This one baffled me Player Action Cards Amount Pot Balance stuarty117 Small blind 25.00 25.00 2190.00 tikay1 Big blind 50.00 75.00 1845.00 Your hole cards 5 8 8 10 VespaPX Fold POMPEY2007 Call 50.00 125.00 1570.00 kash2809 Call 50.00 175.00 1142.50 reprophil3 Call 50.00 225.00 3192.50 stuarty117 Fold tikay1 Check Flop 10 9 4 tikay1 Check POMPEY2007 Bet 50.00 275.00 1520.00 kash2809 Raise 375.00 650.00 767.50 reprophil3 Call 375.00 1025.00 2817.50 tikay1 Fold POMPEY2007 Call 325.00 1350.00 1195.00 Turn 2 POMPEY2007 Check kash2809 All-in 767.50 2117.50 0.00 reprophil3 Call 767.50 2885.00 2050.00 POMPEY2007 Call 767.50 3652.50 427.50 River 4 POMPEY2007 All-in 427.50 4080.00 0.00 reprophil3 Call 427.50 4507.50 1622.50 POMPEY2007 Show 9 J 9 Q kash2809 Show 10 K 10 Q reprophil3 Show 4 5 J 4 reprophil3 Win high Four 4s 4507.50 6130.00 No qualifying low hand Posted by VespaPX
Why? Reprophil has just got super lucky on the river, having clearly deciding he's going with his set of fours (questionable.)The chances of our boat (or in this case boats) being behind, is very slim indeed.
I see no balanced hands.Fluked it. Posted by chilling
Not all players play PLO8 how theoretically it should be played, i.e playing balanced hands that give us chance to scoop the lot, ESPECIALLY in MTT's, where some players play literally any four cards hoping to hit.
Long term we want what's deemed "bad play", as we will win more than we lose.
If you do decide to move into NLHE, let me know if you find any decent tables! Plenty of good players about particularly in the promo periods. You don't want to build a nice bankroll just to hand it all to Nutter and RaRa over one weekend
You don't need all that wonga on the site for an average DYM stake that must be around £8, withdraw a chunk and get yourself something nice.
Do you see a time when you quit poker and shut off from it altogether and do something else?
The poker boom has long since ended. However, I believe poker will still be going strong for many years. Agree?
You have a 70/30 chip advantage v a player who you don't rate. Prize money is 100k for win and 65k for 2nd. He wants to do business and take 75k. Deal?
Questions time Favourite character you've played against? Do you see a time when you quit poker and shut off from it altogether and do something else? The poker boom has long since ended. However, I believe poker will still be going strong for many years. Agree? You have a 70/30 chip advantage v a player who you don't rate. Prize money is 100k for win and 65000k for 2nd. He wants to do business and take 75000k. Deal? Posted by Jac35
In Response to Re: Can an old dog learn new tricks? : If i recall correctly, Chris Moorman said he loses 4 out of 5 days........mmm......we know the rest. Posted by chilling
Lets hijack the diary and try and get the post count up! Note, no train stories in this post. I do find the whole variance thing interesting. Can effect even great players so massively. Have seen some horrific stories/graphs on 2+2 etc
MTT variance, especially on big field sites is massively different to DYMs. With MTTs its all about closing when deep and deep runs on large field sites wont be happening all the time. When you do win an MTT, its a massive ROI compared to DYMs so that can make up for lots of losing days thus Moorman, the MTT online God can lose 4/5!. DYMs are not my area of expertise so no idea on swings in them, be interesting to know how many winning days out of 100 a DYM reg would expect.... and I mean a normal reg, not Timmy who last had a losing day in 2009.
Part of the problem is not all flips are equal....you lose a flip early in a small buy in comp, you listen to Taylor Swift and life is fine. If you are Fedor you flop quads in your QQ v AK flip when on the final table of a $102k buy in comp! When you play different stakes variance can effect results so much as shown by Tikay's stats. Run good in bigger games and life is brilliant. Run bad in the big games and you cant link the bottom line with how well you have played.
The key is to keep up your A Game. I loved the post by nickkay where he didn't blame variance, blamed his play BUT worked at it.
