best of luck with the challenge, im gonna thrown it out there and say this will be completed by July if anyone wants the over/under.. ??
i was going to start a very similar diary at the start of the year and probably still will do something when i know what to do. I had a profit challenge in mind but as you have started yours i may mix it up somewhat, still undecided. Other ideas would be lower stakes to higher stakes cash as see how far we can go with x roll but im not sure enough volume through the stakes etc. anyway all the best dude
That would be worth a read. Make it reasonably tough though, like a 10 buyins rule or summat. Start a 4nl with £40 then move up once you hit 10 buyins for next level etc.
id rather make it more realistic tbh with decent BR management other wise it may be a short diary lol, but id probably start nl20 and see how far we get. i dont want to completely hijack this thread so will decide on something soon..
best of luck with the challenge, im gonna thrown it out there and say this will be completed by July if anyone wants the over/under.. ??
i was going to start a very similar diary at the start of the year and probably still will do something when i know what to do. I had a profit challenge in mind but as you have started yours i may mix it up somewhat, still undecided. Other ideas would be lower stakes to higher stakes cash as see how far we can go with x roll but im not sure enough volume through the stakes etc. anyway all the best dude
That would be worth a read. Make it reasonably tough though, like a 10 buyins rule or summat. Start a 4nl with £40 then move up once you hit 10 buyins for next level etc.
id rather make it more realistic tbh with decent BR management other wise it may be a short diary lol, but id probably start nl20 and see how far we get. i dont want to completely hijack this thread so will decide on something soon..
You have advertised your self a few times, so i think you should make the diary today
Going back the famous AK hand, I don't really see the relevance of whether we have or haven't already made our money back in bounties, apart from the fact that it means we will get called lighter if we have a decent bounty on our head.
With our stack our main priority is getting itm however I think AK on the button is too strong a hand/spot to fold although I don't know if the maths behind it would say it should be a fold.
Also I would want to know what the other short stacks are like as this can effect what we do with close situations.
Bubble and FT bubble are very interesting from an MTT perspective and the more experience you get will really help you to maximise these situations.
best of luck with the challenge, im gonna thrown it out there and say this will be completed by July if anyone wants the over/under.. ??
i was going to start a very similar diary at the start of the year and probably still will do something when i know what to do. I had a profit challenge in mind but as you have started yours i may mix it up somewhat, still undecided. Other ideas would be lower stakes to higher stakes cash as see how far we can go with x roll but im not sure enough volume through the stakes etc. anyway all the best dude
Completed by July? I'll definitely take the overs on that given how pants my volume has been so far .
Love following these kinds of challenges myself so two enthusiastic thumbs up from me for whatever you decide to go with. May I suggest DYM's? There's already more than enough tough regs knocking about in my games!
Warning – wall of text incoming! (so much so that it needs two separate posts lol)
For those of you who have something useful to do with the next five minutes of your life...
TL;DR: I’m not that fond of bounty hunters and here’s a stupidly long explanation of why.
...otherwise, read on.
I don’t gamble. That might seem rather hypocritical coming from a bloke keeping a diary of his poker playing exploits, but sports betting, casino games and the like have never held any appeal for me. The principle attraction of poker has always been that it is a game of skill. Whilst it contains a degree of luck over the short term, if you can consistently practice a superior strategy to that of your opponents, you will ultimately win more than you lose.
