Pork Chops, Race Slicks, and Poker.

There's something definitely wrong with my brain. I hear, read, and see things in life that are clearly far removed from poker, but for some reason I frequently make the mental leap to connect the non-poker thing to the poker felt thing. Two items fit this mold last night when I was watching some late night TV.

First up was a replay of the recent Canadian F1 race in Montreal. I used to follow this form of car racing, but gave up a few years ago when the politics of which team gets favored treatment (and therefore is more likely to win) by the governing body got to be too much. Yes, I love the technology of these cars (e.g., KERS, CFD air tricks, engine tech, etc.) and race strategy (e.g,. pit and tire tactics), but I can't stand the politics, which seems to permeate the sport to its core. Ah, but I digress...  Anyway, during one of the pit row commentary segments, the manager of one of the teams offhandedly remarked to a reporter, "Reliability is vitally important to us. You can't win a race unless you finish it."  That's when the poker light bulb went off over my head. You can't win a poker tournament on the first day, the old saying goes, but you sure can lose it. Said another way, survival is equally important to chip accumulation. Note to self: remember this on Friday morning in Vegas when I'm not sure where I stand in a hand...

The second item that struck my poker fancy was a new reality show (don't you just hate that term?). Anyway, the series is something called "Life Below Zero," and it follows a disparate group of Alaskans that live above the Arctic Circle, eking out solitary livings by hunting, trapping, and fishing. In one segment, this big burly lady who manages some kind of equipment depot/encampment by herself out on the tundra was getting ready to make her nightly patrol of the grounds. She had recently seen wolf tracks in the camp, and has had bears break into her abode on multiple occasions. Anyway, as she was preparing to go out and see what creatures where waiting for her, she loaded up her gun and put on her game face. "They stalk me," she said, "And I stalk them. If you look like a pork chop up here, the predators will think you're a pork chop. Game over."  Again, the light bulb went off. Act like dead money at the table, and the predators will think you're dead money and run over you. Perception is reality in poker, at least in terms of fold equity.

Like I said, there's something definitely wrong with my brain.

Two days and counting...

On to the next installment in this WSOP journey...

All-in for now...
-Bug

Brokos v. Snyder, the Rematch

Just to confuse myself a little more in the run-up to the WSOP, I'm re-skimming Arnold Snyder's thought-provoking The Poker Tournament Formula II: Advanced Strategies, which is an excellent book about deep-stack MTT play. As I've mentioned before on this blog, Snyder turns conventional MTT strategy wisdom on its head in a number of ways, including a rejection of ICM, standard early survival strategies, and the actual $-value of tournament chips. I'm not 100% convinced of 100% of Snyder's advice, but I still highly recommend the book for anyone who feels their MTT game is stuck in neutral. This book definitely will make you think, especially when it comes to strategies on how you should be using your chips during battle.

And speaking of chips, one of the things that Snyder talks a lot about in the book is his classification of five distinct phases of a tournament:

1. Stack Building. This is probably the biggest single departure from standard advice in a big PF MTT. Most experts (see this recent post here) tend to think of the early stages of a tournament as primarily a "survival" period. Snyder (and some pros like Erick Lindgren) take exception to this approach, instead advising active chip accumulation "while everyone else is sleeping at the table."
2. The Minefield. Snyder says that the tourney field gets drastically thinned out during this phase (which in a $1K prelim event like the one I'm playing in starts around level 2). Short stack players start shoving all-in, often on stone-cold bluffs, and desperate players start calling all ins, often with marginal hands in a do-or-die attempt to double up. Snyder writes that this is a terrible time to have an average stack (or lower), especially if you go card dead. He also writes that this phase "lasts a hellaciously long time" in a deep-stack event. In a sense, Snyder advocates just surviving during this phase, keeping up with the blinds, and trying stay out of trouble.
3. The Bubble. Snyder's main advice here is "start seriously accumulating chips again". He says that because so many players are just trying to squeak into the money at this point, and are "survival oriented," it's a great time for chip building. You do, however, have to watch out for the desperately short stacks, as they will still be in minefield mode and are willing to call shoves and 3bet AI more lightly.
4. The Money. Per Snyder, this is a combination of Minefield (i.e., for the short stacks, who have made it into the money and now want/need a double up) and Bubble play (i.e., for the medium stacks who are trying to survive up through the pay-out structure into the higher prize money). Snyder advocates strongly that you pay very close attention to stack sizes and "desperation" levels of your opponents during this phase. Snyder's main philosophy for this phase is "Screw the next pay level. Go for the big bucks," which I think means it's OK to gamble it up a bit, as your goal is to make the final table.
5. The Final Table. Snyder's advice for this phase (for those lucky enough to have made it this far) is actually akin to what the Guru used to teach his students for single table SnG strategy: Take the hill. I.e., because the payout structure is so weighted toward the top end, making even a one place higher finish is worth doing. Playing to win matters, but survival is also paramount until you're in the top 3 or 4, at which point you need to go for broke.

What's fascinating to me about this is how out of synch Snyder is with conventional tournament advice early in a tournament. Guys like Brokos advocate survival early on with a continual and gradual ramping up of both looseness and aggression; Snyder however says accumulate chips early on, then slow down, then ramp up, then slow down, etc.. Here's a little graphic I ginned up to illustrate:

I am still planning on employing Brokos' early stage conventional advice, but there might be something to how Snyder shifts up and down gears later in the tourney that is worth adding to my plan. Dunno for sure.