I was asked the other day about how many losing sessions I would have out of 100. I actually had no idea and I think that's pretty good to not know as it stops short term thinking. One session really doesn't matter especially as it could be a 4 game session or a 60MTT massive grind. I had to use scope to get an answer and it was 225 active days this year and 109 winning days. Mainly this shows I should get out more. Apart from that does show that you cant win every day but doesnt mean you wont win overall.
Part of the issue with variance is we are not using the great guidance we have been given. "Poker is a never ending game" It doesn't matter if we lose one hand, one game, a night or even a month. Key bit is our decision making. If we can go into robot mode and focus on that we are all good. Very much easier said that done and we all get annoyed when you are on the end of a 2 outer but remember it is always deserved when we hit it!
I'll add a little to Matts post from the dym side. As a lower variance game he's right in the winning days will hopefully be higher. The rewards are obviously lesser though.
From my scope I see that from over 14k games that 68% are winning days.
We need to be winning first and foremost but rakeback and promos are absolutely huge in dyms. I think Tikay said himself the other day that he thinks that half his profits may come from rakeback.
A couple of years ago I made the decision to play at higher stakes. I went into this with my eyes open. I knew that my roi would most likely decrease but believed that I would win more money. This is pretty much how it has panned out.
It sounds odd so I'll give an example.
I win 8/10 £3.30 Dyms. I win £15
I win 6/10 £22 Dyms. I win £20
Then we need to factor in the additional rakeback that I'll receive from playing higher as well.
My ROIs at the different stakes suggest this is how it works too. I play up to £50 Dyms but I'll just take the stakes where I've played over 1500 games.
£3.30 - 9.3%
£5.50 - 9.3%
£11 - 5.7%
£16.50 - 8.2%
£22 - 5.6%
But we also need to be aware that the losing days will smart a lot more. That's when we have to keep our heads and accept it and know that over the long run we will win and it's just variance. We know this because we have the stats to back it up.
I think we have to be extremely careful when blaming variance for losing periods. I often see consistent losing players talk about being on a downswing. This is usually following a period when they have ran well and won a bit. We then think that variance is finally evening out and that we are just getting what we deserve. Then when normal service resumes and they start losing again, they're running bad.
When we lose the first thing we should look at is ourselves
In Response to Re: Can an old dog learn new tricks? : If i recall correctly, Chris Moorman said he loses 4 out of 5 days........mmm......we know the rest. Posted by chilling
Well yes - but he plays high variance big field MTT's, so that's to be expected.
DYM's are extremely low variance (50% get paid) & O8 is, I suspect, the lowest variance game there is.
So really, if we are half competent, we should not really have many losing days. And there's the puzzle, because I have more losing days than I think I should. Which suggests I'm not good enough, or am not always playing to the best of my ability.
This one baffled me Player Action Cards Amount Pot Balance stuarty117 Small blind 25.00 25.00 2190.00 tikay1 Big blind 50.00 75.00 1845.00 Your hole cards 5 8 8 10 VespaPX Fold POMPEY2007 Call 50.00 125.00 1570.00 kash2809 Call 50.00 175.00 1142.50 reprophil3 Call 50.00 225.00 3192.50 stuarty117 Fold tikay1 Check Flop 10 9 4 tikay1 Check POMPEY2007 Bet 50.00 275.00 1520.00 kash2809 Raise 375.00 650.00 767.50 reprophil3 Call 375.00 1025.00 2817.50 tikay1 Fold POMPEY2007 Call 325.00 1350.00 1195.00 Turn 2 POMPEY2007 Check kash2809 All-in 767.50 2117.50 0.00 reprophil3 Call 767.50 2885.00 2050.00 POMPEY2007 Call 767.50 3652.50 427.50 River 4 POMPEY2007 All-in 427.50 4080.00 0.00 reprophil3 Call 427.50 4507.50 1622.50 POMPEY2007 Show 9 J 9 Q kash2809 Show 10 K 10 Q reprophil3 Show 4 5 J 4 reprophil3 Win high Four 4s 4507.50 6130.00 No qualifying low hand Posted by VespaPX
Hi Mick,
It's quite an easy one to explain actually. Quad Fours man played 2 PLO8 DYM's, & never folded a single hand pre-flop in either. He literally limped into EVERY pot, & if it was raised up, he called that, too.
