Hollywood Park Casino Celebrity Sit N Go

HPC (Hollywood Park Casino) has a new Sit-N-Go Tournament, currently only on Tuesday @ 8pm (2107)
$3,000 Guarantee. $330 Entry Fee. It's a 10 player, single table event, with $300 of the entry fee going to the prize pool. The $330 entry fee will get you $10,000 in chips  with 20 minute levels starting at 50/100.

Tournament Value:   38.54,
Anything under 50 may not be worth playing and more likely designed to get you back to the cash game tables, but then again, it's on Tuesday.
Could be worth playing with an ROI of 4.94, but being that it's on a Tuesday it's more of a Predator/Prey Tournament.

http://www.mrluckypoker.net/2017/02/hollywood-park-casino-celebrity-sit-n-go.html

Sit and Go Tournaments are not spread very much anymore in the local card rooms. The best one I played in was as Hawaiian Gardens Casino, a three table tournament on weekends. Sadly it went away. Commerce Casino and The Bike run them sometimes during their big event tournaments.
This one is on the fast side but not Turbo, with 20 minute blind changes or 3 times per hour and not deep stacked @ only 100 Big Blinds for an "M" of 100, with a Utility "M" of about 67 Big Blinds.

You reach the Minefield at about Level 4,  which now lowers your (M) to 29 Big Blinds, since you need a minimum of 60 Big Blinds at all times to be competitive, you have to play much more riskier hands.

If your average win/loss rate is 50% and with the ante kicking in, you have only about 30 hands left before you have to play a Kill Phil kind of game. The Minefield section is about 1.5 hours and should end about Level 9, where you will need at least $72.000 in chips to continue at the Bubble Phase and on to the In-the-Money Phase. This tournament only pays the top 2 out of 10.

The Minefield is not too deep at about 6 levels, which means that's where most of the action is going to be as players try to improve their stacks. At level 7, about 2.33 hours into the tournament, it should start getting exciting as short stacks are going ALL-IN and medium stacks get cautious.

You only have about 2 hours to Double Up your stack, which means changing gears could be problematic when you are getting short stacked.

Being a tournament more geared to Luck at 81% than Skill, at about 18%, Tight Passive players are likely to have to make bigger bets than usual, but this one could go on for about 3 hours or more. Haven't seen the results, I don't think Hollywood Park Casino publishes them.

It would be interesting to see if a deeper stacked tournament, with 30 min blinds, and paying 3 players would make the tournament more popular, especially on a weekend.
Maybe 3 tables with 30 players and the top 3 chip stacks at each table make the final 9 and pay the 3 finishers.

I NEVER BLUFF

(M) # big blind bets you can make based on your chip stack size. An indicator of how aggressive you can be on each hand. (named after Paul Magriel.)

(UM) Utility of M, effectiveness of your chip stack size based on total blinds and ante for each round.

How the Predator and Prey Game evolves at the poker table

Updated 2/11/2017

Poker regulars at work.

OK, this has happened to me, probably you too.
"While the other players at the table played cautiously against one another, they were relentlessly and collectively aggressive against me. Check-raising me, trapping me, slow-playing me with big pairs, going over the top of my feeble raises and bluffing me right into the ATM machine."
It's obvious, most of the players knew one another and I was regarded as the "New Fish" in their pond.

Low-stakes cash games, like those at many of the card rooms around Los Angeles and Las Vegas, are home to the "regulars" of the area. They are there almost every night, they know how they play and they don't play against each other. They are here to work, and it's not just those "retired" old folks that frequent the tables. The lost boys and girls that had to come out of their "on-line" sanctuary when "Black Friday"   came are trolling the tables too. It's a game of cut throat pool when a new player enters the game, only at a poker table with 3 times as many sharks. If the new player isn't in the hand, they limp and check to the river, if it ever goes that far.

Before you enter a cash game, look around the room at several of the tables, if there are more than one. You will certainly find one or two tables where there is some banter among the players, like a good home game, with the usual ego trip by one obnoxious player. Avoid that table, it won't be fun.

Look for a game where people are actually having fun, and you might stand a chance. Find a poker room where there's a lot of young people drinking a lot and making a lot of noise. There are many of them in Vegas and on certain weekends in other card rooms. Look for the acton places in Vegas, conventions, holiday weekends, spring break and during their big special tournaments. You may find a few pros there, but mostly fun loving gamblers like the ones at the craps and roulette tables.

In most other card rooms, like those in Los Angeles or northern California, it's better to only buy into a newly started game, where everyone starts with the same stack size. It's easy to check the board and see how long the waiting list is. If the list is long, there may be a new table opening up. You'll still find the old players that buy in for the minimum and the loose players that buy in for the maximum, but you can choose where you want to start with your chips.

Be aware though, all the money isn't on the table. Many poker rooms won't let you buy in for more than 50 big blinds and most of the players have set an amount they will gamble, so they will reload when their stack gets low. Loose players and gamblers will often reload several times. You should be prepared to reload, at least once, if you want to be profitable in the long run. If you are winning and you decide to pack it up, you may have to wait a certain amount of time before you are allowed to buy in at another new table, check with the floor man.



