Some good things happening over at UltimateBet lately. First, I just received my first bonus payment after reaching 100 player points. $5 added to my account. That was nice. I could get used to that. For some reason there something very satisfying about getting the free $5.
$95 to go on the 200% initial sign on bonus. At $0.25/$0.50 LHE it seems to clear at an OK rate. So if I can just play break even at the tables I can make profit from the bonus. I'm around break even so far, and the $0.25/$0.50 LHE seems a pretty beatable game. There seem to be enough bad players there that it should be possible to play break even at least - hopefully.
Also UB told me I've been increased to "Player" status. Which is kind of funny because I don't play a lot of hands and because of bankroll only single table UB. So it's not too hard to become a Player on UB. Now Player does have a nice benefit. As a Player or better, you can use your playing points at a penny each to enter tournaments. Right now with a little over 100 points I could cash them out to enter a $1 tournament. That's a pretty good way to cash out your points for something really useful. I'm going to hang onto mine and plan to use them for a $5.50 tournament when I get to that level. It's nice I get to double use my points both for clearing bonus, then to use them again as cash equivalent tournament entry fees.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Bought hold'em manager
I've bought hold'em manager. I was using PokerTracker3 trial. I found with PT3 it was dragging down my system performance. I upgraded my RAM from 750 Mb to 1.5 Gb but it didn't seem to help a whole lot.
So I tried the HEM 15 day trial. It seems to work better on my PC. Also it has the HUD for UltimateBet working today. PT3 just promises it for some unspecified future date [they've already slipped the original target UB date]. Plus as a micro stakes player I can get a low stakes version of HEM for $55. That's a bit cheaper than PT3.
The HUD seems fine on HEM. It does what I want. The post game analysis is a bit better and more polished on PT3, so I hope HEM can catch up. A small change that would be an immediate benefit would be to show the current active filter name in HEM, I wish they had that.
So another small investment in my poker hobby I guess. I find I enjoy having a HUD and it does seem to help a bit with multi tabling. Maybe I could use some help. I've been getting knocked backward at $0.25/$0.50 LHE on both Stars and UB. Still I'm feeling upbeat. I may not be playing especially well. I could beat it in the past so I hope to be running better soon. On UB my bankroll for $0.25/$0.50 LHE is down to around 70BB so I hope to get moving upward before I go bust there.
So I tried the HEM 15 day trial. It seems to work better on my PC. Also it has the HUD for UltimateBet working today. PT3 just promises it for some unspecified future date [they've already slipped the original target UB date]. Plus as a micro stakes player I can get a low stakes version of HEM for $55. That's a bit cheaper than PT3.
The HUD seems fine on HEM. It does what I want. The post game analysis is a bit better and more polished on PT3, so I hope HEM can catch up. A small change that would be an immediate benefit would be to show the current active filter name in HEM, I wish they had that.
So another small investment in my poker hobby I guess. I find I enjoy having a HUD and it does seem to help a bit with multi tabling. Maybe I could use some help. I've been getting knocked backward at $0.25/$0.50 LHE on both Stars and UB. Still I'm feeling upbeat. I may not be playing especially well. I could beat it in the past so I hope to be running better soon. On UB my bankroll for $0.25/$0.50 LHE is down to around 70BB so I hope to get moving upward before I go bust there.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Playing some limit
I've been playing some limit hold'em again recently.
First an update on $10 NL cash. It's actually going fairly well so far. On PokerStars I'm up around 2 buyins after around a small 1000 hands sample for a win rate of around 11BB/100. On UltimateBet I'm down around 1 buyin after about 2000 hands for a win rate of around -2.8 BB/100.
There are good $10 NL games on UB, I just may not be running well or playing as well as I need to. The $10 NL games seem slightly better on Stars [I stacked a guy AA over KK all in preflop for 85 bb] and I also seem to be running well so far there. Sample sizes are small so it's hard to read much into the results.
