A Rough Day at the Tables

The King tried multi-tabling to terrible results.  The cards were not coming either, there were very few playable hands and the blinds and shallow entries ate up his buy-in. It was a terrible session one.  He also played a little loose with some suited cards and made some minor mistakes.  Finally after several hours he caught two small/medium sized pots and partially came out of the deep hole he was in,

Session two was the same, in that the losses gradually depleted his buy-ins on each table he hopped around on.  The despair of a losing a  week of winnings is unimaginable.  Finally after a couple hours of carefull play, this time, at a higher table, luck came in the nick of time.  The first hand was the nuts a straight with no flush or full house possible, however the pot was just medium to large because the pot was contested by only two others on the river.  The pot, that sealed it, was a low straight and it did not come easy.  The river put a three of a suit on board so somebody could have had a flush, and the straight was not the nuts.  With half the table at the river, the pot was big.   Not a victory, when there is nothing left - everthing was gone - emotions, nerves, hope.....   and the Cavalry arrived.

Multi-Tabling, Quitting Too Soon, Full Moon Shining, The King of Micro Limit Poker (resigned to another year in mediocrity)

Multi-Tabling, August 28, 2010

The 5-10¢ tables were tight, as usual, so the King stayed at the 2-4¢ tables, but achieving a higher end of the year earnings was also important, so he tried multi-tabling.  The session went well and his efficiency was about 95% that of playing on just one table.  The problem of keeping track of table selection was solved by having both games of the same type, namely, loose and somewhat passive.  Mason Malmuth, in Poker Essays volume one, wrote that medium size pots are the best pots to play in.  These pots are bet and raised once on the preflop and flop and with the smaller pots - they are usually not raised much.  An interesting occurance is that games usually become tigher and aggressive, people get tired of losing so they play tighter.  By being aggressive, the try to knock out the players after them by raising and reraising and if they succeed the pot will be contested by fewer players.  Loose aggressive games are just terrible sometimes because of their wild fluctuations.





QUITTING WHILE AHEAD - A MINOR MISTAKE
Some players play until they get ahead and then they quit when they win a big pot or two. In poker, the odds of winning a pot are low, so the graph of a buy-would be gradually declining and occassionally it would spike up when a pot is won.  The blinds are the least profitable positions and the right time to leave the table is just before the blinds, but some people are so tired from long sessions, trying to get even. that they leave the table after winning a big pot. They don't wait till the blinds reach them.  The King, in a year has not left a table, until the blinds reach him, more than a few times.



FULL MOON SHINING

This photo was taken because there was a familiar avatar at the table.  1) Don Corleone is from Lubin, Poland, 2) JCFB028  from Lima, Peru,  3) Joant - Zaandem, Holland, 4) Seobanker - Kpeme??r, Turkey 5)  Tripanic - Millington, Tennessee, 6) Gonzsay - Corrientes, Argentina, 7) Vasia10 - Mockba (Moscow is spelled Mockba), 8) xSheryjanex - Telford, England, and waiting to come on is Llyashka - Minsk, Russia.  Actually, since working on the starting hands project, game play has been minimal, and since beginning there are not many familar avatars.  The player with the red and black avatar with the Batman type of logo was aggressive.  Many times the avatar reflects the playing style,and the major concern is the avatars that look like the player might be aggressive and bet and bet.

There was a white sheet of paper under the screen and the screen had a lot of reflected light on the bottom part, but with photoediting the white glare was minimized.

THE KING OF MICRO LIMIT POKER

RESIGNED TO ANOTHER YEAR IN MEDIOCRITY

Draw poker, so far, is more appealling as a second game besides limit hold 'em.  There are only two rounds of betting compared to four in hold 'em.  PokerStars has a fair number of five card draw games. Because each player holds five cards instead of two in hold 'em, the amount of players is limited to six or less.  One of poker's strange outcomes is that there is more stability with more players in the game.  Stablity in the buy-in and bankroll are key considerations for the King

End of Fiscal Year Two

It is the end of year two for the King and having reached his earnings goal, he plods on to year three.  For fiscal year three, The King will try more of the higher stakes games like 5-10¢, 10-20¢ and 25-50¢ in limit hold-em and also give draw poker a good shot.  Progress is slow and the King will have to spend another year in mediocrity at the micro stakes tables.

Cowboy Poker

Draw Poker is the game most people are familiar with, and PokerStars has a good number of these games.  No-limit is just so wild, draw seems like a game that the King can devote some time into.  Unfortunately, there is not a lot of books out on this poker variation.  Full Tilt does not have this game and Cake Poker does.  It is an easy to learn but hard to master poker variation.  In the old west, this is the game they played and also on the riverboats .

Another Session of Some Looseness and Some Aggression

Certain times of the day have the good games and this past session was at a non-optimal time and the results were break-even. 

There are three more days to the end of the year and the strategy sheet, with its massive amounts of info, is taking shape but will not be finished in time.  However, two of the five parts are finished and being used.  The late position was 200+ lines and was separated into pairs, suited and unsuited before being compressed.  After shortening this section, it should be a total of about 135 lines. 

The button is the best position and Poker Tracker has proved that it is.      

A Little Loose and a Little Aggressive, Boring

It was not the best time to play, but what the hell.  The games were a little loose and bets were getting raised and even reraised.  If those games were very loose it would have been better. The fishes were trying isolation plays but with crappy hands.  So, jumping into the fracas required waiting for a good hand or two.  So those hands came and after an hour, the session was over and the King had another winning sesssion.  It wasn't great because besides being in aggressive games, the cards were not coming. 

The strategy sheet is coming along, but is longer than desireable.

Beating the tight games is, at this time, all theory, but this is the future.

Finally, the King threw away two pennies in a sit and go tournament and lost on his first hand AQ offsuit.  The 2¢ sit and go is very fast moving and the blinds were chewing up his chips. 

One of Five Strategy Sheets Completed

There is no end to perfection, so 8/24/10 is the deadline for the King to finish his strategy sheets in five parts.  The first part, of early position play, is finished and ready  to use.

On the 24th, fiscal year two ends and the gains have been good but not like month two.  At this stage, working to the strategy sheet is mostly compressing the information that is already there.  The new strategy sheet is modeled after M Hilger's strategy sheet (that is only five pages) but will be much longer - something like 35 pages.