Thanks to his one outer, he won the first at £3.30, & then limp-itis caught up with him in the next, which was a fiver affair.
The hand in question was pretty unusual - all three players flopped a set, so he's never folding there, & he hit his one outer.
And in the remote chance that quad fours man is reading this, here's a bit of free advice. No poker player, in the history of poker, ever ever ever, can make a long term profit if they limp into every hand. It might be fun, yes, but it'll cost you money - a lot of it.
When we see players limp into every hand - & two regulars O8 come to mind - what they are really doing is playing Bingo, not Poker. The Blind we pay every hand to see a flop is effectively the cost of buying a Bingo Card for one hand. And if our number gets called out (one or more of our cards hits the board) we win, & if it does not, we lose.
If that's what they want to do, fine, but a visit to Sky Bingo would be more cost effective.
Some big swingy numbers there, exciting times! If you do decide to move into NLHE, let me know if you find any decent tables! Plenty of good players about particularly in the promo periods. You don't want to build a nice bankroll just to hand it all to Nutter and RaRa over one weekend You don't need all that wonga on the site for an average DYM stake that must be around £8, withdraw a chunk and get yourself something nice. Posted by bbMike
Yup, swingy numbers is not wrong. Partly, it comes from getting involved in high-variance style games, which is an increasing trend in the O8 games here now as more & more better players arrive. And we have to mix it with these boys, we just do, otherwise they will run all over us. And we can't be having that, can we?
I do keep looking at NLH DYM's, so as I can increase my point earning capacity, but every time I look the games are full of guys like Timmy, Nutter, JMCririck etc. No point me taking them boys on. Years ago I mixed it in NLH DYM's with the likes of Nutter & JingleMa, & they took all my money, the pesky kids. If only I could find a table full of Grumpy Jac's & Percy Porkers I'd be in like a shot. As Mr Channing wrote yesterday....
".....I also know that if you can find 6 people that are way worse than you and get them to play every day you can make a good living...it's just getting a bit harder to find them now."
Agree, my "roll" is way too big for the stakes I play, but if I wthdraw it, I'll fritter it away on something daft. It's sort of emergency rainy day money really, always there if I need it.
I had planned to invest it in the $3,000 WSOP PLO8, & might have done so this Summer, but I ran a bit hot all Vegas so was able to buy into it from Vegas profits (with the help of my little team of stakers). Maybe there will be a $5,000 version next year, & I'll use it for that.
Have to say, playing WSOP events in Vegas is the best thing ever (in poker), & I abso love it. The $3,000 WSOP PLO8 is the biggest Live PLO8 event in the world - I can't begin to tell you what a thrill it is to play it, & pit your wits against the best. Be even better if a few of our regulars here made it to Vegas next year & we could all be a sort of be a little collective.
Questions time Favourite character you've played against? Do you see a time when you quit poker and shut off from it altogether and do something else? The poker boom has long since ended. However, I believe poker will still be going strong for many years. Agree? You have a 70/30 chip advantage v a player who you don't rate. Prize money is 100k for win and 65k for 2nd. He wants to do business and take 75k. Deal? Posted by Jac35
Sometimes, you ask some GREAT questions, Paul. You are very clever at revving up Diaries & convo.
Favourite character I've played against? So many, I'd be here all day. Two for starters.....
Jeff Duvall.
Love him to bits, & a tremendous PLO & PLO8 player by any standards. He is a genuine character in every way. He sort of sits on the line between legal stuff & illegal stuff. Right on the line, maybe strays a bit either side at times..... If he ever writes an Autobio, it'd be just superb. Mention him to Mr Channing & he'll tell you a lot more about Jeff than I ever could. I was fortunate to share several tables with Jeff in 4 or 5 different Vegas events this year, including 3 WSOP Events. Best thing ever.
David Levi
I was not familiar with this chap until this Summer in Vegas. (Look him up on THM, he has quite a record).
First up this guy was a paratrooper in the Isreali Army. = don't mess with him.
Channing sort of looks after me in Vegas, pops along to my rail, susses the table, & marks my card as to who is handy, who I need to avoid, who is tight, da de da. When he saw David at my table, he rushed across & he & David were hugging & shaking hands. Seems they have known each other for a very long time, & in fact Channing staked David in WSOP events for a few years.
