The 8 Game Experiment

I sit here pondering to myself about the games that I play. Early on in this journey I wrote a post when I realised that no limit hold 'em wasn't the "be all and end all" of poker. I find that no limit hold em is the hardest game to profit from for me. I think that because so many people are clued up on the basic and intermediate skills required to play it, it gives me, or any reasonably intelligent poker player less of an edge.

People know the odds of hitting their flush draws. They know that raising 3 times the blinds pre flop from an early position means that I have a good hand. And they know not to hold on to their ace – rag after they miss the flop if someone is betting into them.

These basic skills that every poker player has seem to be missing in other games though.

I have noticed that in low ball games like razz, deuce to seven triple draw etc, people make silly mistakes that pay me off. They make errors that you don’t really see in hold ‘em. In Omaha high / low, people will fight each other in a multi-way pot for the high end, allowing me to easily collect the low end half of the pot. I feel that I want to explore other games properly, instead of just playing a stud tournament here and there, or a razz cash game every now and then.

I have decided that it is time for an experiment.

In the 2008 World Series a new tournament was launched. It was structured the same as any other poker tournament, but every time the blinds went up, the game changed. It was like an extended HORSE game, but there was eight games played in rotation, so the tournament was imaginatively called “8 game”!

Pokerstars run “8 game” sit n go’s and tournaments which I have played. I satellited into the WCCOP 8 game tournament last year and although I think I did well, I didn’t cash. They also do cash games using the same format which will provide the perfect arena for this experiment.

I will play the small stake 8 game tables for 100 rounds. Each round consists of 6 hands of each game. This will be a total of 600 hands for each game. I have designed a simple spreadsheet to track my performance in each game. The object of this experiment is to find out which game I am best at, and which gives me the most money.

I will update soon with some results after I have played for a while.

Home Game Results

Well the results from the home game we mixed financially, but I think I achieved what I wanted to do. I wanted to read players that I have played against a lot now. I wanted to use the knowledge I have gained by playing against these people to play them all individually. This is a skill that a poker player needs to learn to do by instinct.

First of all, the financial result:
I had a great start. I was playing tight aggressive. I have a really good read on one certain player who always likes to play very aggressively against me. He's a good friend of mine, but likes to put me on the spot when we play poker. This is a good thing because I can wait until I have a good hand before I choose to put my chips in with him. I know he will play me in big hands because he just likes to try to knock me out of tournaments. This is probably the most useful tool I had all night.

Another player that I play against a lot will play his draws strictly to the pot odds. I remember a particular hand early when I raised the blinds and when the flop came down we both missed it. I was out of position so I checked the flop and so did he. The turn came down to give two hearts on the board. I raised enough to make sure that the pot odds weren’t worth a call for the flush. He sat there, worked it out, and then folded. I could almost see the cogs turning in his brain.

The night started well with a few good results. I think with two payouts I just try to get to heads up. I have found out that I'm good at negotiating a chop if i want one. As the night went on I got tired. Some people can play tired, almost automatically. Then again, some people can play drunk. I can't. Not only did the results start going the other way but so did the way i was playing. I wish I stopped when I knew I was getting tired.

I think that the lessons that I tried to learn about reading players that I play regularly was over shadowed by another lesson. Don't play tired.

Home Game Test

Tonight will be a great test in reading players tonight as I have been invited to play in a home game involving 5 other players that I have played a lot against. I am hoping to use the knowledge that I have of the individual players tonight to give myself a new years bankroll boost.

The format will be "a few sit n go's", meaning that we will play a couple of mini tournaments, probably at a £10 or £15 buy in. The interesting part about tonight is that I won't be using a normal stratagy, am going to use everything that I know about the players to play them and not the cards.

I'll post my results and how I got on in the morning.

Learned To Run But Need To Remind Myself How To Walk

There is a bar near me, that every Sunday evening holds a game of no limit hold 'em. It's a small stakes shootout tournament, five pounds (about $7.25) which attracts a few good players that I know, but is filled mainly by people that don't know how to play. They know the hand rankings, and they know how to go all in, but that's it.

I see this game as a good bit of practice for basic 101 tournament poker. I struggled with this game for a while, as I couldn't make people fold their bottom pair on the flop, and I couldn't price them out on their draws. I think last year that although this is the easiest game I probably will ever play, I still lost money from the ten or so games that I played.

The thought came to me the other day exactly how to play this game. If people don't know how to play then there is no point trying fancy moves against them.

This Sunday I noticed that none of them would throw away an ace. I remember someone calling a raise pre-flop on a hand I wasn't involved with. The flop came down as three suited connectors so there was straight possibilities as well as a flush on, but the gentleman kept calling reasonably high bets. At the showdown he turned over his Ace 9 and thought he was in good shape (he paired his ace on the river) but the other player had a straight which he hit on the flop. I noticed people holding on with their aces or small pocket pairs all night.

Normally with a dangerous board I bet out at it. Or if I sense weakness I'll bet because a reasonably good player will fold to a bet if they miss the flop completely. They would look at the board and know what roughly the odds of hitting a good hand on the turn or the river are and play accordingly. A bad player doesn't though and that's the point I am making. I have to play bad players completely differently.

I need to tighten up my starting range against a bad player that will call all the way down to the river with a draw or small pair. I need to assume before I even call or raise the blinds, that we are going all the way no matter what cards come down. I need to play the board and the cards more with this type of player, and most importantly I need to stop trying to out play someone who can't be pushed off the pot.

I want to win this Sunday night tournaments regularly because, well, I should be winning them. I have a massive edge over these players. But I also have a very keen interest in getting back to learning basic poker, because I am told that at most events at the World Series, the tables are full of players like this.

I'll employ my basic 101 tournament poker strategy at this weekly game and report back to you.