Sunday, October 21, 2007

FTP Fake Cake Update

Passed the 3/4 century mark and then some 80,902.

Last session: Cards ran strong and at one point was scooping like 8/12 showdowns. Got past 75K then d0nked about 5K back to the table. 287 hands, 30% 4th streets (too high), 31 showdowns. I only won 2/3 of the showdowns but scooped half of them to compensate. Last hand of the session I was hammering the pot and getting action when I had the only low going then I filled my gutter to scoop a nearly 10K pot. That put me over 80K and I called it quits.

More lessons learned:

* After reading up some more on starting hands I'm finding that my stringent requirements are still too loose for real play. I can get away with it on these tables because everyone calls until they are mathematically not able to make a hand but they'll chase runner-runner(-runners) all day.

* Don't sweat the small pots. Sometimes there will be a limped pot that checks through to 5th street and I end up walking into two pair or something. A big bet to me and I just muck it. Someone is on a low or a flush draw and it's just not worth worrying about. Take the blinds and let's move on to the next hand.

* Have a plan in mind and be ready to bail. If I am in a hand with a marginal hand then I'm going to basically order up two or three perfect cards that I need to catch to continue. Let's say I have Ad7d8c which is on the road to making a nice second best low but I have a flush draw started. 4th street is a crossroads. I will order up a 2d, 3d, 4d, or 5d from the dealer to leave both paths open to a low or a flush and if I get none of them then I bail.

* Avoid marginal situations. Just not worth getting in the middle of a hand with just OK holdings. Save your chips for pushing the action when you have way the best of it. Again, multi-tabling helps on this front because there is usually enough action going on that you avoid the "boredom calls" when you are itching to get into a pot just to play.

* Even with multi-tabling there will be swings. Running a few tables will smooth out variance but even getting in 100 hands or so there will still be sessions where cards just run dry overall and that's part of the bankroll management thing.

* Limit play can help to minimize steam d0nking...but not totally eliminate it. A couple of sessions lately I've been playing bad. Chasing way too much. Coming in light to showdowns even though I know I'm beat. But there are many many many opportunities to get out of the hand so tilting off chips is a much more labor intensive process in limit than in NL or PL where you can toss a stack with a single click of a button.

* Stud hi/lo: still the softest game on the Internet.

I've been scoping out the 500/1000 table to look at the play there and not surprisingly it is another notch up from the 100/200 tables. They fold more pre-flop and know to aim for lows and possible scoops. I'm fine with pulling down a couple grand in a session but am figuring out what the next vehicle is where I'll be able to do better than that. On the list are: S&G's, 500/1000 Stud hi/lo, and Omaha hi/lo cash tables.

Even though it's play money, I am still as focused on maintaining and growing my bankroll as the next guy. I keep learning new stuff on a regular basis and have even applied those lessons to my live Hold'em play.

1 comment:

Sushi Cowboy said...

Got myself mixed up with a mess of marginality. Got middled with a low that wasn't low enough and a high that wasn't high enough a couple of times. I didn't feel either was strong enough but I deluded myself into thinking that I might be able to win one way or the other. One of them was a 7 high straight which will often scoop but I was pretty sure I was hosed both ways. I don't mind paying that one off though.

For the first time I was truly overwhelmed by too many tables. I opened up five at once and my system was getting a little laggy so clicks were not as responsive. At one stretch I couldn't even fully assess hands properly and probably muffed up a hand or two when I had to babysit three hands simultaneously. Part of the problem was one table became short handed and action was coming real fast on that one so I sat out from that table to help alleviate the problem.

Up $4490 over 154 hands for nearly $30/hand with some bad calls in there. I'll take it. 27% 4th streets. Actually took down two pots without showdowns (rare). Saw 14 showdowns and won 10 with 4 scoops.

Edged over the next tick mark and I'm now at 85,392.