Once David knew that Channing & I were mates, he sort of gave me an easy ride. He could so easily have busted me when I raise with obvious Aces & the flop came K-10-10. He had flopped the boat. But he bet out, instead of letting me hang myself, & his speech play suggested to me I had best fold. Then he showed me the flopped boat.
Meanwhile, he got into a verbal war with Richard Ashby who was 2 to my left. Richard is definitely NOT a good "talker", in fact he rarely talks. Richard & David were sort of going at it a bit, both verbally & in hands. David sort of sent Richard a barbed comment - just to unsettle him - & Richard made the mistake of suggesting David needed to show "a bit more heart".
Well some understanding of human psychology is needed here. David is Jewish, & an ex paratrooper. Suggesting he needed to show some heart was, arguably, not wise.
So David fought back & ran an all street bluff against Richard for his entire stack. Get it wrong & he'd not only be out, but he'd look pretty daft. Remember, this was not a random tenner rebuy, this was a $3,000 WSOP PLO8 affair. He then claimed (but never showed) it was a complete airball. We shall never know.....
It was utterly fascinating to watch, & I ended up liking David very much.
I could write a "favourite character" every day if I put my mind to it. So many of them. I could write a book on this years Vegas trip alone in fact. Whether it'd interest anyone is another matter altogether....
Questions time Favourite character you've played against? Do you see a time when you quit poker and shut off from it altogether and do something else? The poker boom has long since ended. However, I believe poker will still be going strong for many years. Agree? You have a 70/30 chip advantage v a player who you don't rate. Prize money is 100k for win and 65k for 2nd. He wants to do business and take 75k. Deal? Posted by Jac35
Yes.
No idea when but yes, it'll happen I guess. Maybe when Sky Poker send me the "Dear Tony, it's been most enjoyable working with you, but....."
It's all or nothing with me. I had a 10 year snooker phase, played almost every single night.
Next was Golf, played 6 rounds a week for 5 years, joined a club as a newbie & was Captain within 4 years. Then poker came along, & much as I miss Golf terribly, I've not played a round since. Think my eyes are too bad to even contemplate golf now, & I have no hand-eye co-ordination any more, either.
So yes, it'll probably happen at some stage. It's perfect right now, & it helps me with my job to see what's what with the players & the software. I live alone, & see Gill at weekends twice a month, & I'm not one to sit & watch telly all night. So it's just the job right now.
I also have a theory that our minds become less agile & we lose our mental dexterity with age, especially if we allow ourselves to. Playing 6 tables of O8 really makes me use my mind, sort of helps keep it fit. That's my theory, anyway....
Fishing might just be my next obsession. That'd be great, the solitude, the peace & quiet, & not having to talk to anyone or hear all the chuffing moans & groans. Lovely.
Questions time Favourite character you've played against? Do you see a time when you quit poker and shut off from it altogether and do something else? The poker boom has long since ended. However, I believe poker will still be going strong for many years. Agree? You have a 70/30 chip advantage v a player who you don't rate. Prize money is 100k for win and 65k for 2nd. He wants to do business and take 75k. Deal? Posted by Jac35
Yup, I agree strongly.
Not as we have traditionally known it, though.
It will become much more recreational, much more fun. People WQNT to have fun. I'm full of admiration for the Patrick Leonard's of this world, but soon they will have sucked all the money out of the poker economy.
Meanwhile, the fun aspect will increase, stuff like Spin Ups & turbo MTT's etc.
Poker won't be going away anytime soon, trust me. Most sites have already disappeared, & some others will do so soon. Look at, say, Ladbrokes for starters, or Betfair. Both used to be huge, now both dead.
Sky Poker have got it right - appeal to the recreationals. They won't be going away ever.
Comments
Why? Reprophil has just got super lucky on the river, having clearly deciding he's going with his set of fours (questionable.)The chances of our boat (or in this case boats) being behind, is very slim indeed.