Poker first piqued my interest when the Late Night Poker show appeared on Channel 4 back in the late 90’s (would love to see a revival by the way). Each episode was essentially a sit and go tourney with the winners of each week going through to a grand final to reach a series champion. With that acting as a catalyst, it was fairly understandable that my very first steps into online poker involved playing sit and go’s. Whilst I enjoyed myself at the start, I really hated how the blinds would increase and limit the amount of decisions available me over the course of a hand. Winning poker essentially involves capitalising on the mistakes of you opponents (whilst making as few as possible yourself of course), and in games where stacks remain deep, players will be left with a greater number of decisions per hand on average. The more decisions your opponents are faced with, the more scope there is for them to make mistakes and so the bigger an edge it is possible to leverage if you are the superior player. Therefore, I very soon found a natural home in cash games and, until very recently, had stuck with those ever since. Like most things in life though, no matter how much you enjoy a particular activity, you will likely start to tire of it a little having done it for a significant length of time (I’ve still yet to find this with eating chocolate though). This is why I’ve begun the year by playing (and learning) MTT’s. Earlier in this thread, the exceptionally friendly and helpful MynaFrett suggested he’d like to see me make an all out assault on the MTT scene to see how I may fare against the likes of Matt Bates and loololollo over a more comparable sample size. Whilst I certainly have the capabilities to put in this kind of volume (profitably is another matter mind), on Sky at least, I am facing a significant barrier – I just don’t like bounty hunters very much!
Back in 2012 a bit of a revolution occurred in online cash games – the introduction of rush/zoom poker. Like many people, I thought this was a great idea and enthusiastically threw myself into the games. You were able to get through 4 times as many hands per hour than you would on a regular table, so what could possibly be bad about that? The downside to this was that it inadvertently made people better players. One of the principle attributes required to be a solid poker player is patience. Not playing some marginal or junky pre flop hand because you’re getting bored and haven’t seen a decent holding for a couple of orbits requires discipline. Being able to capitalise on a lack of this discipline in ones opponents was a significant area in which an edge could be gained. The ability to keep folding at lightning speed until you find yourself looking at something pretty made even the very worst players significantly better through no effort of their own. In a roundabout way, I believe bounty hunter tournaments have the same effect on MTT’s – there are specific elements of them which inadvertently make players play better overall than they might otherwise in a regular tournament, and thus the skill edge is reduced.
I had initially thought that bounty hunters would be lower variance overall when compared to regular freezeouts. The fact that you can finish well outside the money places but still often cover part or even all of your buy in by picking up a bounty or two along the way would make this a logical conclusion to reach. However, being a nerd with too much time on his hands, I decided to look into this more closely. Using trusty old Sharkscope, I delved into the playing histories of some of the biggest volume and biggest winning MTT players at Sky, and what I discovered genuinely surprised me. When comparing their results in bounty hunters vs regular tournaments, these players were recording average ROI’s around 10-15% higher in non bounty hunter formats. Whilst there are significant issues with the basis of these figures (comparable sample sizes being just one for example), they still pose some interesting questions as to why these differences in ROI’s seem to exist? It would appear that my initial assumptions about bounty hunters being lower variance could be very wrong indeed. I think there are two main factors for this.
The first of these are the differences in the nature of the payout structures of these two tournament types. In non bounty hunter events the entire prize fund is distributed according to finishing positions. Under these circumstances, the players with the biggest skill edge will be claiming the lion’s share of the prize fund the majority of the time. In a bounty hunter 50% of the prize fund is allocated to bounties. This dilutes the effect of a skill edge in terms of expected returns because players who would otherwise have a low expectation of realising any return through a high placing will be claiming portions of the prize fund without needing to achieve a finishing position above expectation. Whilst the better players will of course be picking up more bounties than average, this still won’t fully offset the overall dilution of the prize fund into the pockets of players who would otherwise have little chance of a cash.
