Doubling Up in Multi-Table Tournaments

I've read a few people write about the importance of doubling up in MTTs (and quadrupling up in re-buys). This had got me thinking about how you go about doing that and still properly observing GCI (Game Critical Intersects).

I once saw Antonia Esfandiari get knocked out of a tournament early with JJ going all-in after two raises in front of him. he was interviewed after saying that you have double up early or get out. That was a cop-out to a seriously bad rookie error. There is no way Daniel or Chris Ferguson would do that. Even the wild guys like Gus prefer to play it small ball, than letting it ride for a double-up. It’s completely reckless in my opinion, even online, unless you have KK or AA.

Let’s assume that you stay in the yellow or green mzone through this whole process (and ignore triple ups for the time being). Every single time you "double-up", you must be getting all your chips in the middle against another equally or bigger stacked opponent.....and win! If you are only "allowed" to do that when you have "the nuts or close to it" how is it possible to be aiming at double ups without breaching GCI?

I don't think I get the nuts 9 times in a single tournament. Statistically if you are going to be doubling up, then you also need to have the nuts or close to it when an opponent also has a very strong hand....so you should need the nuts a lot more than 9 times. We all know this really just does not happen.

It’s when you get to the Orange MZone that you could, and should start looking to double up. Under an orange mzone condition, a good number of your opponents are going to have you substantially out-stacked. If you are using tournament indicator as your poker calculator, it will show you what mzone you are in throughout the whole tournament. Now that also means your Q, or stack average, is probably relatively low as well.

For example, a tournament I was playing. I was 41 of 64 remaining. I have been in all mzones so far. In Orange and Red I was aiming to double up and have done. In Green and Yellow I have been aiming to control the pot size to avoid getting all my chips in the middle (unless I have the nuts or close to it). But here my Q is getting low, and after a quick glance at the payout structure it’s really time now to look for a situation where I can participate in huge pot with live cards, or get heads up against a maniac with a slight edge. A hand like A5os or KQs might do the trick here.

Just keep in mind the GCI rule of thumb and as you experience in tournaments grows as a result of being so conscious about it, I am kind of thinking, that for those who subscribe to GCI as a governing factor in play choice, then GCI leads to small ball poker in green and yellow and long ball in orange and red. This will ease the stress of making big decision that would otherwise be rather risky.

Full Tilt with Poker Calculator Asisstance

This tournament went pretty well, I sucked out once, but lost two big hands which nearly crippled me, both suck outs for my opponents. I stuck with it, used Tournament Indicator to battle back while picking my spots and turned $2 buck into a $104 tournament win.

More Bankrolling

Using your poker calculator to learn the game is just as important as managing your bankroll to the extent that you simply want it it last as long as it can while getting in as many playable hours as you can. This is critical, while not paying too much attention to your overall profit, but more your overall education pf the game. I think Tournament Indicator and Holdem Indicator really go a long way to helping you pick up the nuances of correct timing and overall strategy.

When you have learned enough of poker, and moved up a few levels and are firmly using OPM, (other players' money) essentially playing free poker - then you can surely adapt an hourly rate strategy into your game, but until then your hourly rate should focus on what you learn, not what you earn.

Loose aggressive profiling with poker calculator

Had this one dude playing with me on 9 man sng at Poker Stars. He donked around enough to basically clear the table for me, then I cleared his dumb asz off the table to take first. But sometimes its not easy to fold in the early stages when you have a a marginal situation against wankers like this. Ceck his stats in the poker calculator while you watch this video.

Poker Spy 2 Review

Poker-Spy2

Poker-Spy has been around for longer than most other poker calculators and quietly ushered in the classification of empirical poker calculators. That being the type that offered you not only poker odds and drawing information while extracting the pertinent data from your poker screen, but also keeping track of you and your opponent’s profiles.

In fact, with Poker-Spy, profiling becomes the main thrust of this software along with hand history data to use during and after your game. While playing, Poker-Spy devised a readable hand history grid that progresses until all action for the most recent 17 hands are displayed with the winner and amount of the pot, while reminding you of your hole cards and those of any opponents that were revealed during play.

