Hollywood Park Casino 1st Sunday 25k tournament.

Updated: 2/5/2017

 Still haven't found the time to play in one, but it looks like a good Tournament.

Most tournaments are geared to be top heavy in payouts which makes them less profitable if you only get "In-The-Money".

Players have been clamoring for a more "fair" payout structure. So fast games with a low "M" tend to be more of a gambler's tournament even if you get to the final table.

I've won a couple of tournaments in the past here but Hollywood Park Casino has leaned more to gamblers in the past. I still search for the elusive Sit and Go tournaments, which Hollywood Park Casino used to have, even though they were more on the fast side.

I didn't play in this one but it looks like they are improving on their tournament structure in some of them, we'll see as they start moving to the new casino and get more players from the new facilities surrounding them.

So what kind of tournament do we have?
Allen 'Chainsaw' Kessler "Approved"?
'Action' Dan Harrington Approved?
Arnold Snyder Approved?

Here is my assessment of the Tournament Value  for Hollywood Park Casino's  First Sundayof each month, Feb 2017. $25,000 Guarantee. 

$230 Entry Fee win no rebuy/add-on. They need at least 129 players or entries, including re-entries, to meet the guarantee, as only $194 of the entry fee goes the prize pool.

Hopefully there will be at least 144 players for Optimum Value.
Their regular Sunday Tournament is also @ Noon for $150 entry and a $12,000 guarantee, with $30 going to fees and $30,000 in chips, no rebuy? We'll get to that one later.

Unlike many of the low limit Texas Hold'em cash games, this looks looks like it isn't on the fast side, with 30 minute blind changes, but only  for the first 3 blind changes and fairly deep starting stack of 300 Big Blinds with a Utility "M" of about 200 Big Blinds, until it gets 30% faster at level 5.

The $230 entry fee will get you $30,000 in chips and you can re-enter up to the 9th Level, or about 3 hours and 30 minutes into the tournament.  Don't wait until then to get into the tournament because you'll be down to less then 40 Big Blinds by then if you haven't increased your stack.

You reach the Minefield at about Level 4,  which is still not too bad at 150 Big Blinds, since you need a minimum of 60 Big Blinds at all times, to be competative. If your average win/loss rate is 50% and with the ante kicking in, you have only about 70 hands left before you have to play a Kill Phil kind of game. The Minefield has a long fuse, about 4.17 hours and should end about Level 15.5, where you will need at least $360.000 in chips to continue at the Bubble Phase and on to the In-the-Money Phase.

The Minefield is fairly deep, which means that's where most of the action is going to be as players try to improve their stacks. At level 11 and 12, about 4 hours into the tournament, it should start getting exciting as short stacks are going All-In and medium stacks get cautious.

You have a almost 4 hours to Double Up your stack, which means you can change gears several times to maximise your play.

Being a tournament more geared to Luck, at about 16%, than Skill, at over 90%, Tight Passive players are likely to get run over, and this one could go for close to 8 hours or more. Haven't seen the results, I don't think Hollywood Park Casino publishes them.

I NEVER BLUFF

Updated: 2/5/2017

The racetrack is gone, but there's always the straddle.

This week at Hollywood Park Casino.

Haven't played there in a long time, still needs a lot of improvement in the ambience, but hopefully when the new casino is finished it will be the prime destination for LA poker.

They have Pot Limit Omaha on the board, one of my favorite games, but no one signed up except for the Omaha 8 games, which aren't spelled out on the board, they just call it Omaha. The 50 Big Blind limit on the buy-in makes it too much gamble for me in a game that already has lots of action and half the table looking for the flop. I would most likely play it with 100 Big Blinds as the buy-in.

Looked at the 3/5 $30-$100 NTH, but I don't like starting with only 20 big blinds. Decided to start small with the 1/2 $40-$100 No Limit Texas Holdem game.  They had 3 tables already going and about 7 on the waitlist that wanted to play, which is what I look for if possible. A new table with no big stacks in the way, which opened up about 20 minutes later.

I was reluctant to play with only 50 big blinds, but since the table was loose and kind of passive, it was a good start. . Usually had at least 4 players see the flop. Only hand that really lucked out against me was a new player, about an hour into the game, that got the low end of a straight flush, on the river, against my AQ draw. Got a Queen on the flop, we were All-In when she hit the straight on the Turn and the Straight Flush on the river. If I had a pair of Queens or another Queen had hit the board, we would have hit the jackpot. She had less chips than me so it was an easy bet.

