Daily Archives: Monday, 14 February 2011

Be My Poker Valentine

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Full Tilt Crestline Gate

I’m up, I’m down, I’m up, I’m down, I get [jd jh] and get busted by a backdoor flush.

Full Tilt Flash

285 hands per hour. Is that too many? I play for 16 minutes, I hit 17.5BB/100 but I’ve been underwater most of the time.

Full Tilt Mach 10

I never manage to get above even over 12 minutes and a double-ended flush draw on the flop goes nowhere to knock me out.

Full Tilt Midnight Madness! (1,500 chips)

My first hand and I can’t resist going all-in with [kd td] on a flop of 6d 4c 5d]. Of course no more diamonds show and the best I have is a match to my ten on the river against pocket queens. I buy in with another entry and try to play it a bit close to the vest but when people are beating your [ks 9s] with [6s td], it’s time to hang it up. OK, maybe I deserved to lose pushing with my [9s 9h] on a [js 6d 6h] board, but not to [jd 7c].

Full Tilt $2,500 KO Guarantee (2,000 chips)

Had a couple of successes but I was determined not to suffer the fate of my brash Madness! attempts. Unfortunately, after flopping a king-high straight in my first half-hour the cards dried up and I was blinded off from 4,000 down to about 2,500 over most of the course of my 100 minutes of play. A large stack with [ah jh] put paid to my [as 5s] and another player’s [ac kc] in one swoop.

Full Tilt $10,000 Rush Guarantee (1,500 chips)

I got into this half an hour in, at the 30/60 level but half the field had been eliminated already. That made the top stacks a bit difficult to catch but potentially my standing was closer to the money. I think that was probably an illusion though. Got knocked out with [8h th] in my hand and [ah 5h kh] on the flop. Guy to my left had [9h qh] for the nut flush.

Full Tilt Step 1 18-Player

First out. Straight got me.

Full Tilt Step 1

Slow and steady wins the Step 2 ticket. I need to figure out what I’m doing here that I’m not doing elsewhere.

Queue Seven

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So I realized where pokerterms.com had gone wrong in their evaluation of the so-called “computer hand” of Q7o.

As the legend has it and my own evaluator showed, Q7o is the hand just above the 50% mark in heads-up matches. Q7o has a very slight statistical edge (winning 50.56%) against random hands when the board runs out to the river. The entry for “Computer Hand” at pokerterms.com, however, claims that the Poker Stove application “Q-7 shows 51.77% equity versus a random hand.”

The problem arises from a misunderstanding by the folks at pokerterms.com of what Poker Stove calculates. As the Poker Stove FAQ itself states (emphasis added):

What does PokerStove calculate?

The values generated are all-in equity values. This is not the chance that a hand will win the pot. Rather it is the fraction of the pot that a hand will win on average over many repeated trials, including split pots.

So what we’ve got here is a sort of apples and oranges comparison. The “computer hand” specification is precisely about how often a hand will win. Poker Stove is making an entirely different evaluation.

Don’t believe everything you read on the internet.

52 Step-Up

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I really can’t let a backlog like this keep building up!

Full Tilt Step 1 (1,500 chips)

Trying to get back on the Steps train. Lost 420 chips with [jc 8c] double-paired in my hand when the board went [jd tc 7c 8d 6s] and my opponent went all-in on the river. Uncharacteristically, I didn’t take a chance on him having a 9. Lost half of my remaining chips when the board turned up four hearts and I backed down. I made it back up over 1,000 a couple of times over 35 minutes but it didn’t go anywhere.

Full Tilt Step Midnight Madness! (1,500 chips)

Thirteen minutes in, went all-in with [ts ah] on second pair and got caught by a [as kc] with top pair.

Full Tilt $2,500 KO Guarantee (2,000 chips)

Only six hands. [ks kd] lost me 400 off the bat and [ah ts] double-paired on the flop lost out to pocket kings that tripped, likewise.

Full Tilt Step 1 Turbo (1,500 chips)

27 minutes. Finished fourth to get another Step 1 ticket.

Full Tilt Step 1 Turbo (1,500 chips)

Finished third after 33 minutes. Still at Step 1.

Full Tilt Step 1 (1,500 chips)

Three quarters of an hour and still only placed fifth. No better, no worse.

Full Tilt Step 1 (1,500 chips)

Guess I should have stuck with the turbo games. That and I shouldn’t play A5o or a pair of eights.

Full Tilt Step 1 18-Players (1,500 chips)

I like these two-table variations. For one thing, the top four slots make it into the next step. For another, there’s just more room to maneuver. I managed to bulk up early and stay near the top without making any dumb moves. Back to Step 2.

Full Tilt Step 2 Turbo (1,500 chips)

Half an hour puts me in third. I’ve been letting the two smaller stacks contest with each other, but call the big blind’s all-in with [qd jh] and lose half my stack. No movement.

Full Tilt Step 2 18-Player (1,500 chips)

Disaster strikes. I pick up [qc 9c] and the flop is [2h qd 3c]. I bet 200 from UTG (with 200 in the pot pre-flop) and get a call from the cutoff. As the [4d] and then the [ad] show he represents a strong hand but I don’t believe him. I should have, though because his [3d 2d] had me beat from the beginning. Off the steps again in seventeenth place.

Full Tilt Step 1 Turbo (1,500 chips)

I just maintain in this it seems like, but it’s enough to keep me in the running. Fifth place and a Step 1 ticket.