Anyone want another online challenge?

As many of you know I have had tremendous success playing PLO and PLO8 on cake although my success is slowing in 2009. I am considering moving some funds over to Full Tilt for a number of reasons, if I can successfully obtain another rake back account. I think I can, but won't know for sure until I register with a new email. Rakeback for me is huge as about 1/4 of my total winnings have been funded by rakeback.

Playing on line on Full Tilt will help me determine if I am a really good on line player or just a really good online player against the competition on cake. PLO8 action is weak on cake though there is plenty of PLO action. It will also be good practice for the WSOP as well as Marsh, myself, and Jeh are planning to attend.

Rather than all of us starting with $50.00 and grinding it out at the micro stakes, I would envision each of us starting with X, X to be determined by each players comfort level with their own bankroll. The challenge would be to watch each player progress to 2x, 4x or 10x or a bust out, using reasonable bankroll management principles.

I would be happy to share my knowledge if anyone wishes to attempt the challenge concentrating on PLO or PLO8. With my comments subject to group scrutiny, it will be helpful for me as well as I try to continue with my success as an Omaha player.

Anyone up for another challenge?

My apology for a dealer error last week

At last week's game I committed a dealer error which had significant ramifications. It was a forum post that I read today which caused me to realize that I screwed up last week. My best recollection of the hand was that it went something like this:

Four way limped pot.

I was either the SB or BB, probably the SB.

The other players were Royal, Paul, and Lee.

Flop was J63 two spades.

It checks through to Lee who is last to act.

Lee bets somewhere around 6 into the pot of 8 chips.

I have 25os and call with my gutshot straight draw.

Royal has two crappy spades and he calls as well.

At this point I burn a card and deal Qs as the turn card which would complete Royal's flush. Only after I dealt the turn was it apparent that Paul had not yet acted. He ended up folding.

Dealing the turn card early was a mistake but those happen. What I did was compound that mistake by not following the proper procedure for addressing that situation and that is where the serious error occurred. What I did was leave the second burn card under the pot, I then announced that the queen of spades was in the stub and reshuffled the remaining cards and dealt a new turn card. That turn card ended up being the 4 of diamonds which filled my straight. As first to act I lead out. With approximately 26 chips in the middle I estimate I would have bet about 20. Royal folds. Lee then raised me an amount I don't recall but let's say it is about 50. I recall feeling that he really liked his hand so I went ahead and shoved having him well covered. He insta-called so fast that I momentarily game him credit for 57, he instead turns over 36 for two pair. My hand holds up and I stack Lee for what I recall to be approximately one rack of chips.

What *should* have happened is described in Robert's Rules of Poker, the de facto standard and the rule set in effect for our game.

http://www.homepokertourney.com/roberts-rules-of-poker.htm#SECTION_5_-_HOLDEM
8. A dealing error for the fourth boardcard is rectified in a manner to least influence the identity of the boardcards that would have been used without the error. The dealer burns and deals what would have been the fifth card in the fourth card’s place. After this round of betting, the dealer reshuffles the deck, including the card that was taken out of play, but not including the burncards or discards. The dealer then cuts the deck and deals the final card without burning a card. ...

This procedure maintains 4/5 of the original board cards which is as close as you can get to what would have happened had the error not occurred. This is also different from how to handle prematurely dealing the flop or river. In each of those cases the board card(s) get reshuffled back in the stub and are re-dealt. I had erroneously used that same procedure on the turn card.

So even though it was an honest mistake I am offering to chop the pot with Lee by crediting him a rack of chips which is the approximate amount that I recall him having in front of him. Though I have no obligation to do so I do not want there to be even the slightest hint of a conflict of interest or of any impropriety. The extremely unique set of circumstances of my procedural error erroneously dealing the gin card which led to me stacking Lee is why I am offering him a rack of chips as resolution for the situation. I take the integrity of the game very seriously and I want to do whatever I can to ensure that the game is on the level. I also want to assure others involved in the game that it I am taking efforts to keep the game square. I hope that my settlement with Lee and my commitment to following established rules and procedures are evidence of my desire to maintain a fair playing field for everyone involved.