A new player entered the game a little later, looked to be one of the usual suspects that played there a lot, one of the good old boys. His favorite play was to straddle, which is not that big a play at a low stakes game like 1/2 NTH.

"The straddle is more a sign of a gambler", someone who wants action, but also wants to limit the field with a second forced bet. It's a bet, usually Under-the-Gun or first to bet after the Big Blind and limited usually to an extra Big Blind. It's also a "Blind Bet", he makes the straddle bet before the cards are dealt. Anyone who wants to bet now has to bet at least 2 Big Blinds, which forces out most of the weak limpers. I love gamblers. In this scenario, all you have to do is bet 4 times the Big Blind and they usually fold as they are out of position and playing blind.

"By straddling you change the effective stake of the game, and in turn change the effective stacks. If you have a solid 100bb strategy but not a great 50bb strategy, why create a bad situation for yourself? Overall, straddling is a losing play. You put in more money with a random hand, and when you do so from UTG you have awful position when you go postflop. You also halve the effective stacks and artificially increase the stakes to one that you likely are not bankrolled for. In specific situations a straddle can be good, especially when it’s socially viable…but barring that, you should usually avoid straddling in your games!" Red Chip Poker 

Wasn't a bad day, made about $20 an hour, could have been much better or a lot worse, as I was All-In a couple of times when I was down to about 25 Big Blinds and my cards held up.

FYI, there was also a Sunday Special $25,000 Guaranteed Tournament going on, usually billed as the First Sunday of each month. I'll post a blog on the Tournament Value in a later post this month.

I NEVER BLUFF

Internet Poker's Wall of Fame?

Last week ,Jan 26, 2016, TwoPlusTwo Pokercast hosts Adam Schwartz and Terrence Chan added Phil Galfond, Shaun Deeb, and Neteller as its ninth, tenth, and eleventh inductees to their Internet Poker's Wall of Fame (IPWOF).

It's because of Neteller and the online poker sites during poker's Black Friday, that I will most likely not be playing online poker anytime soon in the US.

I am probably in the minority, but unless I can walk into the place where I deposited my money so I can then withdraw it, in person, I can't trust any online site to pay me what I want when I want it.

I actually would trust most of the casinos in Vegas or the top 5 cardrooms in Los Angeles, if I could make deposits and withdrawals at the casino. Of course, I'd probably just use the cash to play live though, but at least I would have had it in my hand or on the table where I could see and touch it.

Jan 17, 2007
The United States crackdown on internet gambling took another twist after the two founders of Neteller, an online payment company, were charged with money-laundering and the company was accused of facilitating "illegal financial transactions".

John Lefebvre, 55, and Steve Lawrence, 46, were charged by the assistant US district attorney in the southern district of New York less than 24 hours after they were arrested in Malibu and the United States Virgin Islands.
The shares of Neteller have slid 80pc in the past 12 months. They were suspended yesterday at 176p.

Feb 7, 2007
Now the Web site for the company is advising customers that all withdrawals have been blocked and the funds are being maintained in trust on the customer's' behalf while Neteller works to resolve the issues.
Neteller has not disclosed how much money has been frozen and has refused to disclose or confirm any details of the freeze, as has a spokesperson from the Department of Justice.

March 21, 2007
In more good news for the online gambling industry, Neteller today announced that it has reached an agreement with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to return funds belonging to American players that had been frozen at the DOJ's request .

Neteller, the online ewallet company that at one time provided payment processing services for over 85 per cent of the online gambling industry, has been in legal limbo since the DOJ arrested two former executives on conspiracy and money laundering charges back in January. Neteller became the primary funding source for the online companies that continued to service the American market after the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) drove the American credit card industry out of the market.

The press release notes that Neteller has signed agreements with the DOJ and the forensic auditing group Navigant. The agreement provides a 75-day timeline under which Neteller will work out a plan to return funds in an orderly manner to its one-time US customers.

I eventually got my money back and after a while decided to take a try at PokerStars, FullTilt, Ultimate Bet Poker, and Absolute Poker.

Then came April 15th, 2011. Poker's Black Friday.
The DOJ closed down the four major online poker sites, Pokerstars, Full Tilt, Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet Poker,

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and the rest is history.

I NEVER BLUFF

The Confusing Pot Limit Poker Bet Structure? Maybe not.....

One of my favorite games in Poker. I will usually play Pot Limit Omaha or Texas Hold'em before any other.