Anyway about limit. The thing about UltimateBet was that it seems pretty much impossible to clear the bonus at $10 NL. The "points" you need to accumulate to unlock the bonus accumulate very slowly at $10 NL. So I thought of trying limit to see if that would generate points faster.
I've always enjoyed limit, and had some success at Stars playing full ring up to $0.25/$0.50. So I tried limit on UB. First I accidentally got into a $0.50/$1.00 game that was full of bad players. I won a $13 hand with AA holding up to the river but that was the only pot I won in 50 hands. I ended up down around $2, not too bad.
I meant to be playing $0.25/$0.50 on UB. Right now I have around a 90 BB bankroll at that level on UB. So there's a non zero chance I could go bust on UB if I hit a downswing. If it happens so be it. The worst downswing I've seen in LHE single tabling full ring has been around 50BB so hopefully I won't bust and I can clear this bonus.
At $0.25/$0.50 the full ring action is nearly dead and it's all 6max. That's a very challenging experience. It's an aggressive game and I'm trying to learn it as I go. I have seen some bad players so hopefully I can do a good job of table selection to find profitable situations.
While playing at UB, I've also returned to my historic favorite game, $0.25/$0.50 LHE on Stars. The Stars game seems as good as I remember it. I hope to grind up some BB and get comfortable again and start mixing in some shots at $0.50/$1.00. If I can get comfortable at 6max on UB then I might try $0.50/$1.00 6max on Stars. I haven't had much success historically at $0.50/$1.00 FR on Stars.
And the UB bonus does clear at this level. Every orbit I see points accumulating and points are worth around 10 cents each if I understand how they work. So this is good, I may be able to clear this bonus in some finite time.
First an update on $10 NL cash. It's actually going fairly well so far. On PokerStars I'm up around 2 buyins after around a small 1000 hands sample for a win rate of around 11BB/100. On UltimateBet I'm down around 1 buyin after about 2000 hands for a win rate of around -2.8 BB/100.
There are good $10 NL games on UB, I just may not be running well or playing as well as I need to. The $10 NL games seem slightly better on Stars [I stacked a guy AA over KK all in preflop for 85 bb] and I also seem to be running well so far there. Sample sizes are small so it's hard to read much into the results.
Anyway about limit. The thing about UltimateBet was that it seems pretty much impossible to clear the bonus at $10 NL. The "points" you need to accumulate to unlock the bonus accumulate very slowly at $10 NL. So I thought of trying limit to see if that would generate points faster.
I've always enjoyed limit, and had some success at Stars playing full ring up to $0.25/$0.50. So I tried limit on UB. First I accidentally got into a $0.50/$1.00 game that was full of bad players. I won a $13 hand with AA holding up to the river but that was the only pot I won in 50 hands. I ended up down around $2, not too bad.
I meant to be playing $0.25/$0.50 on UB. Right now I have around a 90 BB bankroll at that level on UB. So there's a non zero chance I could go bust on UB if I hit a downswing. If it happens so be it. The worst downswing I've seen in LHE single tabling full ring has been around 50BB so hopefully I won't bust and I can clear this bonus.
At $0.25/$0.50 the full ring action is nearly dead and it's all 6max. That's a very challenging experience. It's an aggressive game and I'm trying to learn it as I go. I have seen some bad players so hopefully I can do a good job of table selection to find profitable situations.
While playing at UB, I've also returned to my historic favorite game, $0.25/$0.50 LHE on Stars. The Stars game seems as good as I remember it. I hope to grind up some BB and get comfortable again and start mixing in some shots at $0.50/$1.00. If I can get comfortable at 6max on UB then I might try $0.50/$1.00 6max on Stars. I haven't had much success historically at $0.50/$1.00 FR on Stars.
And the UB bonus does clear at this level. Every orbit I see points accumulating and points are worth around 10 cents each if I understand how they work. So this is good, I may be able to clear this bonus in some finite time.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Facing a short stack shove in NL cash
This seems to come up a fair bit in the NL cash game, at least at $10 NL where I play. You open raise. Then a short stack with somewhere between 15-40 BB shoves over your raise. What do you do?
