Multitabling again

No sooner do I post about playing 2 final tables at one time, than I repeat the feat. This time (last night) I played two games and ended up coming in second in them both. This time though I felt I played the latter stages of the two games much better, with 2-tabling not being a huge disadvantage.

In the first tournament to finish players busted very quickly so the latter stages of the tournament were played with pretty deep stacks. At least 30BBs, probably deeper (40BBs initially IIRC). This led to some interesting play. My opponent though wanted to play for big pots - regularly pushing both pre and post-flop. I didn't get enough of any hands early to want to commit all my chips when I might be a long way behind (although I did consider it with A8o. Early he raised from the button, I re-raised and he shoved all-in. I folded, thinking I could probably find a better spot). I continued my strategy of trying to win lots of small pots, and it was marginally succesful. The chips stacks swung between roughly even, to him having a near 2/1 chip lead. I didn't have many hands at this stage to be fair.

I kept trying to limp the button, and he kept shoving over me. When a player does this (and we're deep enough) I'll limp with a strong hand intending to trap. My guess is that he was shoving either any 2, or any reasonably strong hand (and ace, pair, 2 broadway) so repeated this when I was finally dealt AQo - he pushed and turned over TT, winning the race. It was interesting.

The other table was more shallow and over in 2 or 3 hands. Villain min-raised pre, and I called in the BB with QT. Flop comes Q-high and I CRAI - he has AQ and I lose that one too.

I still think I'm a pretty good heads-up player, but the last few times I've made the last two I didn't think I had an edge, probably the reverse.

My bankroll is now $4150, approaching the $5k I need/want for Vegas. I've made $1100 this month, and I made $1400 in Feb (March being a tiny loss of around $2). Getting there.

Multitabling

I am really bad at multitabling.

Currently I'm playing 2 tournaments at a time or 3 (occasionally 4) cash games.

I normally sign up for 2 45-man tournies at once, so I'm roughly the same way through them both, and then when they are both done I will consider signing up for 2 more. I still make too many mistakes though. I've occasionally found myself not factoring in the stack sizes of the people behind me enough when evaluating my raising ranges, and finding myself open to potential problems should one of them re-shove on me. The early stage play has generally been fine.

Last night I reached two final tables, eventually finishing 4th and 2nd. I've got a pretty good record heads-up, but I don't think I played that well, and I put much of this down to being 4-handed at the other table for a while. I'm probably at me weakest at 3 and 4 handed tables (too tight, not restealing enough, not situationally aware etc) and so I was at the most important time on one table whilst I was having to concentrate elsewhere.

I had spent some time recently (since my last post saying I was only going to 2-table) considering 3 or 4 tabling, but I really mustn't as it would be too much of a -ev move if my cashes all happened at the same time. If I was 1 tabling I could win 4 games in a row (unlikely, but possible). I can't imagine I could do that 4 tabling as I can't conceive of playing 4 FTs simultaneously.

Anyway, about the HU play, last night:
I started with a 3:1 chip lead, and managed to get reasonably close to winning - but not close enough, and I ended up getting my chips in behind a couple of times to let my opponent double up twice. Annoying.

I've also found myself laying elaborate traps. I limp/folded a couple of hands pre, with the specific intention of limp/shoving a strong hand later - and although I was dealt 88 and TT (and A9 IIRC) and limped villain didn't oblige annoyingly. After that I reverted back to opening with a raise and had much more success. I don't think villain was re-stealing enough so I should probably have just played like this more.

Part of the consideration is how best to play heads-up. If villain is super-aggro then a passive game can work quite well, but this guy had reached heads-up quite quietly (I hadn't really noticed him, weirdly - maybe we ended up both playing pots against the other players) so I didn't really have enough of a read to divert from a sensibly aggressive strategy.

I OPR'ed him today and discovered he was very high in their rankings (top ~0.1%) so he must have been better than I thought.

I'm still just on the fringes of the top 1%. My 2 cashes last night pushed me to 99.06% for the year.

BR is $3750 I think.

Cash, surprisingly

I've been carrying on reading Harrington on Cash games, and its been a real eye-opener. It teaches a very sound strategy for full ring cash games, so I've been strudying it quite a lot, and have improved my game so much.