Within this grid, you can click on any of those hands (they are numbered for easy reference) that occurred for more detailed betting, position, and pot information. The cross grid panel illuminates by way of background color extra information too, offering up data showing which players were not in the hand, pre-flopped raised, or simply saw the flop. Now all of these grid sections and squares can be a little confusing at first, but I think Poker-Spy does a nice job here of making this data quite clear and understandable. In cash and ring games, it also classifies your opponent into the classic poker player profile grid first described by Dr. Alan Schoonmaker, in his book the Psychology of Poker – as in Loose-Passive and Tight-Aggressive etc.

While hand play is in progress at your table, Poker-Spy created the patent pending Alert System that with tiny, numbered and colored circles adjacent to the players name within the Poker-Spy tracking grid, you can quickly view what Poker-Spy has deemed “questionable” play from your opponents. These visual aids help you quickly discern plays such as blind plays, out-of-position moves, or re-raises perhaps. The extent that such plays are made numerous times is represented within those circles by a corresponding digit clearly visible.

The data itself is further transformed into a database of hand history analysis that you may find yourself poring over to find out things like, what hand you play that has won you the most money, or lost you’re the most money. What position at the table is most or least profitable for you? Your pre-flop and post-flop play is also measured statistically for your own benefit as well. These reports of you and opponents you have played against are managed in the hand summary report, the hand analysis report, and the player report.

In a substantial way, Poker-Spy`s value lays within these reports which have done well by this program in the growing days of online poker. I personally recommended this software nearly two years ago now, but let`s fast forward to Poker-Spy 2.0 which was recently updated with a few new features, albeit hard to find as they were.

I was rather enthused about the update when Poker-Spy contacted me for another review, but when playing with the software, I had to look really closely to actually find the improvements. One of the improvements is a new set of alert indicators that include possible river bluffs made by your opponents. This is a feature that could be useful to new players, although it doesn’t offer any clue as to what your opponent has, the make-up of the board and the tendency of your opponent contribute to this marker.

The other new feature in Poker-Spy is an addition to the extensive reports that includes pre-flop play in many different categories including position, raises and re-raises, and hole card strength.

Although Poker-Spy paved the way for some in-depth analysis of a poker player`s weaknesses, other programs have certainly tripled up on what seems to be a slow, but methodical progression to Poker-Spy. Truly I expected far more for a major update in terms of its poker calculator functions and its potential to work with other software simultaneously. In fact, I now fear that Poker-Spy is suffering from over-programming without sufficient poker-player input.

The designers at Poker-Spy have never really been aggressive marketers of the software and I think this inhibits some of the feedback that they might otherwise be getting from a field of affiliates more attuned to the game and the what the players are interested in - in terms of poker calculators. You can even get a sense for this lack of ambition in the presentation of the Poker-Spy website which really, in its present day mock-up, could be a grand relic of the waybackmachine.

With all that said, Poker-Spy2 has actually dropped to 2 of 4 aces in the Poker Calculator Report value ranking. Not because Poker-Spy2 isn`t better than the original Poker-Spy, but because it`s features and operating program are now clearly behind several other empirical poker calculator products and self analysis software programs.

Practice puttin your opponent on a hand.

Putting your opponent on a hand. This is really something that you absolutely must try to do whether you are in a hand or not. For new players this is critical in skill building. When you eventually get to the point where can put your opponent on a range of hands the majority of times, you will start to see the benefits of this through because you can make more plays back at your opponents. Now it does takes practice. Lots of practice, but with the help of an empirical poker calculator you will be surprised how are able to narrow down an opponent`s hole cards.

You may just feel like jumping for joy when when he turns over the AJos you put him on!

Getting a feel for your tournament opponents.

It hasn’t been for not trying, because several software products can handle tournament statistics but users of such poker assist software can be easily misled by those results. The reason for this is because betting and activity statistics cannot accurately include other dominant factors in tournaments that demand further analysis.

Let’s take for example you have an opponent you have tracked for 23 hands with a VPIP of 43% and aggression factor of 3.5. Well if these stats were collected during a single table cash game with 9 players, then you have likely run into a maniacal player more commonly identified in ring games as a loose-aggressive (LAG). Now granted 23 hands isn’t a clear indicator, but you at least know he isn’t a mouse.

