Speed Poker 101

I've been really busy lately, with a combination of travel, house stuff, in-law stuff, a new book contract, an old book project, and some car issues. Add in the fact that I'm actively shopping for a new truck, plus am buried at work, and you have the ingredients for a complete lack of time to read/write about poker. I don't see this improving much over the next couple of months, so I'm probably going to scale back from the 2 per week postings I've been able to do here on the blog, to a more sedate 1x/week. We'll see how it goes.

So, if I haven't had time to write about poker, have I had time to play? Uh, yeah. Duh! In fact, I've been getting in around one hour per day, which equates to about 500 hands per day.

What?

How is that possible? Easy: when I play, I've been almost exclusively multi-tabling cash no-limit games. Specifically, I'm playing between six and eight simultaneous games of full-ring (9-handed) $10NL ($.05/.10 blinds). Surprisingly, it's working out fairly well, too. I'm up a couple of hundred bucks in the last week and a half. (I also was owed some money from a friend, who transferred the cash into my account. For some reason, Full Tilt counted the transfer as my first official "deposit" under the new bug account, and are therefore matching my funds 1:1 as I earn points. So far, I've cleared $40 in bonus monies. Sweet!)

So, how am I playing at this massively accelerated pace? Answer: tight, aggressive, and, oh yeah, more than a bit frantic. I originally tried "tiling" the tables so I could see them all at once, but the images were just too small on my computer screen. What I'm doing now is having the tables each take up 75% or so of the screen, and I have them all overlap each other. When a table requires an action from me, that particular game pops up on top of the others. If another table needs an action, it too will pop up, but only after I've acted on the first table. It's not as crazy as it sounds, and by arranging the tables around the perimeter of my screen, I can always "find" a table if it drops to the back and I want to see, for example, whether my AA got cracked or not after I shoved and the table disapeared from view.

As said, my game strategy is fairly tight and aggressive. The pace of the games actually seems to help keep my VPIP down, in fact. I'm running something like 16% or so VPIP, and my PFR is about 10%. I am playing all pairs in all positions, and I'll take a raise with even small pocket pairs if the implied odds are at least 15:1. I also play AJ+, KJ+, and QJs+, but only if I'm not facing a raise. If someone has raised in front of me, I only cold-call with AKo+. Very rarely will I even consider cold-calling with AQ; i.e., I have to know the opp is pretty loose and has a big range and that my AQ is probably ahead of his. If not, I fold without second thought.

I also play a lot of suited connectors and suited one-gappers in late position if there are at least 3 limpers in front of me. Also, I steal A LOT from the button and cut-off, and even the hijack seat, with hands as crappy as K9o+, Q8o+, J8o+, almost all connectors four or greater, any two broadway cards, etc. Oh, and I'm a c-betting fool. If I get checked to when in position, I almost always continuation bet. According to PT3, I c-bet 66% of the time on the flop.

I can only play this way for 50-60 minutes, because I just can't keep up the concentration longer than that. As I said, it's frantic. Or would that be manic? Dunno... all I know is that I have to really concentrate for the entire hour. Toward the end of a typical session, I start loosening up too much and, for some reason, begin cold-calling more. (If there is one thing that has elevated my game recently it's this: I DO NOT COLD CALL UNLESS I HAVE A REALLY GOOD REASON TO DO SO. I dump AQ, KQs, QJs, etc. without much thought if someone raises upstream of me. I also try not to cold-call a raise and reraise upstream of me with pocket pairs smaller than QQ, even if I am getting 15:1. The probability of getting 5-bet by the original raiser is just too great.)

Anyway, I typically get in 500 hands or so in an hour, and have been making about $8-10 per hour on average. Today, I ran pretty hot and made $35 for the hour. I'm really curious to see if and how long this winning streak can continue. Oh, and in case you're wondering: if/when my bankroll is big enough, I plan to take this multi-tabling strategy up to the $25NL tables and see how it fairs there. I just need to triple up my bankroll to make that happen..... sigh.

Gotta run...
All-in for now...
-Bug