Mind Games

Will you play SCOOP? There are also 5-card-draw- and 2-7- events! ♠_drink:

Originally posted by Primrose6789
Will you play SCOOP? There are also 5-card-draw- and 2-7- events! ♠_drink:

The last time I looked, there were none. I'll check again, and if so, I'll surely play them.

The only thing I can see that says "NL 5-Card" in its name is "NL 5-Card Omaha", and the only 2-7 is 2-7 Triple Draw, but that is limit and the lowest buy-in is $22.

I left feedback for PokerStars, and they replied:

We have forwarded your suggestion to our Ideation Team, who is best placed to address your comments and identify if this is something that we could implement at this time.

Rest assured that all feedback is very important to us and we consider all suggestions that are sent our way; we will inform you accordingly should it be decided that your suggestion is considered feasible.

They have an Ideation team -- who knew?

We'll see...
VS

Oh, that´s 5-card NLO

When I played SCOOP the last time (phew, long time ago), there was 5-card-draw! Too bad! Would have played a 5-card-draw event too just for fun. Gonna probably play some 5.50 $ events and try to qualify for the 11 $ events, would love to play PLO and PLO8!

It's very pity PS threw 5CD out from SCOOP.

Originally posted by Anykey444
It's very pity PS threw 5CD out from SCOOP.

YES! 100 % agree!

Originally posted by Anykey444
It's very pity PS threw 5CD out from SCOOP.
Send them a support ticket and complain.
If enough people do that, maybe -- just maybe -- we can have it for next time...

Peace,
VS

...but there´s also PLO and PLO8...

All my $3.30 tickets are gone now...

So I played my 2nd $11 ticket today.
I did OK in mid-tournament, even lead the field for a time -- thanks to some great draws and some goofy calls.
While on the button, with the chip lead, I raised with a 1-card draw to the nuts.
SB called, BB shoved. I called, but drew a King -- SB drew a 9-lo, BB stood pat with a J-lo

With my stack cut in half, I never recovered, and was totally card-dead the rest of the tournament.

Felt good though.

So from now on, I only buy into the tournaments if I've won the buy-in playing cash in the previous 24 hours.

If you're curious, the BB who shoved the J-lo bought in to the $11 tournament 4 times, and collected 4.90 in bounties. Weird way to make money.

Cheers,
VS

MTTs can be cruel. Everything can go well for you, you´re one of the chipleaders and suddenly: you experience a BIG COOLER, or you suffer a bad beat and bang! You´re the short stack! Happened to me yesterday. Had a decent stack in the Bounty Hunter on Party and was more than happy to find K♥ K♠. And when a midstack jammed I was even happier, especially when I looked into 5♣ 5♦!!! Yeeeah and now guess, what came on the river....

People believe what they tell themselves
You see this all the time. People tell themselves what they want to hear, what justifies their actions and so on.

Things like:
 "I'm not a morning person"
 "Oh, I could never do that"

And so on...

This self-talk can be constructive or destructive. Be aware of your self-talk. Make sure that what you tell yourself it the truth, and (as far as possible) constructive.

One of my positive affirmations is "As long as I play the odds, it will all work out in the long run".
This is partly true. A lot depends on how long a run we're willing to tolerate. A day? An hour? Can we stand a downswing of a month or more?
Recently, in another thread I posted a link to a poker variance calculator. Play with it -- it is quite instructive.

This graph shows the result of 1000 80,000-hand runs for a player with a 2BB/100 winrate and an 80BB/100 standard deviation:

Note that the larger the sample size, the more likely you are to be within the bounds of the 95% confidence level -- but still not guaranteed to be.

Normally, in 5-Card Draw downswings are thankfully very short -- it is not often that I have a losing session that is more than a thousand hands.
[math speak: the standard deviation (and therefore variance) is small.]

Yesterday, though, and for the first part of today, so many of my good hands got beaten by better ones -- flushes lost to higher ones (and full houses), trips got out-tripped -- not to mention all the pairs I had to fold pre-draw due to being 3Bet.

