Speedyfold Poker Blog

The Learn-Forget-Relearn Tournament Necessity

For many ambitious lower limit players in online poker there is a big problem with the learning curve of advancement. Part way through the curve, you really need to forget a lot of what you have learnt and start over. This can be very confusing for many, especially if you need to level down again after leveling up. But why is this?

The essential reason is that at lower limits bluffing is rarely needed due to a predominate style of play by many opponents of little fear, high risk, and bad draw evaluation. Many bluffs will get caught out, and many high-side value bets with made hands will get paid.

However once you cross a certain threshold in terms of buy-in this all changes. If you play in the same manner you will go no-where fast. You need to forget your previous style of play, and start a new style. The main source of chip gains is no longer the excess looseness and poor hand evaluation of your opponents. The main source is now from the tightness of your opponents. There is more fear and tightness in the average opponent. Many are under-rolled emphasising this tightness. Forcing players to fold suddenly becomes much easier and more fruitful.

Of course at times you may find yourself at an unusually loose table of maniacs in high limit, or conversely unusually tight at lower limits, but these are exceptions not the rule.

So, are you capable of the evolvement of play from low to high limits? Ditching your successful style of play and switching to a new style? Many cant grasp the need to change and will become frustrated with lack of success. Others will grasp some change is needed, but wont adjust quick enough, and others will grasp it, but overdo it by ditching some fundamentals. Many others will also encounter a related problem, and will float in the grey area between the buy-in levels and be lost in a mixmatch of a constant wide opponent-diversity way way in excess of what you would ever see elsewhere. Getting a long-term successful style in those levels is probably the most difficult task of all.

Good Luck. If you can at least grasp the need for the different styles, you are part way there.

Getting your raise size correct at various stages in a tournament is an important aspect to successful play.  Basically the later on the tournament you get, the shallower your standard raise should become (obv as a general rule, not in all instances).

As you start to get deep 2.5 times the big blind or less is perfectly fine.   Many players will not call to even a small raise, at this point, unless they have a half-decent hand.  So it enables you to pick up pots very cheaply.  With the antes on offer as well, this makes each hand a very desirable pot.

The shallow pre-flop raise like this also gives you more room to either fold cheaply, or to evaluate any raise/push to see if there is value there for you.

We can illustrate with an example.  Here, poker pro Jon Turner (PearlJammed) is deep in a tournament, and raises to his standard for the blind level, 4875.  This is 2.4375 times the big blind.    With the antes, there is a 5000 chip gain here on offer if the opponents fold, which they do in this example.   Very much low risk for high gain, compared to a std 3xBB raise before the antes.

Full Tilt Poker Game #6468631057: FTOPS Event #21 (47445419), Table 15 - 1000/2000 Ante 250 - No Limit Hold’em - 16:33:39 ET - 2008/05/18
Seat 1: binrich (25,064)
Seat 3: ckingusc (49,646)
Seat 4: 747wd (72,740)
Seat 5: PearlJammed (109,613)
Seat 6: lilfishy897 (196,251)
Seat 7: rrrobins (199,538)
Seat 8: Erich Kollmann (93,315)
Seat 9: I_Do_Goats (172,888)
binrich antes 250
ckingusc antes 250
747wd antes 250
PearlJammed antes 250
lilfishy897 antes 250
rrrobins antes 250
Erich Kollmann antes 250
I_Do_Goats antes 250
I_Do_Goats posts the small blind of 1,000
binrich posts the big blind of 2,000
The button is in seat #8
*** HOLE CARDS ***
ckingusc folds
747wd folds
PearlJammed raises to 4,875
lilfishy897 folds
rrrobins folds
Erich Kollmann folds
I_Do_Goats folds
binrich folds
Uncalled bet of 2,875 returned to PearlJammed
PearlJammed mucks
PearlJammed wins the pot (7,000)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 7,000 | Rake 0
Seat 1: binrich (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 3: ckingusc folded before the Flop
Seat 4: 747wd folded before the Flop
Seat 5: PearlJammed collected (7,000), mucked
Seat 6: lilfishy897 folded before the Flop
Seat 7: rrrobins folded before the Flop
Seat 8: Erich Kollmann (button) folded before the Flop
Seat 9: I_Do_Goats (small blind) folded before the Flop

I have been lucky enough to make a few final tables recently, which got me thinking more and more about final table bubble play. 

Way too often you will see players shying away of everyone at the table except the shortstack.  The shortstack by his very nature is forced into getting his chips in to stand much chance of getting to the final table.  Often they’ll end up doubling up by those too liberally playing at the shortstack, thinking shortstack = fold; and all too often coming unstuck with calls by the broadest range of hands.

Really the players you want to pick on around the final table bubble are the middle/bigger stacks.  If there are one or more really shortstacks at the table, very few middle/big stacks are reluctant to take any chances at all when they are in that nice and cosy/safe mid-stack position.  As a consequence they are much more likely to fold than the shortstacks.   Not enough players capitilise on this.   Huge chip advantages can be accumulated around the final table bubble, so dont be afraid to play tough with the non-shortstacks

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen someone cursing their luck at the poker tables and attempting to prove how unlucky they are.  Often the general thing which they try to prove is that they get way more bad beats inflicted upon them than the other way around.  Poor sods?  Do you have any sympathy with them yet? 

Well, lets analyse that a little, and show that you should always in fact suffer more bad beats than you dish out.   Seems illogical sometimes at first, but that is the way it should be, rather than having anything to do with being cursed at the tables.

Suffering a bad beat is a direct reflection of getting the chips in with the best hand.  By it’s very nature it cant be a bad beat unless you do this.

Inflicted bad beats upon others is a direct reflection of getting the chips in with the worst hand.

Therefore if you are 50:50 in terms of beats suffered and beats inflicted on others, it doesnt mean you have average luck, it just means you are an average player.

If the ratio is 90:10 that doesnt mean your the unluckiest guy on PKR Poker or wherever you are playing, it just means that in 9 out of 10 occassions you are getting your chips in with the best hand.  You are not unlucky as such, you are just a good player!

So in summary, the bad beat equation should be unbalanced, and that imbalance that seems like awful luck compared to others is actually a direct reflection that you are doing the right thing.  So chin up, and try to just shrug off those beats once and for all.

Strange flat raise by chef on the river here.  I’ll attempt to explain why. If he is beaten (eg by me holding a 10, or an 8 or something) he has either just lost himself an extra 400 for nothing, or he has opened himself up to a reraise, where he could lose even more than the extra 400 if he feels obliged to call at value.

You are unable to justify this risked loss with any potential gain, as no legitmate scenario exists where he could actually gain 400 from the bet.  Every hand worse than his bare ace kicker is going to fold to the raise.

Basically, calling on the river is the one and only option for villain.  I didnt have the heart to box-his-ears and point this out to him though

Seat 1: ghost (8176 in chips)
Seat 2: tron (6536 in chips)
Seat 3: Flouder (8540 in chips)
Seat 4: BlueS (6165 in chips)
Seat 5: OTIS (1625 in chips)
Seat 6: ONLYINA (5450 in chips)
Seat 7: “Speedyfold” (10909 in chips)
Seat 8: chef  (14915 in chips)
Seat 9: asif (8304 in chips)
50 ante each
“Speedyfold” : posts small blind 200
chef : posts big blind 400
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to “Speedyfold” [4c Ah]
Folded around
Speedy: calls 200
chef: checks
*** FLOP *** [Jd Tc 8h]
Speedy: checks
chef: checks
*** TURN *** [Jd Tc 8h] [Jh]
Speedy: checks
chef: checks
*** RIVER *** [Jd Tc 8h Jh] [Ts]
Speedy: bets 400
chef: raises 400 to 800
Speedy: calls 400
*** SHOW DOWN ***
chef: shows [As 4s] (two pair, Jacks and Tens)
Speedy: shows [4c Ah] (two pair, Jacks and Tens)