On Poker and Golf

Many poker-playing readers of this blog will also be at least occasional golfers. Poker and golf have a lot in common.

For a start, they are both sports.

I know that there is debate about whether one of these is actually more of a “game” or a “pastime” than a genuine sport. Nevertheless, I believe that – despite their reputation for drinking, smoking, gambling and a general lack of physical fitness – golfers are still genuine sportsmen.

In any event, there are a great many commonalities in the experience of playing these two great games.

In both, the player benefits tremendously from experience and practice. For that reason they are also both sports that one can play credibly at an advanced age with the years of practice mitigating the loss of vigour.

Poker and golf offer a huge amount of material available to the player to further his/her game.
In both cases, the average player totally fails to take full advantage of the resources available and should undoubtedly study more and play less.

In poker there was already a wealth of books magazines and software tools available, and now there are online coaching videos and even one-to-one coaching. Unlike golf coaching, this can be achieved in the warm and dry over an internet link.

I wouldn’t argue that in poker one can gain much advantage by purchasing superior equipment – a difference from the golf parallel. Of course, some believe their latest iPod, ridiculously expensive noise-cancelling headphones and designer sunglasses are vital poker aids, so maybe I am wrong about this.

Both games constantly serve up disappointment but they also offer enough glimpses of glory to keep the player coming back for constant punishment.

In golf, we struggle round with a mix of pulled drives, thinned wedges, missed putts short, long, left and right and then suddenly on the 14th fairway we unexpectedly connect with a 5-wood from the semi-rough, catch a kind bounce and a favourable run and incredibly our ball finishes 6 feet from the hole for a miracle birdie chance.

It sometimes doesn’t even matter if we now miss the putt. Our faith in the game is restored and will carry us for weeks to come.

Likewise in poker we endure a constant diet of bad beats and poor finishes and most likely a steady drain on our bankroll until suddenly one night we make a final table or pull off some miraculous squeeze or river bluff check-raise or make a supreme winning call with King-high and suddenly we’re Phil Ivey all over again.

I think we ultimately remember the highs more than the lows, although I have never lost a WSOP bracelet heads up when my opponent 4-bet shoved with T4o and flopped a full house !
Poker is probably unique in the extent to which our own perception of our ability is correlated to results on such a short timescale, and it must offer one of the highest love-hate factors of any activity.

There are differences of course. Both can be played and enjoyed by beginners, but only poker offers the ultimate level playing field and – yes – that first-timer no-hoper may beat the entire field on the day. It does happen. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve even been that no-hoper.

And, for now anyway, poker (unlike golf) has not been granted Olympic status.

Quadruple crown anyone ? WSOP-WPT-EPT-Gold Medal .... it is absolutely no less ridiculous than tennis at the Olympics in my opinion !

What is the ultimate in either sport for the keen amateur ? Is a WSOP bracelet the equivalent of a hole in one ?

Well, whatever the doubts about the quality of my poker game I know for a fact that I am a better poker player than a golfer and yet I have actually achieved a hole in one. That took me only slightly more than 25 years to achieve but I’d be happy to wait the full 21 more years if I can have the bracelet .... just one time ....

Mixed Results

Blog for the EPT 8-game is best read on the gutshot blog section as it's a bit long for this layout:

http://www.gutshot.com/bforum/blog.php?b=667

Mixed Fortunes ?

Tomorrow I plan to play in what might well be the last live tournament of the year for me.

It's the EPT London festival at the moment. The EPT (European Poker Tour) has been a roaring success since it was conceived just a few years ago.

I'm not playing the actual EPT main event itself (which, this year, turned out to be the biggest ever tournament staged in the UK). The event was way too expensive at £5,250. I did have a half-hearted attempt at qualification, but without troubling the scorers.

Like all these large events, there is a whole raft of side events - eg: a £1,000 NLH today - but in fact the event I picked out weeks ago is the European 8-Game Championships (£500).

"8 game" is a bit like HORSE in that it is a mixed game - several different poker disciplines played in rotation. The 8 games are (I think !)... the HORSE games (Limit Hold'em, Limit Omaha Hi/Lo 8-or-better, Limit Razz, Limit Seven Card Stud and Limit Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo 8-or-better) PLUS No Limit Hold'em, Pot Limit Omaha and Deuce-to-Seven Triple Draw (played as a limit game, I believe).

It's mad really !

There was a £2k version of the same tournament last week - Joe Hachem (2005 WSOP Main Event winner) won it. I imagine it was a field solely comprised of high-stakes pros to be honest.

I am not quite sure who will play the £500. On the one hand there are people like me who like the mixed games but are not wiling to shell out £2k. On the other hand, some of the big names probably cannot be bothered to play for the £500 stakes. And we are drawing to the end of the massive season of festivals in London, so quite a few pros that are not still in the EPT will have started to head home.

There were 60 runners for the £2k event. I suppose on balance I would expect a similar number for the £500, but who knows !

I've continued to play a few HORSE tournies on pokerstars - I cashed in one last night (24th, the lowest paying place in fact: made a bad call in Razz) - so I feel I just about know those games.