In any case, if you get a chance, I highly recommend Snyder's book, which is available both in print and electronic format (I actually own both versions). For what it's worth, here's a link where you can read further reviews about the book: The Poker Tournament Formula II: Advanced Strategies.

Oh, and WSOP is now less than three weeks away...holy crap.

On to the next installment in this WSOP journey...

All-in for now...
-Bug

MTT Strategy - Early Stage: Tight is Right

Now that there's just a little over two months before the WSOP begins in Vegas this year, it's time for this lazy bug to get a little more motivated, organized, and, well, busy. I've decided to play in the $1000 NLHE Seniors event, which kicks off on 14 June at the Rio. The key to going deep in this tournament, me thinks, is playing solid, ABC, mistake-free poker. Don't get stupid or tricky.

 Uh, sure. That's easy to say. I know what "stupid" poker looks like, but just what the hell does "solid, ABC, mistake-free poker" actually mean?

 The answer, of course, is that it depends. In an MTT, the correct strategy strongly depends on the blind structure, the payout structure, and of course the opponents you play against (especially as compared to your own skills and abilities). It also depends on the current stage that the tournament is in.

The $1K Seniors event starts you out with T3,000 in chips and the blinds at a relatively low 25/25:

WSOP 2013 $1K Seniors NLHE Event, modeled in DD Poker

What this structure means I will begin with 3000/25 = 120 big blinds, which isn't technically deep stacked, but it's certainly a very playable stack size. Further, the blinds increase moderately slowly. These two facts in turn mean that a) there's plenty of time to wait for cards in the early stages; and b) there's plenty of post-flop poker to play. In other words, the trick seems to be to wait for good, solid playable hands in position (and fold lots of the marginal hands, even in position) and then bet them hard preflop, but really slow down and apply REDi postflop.

I also have really taken to heart Phil Gordon's advice that I mentioned here, in which he points out that stealing with hands as strong as ATo in the early stages of a deep stack event isn't really worthwhile. Similarly, Big Dog Pocket Fives, a big winning MTT coach, also believes in solid ABC tight poker early in big MTTs, with very little if any stealing and essentially no blind defense.  Fellow poker blogger Memphis Mojo, who has played in this particular WSOP event before, has echoed similar thoughts to me, stating:

With this structure, it's a huge mistake to make moves [early in the tournament]. Steady poker is the way to go. When I played, they had nearly 4000 entrants, so the winner got in the $650,000 range for first. If you make it to the second day, it's different.

Now, I'm not advocating playing the part of a super-nit in the early stages, but I think I am definitely advocating a somewhat tighter than normal (for me) approach to the game early on. Said another way, there is little upside, but lots of downside to getting too frisky on day one.

On to the next installment in this WSOP journey...

All-in for now...
- Bug

Book it, Snyder

As I wrote here, I've decided to start re-reading Arnold Snyder's book The Tournament Poker Formula 2, which focuses on larger buy-in, higher PF tournaments like the WSOP MTTs. I did just that on a recent airplane flight I took across the Pacific. The first time I tried reading this book, I found it a tough go because Snyder stands conventional wisdom on its head, and asked the reader to abandon a lot of ideas that I, frankly, had previously fully embraced and believed. In a sense, it was hard to let these ideas go, keep an open mind, and really read Snyder's words.

But this time I think I'm able to keep that open mind, and, frankly, I'm becoming a convert. Like his first book, this is an excellent, thought provoking book that marches to it's own beat. Snyder isn't afraid to call other poker authors out by name (e.g., David Sklansky) and argue that they're completely wrong in their analyses of poker tournaments, especially when it comes to chip-EV (cEV) and the whole Independent Chip Model (ICM) approach to developing a tournament strategy. I have to say I was skeptical about these claims at first, because, well, we're talking about David Freaking Sklansky. How can he possibly be wrong? 

Snyder contends that thinking about the cEV of a tournament chip is silly.  Assigning a monetary "worth" to each chip can lead you to erroneous conclusions that hamstring you from accumulating those chips. You become more focused on conserving your stack than building. Instead, Snyder argues, you need to think of tournament chips as "ammunition," which means that the more of them you have, the more can do with them. If you've got only one bullet, you have to be really careful with it, and use it only in the best possible situation. But if you have two bullets, suddenly you have two or more options at your disposal, so it's more valuable to gain chips than conserve them. In other words, a bigger stack allows you to cbet, bet for info*, fire multiple barrels, etc., which in turn means you can use more of your poker skills than if you have a shorter stack. He calls this concept "chip utility," and the logical conclusion of assuming this is that a chip won is worth more than a chip lost. This is obviously the opposite conclusion if one employs the ICM approach to MTTs.

Snyder also draws clear distinctions between cash and MTTs, and thinks that "math heads" as he calls them don't appreciate this fact enough, and that they spend too much time focused on pot odds and such, instead of focusing on chip utility and the desperation factors of your opponents.. He also says there is a difference between poker skills and tournament skills that matters a lot in these analyses, and writers like Sklansky and the authors of books like Kill Phil don't fully understand or appreciate these differences.

I'm only four chapters in, but by the time I return home early Saturday morning I will have finished this book. I enjoy having my personal envelope pushed by writers like Snyder, and this book is thus far chock full of gold.

On to the next installment in the WSOP journey...

All-in for now....

-Bug

*Snyder also argues against another long-held belief of this Bug that betting for information is OK. While I still don't believe it's a valid reason to bet in a cash game, Snyder does make a reasonable argument that in tourneys it's fine to do. I'm still not fully sold on this one, but I am thinking... and this is always a good thing.