The second factor is how the effects of having a bounty in play lead lesser skilled players into making more correct decisions than they might otherwise make (the zoom effect if you will!). With the shove or fold AKo dilemma I was looking at earlier in this diary, it became evident that the big blind could profitably call a 6bb shove from someone holding AKo with 64s (it’s close admittedly, but it’s still just about a +EV call). If you could turn your cards face up and shove your AKo in a standard freezeout, what proportion of players would imagine choosing to make a (technically correct) call from the big blind here with 64s? Very few I’d have thought. Now stick a bounty on the head of the player shoving their AKo. I certainly imagine you’d be finding a lot more calls now. I’ve had multiple instances of getting folds when open shoving a 3bb stack from the button in non bh games. Even if my 3bb shove was done with what would be a very conservative top 50% of hands, the big blind could still profitably call with everything but the bottom 4.5% of all their possible holdings. If it was a bounty hunter I’d be getting snap called with by any two cards 99%+ of the time. Much of the edge in tournament poker comes from denying your opponents an opportunity to realise their equity in short stack situations. Using aggressive shoving ranges that are something akin to Nash will effectively print you money as so many people have no idea just quite how wide they should be calling and so will be over-folding a ton as a result. However, in a bounty hunter, the overt added incentive attached to calling will mean that even the most clueless players will end up playing a much better short stack game as a result, even without realising it.
As someone who has always most enjoyed the formats of poker where skills edges can be widest, the assumptions above (it could all be hyperbolic nonsense on my part frankly) make me feel pretty unenthused by bounty hunters. Don’t get me wrong, I certainly think there is still plenty of edge (and profit!) to be had in them. It’s just given the choice, there are other games I’d pick first. I will still be playing them as here on Sky they make up the vast majority of the MTT schedule, but I do feel less inclined to put in serious levels of MTT volume as a result. This is not an attempt to start yet another debate about the tourney schedule on Sky (there have been plenty already) but merely ramblings of an old poker hound venturing into pastures new. If you’ve managed to get this far without losing the will to live, very well done!
Poker didn't really happen on Tuesday night. I felt rather tired at around 4pm so decided to take a short nap - the next thing I knew it was 11pm. That did still leave one remaining £2.20 deepstack starting shortly so I couldn't help but hit the register button. All that followed was me one tabling that whilst reading random bits of nonsense online until busting out well away from the money.
With my sleep pattern now all over the place I was very awake in the early part of this morning so I played a few of the tiny £50 gtd £5.50 bounty hunters. Made a small profit from these and even secured what is technically my first tournament win of the diary by outlasting a whopping 8 other players to seal the victory . £18.85 in total added to the kitty.
Going back the famous AK hand, I don't really see the relevance of whether we have or haven't already made our money back in bounties, apart from the fact that it means we will get called lighter if we have a decent bounty on our head.
With our stack our main priority is getting itm however I think AK on the button is too strong a hand/spot to fold although I don't know if the maths behind it would say it should be a fold.
Also I would want to know what the other short stacks are like as this can effect what we do with close situations.
Bubble and FT bubble are very interesting from an MTT perspective and the more experience you get will really help you to maximise these situations.
@MattBates what in particular is so important about a FT bubble? I've seen it mentioned quite a few times (not just on this thread) and thought who better to ask than you. To me a FT bubble is completely unimportant unless the pay jump itself is massively significant
Going back the famous AK hand, I don't really see the relevance of whether we have or haven't already made our money back in bounties, apart from the fact that it means we will get called lighter if we have a decent bounty on our head.
With our stack our main priority is getting itm however I think AK on the button is too strong a hand/spot to fold although I don't know if the maths behind it would say it should be a fold.
Also I would want to know what the other short stacks are like as this can effect what we do with close situations.
Bubble and FT bubble are very interesting from an MTT perspective and the more experience you get will really help you to maximise these situations.
@MattBates what in particular is so important about a FT bubble? I've seen it mentioned quite a few times (not just on this thread) and thought who better to ask than you. To me a FT bubble is completely unimportant unless the pay jump itself is massively significant
Players like to say they have made a final table, someone asks how they got on and finishing one off a FT seems loads different to lots of players than the buzz of being able to say they made a final table.
Hi Duesenberg, Congrats on your tournament win. As you found, the bh's in the middle of the night, and early morning, can be lucrative, and the players there are usually familar. Maybe it's the smaller fields that make the difference, but I'm pretty sure your roi in these would be at least as good as freezeouts. The small fields make a such a difference to your chances of winning the tournament, as to make your roi in these certainly worthwhile. See you at 3am, floppa whoppa!
