One Event Down (and Out)

I treaded water for six hours today in the $1,500 No Limit Hold ‘Em event at the Borgata Winter Open, with two exceptions.

Exception One: Blinds of 100-200. A tight-passive player limps UTG. Folded to a loose-aggressive internet player on the button, who makes it 550. The small blind (tight and straightforward older gentleman) calls, and I decide to call in the big blind with two nines. I could’ve three-bet to isolate the button, but there was a decent chance the small blind would’ve come along anyway, and I didn’t like my options if I got four-bet. UTG calls as well. The flop comes 964 with two spades. Checked to the button who bets 1,025. The SB folds. I make it 3,500. UTG folds, and the button quickly moves me in for 13,000 more. I, of course, call, and the button rolls over 74o. The five on the turn gives him a sweat, but luckily the river is a ten and I double up.

Exception Two: The very first hand of 200-400, 50 ante. Folds to the cutoff, who is an actual poker player, loose, tricky, tough. He opens for 1,025. The button folds. I’m in the SB with 87o, and I make it 3,500 to go. The BB folds. The cutoff thinks for a long time, and finally four-bets to 8,550 total. I don’t fold much of my three-betting range when being offered 2.6-1, although this hand would certainly be a candidate. But I didn’t feel my opponent was very strong. I opted to call, making the pot 18,000, and leaving me with 27,000 behind. I planned on leading out all-in on some flops, check-raising all-in on some flops, and check-folding on some flops (and not necessarily always deciding in advance). The flop comes JT8 rainbow. I decide to check and then re-evaluate. My opponent bets 10,200. I don’t see anything to change my initial read, and so I move in hoping for a fold. Sadly, my opponent calls instantly with T9s. Oh well, at least the preflop read was right. I don’t improve, and that’s that.

I’m happy I went out swinging, and I made some nice plays earlier in the day on small pots. Time to refocus and get ready for the Main Event, which I’ll start on Monday (although even before then, I’ll probably play some online stuff on Sunday).

Back at the Borg

Well, I’m here in Atlantic City for another instantiation of the Borgata Winter Open. Tomorrow I play the $1,500 No Limit Hold ‘Em event. Follow my twitter feed for chip count updates, and possibly other observations.

PLO, and the Rush

I was cruising along happily in my PLO learning curve–playing 500 hands or so a night, studying a little and working on my other life (writing my novel) during the day–and everything was going great and I was enjoying myself. And then Rush Poker had to come along and mess with the program (as Fruit would say, in a little more colorful language).

Rush Poker, for those who don’t know, is a new format of online poker on Full Tilt where everyone who wants to play at a certain limit is thrown into the same pool of players. As soon as you fold a hand, you’re grouped with the next bunch of players who have finished a hand, and another hand is immediately dealt. So you’re getting new players all the time, but you’re seeing a lot more hands.

To me, Rush Poker is one of those ideas that seems so completely obvious in hindsight that it’s amazing no one had thought of it until now. I love it. So as I briefly go through some of the pros and cons, you should consider me a biased observer.

Pro: The implementation is, so far as I’ve been able to tell, flawless. I used to test software for a living, and I’m incredibly impressed that Rush Poker works so well. This thing would be considered smooth and successful if it had been out for a year. For a just-released piece of software, it’s astounding.

Con: with new opponents churning through all the time, there is less chance to learn their tendencies and use data against them. This is more of a con for other people than for me. I use a HUD but I don’t rely on it as heavily as other players. Besides, eventually, even in the big player pool, there will be enough data on all opponents and the HUD software will catch up to make itself usable on these new games. At least, I think that will happen.

Pro: So many freakin’ hands. I’ve never been good at grinding for many hours, or playing a whole ton of tables. As a result, I don’t put in nearly the volume of most online pros and have instead played tournaments (both online and brick-and-mortar) to maintain my interest and keep myself logging enough hours. With Rush, even I can get the hands in. I’m averaging 205 hands/table/hour!

Con: It’s not yet available for higher limits. This will change.

Pro: Multi-tabling is already enabled. You can have four versions of yourself at the same Rush “table.” The software knows to put each version of yourself at a different table from the others, and voila, you’re multi-tabling. As I said, it’s impressive.

Con: The players play tighter, because it’s easier to fold. While it’s true that most of the money in cash games comes from people playing too loose, there is plenty of money to be made from people playing too tight. Ask any tournament specialist. I think my style in particular (less player-dependent, more loose-aggressive) is better suited to the Rush Poker format than the normal format.

Sadly, Rush Poker is not yet available for PLO at any level higher than $0.10-$0.25. This, too, will change. In the meantime, I’m splitting my time between PLO (because I still want to log 50k hands as part of my learning curve) and NLHE Rush Poker. Because it’s just too fun. Hey all, poker is fun!

My next post will be from Atlantic City in a week or so. You can all look forward to hearing about this year’s version of the Borgata Winter Open.