I do find the whole variance thing interesting. Can effect even great players so massively. Have seen some horrific stories/graphs on 2+2 etc
MTT variance, especially on big field sites is massively different to DYMs. With MTTs its all about closing when deep and deep runs on large field sites wont be happening all the time. When you do win an MTT, its a massive ROI compared to DYMs so that can make up for lots of losing days thus Moorman, the MTT online God can lose 4/5!. DYMs are not my area of expertise so no idea on swings in them, be interesting to know how many winning days out of 100 a DYM reg would expect.... and I mean a normal reg, not Timmy who last had a losing day in 2009.
Part of the problem is not all flips are equal....you lose a flip early in a small buy in comp, you listen to Taylor Swift and life is fine. If you are Fedor you flop quads in your QQ v AK flip when on the final table of a $102k buy in comp! When you play different stakes variance can effect results so much as shown by Tikay's stats. Run good in bigger games and life is brilliant. Run bad in the big games and you cant link the bottom line with how well you have played.
The key is to keep up your A Game. I loved the post by nickkay where he didn't blame variance, blamed his play BUT worked at it.
I was asked the other day about how many losing sessions I would have out of 100. I actually had no idea and I think that's pretty good to not know as it stops short term thinking. One session really doesn't matter especially as it could be a 4 game session or a 60MTT massive grind. I had to use scope to get an answer and it was 225 active days this year and 109 winning days. Mainly this shows I should get out more. Apart from that does show that you cant win every day but doesnt mean you wont win overall.
Part of the issue with variance is we are not using the great guidance we have been given. "Poker is a never ending game" It doesn't matter if we lose one hand, one game, a night or even a month. Key bit is our decision making. If we can go into robot mode and focus on that we are all good. Very much easier said that done and we all get annoyed when you are on the end of a 2 outer but remember it is always deserved when we hit it!
Grown ups only on this thread.
DYM's are extremely low variance (50% get paid) & O8 is, I suspect, the lowest variance game there is.
So really, if we are half competent, we should not really have many losing days. And there's the puzzle, because I have more losing days than I think I should. Which suggests I'm not good enough, or am not always playing to the best of my ability.
It's quite an easy one to explain actually. Quad Fours man played 2 PLO8 DYM's, & never folded a single hand pre-flop in either. He literally limped into EVERY pot, & if it was raised up, he called that, too.
Thanks to his one outer, he won the first at £3.30, & then limp-itis caught up with him in the next, which was a fiver affair.
The hand in question was pretty unusual - all three players flopped a set, so he's never folding there, & he hit his one outer.
And in the remote chance that quad fours man is reading this, here's a bit of free advice. No poker player, in the history of poker, ever ever ever, can make a long term profit if they limp into every hand. It might be fun, yes, but it'll cost you money - a lot of it.
When we see players limp into every hand - & two regulars O8 come to mind - what they are really doing is playing Bingo, not Poker. The Blind we pay every hand to see a flop is effectively the cost of buying a Bingo Card for one hand. And if our number gets called out (one or more of our cards hits the board) we win, & if it does not, we lose.
If that's what they want to do, fine, but a visit to Sky Bingo would be more cost effective.
I do keep looking at NLH DYM's, so as I can increase my point earning capacity, but every time I look the games are full of guys like Timmy, Nutter, JMCririck etc. No point me taking them boys on. Years ago I mixed it in NLH DYM's with the likes of Nutter & JingleMa, & they took all my money, the pesky kids. If only I could find a table full of Grumpy Jac's & Percy Porkers I'd be in like a shot. As Mr Channing wrote yesterday....
".....I also know that if you can find 6 people that are way worse than you and get them to play every day you can make a good living...it's just getting a bit harder to find them now."
Agree, my "roll" is way too big for the stakes I play, but if I wthdraw it, I'll fritter it away on something daft. It's sort of emergency rainy day money really, always there if I need it.
I had planned to invest it in the $3,000 WSOP PLO8, & might have done so this Summer, but I ran a bit hot all Vegas so was able to buy into it from Vegas profits (with the help of my little team of stakers). Maybe there will be a $5,000 version next year, & I'll use it for that.
Have to say, playing WSOP events in Vegas is the best thing ever (in poker), & I abso love it.
