't hold and I went on to lose the Heads Up so I am instead grinding six tables of $0.25/0.50 cash games and listening to the wind howl past my window.

Poker, especially tournament poker, is full of these turning points, it is what has turned what seems like a very un-televisual game into a major TV money spinner.  This was something that the World Poker Tour went a long way towards developing.  This years WSOP Main Event was full of them and thanks to the live broadcasting we got to see everyone of them in real time agony.  Ben Lamb was very much the favourite to win it going into the final table but ended up finishing 3rd, though I'm pretty sure the $4,000,000 helped to ease his pain.  Imagine though if the best player at the table had won the following pot.  How much extra leverage would he have been able to bring to bear on the table and to what extent would he have controlled it?  In the end Collins went out 5th so this beat wasn't the end of the story but it was certainly one of a number of turning points that day.

This hand from the 2003 WSOP Main Event is another great example of a turning point, though not in the sense of a bad beat.

Sam Farha believes he has the best hand and even names Moneymaker's hand out loud.  He cannot make the call though.  Going against your gut instinct is often the worst mistake a poker player can make as your instincts are built from a lot of subliminal information you cannot always process rationally.  'The Moneymaker effect' is often cited as the biggest reason for the poker boom with the amateur accountant going from a $40 satellite to a $2,500,000 pay day.  If Sam Farha makes the call would online poker have blown up quite so big? Would it have taken another year or two years to get there?  This is a wonderful turning point on so many levels.  Farha is likely sick of hearing about the 'bluff of the century' or being the comedy value on High Stakes Poker.. if he had made this call he would not have had to, he would have been the 2003 Main Event Champion.

Chris Moneymaker went through two satellites on Pokerstars to win his Main Event seat with what was the last of his online bankroll.  His story is full of dramatic turning points. One should never get hung up on the element of luck involved in the game, though you should be aware of it.  Moneymaker takes the pot down here with the worst hand, a lot of players would have been unable to do the same in this position.  This is why a poker player should never rest on their laurels but strive to improve.  Moneymaker had heart and guts to counterbalance his lack of skill.  In the 8 years since then the game has altered beyond recognition.  The best are better and the mediocre are average to decent.  To get a big break you need a bit of luck but ultimately the more skillful and experienced you are the easier it will be to find yourself in spots where you can catch that lucky break.  This is why you should never stop learning and looking to learn.  I could get hung up on my lost flip but I won't.  Instead I will question why my bankroll is not big enough for me to have played this WPT event anyway.  The simple answer is that I am not yet where I should be, I still have a lot of room to improve.  If I keep working though maybe next time the small margin spot will go in my favour and I will be even better placed to exploit it than I am now.  All I can do is wish all my friends out in Dublin the best of luck and hope that the small margin situations go in their favour.

December Review

It ended up being a slightly quieter December on the blogging front than I had anticipated.  I did have plans for a few things but a fairly hectic holiday period combined with my broadband modem dying has had me on something of a 'silent running' situation for the last fortnight.

The highlight of the month was definitely the Pokerstars 10th Anniversary Sunday Million with a whopping $10,000,000 guaranteed.  62,116 players eventually joined leading to the biggest online poker prizepool in history with a staggering $12,423,200 in it.  It was a very strange tournament from a personal perspective as I have no idea how I got as far as I did.  For the first few hours I got zero hands to work with and missed every flop going.  Having made a large fold I was down to half my starting stack and in serious need of chips.  I managed to get it in badly 3 times and suck out on the turn or river on every occasion.

It was only when I started getting it in good that the problems began.  Once through the money bubble I lost several massive pots with a 60/40 and 70/30 advantage and ended up exiting in 3,886th.  The evening almost went epic though as friend 'TheSqueeze80' found himself super deep in the tournament.  He busted 229th after unfortunately running pocket Queens into the pocket Aces of the most aggressive player at the table.

It was a better month on the cash game front.  With a rather busy Christmas I only put in about 50% of my normal minimum of 50,000 hands.  I finished slightly up on EV across the month though still nowhere near enough to balance out my fairly epic run bad in recent months. I think my New Years Resolution will be to not run badly in $1/2 games.

Tournaments were also okay.  Having won the PKR Primetime + Antes Monday tournament on the last week of November I came close to going back to back in it finishing 5th out of 161 on the first Monday of December .  I came 1st out of 285 runners to bink the PKR Dirty Dozen on the same evening for $855.  So, like my cash play, a solid set of results without anything spectacular to jump up and down about.