Pot Limit Rules
http://www.wsop.com/poker-rules/rules_nlpl.asp

Rule #6. In pot-limit, if a chip or a bill larger than the pot size is put into the pot without comment, it is considered to be a pot size bet and any excess is returned to the bettor OR if short of the pot, additional money needs to be put into the pot to make it a pot size bet.

The Bottom Line: Always announce your intended Bet, prior to moving your chips into the pot. Remember, if you don't announce "Pot" first, you'll be called on a string bet if you put the minimum bet in first, then try to add a raise to bet the Pot.. Always vocalize your intended action.

How Much?

It's sometimes hard to do the math in your head. If the pot is $424 and someone bets $68, how much can you bet? Don't waste time by attempting to calculate the answer beforehand - just announce "Pot," then figure it out, put in your call first, and then add up the total pot with all bets, adding that to your bet. (In case you're wondering, the answer here is $628.)

Easy to figure if you just multiply the last bet times 3 plus the pot, before the last bet.

68*3=204+424=628, which is the amount of your raise.

If the chips have already been added to the pot, then the last bet times 2 = the pot bet.

424+68=492 +136 = 628.
If the next person wants to raise the pot again, the new bet would be 3 times 628 (1256) + previous pot of 424 = 2309.

How you determine the maximum bet is by counting all the money in the pot and all of the bets on the table, including any call you would make before raising. (It sounds more complicated than it really is.)

You can raise any amount in between the minimum and maximum raise amounts.

Pot-Limit Hold'em is not very popular, and is mostly seen only in some large tournaments (such as the WSOP), but the Pot-Limit betting structure is used in Pot-Limit Omaha.

Pot-Limit Omaha is rapidly becoming one of the most popular poker variations, so it's a good idea to get acquainted with the Pot-Limit structure anyway.

I NEVER BLUFF

The Only Good Hand Was the Last Hand - FOLD EQUITY

The Only Good Hand Was the Last Hand - FOLD EQUITY

 

        http://www.exceptionalpoker.com/?p=1043

"It is the equity a player can expect to gain due to the opponent folding to his or her bets."

Folding?
It depends as much on the type of table you are at as it does the type of player you are playing, maybe more.

Most comments about any type of play center around a specific player and tends to be focused on becoming heads up after the flop, if not during the flop.

That only happens about 30%-40% of the time live and almost nonexistent on-line. Aggressiveness is the only game in town when paying on-line, but in a live cash game, aggression is sometimes fleeting, most times it's random to intermittent.

If you're at an aggressive table, there may be no real fold equity, because you are usually up against 2 to 3 villains. If you don't really know how much they have in their pocket, which you don't, you can't really tell how aggressive they are going to be. If you have watched the table, which you should have before sitting down, you can tell who is the Loose Aggressive and who is the Selective Aggressive player. Their fold equity is quite a bit different than the passive player that sits in-between them.

Essentially, fold equity is the extra amount of equity you gain when you factor in how likely your opponent is to fold. Working out the correct amount of fold equity relies heavily on your ability to read an opponent. In other words, you need to be fairly certain of your chances to get an opponent to fold. But how about 2 villains or even 3?

The formulas you read about in the most popular strategy sites are only good for a head-to-head battle.
With multiple opponents, you have to rely on multiple reads and your initial threat assessment for each villain.

A final word of warning…https://www.partypoker.com/how-to-play/school/advanced/fold-equity.html

When playing against really loose aggressive players, your fold equity will likely be close to zero. This is also the case against players with really short stacks (very few playing chips) at a cash/ring game as well as in tournaments. Short-stacked players are less likely to fold, as they need to take more risks.

I NEVER BLUFF

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

Phill's Little Green Book Notes

Updated 2/11/2017

I have all of Phil Gordon's books, including Poker: The Real Deal, one of my first poker books. His "little books", Green, Black, Gold and Blue, show his, as well as the game's evolution. They all have some good math basics, as well has his own "tricks", like how to play Ax. His best tip is the Gordon Pair Principle, about the odds someone is holding a better pair preflop.

Here are a few of the tips from the Little Green Book.

Psychology: Timing of Bets
Try to always take about the same amount of time to consider options and take action on a hand.  Not too fast, not too slow.
(use a clock or watch to vary your time; like when the second hand is between 10 and 12, act         
faster or way slower, like you are thinking about your outs or  may or may not have the nuts.)

Beating Tight and Passive Players
Tight/Passive players play so few hands that, while they may hit the flop, Phil says 35% with AK,
I think it's more likely they will only play a hand maybe once out of 9 hands, which means about 35 hands have to be played before they hit it. You should be able to pick up several small pots against them.
 OK, what's tight and what's passive.
Tight players only play the top 10 hands and even then bet weakly on the bottom half of that spectrum. 
Passive players will play a few more hands, but quickly fold to any action if they didn't hit their hand. 
Raises, Re-raises, and continuation bets will usually get either of them to fold.

