Ship the major

Well, in my last blog I said that while all my recent results came in the smaller runner fields that are my bread and butter these days, I felt that a major result was just around the corner.

It might be stretching the definition of "Sunday major" a little to include the Merge network's 50K guaranteed, but that won't stop me claiming it. I entered a number of "majors" on Bruce and a variety of other sites that generally have overlays (I do love a good overlay), got good stacks early in most of them (something I seem to be able to do with relative ease these days), notched up a few more min cashes, before coming good and taking down the 400 runner plus Merge 50K for a five figure score. I've been going well on Merge recently, winning my first tournament there the weekend before (the 7k gtd $30 rebuy), and repeating the performance last Friday. According to Sharkscope, I've played 36 mtts on the network (three of which I've won)

I was up among the chipleaders in the 50K from a long way out and as it got down to a few tables notched up the aggression, as you do, to the point where all the table talk was about the "crazy Irishman" who was clearly driven mad by Guinness, or lack thereof. My poker soul brother Mark Dalimore begin_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlighting showed me early in my career that displaying a cavalier willingness to ship a monster stack into the middle at that stage of a tournament scares the living daylights out of most opponents, allowing you to steal a lot with impunity. Virtually every time someone in late position raised when I was in the blinds, I shipped. It all went to plan until two tables out when I lost a few big ones, and then more at the start of the final table. For most of the final table I was second in chips but had the worst seat in the virtual house, with the extremely competent and aggressive chipleader to my immediate left who was giving me a dose of my own medicine. Literally every time I raised he instashipped. Stack sizes were perfect for it as a more normal sized threebet pot committed him against all the other stacks (most of whom in any case were clinging on to move up the payout ladder), and while I'm never shy at pulling out the 5 bet ship lightish against that type of player, I really don't want to call it off lightly in that spot, even if I think I'm most likely racing. The lower placed final table prizes were a pittance compared to the top 2 or 3 spots, so risking a second place stack on some approximation of a 50/50 give or take 10 per cent either way just didn't seem prudent at that point. All of which meant I had to quickly readjust and tighten my opening range, and card death for most of the final table didn't help there. You really don't want to be sitting waiting for cards at that stage when there's a tournament waiting to be won but sometimes you have no other choice. Luckily my patience and discipline were rewarded with a run of cards and a couple of won races in the latter crucial stage.

Mireille came to watch for the last couple of hours, and I think having her there helped me focus. Having to explain my thought processes out loud to her seems to clarify them, and also stop me from doing anything rash when faced with a relentlessly aggro opponent, or playing more hands than I should for the wrong reasons. I first noticed this phenomenon when we were in New York a couple of years ago. She was toying with the idea of playing a Lady's event, and to coach her I signed up to a tourney on Full Tilt, which I ended up winning. On reflection afterwards, I realised that I'd slipped into a number of lazy bad habits in my normal online game which I eradicated from that tournament as I didn't want to be teaching her bad habits.

I was also railed on the final table by a number of Irish players. Maybe the best thing about the Irish poker scene is how many genuine people there are out there who rail and support you when you do go deep. So a big thank you to everyone.

Since the last blog, my recent dry spell in live Irish tourneys continued into the Bluff monthly tournaments (I made the final table, but lasted only a couple of orbits, exitting to a standard reship) and the Fitz 500 game (where I got a bit of a stack early but ultimately came a cropper with aces against a flopped set). Next major live outing for me is the Bruce sponsored Leinster Championships, which will hopefully mark the end of the recent live Doke drought. See you there hopefully.

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A couple of monthlies and a lot of online

As Vegas slips into the memory bank, I'm getting back into the swing of my online grinding. I basically had a couple of breakeven/slight profit weeks followed by a mini heater.

On Tuesday of last week, I played the IWF rebuy satellite on Ipoker. 4 or 5 hours in, I'm headsup when I suddenly realise the blinds are not increasing. Slight problem given that my opponent and I are about 500 big blinds deep, and he's too good to be getting 500 bigs in with one pair. About 7 hours later he's going mental in the chatbox saying he has to go to work when Ipoker just aborted the tournament and awarded us both packages. Result! Long difficult night though: Mireille stayed up with me to make sure I didn't fall asleep at the screen. I think my opponent almost did at one point: around 4 AM he seemed to lose all his aggression and start doing loopy stuff. He got it back though and the battle raged on. Meanwhile, Mireille's attitude was veering from how cool it was to watch me "work" and explain my thought processes to yeah yeah raise the donk lead cos it's never strong oh God this is repetitive. Thanks to Alan F in Paddy Power online support for his help, and fair play to Ipoker for doing the decent thing in the end.

On Thursday, I played the Fitz EOM: never got going and lost what was effectively a flip. On Saturday I headed to Navan for the JJP monthly game and played like an absolute donkey on coke. My exit was unfortunate but the damage was done before that as I spewed off over half of a 20K stack in record time. It was like I forgot everything I'd learned about how to play live tournament poker in Ireland and played my standard online game instead which really doesn't work against players who'd never dream of folding once they've put a few chips in the pot. Exit was quite funny: over half the table limped at 100/200. With AK in the BB and 8K, I bumped it up to what I thought a sufficiently hefty number to test their collective resolve (1500). The second limper (utg+1) cold called, as did the SB. I got it in against the second limper on a K98 flop and he tabled a most unexpected K9o. Well, unexpected to me anyway but maybe it shouldn't have been given that it was live. Not much folding goes on live, as they say.