Obviously I know NLH and PLO although I cannot quite get my head around how they gel with the limit rounds. This leaves "triple draw". I have never played this, so I am reading up on it in Super-System 2. Daniel Negreanu wrote the chapter, so hopefully it is intelligible.

Overall strategy wise, I am thinking I may go for super-tight. Despite the presence of NLH and PLO in the rotation, the event is primarily a limit event and I know it is right to play very tight in limit tournaments.

Presumably the structure is OK (it's a 2day event), so I reckon I need to really go out of my way to play extremely tight (but aggressively when I have a hand).

I think the 2nd best choice might be very loose (and hope to get lucky), but I'm going to try very hard to bite the bullet and become the H-rock. Tight players can get lucky as well, after all !

And Finally

I played in the £1,000 NLH event at the WSOPE (E for Europe) recently, which I felt was worth a punt, but I never intended to tackle the main event (£10,000 entry) which has just moved to the final table stage at Day 4.

Ironically, it will of course finish (today) more than a month earlier than the final of the WSOP Main Event itself from the Vegas series due to the TV-inspired 3month+ break in that tournament.

There are clear differences in the two events; the most striking of course is the difference in the field size although at ~400, the European Main Event was not remotely small for such an enormous buy-in [the WSOP main event had about 6,500 entrants this year].

The other difference, I would say, was the quality of the starting field. It was absolutely packed with high profile players and it seems like the whole of the global elite of poker is spending the entire autumn in and around London, with so many key events being staged. The EPT festival is already underway in fact whilst the WSOPE has not yet finished.

The intense starting field has led to an insanely talented final table.

http://www.gutshot.com/bforum/showthread.php?t=33588

I previously mentioned that I have two "interests" at the November final table. It promises to be a fascinating encounter with Phil Ivey in the mix, but I will of course mainly be following both James Akenhead (Gutshot heritage, and "I know him" factor) and of course Steve Begleiter (Bear Stearns veteran).

The incredible thing is that James Akenhead has made the final table of the WSOPE Main Event as well. What is more, another player (Antoine Souat) has also made both final tables.

It's an amazing feat on both their parts. To top it, one of them could go on to win both titles I suppose which would very probably be an achievement never to be repeated. In fact, if either James or Antoine were to take this title then it's safe to assume that it will be a gift to Harrah's and ESPN in time for the November coverage.

James' stock - already very bullish with his 2nd place in WSOP Event#2 last year, November 9 this year and Full Tilt pro deal - must be absolutely through the roof here.

The eX-post

I suspect a lot of regular readers of the poker actually blog were surprised to find The ex-Files post here which had next to nothing to do with poker (the word "poker" was used in it, but that is about it).

It has been moved to the Tales from number 54 blog in case you were wondering.

http://hvsmith2.blogspot.com/2009/10/ex-files.html

Good Read

Am I a good player ? It’s a question I often ask myself.

Occasionally the question is put to me although, thinking about the conversations that poker players have, they rarely ask about the other person as such. Mostly each player talks about themselves, whether consciously or otherwise !

Back to the question.

It’s not easy to answer. One way to tackle the question, of course, is to look at whether I am winning. Even this is not trivial as, sadly, my records are pretty poor.

I do have excellent records for my Las Vegas trips and in fact my 2009 visit was so profitable that it puts me clearly in the black for the aggregate of those visits over the years. Previously I have had mixed results in Vegas due to my failure to cash in large tournaments.

In 2009, I successfully addressed the tournament problem and I was also profitable in cash (and sponsorship !)

Equally clear is that I am a loser at online poker. I know this because I am much more familiar with deposit methods than withdrawal procedures.

This is the overall result, but it’s actually a game of two halves. I have definitely been a loser in cash, but I have almost certainly been a solid winner at online MTTs.

In live (non-Vegas) games, the lack of good data prevents me from making a definitive statement. Of course, if a poker player is “not sure” whether s/he is up or down then it is in fact a safe bet that s/he is losing.

I have the same problem in live UK play as I previously had in Vegas: lots of high-priced tournaments with no significant cashes. In smaller buy-in tournaments I am slightly ahead. In cash, somewhat down.

In terms of objective evidence the available data is, in fact, fairly encouraging. The latest data for me at OPR (officialpokerrankings.com) say that I above the 99th percentile for tournament players on pokerstars and also confirms I am profitable with a strong ROI%.

Sharkscope covers tournaments on Gutshot.com (Cake network), and I am classified as a “shark” with strong statistics again.

There are other sites that track tournament data and I am in good shape on all of them.
I don’t look at the products that offer cash-tracking but I know they would confirm I am a fish. The problem is patience. In many non-poker situations I am actually a very patient person, but I simply have not found a way to convert this attitude into cash play.

This goes for both online and live play, but the problem is severe in internet play. Live, there are other factors that can mitigate my natural tendencies, but online a lack of patience is rarely less than fatal to the bankroll.

Outside of the objective data, I do feel subjectively that I am a better player than ever. There is no doubt in my mind that I have learned a lot about the game since I started about 4 years ago. To be sure, I could have (and probably should have) learned even more by being more disciplined in the actual study of the game.