The $3,000 WSOP PLO8 is the biggest Live PLO8 event in the world - I can't begin to tell you what a thrill it is to play it, & pit your wits against the best. Be even better if a few of our regulars here made it to Vegas next year & we could all be a sort of be a little collective.
Daydreaming is great, eh?
Favourite character I've played against? So many, I'd be here all day. Two for starters.....
Jeff Duvall.
Love him to bits, & a tremendous PLO & PLO8 player by any standards. He is a genuine character in every way. He sort of sits on the line between legal stuff & illegal stuff. Right on the line, maybe strays a bit either side at times..... If he ever writes an Autobio, it'd be just superb. Mention him to Mr Channing & he'll tell you a lot more about Jeff than I ever could. I was fortunate to share several tables with Jeff in 4 or 5 different Vegas events this year, including 3 WSOP Events. Best thing ever.
David Levi
I was not familiar with this chap until this Summer in Vegas. (Look him up on THM, he has quite a record).
First up this guy was a paratrooper in the Isreali Army. = don't mess with him.
Channing sort of looks after me in Vegas, pops along to my rail, susses the table, & marks my card as to who is handy, who I need to avoid, who is tight, da de da. When he saw David at my table, he rushed across & he & David were hugging & shaking hands. Seems they have known each other for a very long time, & in fact Channing staked David in WSOP events for a few years.
Once David knew that Channing & I were mates, he sort of gave me an easy ride. He could so easily have busted me when I raise with obvious Aces & the flop came K-10-10. He had flopped the boat. But he bet out, instead of letting me hang myself, & his speech play suggested to me I had best fold. Then he showed me the flopped boat.
Meanwhile, he got into a verbal war with Richard Ashby who was 2 to my left. Richard is definitely NOT a good "talker", in fact he rarely talks. Richard & David were sort of going at it a bit, both verbally & in hands. David sort of sent Richard a barbed comment - just to unsettle him - & Richard made the mistake of suggesting David needed to show "a bit more heart".
Well some understanding of human psychology is needed here. David is Jewish, & an ex paratrooper. Suggesting he needed to show some heart was, arguably, not wise.
So David fought back & ran an all street bluff against Richard for his entire stack. Get it wrong & he'd not only be out, but he'd look pretty daft. Remember, this was not a random tenner rebuy, this was a $3,000 WSOP PLO8 affair. He then claimed (but never showed) it was a complete airball. We shall never know.....
It was utterly fascinating to watch, & I ended up liking David very much.
I could write a "favourite character" every day if I put my mind to it. So many of them. I could write a book on this years Vegas trip alone in fact. Whether it'd interest anyone is another matter altogether....
No idea when but yes, it'll happen I guess. Maybe when Sky Poker send me the "Dear Tony, it's been most enjoyable working with you, but....."
It's all or nothing with me. I had a 10 year snooker phase, played almost every single night.
Next was Golf, played 6 rounds a week for 5 years, joined a club as a newbie & was Captain within 4 years. Then poker came along, & much as I miss Golf terribly, I've not played a round since. Think my eyes are too bad to even contemplate golf now, & I have no hand-eye co-ordination any more, either.
So yes, it'll probably happen at some stage. It's perfect right now, & it helps me with my job to see what's what with the players & the software. I live alone, & see Gill at weekends twice a month, & I'm not one to sit & watch telly all night. So it's just the job right now.
I also have a theory that our minds become less agile & we lose our mental dexterity with age, especially if we allow ourselves to. Playing 6 tables of O8 really makes me use my mind, sort of helps keep it fit. That's my theory, anyway....
Fishing might just be my next obsession. That'd be great, the solitude, the peace & quiet, & not having to talk to anyone or hear all the chuffing moans & groans. Lovely.
Not as we have traditionally known it, though.
It will become much more recreational, much more fun. People WQNT to have fun. I'm full of admiration for the Patrick Leonard's of this world, but soon they will have sucked all the money out of the poker economy.
Meanwhile, the fun aspect will increase, stuff like Spin Ups & turbo MTT's etc.
Poker won't be going away anytime soon, trust me. Most sites have already disappeared, & some others will do so soon. Look at, say, Ladbrokes for starters, or Betfair. Both used to be huge, now both dead.
Sky Poker have got it right - appeal to the recreationals. They won't be going away ever.