I NEVER BLUFF

Poker's Black Friday

Updated 2/11/2017

April 15th, 2011. Poker's Black Friday.
Fortunately I only play for real money in live games and I didn't have much real money online, back in the day. I've never really trusted online poker since Neteller stole what little real money I had put into the online games. I eventually got it back, as I expect most of the players will this time also. It will be interesting to see how the online poker millionaires recover from having their money frozen in time. Since the DOJ closed down the four major online poker sites, Pokerstars, Full Tilt, Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet Poker, most of the blogs from the pros are about how slow the games are in Vegas. 30 hands an hour is ultra slow motion poker to an online poker junky.

Game play is down at all of the online poker sites world wide. There are still some sites that accept US players in real money games, but that may not last long. All of them still allow play money games, so that has not changed.  Online poker is still a great way to develop and improve your game. If aggression is king, online poker is your kingdom. Online poker will not be going completely away anytime soon. It has changed for now, but it will change again, and most likely for the better. One article likened it to the collapse of the stock market and 401k pension plans deflating.

There has been some speculation about online poker being totally dead in the US - forever - and most of the play will go to the brick and mortar games. Even though the DOJ has stated that the money in players accounts is accessible to the players, there are no payment processors in the US banking system. American poker players are hitting the casinos and card rooms, however most of the casinos and card rooms have had only a slight increase in activity.

I actually expect this to be a good thing for poker in the US, in the long run. I think that the regular casinos, card rooms, and Indian casinos will find a way to establish online poker for the US. Uncle Sam only wants to find a way to collect taxes from it and regulate it better.

I've never been acceptable to not being able to walk into a place of business and complete your transaction or make a complaint in person. You could never do that with an online site, you don't know who runs it or how to find them, yet alone talk to them.

I think you should be able to go the a local casino or card room and open an online account without using the internet, which would be a much easier process. You could then just go down to the casino or card room and make deposits or withdrawals, just like a bank, and still play poker online in your PJs. PokerStars and the rest of them may never be back, but new sites will find a way in. Only when I know the physical address of an online poker site will I likely go back to online poker.

Steely Dan Black Friday

I NEVER BLUFF

Players you WANT at your table

http://www.askmen.com/poker/poker_tips/21_poker_tip.html

There are certain players who you always want at your table.
For different reasons, the players listed below make great tablemates, and the more you play with them, the more money you'll have in your pocket in the long run. Here is a list of poker players that you should always have at your table.

Players with favorite starting hands
Why is their favorite hand usually something dreadful like K-J or Q-10? All we can do is be thankful and hope that we get them at our table. If they are at your table, you are going to be able to use this information for specific situations that arise. It is probably also an indicator of their general comprehension of the game. 
(My favorite starting hand is pocket aces… even though they will be busted some of the time).

Players with starting hands they hate
Ironically, these are usually strong hands like J-J, A-Q or even A-A. If you have these players at your table, watch for sudden over- or under-betting. It may indicate that they are holding one of the hands they hate. This “hate” is really just disguised fear of misplaying the hand, so they overcompensate to one extreme or the other.

Players who believe skill is better than luck
These type of players are very easy to put on tilt. Play some connectors and small pairs until you hit something on the board; then watch them spin out of control.

Players who are human calculators
Their strength of understanding the math down to the decimal point is also their weakness. Just make a bet large enough to destroy all of their pot odds and, unless they are holding aces or kings, you are golden.

These next players may be annoying, but you'll win with them at your table...

Players who think those who raise are bullies
These players believe that you should wait for proper cards to play at the appropriate time and they probably do very well in Limit Hold’em. You can usually tell who they are in a no-limit game because you have gotten most of their chips through numerous small pots.

Players who tell bad beat stories
These players are part of the group that feel skill should always overcome luck -- again, very easy to put on tilt. Give them another story to tell.

Players who are condescending
They are convinced that their poker ability is superior to all others, and they are outraged that you would call them with that hand, blah, blah, blah… The key to these players is that they are extremely insecure. They fear confident opponents and opponents who they cannot push around. I often think of the quote from the movie Gladiator when Russell Crowe’s character says to the emperor, “The time of honoring yourself is soon coming to an end.” you can bet on it

Players who play every hand (Loose players) and players who only play premium top 10 hands (Tight players)
These players are easier to beat and will make your poker experience more profitable. The "Regular" poker players wait all day, every day, for these players to hit their table. Both the loose and the tight players, who can't switch gears, may win some hands in the short run, poker is not a sprint but a marathon and the spoils of war will go to those who can survive to the end. Loose players are likely to reload many times and don't know when to quit, while tight players may only play their initial stack and leave without reloading.

While playing with serious players who win all the time can really help improve your game, having a few flawed players at your table can also help you tremendously. Now go find some new tablemates and win yourself some cash.

"I Never Bluff"