My approach has been mainly of the “Learn by Doing” school which I favour in most endeavours.

It is of course difficult to quantify any improvements in my game (although, on the publicly tracked stats the improvement is visible: OPR 48% in 2007, 56% in 2008, 99%+ in 2009). It has not been translated into clear gains in my bankroll but this is at least partly explained by the fact that I migrate upwards in stakes at least as fast as any improvement in my game.

I like to think that if I had to make a living from poker, I would have enough skill to do that. Of course the problem is that to do this would involve playing a rather dull game.

I would need to play much lower stakes, and really focus on issues like good game selection and correct bankroll management. All of these necessary steps would, with certainty, lead to a more boring game. This would be a problem.

A number of people over the years have suggested that the best approach for me would actually be to go UP in stakes to a level where the money involved would be more meaningful for me. I think there actually is some merit in this advice although I have generally been reluctant to do so since it’s far from obvious that being a small loser at low stakes means I will win at high stakes !

If it’s difficult to be sure how good I am, and difficult to prove or measure, I have nonetheless had glimpses of what it must be like. For the most part when I am playing, I think I am slightly above average (say a 70% percentile player) but I have sometimes been in situations where I am clearly the best player.

I am thinking of an invitational £50 rebuy I played last year, of the cruise poker I played this summer and of certain MTT tables on gutshot.com. For short periods, I have understood what it feels like to KNOW that you are better than most (or even all) of the other players and to experience the wonder of reading the opponents as if, in fact, their cards were face up and they had informed you of their exact intentions in the hand.

I suppose it must be like this for the top pros all the time !

WSOPE £1000 NLH

After initially putting this event on my calendar, then thinking I would give it a miss (various reasons including a fairly unanimous view among players that it is bad "value" as a tournament), I flip-flopped back to the "yes" camp.

Diary-wise, it fitted in somewhat nicely with the birthday celebrations at The International the night before. Karen & I stayed at a hotel on Friday night and I was booked in for Saturday night as well.

The Friday night was good fun at the club. In the random tag teams event, I was paired with JJ. The tag structure had the effect of tightening up my play (even though I hardly had to worry about JJ being unused to the loose approach). JJ presumably did not react in the same way as his early position push with A7 was snapped off by Andy Achillea's AQ.

I took a fairly early retreat from the cash games (lively: some highlights included me calling India's all-in check raise on a Jack high flop with my J-9o. I had 4-bet the pot pre-flop. My top pair was good. I imagine India had a hand like 88. Lowlights: check-raising all-in on Axx flop with 63o and failing to get A-8 to fold).

The Empire was busy, no question. The poor structure had obviously not been enough to counteract the positive halo effect of a WSOP bracelet on offer. About 300 (capacity, basically) had played on day 1A with the same number again there for 1B.

Plenty of faces on show. I did not recognise anyone at my own table, although they all struck me as pretty experienced players. At the next two tables, I spotted Chris Ferguson, sitting next to John Juanda and Barney Boatman (who lasted about 20 minutes). There were some other faces that looked vaguely familiar.

Although 3,000 chips was plainly far too few, the blinds did start at a helpful 25/25 (maybe they changed this under protest from the players because the posted schedule certainly said 25/50) and the 1 hour clock was respectable.

After winning and losing a few very small pots, I found myself in a difficult place after getting too committed with top pair and the nut flush draw, losing out to a full house (did not see that coming at all).

Tournaments are often about "what if" so in this case, I can wonder "what if" I had not limped with Aces in level 1. Actually not that much would have changed, probably. As it turned out I lost a small pot when 4 diamonds came (I had none) and I paid off a small bet on the river.

Having lost some chips, I thought my way back may have come in the shape of pocket Kings.

Two callers pre flop, and then they both called on the Ace high flop. The pot was now checked to the river where I lost to A3. So, what if I bet bigger pre-flop? Or bigger on the flop, or if I fire the turn or river as well ? My feeling was that I did not have enough chips to shake off the flopped Ace.

In any case, the result was that I had no real room to move until in the 3rd level my stack had reduced to 15BB. Obviously now I was waiting for a good re-shove opportunity. It came soon. The button, who had just won a big pot, opened to 300 at 50/100 and with AQ on the big blind and 1,550 chips it was an automatic all-in.

The player seemed hesitant about calling despite his decent 9k stack. This seemed a good sign. "Ace-Ten" someone volunteered, having apparently played with the raiser earlier. "Yes please" I thought, but it was pocket Tens.

Still, I was happy to take a race. Unfortunately a Ten on the flop cut short my hopes. They were briefly rekindled by a King on the turn, but there was no miracle Jack on the river.

So, a rather brief stint - a little less than 3 hours - although about 100 players had already exited in this short period. The rapid elimination of players did mean that those who did survive the first few levels quickly went deep into the tournament. In fact, they had to stop play early on day1a to prevent the money bubble bursting on day 1 !

Next time ..... although I am not sure I will play any more live tournaments this year.