Some would say to call unless you are stealing with trash. They might say 30bb stack = fish stacking off so call. Or something like "AK vs a half stack = call". But lets look at it. After all without a read you typically wouldn't call a 100bb preflop shove with JJ. So is it correct to call say a 25bb shove?
In my experience and observation though although bad short players will stack off postflop fairly light [making set mining very profitable], they will only raise, or shove preflop with a strong range.
The tricky part is estimating that range. I would suggest that for a player buying in short then that range is JJ-AA, AKs, AK. I see them shoving those hands often and seldom TT or less, AQ or less.
Now with a range I can use PokerStove to calculate my equity against that range. Although you may be an underdog against the range, because the villian is short and the dead money in the pot it can be correct to call the all in depending on your pot odds.
First the pod odds against various shove sizes. In this example Hero has a 100 bb stack and opens for 4bb in early position, indicating strength. A short stack in middle position shoves on the preflop raise. Everyone else folds including the blinds. So when the action comes back to Hero there is 1.5bb from the blinds and Hero's 4 bb in the pot plus the short stack shove.
I've included a raked pot odds column to show the effect of an assumed 5% rake.
So as the shove size increases Hero is putting in more to call. So your hand needs more equity against his range for the call to be correct.
Now we calculate Hero's equity with some strong hands against the estimated range of JJ+, AKs, AK.
And with that the break even point can be determined. The break even point is when your hand equity is more than the percentage you have to put into the pot to call the all in. I used the raked pot odds to determine how much Hero must contribute to call the all in.
I'm using 15 as the minimum shove size to consider folding against. Below that villain is more likely to be really bad and just donking off the last of his stack and I don't think it would be bad to call with your entire preflop raising range.
So TT should fold to a 15 bb shove.
JJ can call a 15bb shove but no higher.
QQ can call up to a 35bb shove.
KK of course can call any shove against this range.
The suitedness of AKs helps a bit. AKs can call up to a 25bb shove but AK is only profitable up to an 18 bb shove.
Some would say to call unless you are stealing with trash. They might say 30bb stack = fish stacking off so call. Or something like "AK vs a half stack = call". But lets look at it. After all without a read you typically wouldn't call a 100bb preflop shove with JJ. So is it correct to call say a 25bb shove?
In my experience and observation though although bad short players will stack off postflop fairly light [making set mining very profitable], they will only raise, or shove preflop with a strong range.
The tricky part is estimating that range. I would suggest that for a player buying in short then that range is JJ-AA, AKs, AK. I see them shoving those hands often and seldom TT or less, AQ or less.
Now with a range I can use PokerStove to calculate my equity against that range. Although you may be an underdog against the range, because the villian is short and the dead money in the pot it can be correct to call the all in depending on your pot odds.
First the pod odds against various shove sizes. In this example Hero has a 100 bb stack and opens for 4bb in early position, indicating strength. A short stack in middle position shoves on the preflop raise. Everyone else folds including the blinds. So when the action comes back to Hero there is 1.5bb from the blinds and Hero's 4 bb in the pot plus the short stack shove.
I've included a raked pot odds column to show the effect of an assumed 5% rake.
shove size (bb) pot odds raked pot odds
15 0.349206349 0.367585631
18 0.373333333 0.392982456
20 0.385542169 0.405833862
25 0.40776699 0.429228411
30 0.422764228 0.445014976
35 0.433566434 0.45638572
40 0.441717791 0.464966096
50 0.45320197 0.477054706
So as the shove size increases Hero is putting in more to call. So your hand needs more equity against his range for the call to be correct.
Now we calculate Hero's equity with some strong hands against the estimated range of JJ+, AKs, AK.