I've spend a couple of sessions donking around on the $25NL tables on FTP, and have made a reasonable return so far. I've always said I'm pretty good at knowing how good a player I am in a given game and for the first time ever really I feel comfortable at a NL cash game - all be it very low stakes. I think at the moment that its worthwhile seeing a lot of flops in position cheaply at these levels as people are stacking off so light - so my stats show a much more passive approach than is recommended. I'm not quite sure how much this needs to change to be close to optimal at these stakes, but it certainly will if I ever move up.

1 hand sticks in my mind which I'm not sure about. I see a flop from LP with KQs, having called a min-raise. 3 to the flop which comes JTT. The first player to act bets about 2/3 the pot, the other player calls and so do I. The turn is an Ace, and I'm facing a larger bet from the initial player. I have to decide whether he has a boat or not. I discount JT from his range as I don't think he's going to bet a full-house, but I think he'll stack off with any other T. As it is all the money goes in and he turn over AJ for 2-pair losing to my straight or any T.


I've been doing OK at the 45/SnGs too, so my BR is now up to $3600, heading towards the 5k I need for Vegas. I've got enough now that I'm keeping a closer eye on the exchange rate. The pound seems to be going up at the moment, which isn't fantastic for me.

I've been running some maths on the 45-man games and the variance of them (and posted them on 2+2) and its really interesting to see what the gearing is between ROI and possible downswings. Consequently I'm definitely going to continue just 2-tabling for the time being. This is possibly a -ev cash move, but it will maximise my ROI (currently huge from a small volume) so reducing the chances of an extended downswing. My occasional cash diversions will help with this too, if I keep them up.

I also played in the TITN freeroll, and cashed in a quite a tough field, which was pleasing. Particularly impressively I managed to laydown QQ preflop - and it turned up I was against AA and KK. This is a move I rarely make, but it felt right - and I was deep enough to be able to do it.

Finally I've been keeping an eye on my OPR rankings, and currently I am (just) in the top 1% of players on Full Tilt, which is pretty pleasing. This is for 2009. For the last 120 days (and I haven't been playing regularly on FTP for that long) I'm 98.99%

I'll have to get a bit more live action in before I go to Vegas, but I'm not planning anything for a few weeks at least, I just want to keep grinding away online for a while.

Off to Vegas, slowing down at the tables, Harrinton on cash games

My big news is I've booked a trip to Vegas in October. Its the same deal as last time - direct Virgin flight, staying at the IP - only for a day longer. I'm really looking forward to it. The only downside is it is *so* far away. Why did I book it so late? Well a few reasons.

I wanted to miss the peak summer heat
I wanted it to be a bit quieter
I wanted to miss the WSOP, and the Venetian deep-stack events
I wanted the flights to be cheap.

Researching further though, I discover I could have gone at the end of May for the same price. No difference - just sooner.

One other reason I wanted to delay the holiday was to be able to earn some money playing poker to pay for it! I've got ~$3k online at the moment, but I really need another 2k - one to pay for the hol itself, and one to leave behind as a new roll. This will necessitate moving back down stakes when I withdraw, but I can live with that. I may actually pay for the holiday with "real" money, just financing the bankroll with my winning, we'll see.

Anyway, unsurprisingly FTP has disabled my BOOM switch, and so I'm running cooler at the moment. I'm not getting many good hands (although I'm not being sucked out on that often). I've barely been close to a cash recently until last night I completely misplayed a bubble hand where villain open-completed in the SB with AJ and I completely discounted the possibility of him having an A. The flop came A4x, and I had a 4 (46o, or possibly 42o). He made a small bet and I pushed which was really bad. If I read him right I could have got him off the hand with a small raise which I was just deep enough to get away from. Annoying.

I'm also reading Harrington on Cash games at the moment. I always knew I was bad at cash games, without quite knowing why. I do now. I've read the first 1/4 of volume 1, and I'm astonished at how little I understood, and how badly I was playing. The book says things like "tournament players often make this mistake ..." and I was doing all those things.

Anyway the hope now is I can improve my cash play without hopelessly compromising my tournament game.