Also, Royal, if you would like I will refund you 8 chips to cover your BB and call on the flop. ;)

Semi-bluffing with no fold equity

Following situation came up at WNP. I'm foggy on the numbers but the principle is what I'm wondering about.

Multiway hand, at least four to the flop, maybe five? I think it was raised to six pre. I have 8c9c and would be capping betting with my call. So let's say there is 24 in the pot. I guess I was the BB. Flop comes out JQx with two clubbies so I have four to the flush and a gutter. It was not JcQc so I didn't have a GSSFD. SB bets 15. I call. Player to my left raises to 30(?). Player behind re-raises to 60(?). SB gets out. I am assessing the situation. The player to my left is pretty short had maybe another 40 behind. The re-raiser I think maybe had another 60 behind or so. Again, numbers aren't important. All I know is that I feel totally priced in to shove with two calls as long as I have all 12 outs that I think I have. If someone is willing to go to the mat with AcKc that would really suck for me but with the original stabber out I really feel that both of the other players in the hand are protecting their hand and that I am the only one drawing with my double draw.

So here's the question. Is raising the right move if I have no fold equity? I totally fell like both players are willing to go bust with their hands on that flop and I think they are both pot committed as well. If I flat all and there is a flat call behind me then a Club comes I figure that kills all my action but I also likely take the pot down there. If a Ten comes I think I'm still getting paid though a three straight on the board isn't as inviting as a less coordinated board for the bettors. Isn't the idea behind a semi-bluff to give yourself two ways to win, either from a fold or a draw out? So if a raise won't elicit a fold then you are just getting money in hoping only to draw out, even if you are getting the right overlay on price. I suppoe it is in general always better to be betting your chips and not calling but is it better to raise instead of call chips when you need to catch up and there is no way villain is going to fold?

Team Poker

I actually preferred the more-interesting way that Marsh, Martin and Jeh explored "team poker" with their tournament that used shared stacks and information, but it's worth noting that Caesar's Palace is running a more mundane team poker tournament in March...

http://www.dreamteampoker.com/

Short version is that you play a tournament as normal, but you score points for where you place, and your team score is a total of your (three) team members' scores.

$400+ pot with Spainr, correct play?

This hand took place last night at hollywood, at the time I liked my play but Marsh and I are now on the fence, comments appreciated. The game is 2-40 spread with $1/$2 blinds.

So I'm in middle position, I limp with J8 of diamonds. The game has been fairly limpy at this point, so I'd been getting away with weak moves like this to some success. 2 seats to my left, it is raised to $6 and the waterfall follows. It's a family pot when it comes around to me if the guy on the left of me doesn't pop it, so I'm in, he calls and we go to the flop:

4d 7h 10d

Good flop for me, inside straight draw, 4th nut flush draw. It checks around to me, I check, original raiser pops in another $6. It folds to the small blind, who now pops it up to $14. The action folds around to the player to my right, who jams for $40 more (maximum raise), bringing the bet to call up to $54. I had witnessed this player limp with big pairs earlier and was pretty sure he held an overpair to the board, which I'm about even money to.

Now, here is the play in question. The player to my right who has reraised has about 50 dollars and change behind, enough to cover one more inevitable big bet and a little extra. Initially I ponder just calling, but, deciding that since I would call another $40 on the turn if I miss everything anyways, and knowing that if I repop and isolate I'll only have to commit another $15 or so to the pot against the near all in for the rest of the hand, I decide to hit the gas. I pop $40 on top of that, bringing the bet to $94 total. (This is the move I generally want the most feedback on, the rest of the hand, as you'll see is fairly self-explanatory)

Folds around to the kid under the gun, who takes a long think, and finally shoved in the additional $80. (Side note: This kid is stacked, having me well covered) Now I'm not sure I want my diamond. The turn brings my absolute gin card: the 9 of spades. The kid under the gun checks, the short stack plops in his last $15. Now I have the under the gun villian squarely on a diamond draw, so I decide to make him pay for it just in case it is better than mine, and drop $40 on top, which he immediately calls.

