Saturday, January 26, 2008

PokerStars Sunday Hundred Grand

Last week I played in PokerStars Sunday Hundred Grand for the first time. It has $100,000 guaranteed prize pool but registration usually maxes out for a $200,000 prize pool. The buy-in is $10+$1 and there is usually 20,000 players. I think I counted 20 - $2.20 Satellites throughout the day to this tournament and Sit N Go Satellites throughout the day. I decided to try a $2.20 MTT satellite on Thursday and won a seat my first try. The Sat was pretty easy to get through with 115 entries and 20 seats to be won. Finally Sunday came and I was ready. Right off the gun I started getting big hands. I got a major chip stack quick. The play was weak but not as donkish as I heard. Then the deck got cold. I wasn't getting any cards and the blinds were getting big. I was patient and stole a couple of blinds to keep alive. Finally with blinds at 600/1200 and me with 4670 chips I was dealt pocket fives in early position. There was about 3300 players left and top 3000 got paid at least $20. Players were dropping at about 100 per minute and players at my table were stalling badly. I probably should of folded because a minimal cash would of given me 1000% ROI but I decided to go for it all. I pushed, and one guy calls. Sweet a race. NOPE!!! Cards get flipped over and I see his pocket Aces. I finished the tournament in 3277th place.

I'm going to miss this week but I'll defiantly be playing in this again. I played 2 more MTT Satellites this week with no luck. I might try a SnG sometime coming up. This tournament is weak and should be pretty easy to carry a positive ROI% in the long run. I'll try 3 or 4 satellites a week and should be able to get in with that. If that doesn't work I'm going to just deposit the extra $44 a month to buy in directly. My goal is to start playing these weekly and make a final table this year. With my level of play and a decent run of cards that should be possible. A year would cost $572 of buy-ins and the final table usually pays between $1,000 and $20,000. Sounds good to me.

Monday, January 21, 2008

6-Handed Ring Games

This is a reply to Jonathan's blog. He talks about 6- handed Sit' N Go's but I want to talk about 6-handed Ring Games. The SnG strategy will be a bit different because you basically have a time limit to make chips where a ring game is all about patience.

6-Max Ring Games
I've been playing around with 6-handed ring games. I recently read strategy article that talked about the types of players that play the different types of games. Players that prefer the 6-handed games are the ones who are looking for action. These players are more likely to be Loose-Aggressive (LAG) and also like to bluff at a lot of pots.

Pre-Flop
Pre-flop you have to play hands that are going to generate monsters. Since you're playing players that might be playing anything, they also might hit anything on the flop. They can bluff you out of a lot of pots that you've invested money into. You need to play hands that can generate straights, flushes, or a set. Suited connectors are your best friend for obvious reasons on a 6-handed table. Small pocket pairs are also nice because you have a 1 in 7 chance of hitting a set. A small pocket pair also leaves the higher cards out there for your opponent to hit a big pair while you own a set. Play passivly but play often preflop. To mix it up a little I play almost every pair or suited connector in late position but only play big hands in early position. My opponents can never get reads even though I'm playing exactly the same cards throughout my session.
After the Flop
Now that we've covered pre-flop play, what about after the flop? Well it's really easy, fold if you don't hit. If you miss the flop play the odds. I don't usually count high cards as outs because top pair isn't a sure thing unless you hold a big kicker. The only time I try to draw top pair is if I'm holding AK AQ AJ KQ and sometimes KJ on a really loose table. You want to draw to the top end of straights and to 9 high flush or higher.

If you hit the flop then you need to be agressive, EVERY TIME! Sure your opponent will see this, but he'll still pay you. He'll think to himself, "There's no way this guys that lucky", or ,"Look at this donk playing almost anything". Are you getting lucky or being a donk? Heck no, you have a solid strategy and you're sticking to it. Now your opponent has a mis-read on you. YEA-HAAAAAA!!!!!!!! That's when he' going to pay you.

My Stats
So far I've only been playing around with this strategy on the 0.01/0.02 NL tables on PokerStars and I haven't spent much time on it but it is paying off nicely.


(updated 2/20/08)
4,400 Hands
32.50 VP$IP
about 40% flops seen (give or take 5%)
5.23 Preflop Raise
$23.39 Won
26.58 BB/100 Hands
I'll keep my stats updated for you to see how it goes. I'm hoping to start playing the 0.05/0.10 NL tables soon.