Now how about if those same statistics were collected during a multi-table tournament? On the face of it, your first impression may be exactly the same – the dude is wild. However if you are looking at these stats in a poker assist software program like Poker Tracker, Poker Prospector or Poker Sharpener, what you may not realize is that none of those programs can tell you the tournament dynamics at the time you collected those statistics.

What difference does that make? Well there are overwhelming factors in tournaments which can turn a mouse into a jackal, and elephant into a mouse, and an eagle into a monkey. Furthermore, changing your overall game plan as a result of these factors can very well be the correct play given the circumstances.

Empirical Poker Calculators "Profiling"

A lot of players don't realize the importance of profiling, and I must stress that doing so is a virtual necessity when starting out in online poker. Fortunately there are several excellent, legal, and fair pieces of software that will help you do it.

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If you have an empirical poker calculator, then you likely have a distinct advantage over your competition. Read “likely” because the software can’t do everything for you, it just presents valid information for you to surmise and act upon.

There a lot of players who actually do use a poker calculator with profiling features but yet still have trouble acting on the information in a consistently profitable way. That’s pretty much the same as not having a poker calculator to begin with but either way, not profiling is a costly venture in online poker.

There are several reasons for this, but it all comes down to making the right decisions, for the right odds, at the right time, and against the right opponent(s).

With odds decisions, sometimes that also involves what your opponent is likely to have, and without some profiling data on him, it’s very difficult to narrow his hand down to the range where you can apply effective odds to his hand, his next likely action, and the eventual outcome at the river.

Timing is very critical in poker tournaments, and having your opponent profiled with pertinent data then your decision making may be a lot more clear and concise if you know how this player has acted up to a given point in the tournament. Tournament Indicator, an empirical poker calculator designed for tournaments also profiles opponents as to how they “behave” under different MZone conditions! This would give you a very strong indication if your opponent is making a “move” with a moderate strength hand, given his weak predicament in the tournament.

Picking an opponent to steal a pot from, or make your own move can sometimes keep you in a game, advance you in a tournament, force a smaller stack out of the pot, or even recoup some cash game losses. But picking that opponent to make that move on, is all based on what he is likely to do after you make your play.

We all have some instinct in poker and that is always useful of course. There are some players who just don’t need or want any help. To me, it’s fair to say those players are in the extreme minority, because volume poker these days is battled via monitors and multi-tabling. Multiple distractions, online and off are inherent in playing online poker, so a profiling tool is the least of which you should consider and make the most of when playing, because the competition is getting tougher and tougher all the time.

Bankroll software.

I am currently testing some bankroll software which is loaded with graphics and features that make it easy to keep track of multiple accounts. Although it obviously isn't a poker calculator, it is very much a poker assist software tool that extends beyond online play to help account for your live play bankroll as well.

The team at Tournament Indicator is looking to improve their product by making it resizable to accommodate more of the multi-tabling regulars that use a poker calculator. Currently, Tournament Indicator and Holdem Indicator both attach to as many windows as you can open, even resized, cascaded or tiled poker widows, but the software itself stays the same size.

Cash Game Danger!!!

Cash Games can be dangerous for your Poker Bankroll health. Even those table that have .25-.50 blinds seem cheap, but they really aren't. I mean you have to sit down with 20 bucks at least, and that begs the question of how much is in your bankroll?

Keep in mind these are tables where you are likely to get stacked by a shark who is just waiting for you. Even WSOP champ Chris Ferguson avoided these tables when he was building his roll.

One of the most valuable aspects you learn in using that low buy-in tournament strategy is patience and personal control, whereby in cash games without that skill, it is soooooo much easier to run good, tilt and rebuy, repeat. I have even seen players (friends) lose track of how many rebuys they actually brought to a table while seeking revenge, redemption, and respect. The online poker odds are simply not in your favor. It's a very easy trap to get tangled in while learning. Best to learn where your losses are capped at your buy-in.
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Tournament Indicator hand. I raised preflop and ended up with 2 callers. The flop don't hit me, however I am pretty confident it missed both them as well.