The river brings the Queen of spades. Beautiful card, all my worries melt away as I am sitting with the mortal nuts. The kid under the gun checks, I bet 40, and in an EXTREMELY questionable move, thinks for a minute or so and then open folds 9d 7d, busted flush draw come 2 pair. Sick read, but overall an unprofitable fold in my opinion. The all in flips over a rivered set of Queens and I feel pretty bad for him when I flip over the nuts, sick river for him to see.

Anyways, what do you think of my attempt to isolate against the short stack so that I don't have to commit a ton more money to the pot if I miss? Good, no good?

Spainr4life


-Woody

Stakes and Chips II

Thanks for all of the feedback so far. After going over people's comments I wanted to throw out the following proposed format to see if people would be willing to give this a shot:

.50/.50 blinds
$20-$100 buy in
each chip worth .50
optional straddle allowed

This structure would have the following attributes:

* Largely the same blind structure as we are currently playing. In theory this looks like everyone would be paying one extra quarter per orbit though in practice it will be less than that due to the amount of times that the SB actually ends up playing their hand.

* Having chips be worth .50 will cut down on chip bloat that has increased over the years yet still allow for fine resolution betting amounts like seven, 17, or 31.

* The standard $60 buy will provide 120 chips, a rack and a stack, which remains 120xBB and is still deeper than the usual 100xBB buy in for cash games. That will give people buying in for $60 the same amount of room to maneuver as before as opposed to having only 60xBB in a .5/1 game.

* With the straddle on, the game will largely resemble the .50/1 game which some favor.

* An optional straddle is what we currently have and having a "bigger BB" worth $1 is established territory.

* $100 maximum buy in would basically move the middle/late stages of the evening up to sooner in the session. After rebuys the table ends up having a similar amount of money on the table anyway.

* The same stakes would be used whether we are playing one table or more and everyone would have the opportunity to play with each other player.

I think that the above proposal strikes a reasonable balance of addressing everyone's varying concerns which have been voiced so far. Players who don't want the stakes increased would still get 120xBB for a standard $60 buy. Players who want to up the stakes can buy in for $100 and straddle for $1 and have it play like a .50/1 game. Unless anyone feels strongly that we should not head in this direction I would like to use the proposed structure on a trial basis. Then based on feedback from the group we can either keep the format, revert to the original format, or try a different direction. Let me know what you guys think.

This just in...2009 WSOP schedule

For those interested, the 2009 WSOP schedule is finally out. Main Event final table is again delayed until November, yawn. A summary of the events here.

Some notable ones:
* A 40K NLHE event to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the WSOP.
* 57 bracelets this year.
* No more rebuy tourneys.
* A "stimulus" 1K buy in tourney which sounds like a giant donk fest.

Stakes and chips

Though the days have switched back and forth, Midweek Poker has been running strong for well over two years now. In the beginning we started at .20/.40 stakes so that a $40 buy in would get you two full racks of chips and we would play in the familiar psuedo 1/2 format. We next moved to .25/.50 stakes where it took a $50 buy in to get those same two racks. Then, in a blatantly transparent effort to deal with less change, the buy in was bumped to $60 so that everyone could just pay in $20s. And so it has been for quite a while.

I believe that the time may be right for another change.