And with that the break even point can be determined. The break even point is when your hand equity is more than the percentage you have to put into the pot to call the all in. I used the raked pot odds to determine how much Hero must contribute to call the all in.
I'm using 15 as the minimum shove size to consider folding against. Below that villain is more likely to be really bad and just donking off the last of his stack and I don't think it would be bad to call with your entire preflop raising range.
hand equity vs range break even point
TT 33.7 none
JJ 36.6 15
QQ 47.4 35
KK 62.6 all
AK 39.8 18
AKs 42.8 25
So TT should fold to a 15 bb shove.
JJ can call a 15bb shove but no higher.
QQ can call up to a 35bb shove.
KK of course can call any shove against this range.
The suitedness of AKs helps a bit. AKs can call up to a 25bb shove but AK is only profitable up to an 18 bb shove.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Moving up to $10 NL cash
I'm moving up from $5 NL to $10 NL. I've reached my goal of winning 4 buyins ($20) at $5 NL so I'm going to move up to $10 NL. I definitely have plenty of bankroll for it so it's a good time for a move.
It took a while to get here. It took around 5500 hands with a win rate of 3.7 BB/100. In calendar time it took over 16 months. During that time I had to stop playing poker for a while. I also gave up on $5 NL for a while. It was a LOT longer than I thought it would take.
It was pretty swingy. I started out running well. I was up 3 buyins pretty quickly and looking forward to moving up again. Then a horrendous downswing hit. 8 buyin downswing bringing me to 5 buyins down. That was tough. But variance can also be positive and after bottoming out and playing break even for a while I went on a tremendous heater, +9 buyins. According to PokerTracker3 I've been running at 21.6 BB/100 over the 2200 hands since I started using PT. Within that I've been at 27 BB/100 over the last 1800 hands. So a nice upswing.
At $10 NL I'll try to ease into it. I think I'll try playing around 65-75 BB stack single tabling for around 200 hands to start out. That's just a tick more than the $6 I bought in with at $5 NL. After that I'll try around 200 hands buying in full at 100 BB, $10 single tabling. After that if things are going well I'll try 2 tables and see how that goes. It went pretty well on PokerStars $5 NL. I think I need a bigger monitor for more than 2 tables.
I'm going to play starting out at ultimatebet. Some of the $10 NL tables I've seen at UB look pretty good. Plus I have a 200% initial deposit bonus there which is nice and 30% rakeback. I wish PokerTracker 3 had ultimatebet support. They say they are working on it so I hope to see it real soon. I'll miss the HUD which I really liked at PokerStars. I'll probably play tournaments mostly on Stars.
It took a while to get here. It took around 5500 hands with a win rate of 3.7 BB/100. In calendar time it took over 16 months. During that time I had to stop playing poker for a while. I also gave up on $5 NL for a while. It was a LOT longer than I thought it would take.
It was pretty swingy. I started out running well. I was up 3 buyins pretty quickly and looking forward to moving up again. Then a horrendous downswing hit. 8 buyin downswing bringing me to 5 buyins down. That was tough. But variance can also be positive and after bottoming out and playing break even for a while I went on a tremendous heater, +9 buyins. According to PokerTracker3 I've been running at 21.6 BB/100 over the 2200 hands since I started using PT. Within that I've been at 27 BB/100 over the last 1800 hands. So a nice upswing.
At $10 NL I'll try to ease into it. I think I'll try playing around 65-75 BB stack single tabling for around 200 hands to start out. That's just a tick more than the $6 I bought in with at $5 NL. After that I'll try around 200 hands buying in full at 100 BB, $10 single tabling. After that if things are going well I'll try 2 tables and see how that goes. It went pretty well on PokerStars $5 NL. I think I need a bigger monitor for more than 2 tables.