I also don't know what I'm talking about but for me jam every time! The opportunity to try to double up, I can't resist...( remember that if we ever play...)
I'm fairly new to playing- 2 years in- so feel the time is right to keep a proper Profit/Loss for the year.( rather than the delusional view I have about how much i win, when really I think I might be down overall...)
My 2018 target is to win seats to the SPT events I can make and win enough additional seats to cover the accommodation/travel and the biggest expenditure; beer for Hanson, SidV79, Misty4me and EssexPhil!! ( Oh yes, AND breakeven for the year!)
So far 2017 Brighton - 6 seats(2 playing seats, £880 cash), Manchester 2018- 3 seats (1* day 1a+ £440 cash) so on track to buy the craft brewery needed to satisfy Phil....
So hope to meet you in Manchester?
May, like most men's urine, you run golden this year!!
Update! as of last night,Manchester now 4 seats( another £220 cash) and the bonus of 2 semi seats- woohoo!( £48 cash!)
That's awesome stuff madprof - very well done indeed!
I'd never realised you could just keep winning tickets and get the cash equivalent (once you've secured more seats than you have bottoms that is I assume?). I might have to remove the tick from that little box in the lobby that says 'hide satellites' . </blockquot
hey Duesenberg
Yes, I didn't know when I first started why peeps who had won a seat carried on playing the sats... the maths is quite good(simple)
If you win a day 1a seat (or day 1b after 21/01) and after manage to get to the semi from either a £2.30/£5.25 micro or more sensibly a £10.50 qtr , you are potentially up against no more than 20 people who win a semi seat(or buy in at £48) to win a second seat=£220 in your account SO £10.50 to try and win £220 against less than 20 is better odds than most bounty hunters!! ( You've just got to win the first seat.....)
Very well played getting yourself past the bubble of the main event, the best thing about cashing in this main is you a novice MTT player achieved something tournament genius mr mattbates couldn't do.
I agree with what you say about those micro triple takedown MTTs, they aren't much use in helping with your BR but they great fun to play.
Harsh about matt Bates! ( might be true but seem harsh, lol)
I also don't know what I'm talking about but for me jam every time! The opportunity to try to double up, I can't resist...( remember that if we ever play...)
I'm fairly new to playing- 2 years in- so feel the time is right to keep a proper Profit/Loss for the year.( rather than the delusional view I have about how much i win, when really I think I might be down overall...)
My 2018 target is to win seats to the SPT events I can make and win enough additional seats to cover the accommodation/travel and the biggest expenditure; beer for Hanson, SidV79, Misty4me and EssexPhil!! ( Oh yes, AND breakeven for the year!)
So far 2017 Brighton - 6 seats(2 playing seats, £880 cash), Manchester 2018- 3 seats (1* day 1a+ £440 cash) so on track to buy the craft brewery needed to satisfy Phil....
So hope to meet you in Manchester?
May, like most men's urine, you run golden this year!!
Update! as of last night,Manchester now 4 seats( another £220 cash) and the bonus of 2 semi seats- woohoo!( £48 cash!)
That's awesome stuff madprof - very well done indeed!
I'd never realised you could just keep winning tickets and get the cash equivalent (once you've secured more seats than you have bottoms that is I assume?). I might have to remove the tick from that little box in the lobby that says 'hide satellites' .
SORRY- There are 3 seats up for grabs in each semi- so 3/20?? No brainer!!
I play BH alot myself and from the sort of XP I've had playing them I'd say the early stages of a BH has got alot more varience than a free out or deep stack tournamant.