Suitably tilted by that performance, I covered over 5 kilometres walking towards home in the 30 minutes it took Mireille to come and get me. I think my biggest strength as a poker player is how quickly I recover from disappointment, and no sooner was I out of the car back home than I was grinding some online mtts. Cue the mini heater: the next 24 hours saw me win 5 tournaments on 4 different sites, yielding me twice as much in profit as what I'd have got for winning the live game, with a UKIPT Dublin package thrown in for good measure. They all came in the smaller runner fields that are my bread and butter these days, but I came close to some really big scores in some of the majors. I was one of the chipleaders in the Bruce 100K with 30 left before I lost a few races, and had a few similar crossbars in Sunday majors on other sites. I feel the really big one is just round the corner.

With that in mind, I played the first FTOPS last night and cruised through the early levels to a decent enough stack. Card dead and people's increased aggression as the blinds rose saw me settle into an approximately average stack on the bubble. A few well chosen reships saw me comfortably through the bubble only to lose a perfectly standard race. Must race better. Still, online has gone so well this year I do find myself wondering at times why I ever bother to leave the house.

Live agenda for this week includes the Bluff monthly tournament (tonight), the Fitz 500 game on Saturday, and possibly the team event in the Bluff on Sunday. If anyone sees me trying to make people fold in any of those games, please pull me aside and have a word.

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Classic hand, classic game theory

Last year the Fitz hosted the so-called Ladbrokes Face Up Holdem World Championship. Myself and the brother were excited about this novel form of poker where the only skills were purely mathematical, and we sat down to work out optimal strategy in advance. We were convinced some others would have it worked out even more, but that didn't seem to be the case. At the start, people were playing appallingly. Most seemed to be sticking to their 'normal game' - doing things like playing suited connectors (despite zero implied odds), not realising that unless it was an allin situation, it didn't matter that two overs were almost 50/50 against a pair (the important odds being after the flop, if the pair can then push the overs out), just going allin with the best hand (not allowing anyone to make a Fundamental Theorem mistake) etc. etc. As the tournament went on though, the optimal strategy seemed to propagate virally: the players who started playing badly now starting to ape what they saw the better players doing.

Anyway, I had a good run just falling short of the final table (card death is unsurmountable in this form of poker, alas). The brother went all the way and claimed the title. The hand that swung it his way happened when he was three-handed against Cecil and bone fide Irish poker legend, Colette Doherty. Sean called a two way all in with 52o when both Colette and Cecil had KQ. This hand was reported in Poker Europa, leading to a bemused reaction among some of Sean's friends who couldn't believe he'd called an all in with 52o when he knew he was up against KQ. In the words of one, "Well done, but you were in with shite. SHITE!"

It was generally believed that Sean made a mistake calling the allin. Actually, it was a brilliant move that only someone with Sean's understanding of the odds could make. Here's how the hand developed.

Cecil, on the button, looks down at KQo, sees that Colette in the small blind has the same hand (KQo), and Sean (the shortest of the three stacks) has 52o.

Cecil moves all in.

Colette, presumably thinking that Sean will fold his garbage hand and not wanting to surrender her SB and half of Sean's BB to someone with the same hand, calls.

Sean instacalls.

Like I said, most people's instinctive reaction was to think Sean had made a mistake. In actual fact, he's the only one of the three players who didn't.

Against one KQ, Sean would be almost a 2 to 1 dog, so it would be a clear mistake to call, as he'd be getting only a bit better than evens on the call. Against two KQ's, he's getting better than 2 to 1 (taking his posted BB into account, and the fact that he's the shortest stack). The even better news is that because his two opponents have each other's cards, he's no longer a 2 to 1 dog. In fact, he's favourite to win the hand at almost 40% to both his opponents 30% each (or 60% if it's just one and the other folds). Once you realise this, it's a no brain call.

So if Sean didn't make a mistake, did either or both of his opponents? Yes and no: it's actually a classic game theory situation where the correct move depends entirely on what your opponents do. The correct play for his two opponents would be for one of them to move all in and the other to fold, thus depriving Sean of the odds to call. But poker's not a team sport, and each individual acts in their own self interest.

Let's look at Cecil first. If he thinks either Colette or Sean will fold to his all in, then his all in is correct. But if he thinks Colette may not fold, then he's making a clear mistake, since it allows Sean to call getting better than 2 to 1 on a 6 to 4 shot (of course, if he thinks Sean's not smart enough to realise this and will fold, then his allin becomes correct again). The more correct play, the one which will never be wrong, is for Cecil simply to fold. This would allow Colette to move all in and Sean would be making a big mistake in calling, so would have to fold. Shorty would get shorter and both big stacks equity would increase.

Now let's look at Colette's call. This is a clear mistake unless Sean folds. By calling, she's improving the odds Sean is getting to call with his garbage well past the point where a call becomes correct. In effect, she's handing the short stack the chance to treble through and get back in the game on a 6 to 4 shot.

As it happened, Sean spiked a 5 to scoop the pot and never looked back.

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