What's Your Game Then?

[kompressaur]

I was just thinking about this as i stupidly clicked ENTER to join a $3 turbo re-buy tournie. It's just not me but i aint played since my nice win of earlier this morning and i just wanted a game. It's really not my bag as i just enjoying folks respecting their stacks and may the best man (or the luckiest) win. why do people play rebuys over freezouts? Why do people play turbos? I'd love to know. the deeper the stacks the more i enjoy it and i am prone to playing the deep stacks mtt's that bet365 offer.

Ive also been playing a lot of Razz, 7 card stud and my 2nd game Omaha hi/lo. I do ok at Razz and im starting to make the money in the freerolss i enter and likewise with 7 card stud. Infact 7 card stud makes a lot of sense to me and i think i could even enjoy playing it more than Holdem. Omaha hi/lo i really enjoy but i have to admit im a little in the darrk most of the time. there's a lot to work out but ive found playing really tight stands me in good stead and i reguarly make the money in stt's.

anyhow enough about me. What's your bag? What excites you or what do you enjoy?

[kompressaur]

Oh i forgot to mention that i play mtt's and stt's. I was playing cash the other night and i was like a fish out of water. My Dan Harrington style was just not suitable for the game and i was eaten up with frustration at the constant raising. I really never knew where i was and i have to admit ive a lot to learn. I like stt's especially 20 or 30 man ones. you get a load of easy money and it sets you up nicely for the final table which is just like a single table stt except you have 3 times the average chips to start with. I better get back to my game but this looks worth a read from Betfair-

The Low Stakes Challenge
Recently I set myself a challenge: to win $200,000 before WSOP 2008 or I would not allow myself to attend. An incredibly tough figure for what you would consider a mid-high stakes poker player. It made me think of how far I’d come since first coming across the online game a few years ago, so I decided that for one weekend only I would retrace my routes at the lower levels. Call it nostalgia, or some form of “two steps back, three steps forward” theory, but I documented my action to share with you all.

Low Stakes Cash Games
When I play NL cash, it’s usually around the $5/10 level ($1000 max. buy-in), so I decided to hop on a couple of $0.05/0.10 6-handed tables, with a max. buy-in of $10. There are always an abundance of these games running on Betfair, surprisingly with a lot of the same names. I realise around 3 minutes in that the JPK-LAG style is not going to work on these players as they simply don’t understand what I’m doing. Or maybe they read my 5-high bluff like a book, who knows.

Actually, the hand that told me all I needed to know about these games was the following: I am dealt QQ in mid-position with an UTG pot raise. I decide to raise it up to $2.10 of my $10 stack. Instantly called and the flop comes J72 rainbow. My opponent checked, so I decided to “shove” the rest of my $8 or so into the pot, to be instantly called by 73o. River… 7. That’s the night’s kebab money gone. I’d lost around $30 in ten minutes. £15 to the average person is a lot of money, so even though these games are considered “micro-stakes”, to some this can be a large portion of their weekly disposable income and the losses can easily rack up quickly.

I did end winning my money back and a little more once I composed myself and took it seriously, but with a very simple ABC approach. Players at this level are not very aggressive and will call you down & give free cards in situations that would never happen at higher stakes. It’s up to you to take advantage of it. In one hour I managed to win $102, over £50 and it wasn’t done by hitting a rush of cards, just standard stuff. If you take a look at the leader board history on this site, it seems that the same people win the micro stakes every month so it’s quite obvious there are some making a constant living from them. The leader board pays out $250 for 1st every month, and the top 3 a seat in the monthly “Champion of Champions” freeroll, where the winner receives a buy-in to a high profile event. Theoretically, you could turn $0.05/0.10 to $1000s of profit per month, and a free WSOP seat!

If you’re really sick, and on NL tilt, may I also suggest the low stakes Omaha tables. I won $425 in 45 minutes at $0.15/0.25 with the same concept as the NL games (may I suggest Ariston’s “Omaha for Beginners” articles if you don’t know how to play the game, it’s the same as hold’em except with 4 cards). I can’t even play Omaha, really! Don’t believe your conceptions or what people say, there are definitely $$$ to be earned, even at the lowest stakes on Betfair Poker!

Low Stakes Tournaments (SNG/STT & MTT)
The majority of my poker play is tournaments, mostly single tables as I rarely have chance to sit down for 6 hours to win a regular multi. So, I was very interested to go back in time and give the old $5 SNGs a crack and see how they compared to the $500s that I now play. Shockingly, the standard was not dissimilar at $5 to $500! Granted, the play was pretty ABC and at $500 games bubble play & chip accumulation plays are more of a factor, as the players will not stand for someone constantly pushing their chips all in, but the $5 games were far from easy to beat. My AA did get chimped by T2s all in pre-flop in the 1st hand of one $5 SNG, but to be fair I have that happen in $200 games too (especially on Friday nights). I believe a tight early, aggressive late in position style of game works the best as the players often can’t adapt their game once the blinds become worth stealing with marginal hands. That’s how I managed to turn a $5 profit in 7 games anyway 

Again, to take a look at the leader boards for the low stakes SNG (Melbourne & Barcelona) it is the same people there or thereabouts every month. 1st pays $500 and $250 respectively, although prizes go all the way down to 10th, with the top 3 getting a seat in the Champions freeroll.

However, without doubt the biggest collection of morons, doughnuts and monkeys I came across was in the multi tournaments. I’m sure these players just sit at their computer screens drooling and grunting like lobotomised gibbons whilst playing, it’s the only explanation. I thought some of the stuff I see in the regular MTTs across the ‘net was bad, but some of the play I saw was comedy. In particular was a player calling a 4-bet all in for all of his stack with 6-high on the bubble of the $500 GTD. However, the blind structure and starting stack allow for a lot of play, or rather, waiting time so that you can pick off the said doughnuts at your own pace with big hands. Accept the bad beats and laugh when you get your chips sirloined from you on a 5% shot, but as they say, them’s the breaks.

I lost around $20 on low stakes MTT entries but if I’m honest I didn’t put the effort into it that I could have. After 3 or 4 wicked bad beats deep into the tournaments I’ll freely admit I couldn’t be bothered pursuing further, but the proof was there to see. Don’t forget that there are many low stakes satellites to win seats into the big daily GTD tournaments on Betfair such as the $16k and even the $100k that many big name pros enter into. All it takes is one rush of cards and you can turn $5 into $30,000!

The Fuji leader board on Betfair which applies to MTTs below $25 buy-in returns $800 for 1st, with the top 3 qualifying for the Champions freeroll.

Summary
Just because the games are called micro stakes does not mean the money won and lost is considered micro to the individuals playing them. It’s certainly possible to win, or lose, $100s per day. I certainly did. However it would be a grave mistake to underestimate the other players on your table and definitely an error to disrespect them. They have money and cards in front of them and are capable of outdrawing, outplaying, or out-carding you at any given point in time.

That said there are a LOT of fish swimming in these parts. If you are new to the game, adapting from live play in casinos or simply on a bad run and need to drop down, the lower levels provide some great opportunities to accrue small, sharp profits. The fantastic leader boards offered by Betfair and the abundance of satellites into bigger events also give lower stakes players the ability to spin up a very small amount of money into a very big win and seats at live tournaments such as the European Poker Tour, to name just one.

Don’t get drawn into thinking you are the lowest rung on the ladder just because you play the lowest stake game available; it’s better to be the smallest winner on the table than the biggest loser.

Regards,
Jonathan “JPK” Farrer