Even on average single table attendance nights we routinely get all of the chips and many of the straps into play. Not that that's a problem because I like the deep stack play of the 1/2 "unit" format. I think that it plays better and that we get better poker out of it. The side effect is that we can end up mountains of chips in stacks by the end of the night. Fortresses, towers, or mounds of chips I think work fine...mountains I think are a little excessive. I think that part of the cause is the chip structure and the other part is that the stakes are not as relevant as they used to be. Whether it is inflation, different players, or just the fact that we are used to the stakes, I feel that the .25/.50 game as it is set up now is not right sized. I think changing the stakes and/or the structure would suit the game. Below are some ideas I've been mulling over. I think that one of the options or a combination of options would fit our game better than the current setup.

* Deeper maximum buy in
Changing the buy in from $20-$60 to $20-$100 would allow for deeper starting stacks. Everyone would still be allowed to buy in for the standard $60 still of course and the minimum of $20 would remain untouched so no one would be forced to buy in over their comfort level. We end up averaging around the same chip depth by the end of the night anyway so this change would primarily just be accelerating the process of getting everyone to deeper chip stacks. My impression from the mega-deep stack nights that we have played on the weekends is that deeper stacks promote better play since people have more potentially at stake. It would be a way to raise the stakes without really raising the stakes since blinds would remain .25/.50.

* Higher stakes
The next convenient step up the food chain would be .50/1. Many of us have played that on the weekend and with the frequency of straddles we are often essentially playing those stakes much of the time anyway. We do have the option of intermediate stakes due to the pseudo 1/2 format that we use. Just like we used to play .20/40 we can make the SB/BB any arbitrary amount and just convert at buy in and cash out. Though it would be unconventional we could bump to basically any stake amount between .25/.50 and .50/1.

* Blind chips
At Fixed Limit night we used the $1 chips at face value and introduced a .25 ante chip. Likewise we could give everyone a stack of quarter chips at the beginning of the night and use the Blues at face value. My prediction is that all betting post flop would be in even increments of $1 and that stacks of 60 chips (minus some for blinds) would end up in the middle pretty quickly. I've seen LV casinos switch from 200x$1 chips to 40x$5 chips. I've also seen Ryan's lunch game switch from .25 and $1 chips to just using .25 chips. In both cases I prefer the deeper stacks because I feel that better poker is played when people don't feel short stacked. Despite the fact that there may be an equivalent amount of money represented, fewer physical chips has a definite effect on the play at the table.

* Switching to .50/.50 blinds
In this scenario the chips would be worth .50 each and both SB and BB would be a single chip. The main effect would be cutting all stacks in half. Leaving the max buy at $60 and going to .50 units would provide for a starting stack of 120 chips which I think is pretty reasonable.

* Allowing/disallowing straddles
Regardless of the stakes or chip format, allowing or disallowing straddles will change the effective stakes of the game. Straddle policy in conjunction with other changes can provide a tweak to tune the play one way or another.

* New denomination
As much as I like how the 1/2 unit system works I do see room for another denomination to come into play. I would prefer to stay away from a $5 chip since I think that it would lead to the game being played in increments of 5 after the flop. I had previously floated the idea of a 20 unit plaque before we brought the straps into play. Though I'm lukewarm about the actual use of a plaque I think that a 20 unit marker could work. I was thinking along the lines of a small packet of bills folded in half. The working term I have been using for these is "sugar packet." The packs would easily exchange for a stack of chips which I think is the biggest Achilles heel of the current system. With bets so large happening so often moving bunches of full stacks across the table would be simplified by sugar packets but without diminishing the ability or likelihood of betting in fine increments like 9, 17 or 23.

So there ya go. Maybe others don't see a problem and if everyone wants to proceed with business as usual then that's fine by me. But trying to look at it from as unbiased a view as possible, I believe that there is room for improvement to make the game run smoother and be more enjoyable for everyone. Let's hear everyone's thoughts on the matter and we can figure out what the Midweek Poker is going to look like going forward. Thanks!

Is this thing on?

Clearly the amount of content has declined from its peak. Is this the best venue for discussion of issues or should we go back to email?