Our main aim in a tournament is pass the bubble and work our way towards the final table and take it down, a rec is happy with what ever cash he wins, in the early stage of a BH that cash is possible in head prizes, A player might shove his hand for protection against any flush or straight risk, in a BH this is unlikely to work some recs will be holding gut shots or bottom pair even under cards when a player shoves because that person who went all in has a head prize of offer. the bounty hunter I won saw a player with 1 BB go all in, A player with 22 shove his 40BB UTG+1, this player was then left with regret when I called and beat his 22 thanks to AQ winning the flip. The other thing with these is when a short stack has shoved 10-20BB in the early stages people like myself need to shove hands like Ajs AQo JJ 1010 because if these hands were just called, we could end up in a 6 way pot against all sort of junk, even when we do shove our 50BB stack their is still chance 1 or 2 hands meant to fold will call.
Very well played getting yourself past the bubble of the main event, the best thing about cashing in this main is you a novice MTT player achieved something tournament genius mr mattbates couldn't do.
I agree with what you say about those micro triple takedown MTTs, they aren't much use in helping with your BR but they great fun to play.
Harsh about matt Bates! ( might be true but seem harsh, lol)
It does sound harsh, my humour contains alot of this, I say things like this about both myself and the people I speak to
Hi Duesenberg, Congrats on your tournament win. As you found, the bh's in the middle of the night, and early morning, can be lucrative, and the players there are usually familar. Maybe it's the smaller fields that make the difference, but I'm pretty sure your roi in these would be at least as good as freezeouts. The small fields make a such a difference to your chances of winning the tournament, as to make your roi in these certainly worthwhile. See you at 3am, floppa whoppa!
Thanks @oynutter. I think you may well be onto something there with the graveyard shift bounty hunters - especially if your sharkscope graph is anything to go by!
I play BH alot myself and from the sort of XP I've had playing them I'd say the early stages of a BH has got alot more varience than a free out or deep stack tournamant.
Our main aim in a tournament is pass the bubble and work our way towards the final table and take it down, a rec is happy with what ever cash he wins, in the early stage of a BH that cash is possible in head prizes, A player might shove his hand for protection against any flush or straight risk, in a BH this is unlikely to work some recs will be holding gut shots or bottom pair even under cards when a player shoves because that person who went all in has a head prize of offer. the bounty hunter I won saw a player with 1 BB go all in, A player with 22 shove his 40BB UTG+1, this player was then left with regret when I called and beat his 22 thanks to AQ winning the flip. The other thing with these is when a short stack has shoved 10-20BB in the early stages people like myself need to shove hands like Ajs AQo JJ 1010 because if these hands were just called, we could end up in a 6 way pot against all sort of junk, even when we do shove our 50BB stack their is still chance 1 or 2 hands meant to fold will call.
I certainly know where you're coming from here Craig. It's extraordinary the level of risk you see some players taking with their entire stack in order to try and secure a prize which, at the end of the day, is only worth around a third of what they originally bought in for. It makes for some some truly bonkers games at times but I guess that extra level of fun is why they've gone on to become so popular here.
It was fun having you at my table earlier. I especially enjoyed seeing you getting all frisky with pocket tens against me once more .
Today was all about cash games. I played a little bit of 10nl this afternoon to get myself warmed up and whilst that was going on I sat myself down on a 20nl heads up table to see if I'd get any takers - I tend not to get instantly pounced upon by the heads up regs so I guess that's a good sign! Eventually someone joined me and we proceeded to spend the next 3 hours battling each other mano a mano. I must say, I really was running pretty hot and making a lot of nice hands. Unfortunately my opponent was running even hotter. Perfect river cards seemed to be his speciality and by the time we were done I'd donated about £150 to his cause . Despite the result, I don't particularly feel like I was being outclassed and it seemed to be just one of those unfortunate runs where I was on the wrong side of someone else's heater.
Feeling a little bruised, I took a break for some food and then had an evening session back on good old 6max. It was all pretty swingy stuff with lots of fun reg warring going on and by the time I was done I'd managed to recoup a whole £10 worth of the afternoons losses. Hardly a terrific day but that's the nature of the beast I guess. On the plus side, I did at least feel like I'd put a decent shift in which meant I had my first 500+ points day for quite a few weeks. Total cash losses for the day came in at -£139.68.
