A Campaign through the SnG and Tourney Wilderness

Hello. Thank you for taking an interest in my journey to become a pro SnG and Tourney poker player. I welcome (nay yearn for) all advice and criticisms that more experienced players, of which i am sure there are many, will offer. I realise i am at the beginning of a very long crusade.


Here are the vitals:

Name: Seb Jory
Age: 19
Occupation: Student at Bristol University, UK studying Maths
Aliases: thejowster, hitthetrips
Sites: Party poker, FullTilt (dabble)
Current BR: $100 (Party poker) $50 FT
Poker Tools used: Tournament Indicator, HEM, Pokerstove, Shark Scope, SNGWiz

Poker style + Info:

Why Play Just SnGs and Tourneys?
I am a firm believer in the concept that the more statistically complex a game is then the easier it is to gain an edge on your opponents using the correct tools and knauss. Also, i find cash games tilt me more and i play a very tight and supposedly error free game. You say I am a somewhat boring player that takes advantage of other players lack of patience.

Current SnGs played: $11 DoNs (high buyin since my ITM rate is over 75% on these games.. very fishy on PP)
$6 Turbos (10max)
Current Tourneys played: $3 buyins

I realise that this is against most bankroll theories however, before this new alias and blog, i averaged 75% itms on DoNs (about 70% on turbos) and 0.25^9 is so small i am willing to reject it.

My goals are:

• To post dubious hands here and improve my game via constructive critisism
  Update people as to my progress (look on sharkscope for "thejowster" at party poker)
  Have people comment on the tools I use and defend my choices
  To acquire a professional mentor to guide me through to B&M play
  Answer any questions about me and my life at the tables

Thanks for reading - i expect a whole host of critism purely based on the information i have just imparted...

Hi, good luck

I would definitly recommend a tighter bankroll management rules then the ones yoiu use

Do you know what i have been reflecting on this a lot today and assuming my game roughly reflects a normal distribution around some mean (B+B/3) where B = buyin ($10 in my case) then your right then if i was to start and restart from this bankroll of $100 an infinite amount of times i would lose my entire bankroll at some point roughly 5% of the time at .

I am not comfortable with this calculation and i have decided to drop down to $6 buyins....

first useful criticism already noted!

Turbos or regular SNGs mainly?

20 buy-ins is okay at the low levels.. but once you get to the $20+ buy-in level, as a pro player you should really consider having 50+ buy-ins. Some of the best players in the world have suffered through 20 buy-in downswings.

update:

BR now up to $200 been on a bit of a lucky run.

Either i will take a turbo>speed>normal tbh

Hi,
as a maths grad you should read the mathematics of poker by ackerman and chen. Lots of game theory based discussion of poker, it allows you to use your advantage(maths) at the tables. Excellent discussionof risk of ruin to sort out BR management. It takes some reading though, took me months and i have been a professional mathematician for several years.
hope you like it
steve
Maths at Manchester uni, currently maths teacher and iffy poker player

cheers hopeful these articles look extremely intriguing.

BR $216.17 stats

ITM on DoNs 38/56 $5 BI

That ITM on DoNs looks pretty bad. What's the rake like on party, because that is a factor in choosing whether or not to even play them.

GL with operation. I'm a postgrad at Durham university (but I had an offer from Bristol )

I would say you need 100 buyins for SNGs at a pro level. Those guys have 50BI swings. Nowhere near that if you just play a few tables at a time though, and the lower stakes are so fishy that even when coolered or playing bad, you can still cash.

Spend most of your study time with wiz. The chen book is ok but not great. I had to read it as a favour to someone who was thinking of running a Poker Maths 3rd year project, and wanted my opinion. The game theory is ok, but it is all showcased using simple dumbed down versions of poker (The AKQ game), and really you'd get a lot more out of wiz.

Ok so the mathematical model ICM is not great (but better than nothing), and the actual software is limited in the calling ranges you can set for opponents (I.e. JJ+ is not a valid range and this is because it was too difficult to code up efficiently), BUT, it can give you a massive edge at the tables

had a pretty tough time tonight. BR now at $222 having played about 10 more DoNs. Not 100% it is the way forward since bad beats seem to be more and more effectual.

Take this example:

Mid-game 8/10 players still in. Blinds at 50/100 with a starting stack of 2000 each.

Hero dealt AA.
UTG raises.
Hero re-raises.
UTG all-in.
UTG tight read QQ+

Now this is not as simple as calling even though SnGwiz recommends a push on this hand.