I'm going to play starting out at ultimatebet. Some of the $10 NL tables I've seen at UB look pretty good. Plus I have a 200% initial deposit bonus there which is nice and 30% rakeback. I wish PokerTracker 3 had ultimatebet support. They say they are working on it so I hope to see it real soon. I'll miss the HUD which I really liked at PokerStars. I'll probably play tournaments mostly on Stars.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
I've joined ultimatebet
I joined ultimatebet in the last week. I wanted play in a WWE freeroll. I'm a wrestling fan and my kids are too.
I was thinking of just joining they pla money site. But then I decided to join the real money site. I got set up with 30% rakeback from this is the nuts. No special reason for choosing TITN. I just clicked to the rakeback section on 2+2. Their ad came up first so I just clicked through. The rakeback was set up successfully so that's OK. I made the minimum initial deposit of $50 using my Visa credit card. I wasn't sure if it would go through but it did no problems. Yay Canada.
I was thinking of starting up at a new site anyway so this is as good as any. I can only hope they've cleared up the issues and can be trusted now. If I don't like it I can cash out or there's an exchange on 2+2 where I can exchange my UB bankroll for the same amount in PokerStars. I had always thought I'd join Bodog but I'll see what happens with UB.
It was a bit of a challenge getting into the WWE freeroll. Fist it didn't show up in the lobby. I e-mailed UB support and they got back to me a short time later and said I needed to go through the play money .net site. So I downloaded that and when I started it I found the tournament but I got a weird error message about the tournament not being for my card room. I e-mailed support again and they got back to me again and said the tournament was meant for just the play money people. I had told them in my earlier e-mail I only joined UB to play in the tournament.
They resolved it by changing the tournament so I could play. I don't know if they opened it up for all of the .com players in Canada or just my own username. But support was pretty good, no complaints. It seems weird though having a freeroll tournament for play money only. I don't think PokerStars would ever exclude their real money players from playing in any freeroll if they want to. No matter though. The tournament is three stage. I got through stage 1 pretty easily. Stage 2 is tomorrow night at 9 PM my time. I hope I can reach the final.
After the freeroll, I'm thinking about how to work UB into my play. They have some tournaments that look interesting. Also their micro stakes NL hold'em scene looks OK. I'll probably try out some NL cash and see how that works out with the rakeback and the 200% bonus which is nice.
I was thinking of just joining they pla money site. But then I decided to join the real money site. I got set up with 30% rakeback from this is the nuts. No special reason for choosing TITN. I just clicked to the rakeback section on 2+2. Their ad came up first so I just clicked through. The rakeback was set up successfully so that's OK. I made the minimum initial deposit of $50 using my Visa credit card. I wasn't sure if it would go through but it did no problems. Yay Canada.
I was thinking of starting up at a new site anyway so this is as good as any. I can only hope they've cleared up the issues and can be trusted now. If I don't like it I can cash out or there's an exchange on 2+2 where I can exchange my UB bankroll for the same amount in PokerStars. I had always thought I'd join Bodog but I'll see what happens with UB.
It was a bit of a challenge getting into the WWE freeroll. Fist it didn't show up in the lobby. I e-mailed UB support and they got back to me a short time later and said I needed to go through the play money .net site. So I downloaded that and when I started it I found the tournament but I got a weird error message about the tournament not being for my card room. I e-mailed support again and they got back to me again and said the tournament was meant for just the play money people. I had told them in my earlier e-mail I only joined UB to play in the tournament.
They resolved it by changing the tournament so I could play. I don't know if they opened it up for all of the .com players in Canada or just my own username. But support was pretty good, no complaints. It seems weird though having a freeroll tournament for play money only. I don't think PokerStars would ever exclude their real money players from playing in any freeroll if they want to. No matter though. The tournament is three stage. I got through stage 1 pretty easily. Stage 2 is tomorrow night at 9 PM my time. I hope I can reach the final.
After the freeroll, I'm thinking about how to work UB into my play. They have some tournaments that look interesting. Also their micro stakes NL hold'em scene looks OK. I'll probably try out some NL cash and see how that works out with the rakeback and the 200% bonus which is nice.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)