Hey everyone, just wanted to let everyone know that I KNOW I was being a d0nk last night. Had my Martin Farha hat on fer sure. Wouldn't call it loose aggressive or loose passive...just plain loooooosey gooooooosey. Not sure what else explains the Muncie Aces cracking suckout. (Sorry Matt!) No excuse for that. It's been a while since I d0nked that much so I guess maybe I was due, plus I was off my game due to my FTP FCC (post coming later).
Anyway, I wanted to review again to make sure that WNP is meeting the needs/expectations of the masses. Once again I noticed many instances of multi-way 20+ chip pre-flop play. What are people's thoughts on this? Are the stakes/stacks relevant enough? Is this a function of straddles? Was last night too much of a "gambly" loose game? Is everyone OK with nights like last night because it seems to be more of the norm lately.
Despite the fact that I was the mayor of D0nkville last night I prefer to have play be a bit tighter than last night but I'm fine with whatever everyone wants out of WNP/TuNP, just not sure what it is that everyone wants it to be.
Chime away...
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8 comments:
Last night was nuts. The loosest, most aggressive I've seen WNP in a while.
When the cowboy and the trey show up to do Farha impersonations, and Chuck hits anything and everything while Marsh does his best to Elezra the Farhas, that is going to make for some serious action.
I don't think anything needs correction, per se. It's a swingy table requiring constant adjustments and image management, but in the long run I think I can utterly crush last night's table style, so I say keep it up you fucking d0nks.
Posting this for Jason since the firewall at his office keeps him from contributing to pr0n sites like this:
This is a really tough question and goes back to your post about can we increase maximum buy in to $100.00, or should their be a cap. Personally, I hate the cap and have mixed feelings about increasing the maximum buy in.
Here are some thoughts. At this point, I have no answers, just items to consider.
Most of the feedback on your prior post appeared to be that the $60.00 buy in was just about right. Folks like Royal and the Surrealites indicated that larger buyins would be intimidating. Ryan liked the bigger stack play, but also liked the natural progression to the big stacks.
I believe though there is a whole different camp that would like to see the stakes higher. When I see 3.6 os on the button and Ryan raises, I am almost always going to play for his raise of 7, 8, or 10 chips or whatever at 25/50 cent stakes. Why? I am willing to take the risk that I am way behind, but for $2.50 I may be able to put Ryan on tilt (sorry Ryan). I may lose when I hit the flop with a 3 but don’t suck out. But even if I lose, I am likely out no more than $10.00. At 50/$1 or $1/$2, I am way less likely to make this play.
So in the camp of higher stakes are better, I would guess that Ryan, Jason, Martin (?), Marsh, and Jeh (?) may be in this camp. Some of my banker friends would prefer the higher stakes, but they come so infrequently I don’t know if they should count. Joe seems like he could go either way. There are folks that just pop in once in a while, like Ivan, Tiffany, MB, Uri, and Knock, my guess is that they like the stakes the way they are.
Ideally, TNP would attract so much interest that we can run it like a casino. We have 15 players one night, so why not start a .5/$1 table to go with the normal stakes. Or we could rotate, last Tuesday of the month is double stakes, all other Tuesdays are normal stakes. Just some thoughts, I would be interested to hear others opinions as well.
“When I see 3.6 os on the button and Ryan raises, I am almost always going to play for his raise of 7, 8, or 10 chips or whatever at 25/50 cent stakes. Why? I am willing to take the risk that I am way behind, but for $2.50 I may be able to put Ryan on tilt (sorry Ryan).”
I heartily encourage people to call my preflop raises with crap based on perceived tilt equity, and to use stakes in general as a justification for overly-loose, -EV play. Heartily. If you are down with paying me cash in installments for the occasional gratification of having manipulated my emotions, then we have ourselves a lifetime win-win proposition…
As for WNP adjustments, I basically (gag) agree with Jason. I could see doing a .5/1 table on a full, two-table night, but I don’t think there’s much else to be done, as most of our floating player base for WNP would balk at .5/1. If all the attendees on a given night agree to a stake increase, that would be fine, too.