Oh, as I'm a man slightly obsessed at the moment, I did also jump into a couple of the obligatory £2.20 deepstacks. They went about as well as the cash games so -£4.40 for those.
Today was all about cash games. I played a little bit of 10nl this afternoon to get myself warmed up and whilst that was going on I sat myself down on a 20nl heads up table to see if I'd get any takers - I tend not to get instantly pounced upon by the heads up regs so I guess that's a good sign! Eventually someone joined me and we proceeded to spend the next 3 hours battling each other mano a mano. I must say, I really was running pretty hot and making a lot of nice hands. Unfortunately my opponent was running even hotter. Perfect river cards seemed to be his speciality and by the time we were done I'd donated about £150 to his cause . Despite the result, I don't particularly feel like I was being outclassed and it seemed to be just one of those unfortunate runs where I was on the wrong side of someone else's heater.
Feeling a little bruised, I took a break for some food and then had an evening session back on good old 6max. It was all pretty swingy stuff with lots of fun reg warring going on and by the time I was done I'd managed to recoup a whole £10 worth of the afternoons losses. Hardly a terrific day but that's the nature of the beast I guess. On the plus side, I did at least feel like I'd put a decent shift in which meant I had my first 500+ points day for quite a few weeks. Total cash losses for the day came in at -£139.68.
Oh, as I'm a man slightly obsessed at the moment, I did also jump into a couple of the obligatory £2.20 deepstacks. They went about as well as the cash games so -£4.40 for those.
Progress so far:
Cash: -£48.41 MTT's: +£103.69 Rakeback: +£21.16
Total: +£76.44
Unlucky with the HU mate. Carry on playing him and you will win over time. He hit some nice flops too lol
Comments
i dont want to completely hijack this thread so will decide on something soon..
With our stack our main priority is getting itm however I think AK on the button is too strong a hand/spot to fold although I don't know if the maths behind it would say it should be a fold.
Also I would want to know what the other short stacks are like as this can effect what we do with close situations.
Bubble and FT bubble are very interesting from an MTT perspective and the more experience you get will really help you to maximise these situations.
Love following these kinds of challenges myself so two enthusiastic thumbs up from me for whatever you decide to go with. May I suggest DYM's? There's already more than enough tough regs knocking about in my games!
For those of you who have something useful to do with the next five minutes of your life...
TL;DR: I’m not that fond of bounty hunters and here’s a stupidly long explanation of why.
...otherwise, read on.
I don’t gamble. That might seem rather hypocritical coming from a bloke keeping a diary of his poker playing exploits, but sports betting, casino games and the like have never held any appeal for me. The principle attraction of poker has always been that it is a game of skill. Whilst it contains a degree of luck over the short term, if you can consistently practice a superior strategy to that of your opponents, you will ultimately win more than you lose.
Poker first piqued my interest when the Late Night Poker show appeared on Channel 4 back in the late 90’s (would love to see a revival by the way). Each episode was essentially a sit and go tourney with the winners of each week going through to a grand final to reach a series champion. With that acting as a catalyst, it was fairly understandable that my very first steps into online poker involved playing sit and go’s. Whilst I enjoyed myself at the start, I really hated how the blinds would increase and limit the amount of decisions available me over the course of a hand. Winning poker essentially involves capitalising on the mistakes of you opponents (whilst making as few as possible yourself of course), and in games where stacks remain deep, players will be left with a greater number of decisions per hand on average. The more decisions your opponents are faced with, the more scope there is for them to make mistakes and so the bigger an edge it is possible to leverage if you are the superior player. Therefore, I very soon found a natural home in cash games and, until very recently, had stuck with those ever since. Like most things in life though, no matter how much you enjoy a particular activity, you will likely start to tire of it a little having done it for a significant length of time (I’ve still yet to find this with eating chocolate though). This is why I’ve begun the year by playing (and learning) MTT’s. Earlier in this thread, the exceptionally friendly and helpful MynaFrett suggested he’d like to see me make an all out assault on the MTT scene to see how I may fare against the likes of Matt Bates and loololollo over a more comparable sample size. Whilst I certainly have the capabilities to put in this kind of volume (profitably is another matter mind), on Sky at least, I am facing a significant barrier – I just don’t like bounty hunters very much!