Here is my interpretation:
I have about 81% equity here to double up. Surely this is a must call? Not in my opinion. Whilst i have an 81% equity to double up and definitely finished ITM i believe i have a higher chance of finishing ITM using my bubble strategies that i have perfected having played a lot of these DoNs. Put simply, if i was to fold this hand i would back myself at a greater than 81% chance to finish ITM in this game using blind manipulation and hand selection at the bubble stage.

Anny thoughts on this extremely interesting concept IMO?

You are not close enough to the bubble to fold here. You have 81% chance of dubbling up which would make you 95% to finish ITM

EV= 0.81*0.95*$10= $7.70(conservative as you say 100% itm not 95% but you are never 100% with 7 people in)
Your current ITM finish on these 38/56 = 0.67 so if you fold
EV = 0.67*$5= $6.70

The call is clearly the better option. Playing a high volume of such games means you must always take these higher EV decisions.

If you were on the bubble and could fold to the money then you should never risk anything.

yes but the 0.67 doesnt take into account my chip position (4th) after fold here (5th) and the fact that there are only 8/10 players left.

realistically i have to call and i did (the bastard nailed 3 Js) but with these DoNs the strategy is so vastly different to other SnGs it makes calls like this harder than a click and hope.

I got some more solid results today. Still though hitting about 70% itm rate which may not be viable long run.

Here was a contentious hand. Should i have pushed PF? I cant really value bet since my stack <10xBB. Thoughts welcome.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tournament, 150/300 Blinds (6 handed) - Party-Poker Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

saw flop

CO (t1940)
UTG (t6710)
MP (t2420)
SB (t1790)
Button (t4700)
Hero (BB) (t2440)

Hero's M: 5.42

Preflop: Hero is BB with ,
3 folds, Button calls t300, SB calls t150, Hero checks

Flop: (t900) , , (3 players)
SB checks, Hero ?????

DoN? check.

Normal, Shove pf.

im with ginger, perfect answer

been having a bit of rough time lately BR down to $160.

heres a hand that SnGWiz recommends a fold but i cannot really see why... remember its a DoN.

No-Limit Hold'em, $0.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

SB ($2380)
Button ($2360)
BB ($4180)
UTG ($6560)
CO ($3310)
Hero (MP) ($1210)

Preflop: Hero is MP with J, J
UTG calls $300, Hero raises $1210 (All-In), 3 folds, BB calls $910, 1 fold

Total pot: $2120

Any thoughts?

Also im getting a bit sick of the lack of bonuses and rakeback on party. Another thing is they dont seem to police collusion on SnGs at all well... There were two blatant cheats in an SnG i played today who would never bet against each other fortunately most people on the table wrote to support but this was a worrying experience.
Anyway if i was to swtich given you know most of my details which one would you recommend and which bonuses etc. should i activate (including ones that involve free tools)

I like pokerstars, they dont do rakeback they have a points system instead. I have used my points to great effect winning quite a lot of satelites into different tournaments. They have more players, more games and more tournies than any one else. The software is really good, simple clean and easy to use. They are really strict on cheating and often take action.
Choose the sign up deal you fancy, i joined through pokernews and entered a load of free rolls (won $100 in one). But you can get anything in various sites i have had. Cardplayer magazine for a year (Bing poker), Holdemgenius (888.com), 5 free books (two plus two and pokerroom),

Originally Posted by hopeful

), 5 free books (two plus two and pokerroom),

thanks for your post mate i dont really understand this last part though? they send yuo 5 free books?

what are you thoughts on FT?

This is a fold because UTG calls a lot of his range and there are others to act so you end up flipping very often which is a DoN disaster. Remember you can only have a 20% share the the prize pool if you get ITM, and you're probably at around 15% equity now. You need to absolutely crush someones range to do this for your equity gain to make up for the times you lose.

yea, if u sign up through the 2+2 website you get to choose 5 books, you have to make a certain amount of points or rake to get each one. I did it playing cash at the .25/.50 level in about 3 months.
Never played on FT, will do one day but at moment happy with stars and trying to build a roll playing SNG and MTT's. stopped playing cash so bonuses harder to get.
p.s. I think the Jacks are a fold, the UTG call is in range KK+ AQ+, maybe 77+ to 99+ every other decent hand probably raising here. Your all in gets the smaller pairs to fold and then your in touble. DoN its a fold (or SNG bubble).