End of the night strategy ...
Ok this is a bizarre "strategy" article but I am going to post it anyway. It is a little thing I did to improve my online results (and general health). I did it last night without thinking about it, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that it was much better than my old habits.
Basically I had played for about 4hrs and was happy booking a nice win. But when I left the table I realized that I wanted to play a little more ... problem was I knew I could only afford maybe 30-60mins of play. Also I knew that if I got stuck and gave back a portion of my sizey win I would have been upset and likely stayed past that 60mins grinding back to my old total.
The old KWPlayer would take a seat in my normal game and start playing and when stuck, would continue playing until it was time for work.
My new online stategy is to play single table satellites or small NL games where the loss can not affect my win to much of a degree and I will not get sucked into playing past my appointed bedtime. Rather then playing in that $5-10 shorthanded game I said down in a $30+3 single table tournament. My putting a hard cap on my loss and realizing that the single table tournament would take a minimum of 30mins to play I realized there was no way I would get draw into playing a monster session.
Some people don't have this problem -- some peole will quit at their desired time without regard to their win / loss. But for others I think it is a good strategy that affords you the play that you desire without giving up the profit you have already "locked in".
.kw
PS. Naturally this isn't the best use of my time -- my normal money game definitely yields higher returns than these tournaments/low limit games. But it works for me
Basically I had played for about 4hrs and was happy booking a nice win. But when I left the table I realized that I wanted to play a little more ... problem was I knew I could only afford maybe 30-60mins of play. Also I knew that if I got stuck and gave back a portion of my sizey win I would have been upset and likely stayed past that 60mins grinding back to my old total.
The old KWPlayer would take a seat in my normal game and start playing and when stuck, would continue playing until it was time for work.
My new online stategy is to play single table satellites or small NL games where the loss can not affect my win to much of a degree and I will not get sucked into playing past my appointed bedtime. Rather then playing in that $5-10 shorthanded game I said down in a $30+3 single table tournament. My putting a hard cap on my loss and realizing that the single table tournament would take a minimum of 30mins to play I realized there was no way I would get draw into playing a monster session.
Some people don't have this problem -- some peole will quit at their desired time without regard to their win / loss. But for others I think it is a good strategy that affords you the play that you desire without giving up the profit you have already "locked in".
.kw
PS. Naturally this isn't the best use of my time -- my normal money game definitely yields higher returns than these tournaments/low limit games. But it works for me
Comments
i'm not quite sure what that means?
what's shorthanded? :?:
thx,
CO
On PartyPoker they are 6-handed tables maximum and often you are playing 4 or 5 handed. $5-10 limit action (although they now have shorthanded no-limit tables as well).
I find my edge in these games to be much higher than in full table games. Simply put you can play more hands in the shorthanded one and people give you less respect for a hand so you get paid off quite a bit. If you play fairly tight you usually can do very well (mixing in some moves and such of course).
Here is a hand I recently played that was my largest in recent memory (not sure if I posted it before so I will be brief).
Two people limp in, button raises with JJ and I re-raise with QQ. First limper (55) calls and second limper (i assume something like A8s calls) button caps and we see the flop.
Q52 two flush cards- betting capped all four remain
4 term - betting caped all four remain
2 river - i bet and get two callers (hence the A8s guess of a flushdraw)
The pot was about $340 in total as it was capped preflop, on the flop, on the turn and paid off by two players on the river. Most of that was four handed (5 in total at the table).
Granted this was a major hand (having set over set and a flushdraw) but the real point is a comment on how the guy with JJ played the hand. How he got to the river (and drawing dead on the turn) I will never know. In fact he helped me cap it on the flop by going 3 bets!
.kw
You still need a certain amount of discipline to not enter another tournament afterwards, but I'd agree with your general idea that it's easier to quit playing after a tournament (since there's a natural point where it ends) than to quit a cash game.
And if you think the alternative is that you would often lose a lot more money in a cash game than the tournament buy-in after accumulating a big session win, then a tournament possibly *is* the best use of your time in this specific situation.
Sounds like kind of a nice idea to use a tournament as a kind of a "wind down" technique.
ScottyZ
You see usually in the morning I don't want to go to work. I know I know I am an odd-ball, but either way I figure I have about an hour to kill before I really need to get in. What I used to do is play some 5-10s but the small problem occurred ... I would either get stuck or I would be running along nicely and not want to leave the table (because of all the potential profit). Moreover if you are up say $200 and you drift down to $180 you figure you can pickup one more pot, get back over $200 and then quit. LOL well you know where that can lead.
Anyway, I have started using tournaments here as well. I figure I have time to play a single tournament or .. if something unfortunate happens early .. two of them before I have to shuffle off to work.
This morning it was a nice $20+2 (only because it was right ready to go). I was very fortune it a rather tough table to get down to the final 4 people and win the thing. Maybe I will post something about it because there are a couple of concepts I would like to bring up.
Anyway it is a good start to the day (especially if you win some money)
true dat
Hehe
I also do the same sort of thing in terms of time frame. If I know in advance that I only want to play for about an hour or so, I'll generally go with a one table SNG, but if my time frame is more open ended, I'll probably sit in a cash game.
Why it's impossible to leave a cash game:
1. If you're ahead, you don't want to leave because you're in a soft game.
2. If you're stuck, it must be that your opponents are playing badly and have gotten lucky, so you'll win in that money back because the game is so easy.
3. If you're even you'll keep playing because quitting a session when you're even is silly. Especially when the game is so juicy.
ScottyZ
Another satisfied customer. :twisted: follow me into the depth of .... :?: