Glaciers Attack Poker Table

Back in October, I signed up for the annual online World Rec.Gambling Poker Tournament (http://www.wrgpt.org/), which is billed as the world's oldest and biggest free email poker tournament. I had first heard about it from reading The Making of a Poker Player by Matt Matros, and I figured I would give it a try. Game-theory poker experts, like Chris "Jesus" Ferguson and Matros play in it to hone their game, so I figured it would be a good test of my abilities against some tough competition.

The format is just like a live multi-table tournament, except it's all done by email. The site sends you a post that tells you what your cards are. Another post then is delivered that tells you your position, everyone's chip stacks, and the action thus far. Successive emails tell you when each person bets or folds, and you are prompted to act when it's your turn. You reply with your action; e.g., BET $X, FOLD, CHECK, etc.. A single hand can take 2-3 days to play out, but usually is finished within 8-12 hours. Then another hand is dealt and it starts again. I think we started with ~1000 players, and we're currently down to 600 or so.

While it may seem painfully slow (Bret refers to the game as "Breaking News: Glaciers Attack Canada!") there actually is a real benefit of playing. You have up to 8 hours to make a decision on how to act on any given hand, and I've found that this affords me (actually, forces me) the opportunity to really think through each hand and figure out how to play it. A few days ago, I picked up aces and thought a lot about the stack sizes yet to act after me and how I could maximize my edge with the hand. In the end, I think I bet too much and didn't get max value, but I still think I learned something interesting and useful for future play.

As we speak, I have been dealt two red queens. I've got a slightly larger than average stack size for my table (me: T32,000), and I think I have a bit of a loose-aggressive image with the other players. I'm in middle position and there was a limper UTG (T1400), followed by a raise to T4200 by the second to act (who is the big stack at the table). I thought for a few hours how I should play my hand, and in the end, rather than raising, I decided to simply cold call the 4200. My reasoning is that the others at the table who were to act after me, would probably fold even I wasn't in the pot, so raising wouldn't add a lot of potential for isolating the initial raiser. There was a player UTG, followed by a big raise; i.e., the early position players have some solid cards, and unless you have aces, kings, or anna in late position, you're likely to get out of the way of them. Therefore, my QQ limp would probably end up giving me position after the dust settles preflop, plus if a scare card like an A or K comes on the flop, I can get out. Otherwise, I'm likely to be up against 1 or 2 opps max, with position and very good cards and with a relatively low expenditure of my chips. It also minimizes the risk of the big stack re-raising me and putting me to a decision for all my chips preflop. As Alex likes to say: bet the minimum to get the desired result. I wanted to have position and get heads up with 1-2 opponents with my QQ.

Well, sure enough, it has now folded back around to the original UTG limper. He has yet to act, so we'll see if he drops out or not. My gut feeling is he will fold. Then, if a non-scary flop hits, I'm probably going to apply max pressure on the big stack and see if I can double through him.

Or not.

See, that's the beauty of this format (and my current position on the big stack). I get to act after him... and I get all day to figure out what I want to do.

24-Hour Bankroll Change: +2.4%
All-in for now...
-Bug