The both happen to have a VP of 22 and a 9 just don't fit in their starting hand matrix unless it was 99. Without a raise preflop, no reraise to my raise, neither have 99. Nether have AA-TT either as their pfr were low, around 6. If they had a top hand, they would have raised for those preflop. Since they called the pfr they had something. My thought are overcards like AQ, AJ, KQs or a small pp 77-88. 66 and below don't warrant a call for a pfr like I made. So my decision was to cBet as if this hit me or it didn't matter and I had AA-JJ as far as they knew.

How do you guys use tournament indicator or any other poker calculator to determine the likeliness of a cbet. (continuation bet)

At least, this is how I analyzed the situation. Would like to hear what others have to say about it.

David Williams joins Real Poker Training

Just watched the first video from David Williams as he has joined Real Poker Training. One of the best online video tutorials really. Hope there is more to come especially in tournaments from him.
If you have ever been interested in joining up for training site, this is the time because if you do so through one of my links, you also get access to the MTT5PAK membership included. RPT has nearly 200 videos covering tournaments and cash games.

Tough fold in a sit and go tournament.

Sometime even in the lower limits, when your poker calculator is basically telling you the right thing to do, you just gotta do it. I folded pocket aces here. Do you want to see more sit and go strategy videos for free?

Poker Tracker and Friends

There comes a point when a piece of software is so popular that other software developers start making software for the original software further extending its value and effectiveness. Poker Tracker is one of those pieces of software that when (and if) you ever figure out how to use all of it's features to the program's full extent, well there are more add-on programs that making it even more powerful.

I say "powerful" because the players that use this program with regularity are generally the sharks that are just waiting for you to land at their table while Poker Tracker is showing them exactly what to expect from you. Is that an advantage? LoL, if you didn't think that was a stupid question.

Anyway the other popular add-on programs are Spade-Eye and IdleMiner which to some degree allow you data-mine all by yourself - without yourself! In fact you don't even need to be at your computer to have this poker calculator software running.

Poker Ace HUD is a screen scraper display that overlays your poker client allowing you to customize the data over/near your opponents playing position on the table. Another nifty Poker Tracker add-on is Poker -EV which helps measure your optimal play when considering pot equity in difficult hand situations.

The makers of Poker Tracker are currently beta testing for version 3, and while the users are not surprisingly thrilled with the new enhancements, it remains to be seen if the learning curve will be any more reasonable.

Using Poker Calculator Tools to Exchange Hand Histories

Your poker calculator may be collecting more information than you know, or even make use of. Other than the normal odds calculations, hand group rankings, and even bet or fold recommendations, hand history is something that a lot of users value most with poker assist software. This is especially true for cash game players.

Hand history research can be a valuable analysis session for you – but of course – learning how to use it and taking that extra time to delve into your collection of hands is somewhat of a measurement of how much you really want to improve.

You can analyze hand histories in two ways. The first is using a program like poker-spy that collects all the bets, opponents, pots, position and results of every hand you play. It then saves them for you to analyze later in a myriad of grids and graphics that shows you in some quick easy steps your playing style and some weaknesses you may have in your game. This isn’t that new but poker-spy also keeps a running tally of the last 17 hands in a grid that also puts out alerts about you and your opponents.

If you use one of the more hard-core hand history analyzers like poker tracker, poker sharpener, or poker prospector, then hand history analysis takes on even deeper implications whereby you start to get a better look at your opponents play as well.

There is also the more difficult issue as identified by some of the major poker sites and their security protocols of hand history exchanging. This is particularly problematic with Poker Tracker where a network of cash game players have built up a database of opponent playing profiles through their own table monitoring, then tabulate that data and make an exchange with another player. Suddenly someone’s hand history file can go from 20,000 hands to 50,000 entrapping that many more players while doing so.

Notwithstanding the fact that this type of activity is completely not allowed by Poker Stars and many other sites, it’s extremely difficult to police, so there is a huge policy challenge there for them.

Among the higher end cash game players this is a common practice, and some forums even have connection facilities to help with such exchanges. So if you are looking to exchange hand histories (files) with another player (computer), let it be known that you are surely entering the dark side, and may find yourself in murky circumstances. So be sure you can trust the source of a file exchange.

Even your Poker Calculator Knows Ace-King is a Drawing Hand.