Beating Loose Players
Play tight, wait for great flops that hit your hand, give them hope and lots of rope.

Implied Tilt Odds
You want to play against players that are easily emotional about either their bad beats or your bad beats and any hand they suck out on. Playing into their emotional outbursts and bad plays, even with a marginal hand, will eliminate them.

Tells: When they look at my chips.
Usually means they have a good hand and they think I'm weak. If you catch a monster hand, you can over-bet the pot or check-raise.

When they reach for chips
Kind of depends on who's looking. If they reach for chips after looking at my chips, but I bet first, make the raise. If they are not looking at my chips or anyone else's chips, they have something, but it's my turn to bet, I'll bet my hand strength depending on how many chips they appear to be grabbing and look for a pause in their grab, which means they aren't as strong as they wanted to project.

The Quick Call
Players that quickly play the flop, usually a minimum bet, frequently have a drawing hand. If they had a good hand, the top pair or better, they would be considering what to raise. If they missed the flop, they are thinking about folding or bluffing, which takes a little more thought.

The Slow Call
It's usually a raise with a strong hand or a fold with a weak hand. Calling, after a long pause, could be a ploy to suck you into a monster hand or a draw to the nuts.

Texture: After the Flop
What cards are in play, how will they interact with other players hands or hand ranges and what bet is likely to come based on the board texture. Most bets are likely to be 25% to 100% of the pot. Any less is usually a missed fishing expedition; any more is either a poor bet by a weak player with the nuts or a bluff at a nut draw or 2nd top pair. The more players still in the hand, the more likely someone has at least top pair.
   
Living up the "Weak means Strong and Strong means Weak" philosophy, Phil leans toward making weaker continuation bets with strong hands in order to entice a player to call. With weak starting hands that have good outs but miss the flop or maybe hit 3rd top pair, betting half the pot usually get slightly better hands to fold, top pair will usually re-raise though, so it's an easy fold. With medium strength hands, betting half the pot to 2/3 of the pot gets some players with slightly better hands to fold and players with Nut potential, but worse hands, to call.

After the Turn and a scare card hits
Phil likes to just check if he had the lead but it didn't help him and call a small or continuation bet, he's not liking a check-raise here.
If it didn't hit you, It may have hit them, how many players still in the hand should determine how scary the card is. If it's only you and one other player, make a continuation bet, it's still a game of fish, so you have to ask if it hit them, if you just check, they would most likely make a continuation or value bet which would cause you to likely fold. If there is more than one other player in the hand, it either hit them or helped them, if it didn't help you, you have to check, or if you do have a good hand or the nuts, check raise.

It's all about the odds to improve.
Based pretty much on your outs.
9 to 10 outs, like a high flush draw, maybe a nut flush draw, is about a 35-45% chance of hitting your draw, you should bet about half the pot, if you're the first to act.
4 to 6 outs, like and inside draw to 2 over cards, is about a 15-20% chance. Phil likes to bet about 2/3 the pot, but I think you need at least one Broadway card to even consider that bet and you need  to only have one other player in the hand.
Less than 4 outs is a real gamble. The newer professional and amature poker players are much more aggressive now and love to gamble. Phil likes a pot size bet here, to take the pot down, but I think position is the relevant factor here and knowing what type of player you are up against and it can only be one, two or more players are likely to have you beat regardless of position.

Tournament Strategies: Stealing the Blinds
Stealing the blinds is a critical element in tournaments. At a full table, you need an above average stack size to steal one every 13 hands or so, and position will likely make a more optimal timing of once every 16 or more hands a better option. In a six handed or less table, you should only be trying to steal from the last three seats anyway.
A blatant thief is easily caught.
It's hard to steal the blinds from "Next to BET" instead of "First to Bet", when first to bet actually raised. You have to not only be in position, but have a playable hand to commit grand larceny. You also have to have that gut feeling that they are actually trying to steal the blinds, which means they have to be no more that two seats on your right. More than two seats away is not likely a steal, but some type of good to great hand. If you're the button, then there are two seats on your right that are stealing seats, the Hi-Jack seat and the Grand Larceny seat.  
BB-SB-BTN-CO-HJ-GL-M4-E3-E2-UG

The Green, Black, Gold and Blue books from Phil Gordon.


I NEVER BLUFF