I'm not asking about stakes per se. I'm asking if people want TuNP/WNP to be like last night and how it has increasingly been lately.
I think the one thing that would rein things in the most would be eliminating straddles to keep the pre-flop pots at a more sane level for our stakes. A five way 125 chip pot pre-flop with 1/2 blinds?
I'm not opposed to having a higher-priced TNP game once a month like Jason suggests, but I think we're already doing that with the now-weekly Friday game we've been having. So there's no point in increasing the stakes at WNP I don't think.
As for Jason's reasoning that he will gladly call Ryan's bet of 7,8,or 10 chips with 36o, there's also an element of "play the player, not the cards" to that. If it were somebody less aggressive making that raise pre-flop, then Jason would be more prone to fold that 36o. Remember, the exchange rate on August 14 was:
* 6 Marshalls to a Ryan
* 4 Ryans to a Royal
* 5 Royals to an MB
* Ryan's BB = 30
* Marshall's BB = 20
Meaning, if Jason is calling Ryan's bet of 8 pre-flop with 63o, then, if I were to make that same bet pre-flop, Jason would have to look at it as if he's putting in 24 chips, which is a much steeper bet. Granted, the value of a Royal is falling faster than a Ryan, and one day may very well equal in value, but there's always a Ngoc around the corner to fill that void.
My point is, the regulars might not value the .25 chip as highly as we used to, but other, less-frequent players do, and we're able to keep those less-frequent players at the table solely by keeping the price to play in their range.
As for eliminating the straddle, again, I don't think that's a good idea. Only a handful of players straddle, and those are the hands that have a higher amount bet at them pre-flop. I like the variation from one hand to the next, personally.
"Eliminating the straddle" effectively says, "eliminate the ability for someone to minraise blind UTG and then reraise if the table limps through to the big blind." Perhaps psychologically this restriction would prevent people from making blind minraises UTG. In practice, though, if everyone who would have straddled makes the blind minraise instead, I would estimate that it would only change the action about once every ten times, which is about how often it limps back to the straddler and the straddler exercises their option.
It’s poker. You can’t force people to play tighter or not raise blind, etc. You can change the stakes, change your guest list, or make minor rules changes like killing the live straddle and making people blind minraise instead.
I don’t mind that it’s 20 to go preflop at 11:30. All part of the adjustments you have to make if you want to play in the Big Game.
Seems like we are all in agreement. Unbelievable!
I, like Royal, would be heartily opposed to eliminating the straddles. Plus, when Marsh repops me with 6-4os, after I try to steal with 3,4 suited makes for good stories.
And the stakes seem to work for Ryan and I as well. I am happy to give -EV for the tilt factor, sounds like we have a fair trade.
Royal is right on again. I will generally hit the autofold button when Royal opens, given the currency translator. Weekend games are when people generally enjoy playing for higher stakes. All seems to be right with TNP as is.
I can see what Martin is saying for sure. 125 preflop pot in a 1-2 game is insane. 5 handed btw.
Here is my issue. I don't play WNP to win money. I play to improve, and to play good players. I certainly don't play to lose, and I don't take the money amounts lightly either, but I want to get better at poker. I don't feel like I do on nights like that. I mean I could just sit back and play super tight and probably come away with a decent night given all the action.
All of that being said, I don't see a simple solution for WNP. Also, I don't know that we need one. I think WNP is what it is on any given night. Sometimes it's intense with tight play and good poker. Sometimes it's fun and loose with donk plays and huge pots.
The only reliable way to tighten the game is to raise the stakes. This would make it uncomfortable for people to lose their stacks, making them play tighter. This would also be prohibitive to a lot of players because they don't want to be uncomfortable playing in a WeekNightPoker game. I think removing the straddle is pointless, but I don't really care either way about it.
Overall I say we keep it the same as it is. I don't see a reasonable fix and I am not convinced we need one.
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