One of the most common mistakes made by players in the low level buy-in multi-table holdem tournaments online is over-valuing ace king as hole cards. A lot of this has to do with inexperience, impatience and poor judgment, and the fact that ace king just “looks” so darn strong when you look up at your monitor and see them just sitting there for you.

Big slick, as ace king is commonly referred to can be a powerful hand to play aggressively in tournaments but the execution of that aggression requires a whole lot more specificity than you might think.

Now depending on if your AK is suited or not you are looking down at a group 1 or 2 hand as your poker calculator will likely be pointing out to you. If you happen to have Ace King both of hearts, then it is group 1 of the Sklansky hand group rankings. In accordance with that though, careful thought must be taken to know that the groups were categorized with ring game play in mind and also that of the group one hands, AKs is the ONLY drawing hand, where AA, KK, QQ and JJ could be considered “made” hands.

Therein charges your underlying strategy when playing Ace King. It is a drawing hand and during the early stages of a tournament in particular, you should be treating it like most other drawing hands – playing it with at least some help from the flop.

If you always remember that ace king is a drawing hand, it may offer you up a more reasonable strategy for playing it after the flop. Now of course depending on your opponents, the tournament stage, stack size, m zone etc. this could be radically different – even of the flop doesn’t help you. However, there is simply no reason to dump your tournament strategy in an early stage holding AK when the flop come 2-6-9 rainbow.

The utterly ridiculous thing about that very situation is that in the low buy-in multi-table tournaments (and even some high buy-in tournaments), many players will let their tournament stack ride holding AK high when the flop has not helped them. It is purely an unreasonable aggressive move that more often than not will see you on the rail in short order. Sure there are times when you can take the pot down when someone called your pre-flop raise. So what? You made the pot maybe 350 chips when the blinds are still 25 and 50. Now you want to go all in with your remaining 1400 chips to win that 350? It’s not worth it. This is the time to play passively, cautiously, with an eye to preserving your stack, not letting it ride with a drawing hand. If you happen to be using a poker calculator it will be shouting at you that you are likely behind, but players still often ignore this advice.

So when do you push with Ace King? You will get plenty of such opportunities when the blinds are higher, you know your opponents better, and your stack size warrants such a move, until that stage, play it coy and no one will be able to figure your pre-flop call hit two pair on the flop of A-K-9 and you are much more likely to double up with some schmuck being aggressive on you.

making the right read

From JP in the forum:

While it wasn't hard to SEE the maniac playing stupid, his stats were VP71, PFR29, AF2.3, 36sd 60W$sd So not only is he insane, he's lucky.
I used his aggression right before this to milk him and took half his stack
with KK, flop Krags and two hearts, I looked at his stats and knew he woud try and take it so I checked, he bet and I slo called, turn is a blank and for value I bet 1/3 my stack which is about 1/4 the pot and tru to form he shoves. He had 79h, paired the 9 on the turn and has 4 to a flush, no heart on river, whew!

Then this flop hits and he min bets, I looked again at the stats to confirm it was this maniac player from my King set and it was. I'm holding QT and I fold. For him to minbet when he was such a maniac on everything else it was real obvious to me what he had. Had I stayed, the turn gave me a boat and I give him back his chips. Instead I used the player profiling info in Tournament Indicator and observation skills to A)milk a big chunk from him and B)save from giving any of it back.

in the money with my poker calculator

I was in this hand late in a tournament and thought is wa quite interesting in that tournament indicator really helped me make my decision which might be considered over-aggressive. I think this is an example of when you get really comfortable using a poker calculator you aren't second guessing yourself afterwards and it helps you live with yourself even if you loose the hand, like I did this one.

From the forum: "Hey, I've trying to understand the relationship with the graphic display of the pot odds -vs- the win odds. I presume if the win odds is higher in relationship to the pot odds graph, it should indicate a call, giving all the other variables involved with that decision. Yea??? or would it be the other way around? just a little confused on how to read the graph at a quick glance from a poker calculator. thanks Jeff"

This is represented grahically with the color bars in Tournament Indicator's win/pot odds display. They mean completely different things and have more or less relevance in given situations.

Your win odds need to be a low ratio represented by a tall scale, and pot odds should be a high rationalso represented wiht a tall graph. (pssst... tall is good)