Back in 2012 a bit of a revolution occurred in online cash games – the introduction of rush/zoom poker. Like many people, I thought this was a great idea and enthusiastically threw myself into the games. You were able to get through 4 times as many hands per hour than you would on a regular table, so what could possibly be bad about that? The downside to this was that it inadvertently made people better players. One of the principle attributes required to be a solid poker player is patience. Not playing some marginal or junky pre flop hand because you’re getting bored and haven’t seen a decent holding for a couple of orbits requires discipline. Being able to capitalise on a lack of this discipline in ones opponents was a significant area in which an edge could be gained. The ability to keep folding at lightning speed until you find yourself looking at something pretty made even the very worst players significantly better through no effort of their own. In a roundabout way, I believe bounty hunter tournaments have the same effect on MTT’s – there are specific elements of them which inadvertently make players play better overall than they might otherwise in a regular tournament, and thus the skill edge is reduced.
I had initially thought that bounty hunters would be lower variance overall when compared to regular freezeouts. The fact that you can finish well outside the money places but still often cover part or even all of your buy in by picking up a bounty or two along the way would make this a logical conclusion to reach. However, being a nerd with too much time on his hands, I decided to look into this more closely. Using trusty old Sharkscope, I delved into the playing histories of some of the biggest volume and biggest winning MTT players at Sky, and what I discovered genuinely surprised me. When comparing their results in bounty hunters vs regular tournaments, these players were recording average ROI’s around 10-15% higher in non bounty hunter formats. Whilst there are significant issues with the basis of these figures (comparable sample sizes being just one for example), they still pose some interesting questions as to why these differences in ROI’s seem to exist? It would appear that my initial assumptions about bounty hunters being lower variance could be very wrong indeed. I think there are two main factors for this.
To be continued...
The first of these are the differences in the nature of the payout structures of these two tournament types. In non bounty hunter events the entire prize fund is distributed according to finishing positions. Under these circumstances, the players with the biggest skill edge will be claiming the lion’s share of the prize fund the majority of the time. In a bounty hunter 50% of the prize fund is allocated to bounties. This dilutes the effect of a skill edge in terms of expected returns because players who would otherwise have a low expectation of realising any return through a high placing will be claiming portions of the prize fund without needing to achieve a finishing position above expectation. Whilst the better players will of course be picking up more bounties than average, this still won’t fully offset the overall dilution of the prize fund into the pockets of players who would otherwise have little chance of a cash.
The second factor is how the effects of having a bounty in play lead lesser skilled players into making more correct decisions than they might otherwise make (the zoom effect if you will!). With the shove or fold AKo dilemma I was looking at earlier in this diary, it became evident that the big blind could profitably call a 6bb shove from someone holding AKo with 64s (it’s close admittedly, but it’s still just about a +EV call). If you could turn your cards face up and shove your AKo in a standard freezeout, what proportion of players would imagine choosing to make a (technically correct) call from the big blind here with 64s? Very few I’d have thought. Now stick a bounty on the head of the player shoving their AKo. I certainly imagine you’d be finding a lot more calls now. I’ve had multiple instances of getting folds when open shoving a 3bb stack from the button in non bh games. Even if my 3bb shove was done with what would be a very conservative top 50% of hands, the big blind could still profitably call with everything but the bottom 4.5% of all their possible holdings. If it was a bounty hunter I’d be getting snap called with by any two cards 99%+ of the time. Much of the edge in tournament poker comes from denying your opponents an opportunity to realise their equity in short stack situations. Using aggressive shoving ranges that are something akin to Nash will effectively print you money as so many people have no idea just quite how wide they should be calling and so will be over-folding a ton as a result. However, in a bounty hunter, the overt added incentive attached to calling will mean that even the most clueless players will end up playing a much better short stack game as a result, even without realising it.
As someone who has always most enjoyed the formats of poker where skills edges can be widest, the assumptions above (it could all be hyperbolic nonsense on my part frankly) make me feel pretty unenthused by bounty hunters. Don’t get me wrong, I certainly think there is still plenty of edge (and profit!) to be had in them. It’s just given the choice, there are other games I’d pick first. I will still be playing them as here on Sky they make up the vast majority of the MTT schedule, but I do feel less inclined to put in serious levels of MTT volume as a result. This is not an attempt to start yet another debate about the tourney schedule on Sky (there have been plenty already) but merely ramblings of an old poker hound venturing into pastures new. If you’ve managed to get this far without losing the will to live, very well done!
Poker didn't really happen on Tuesday night. I felt rather tired at around 4pm so decided to take a short nap - the next thing I knew it was 11pm. That did still leave one remaining £2.20 deepstack starting shortly so I couldn't help but hit the register button. All that followed was me one tabling that whilst reading random bits of nonsense online until busting out well away from the money.
With my sleep pattern now all over the place I was very awake in the early part of this morning so I played a few of the tiny £50 gtd £5.50 bounty hunters. Made a small profit from these and even secured what is technically my first tournament win of the diary by outlasting a whopping 8 other players to seal the victory
Progress so far:
Cash: +£.91.27
MTT's: +£108.09
Rakeback: £21.16
Total: +£220.52
Our main aim in a tournament is pass the bubble and work our way towards the final table and take it down, a rec is happy with what ever cash he wins, in the early stage of a BH that cash is possible in head prizes, A player might shove his hand for protection against any flush or straight risk, in a BH this is unlikely to work some recs will be holding gut shots or bottom pair even under cards when a player shoves because that person who went all in has a head prize of offer. the bounty hunter I won saw a player with 1 BB go all in, A player with 22 shove his 40BB UTG+1, this player was then left with regret when I called and beat his 22 thanks to AQ winning the flip. The other thing with these is when a short stack has shoved 10-20BB in the early stages people like myself need to shove hands like Ajs AQo JJ 1010 because if these hands were just called, we could end up in a 6 way pot against all sort of junk, even when we do shove our 50BB stack their is still chance 1 or 2 hands meant to fold will call.
It was fun having you at my table earlier. I especially enjoyed seeing you getting all frisky with pocket tens against me once more
Run well bud.
Today was all about cash games. I played a little bit of 10nl this afternoon to get myself warmed up and whilst that was going on I sat myself down on a 20nl heads up table to see if I'd get any takers - I tend not to get instantly pounced upon by the heads up regs so I guess that's a good sign! Eventually someone joined me and we proceeded to spend the next 3 hours battling each other mano a mano. I must say, I really was running pretty hot and making a lot of nice hands. Unfortunately my opponent was running even hotter. Perfect river cards seemed to be his speciality and by the time we were done I'd donated about £150 to his cause
Feeling a little bruised, I took a break for some food and then had an evening session back on good old 6max. It was all pretty swingy stuff with lots of fun reg warring going on and by the time I was done I'd managed to recoup a whole £10 worth of the afternoons losses. Hardly a terrific day but that's the nature of the beast I guess. On the plus side, I did at least feel like I'd put a decent shift in which meant I had my first 500+ points day for quite a few weeks. Total cash losses for the day came in at -£139.68.
Oh, as I'm a man slightly obsessed at the moment, I did also jump into a couple of the obligatory £2.20 deepstacks. They went about as well as the cash games so -£4.40 for those.
Progress so far:
Cash: -£48.41
MTT's: +£103.69
Rakeback: +£21.16
Total: +£76.44