Usually, the downswing evens out slowly, with a long run of small wins.

Sometimes though, they even out suddenly...
The hand that saved the day

All the best,
VS;

Sometimes, just on the spur of the moment...
You enter a tournament -- this one had just started when I got back after supper, so I though, "Ah what the heck..."

This is the third hand in (and first bounty):
Feral Cow Poker
PokerStars Pot Limit 5 Card Draw ($1.92+$2.00) t15/t30 ante t8 - 6 players

UTG: t2,698
UTG+1: t2,902
CO: t3,754
Button: t2,939
SB: t2,954 (Hero)
BB: t2,196

Dealing Hands: (t93) Q♣:Q♦:Q♥:A♣:A♦: (6 players)
UTG calls t30, 3 folds, Hero raises to t60, BB raises to t120, UTG calls t90, Hero raises to t240, BB raises to t360, UTG folds, Hero raises to t540, BB raises to t1788, Hero raises to t2946 and is all-in, BB calls t400 and is all-in

First Draw: (t4,919) (2 players)
Hero stands, BB stands

Hero showed Q♣:Q♦:Q♥:A♣:A♦:, a full house, Queens full of Aces
BB showed 3♣:8♠:8♣:3♠:8♦:, a full house, Eights full of Threes
Hero won t4544

Already chip leader... I get another remarkable hand
At showdown, 10 of the 13 diamonds are on the table.
Feral Cow Poker Hand Converter
PokerStars Pot Limit 5 Card Draw ($1.92+$2.00) t40/t80 ante t20 - 6 players

BB: t9,954 (Hero)
UTG: t1,167
UTG+1: t3,000
CO: t2,309
Button: t3,423
SB: t3,661

Dealing Hands: (t240) 8♥:A♦:4♦:2♦:8♦: (6 players)
UTG folds, UTG+1 raises to t400, CO folds, Button calls t400, SB calls t360, Hero calls t320

First Draw: (t1,720) (4 players)
SB discards 2, Hero discards 1, UTG+1 discards 1, Button discards 1,
A♦:4♦:2♦:8♦: || 9♦:
SB checks, Hero checks, UTG+1 bets t320, Button raises to t2680, SB folds, Hero raises to t9534 and is all-in, UTG+1 folds, Button calls t323 and is all-in

Hero showed 9♦:A♦:4♦:2♦:8♦:, a flush, Ace high
Button showed T♦:5♦:7♦:J♦:3♦:, a flush, Jack high
Hero won t8046

And finally... the 2nd pat-over-pat hand of the tournament
Feral Cow Poker
PokerStars Pot Limit 5 Card Draw ($1.92+$2.00) t125/t250 ante t60 - 5 players

Button: t17,072 (Hero)
SB: t4,746
BB: t4,797
UTG: t5,975
CO: t12,780

Dealing Hands: (t675) A♥:3♦:A♦:A♠:3♠: (5 players)
UTG folds, CO raises to t750, Hero raises to t1250, SB raises to t4686 and is all-in, 2 folds, Hero calls t3436

First Draw: (t10,672) (2 players)
SB stands, Hero stands

Hero showed A♥:3♦:A♦:A♠:3♠:, a full house, Aces full of Threes
SB showed 2♣:3♣:J♣:8♣:T♣:, a flush, Jack high
Hero won t10672

I'd like to report that I won the tournament -- unfortunately I can't. I bust out on the FT bubble, but overall I was pleased.

Here's the chip giraffe just before I lost the overall chip lead:

I picked the diamond flush hand as Hand of the Day since it is so remarkable -- but any of the three would do!

Cheers,
VS

I now know a) which hands to play, and b) which not to play. The only problem is -- I never get hands in category a)

I played another $3.30 NL 2-7 Single Draw PKO this afternoon -- several pat flushes and straights went by -- but only one or two hands that I could actually play -- I either took the blinds or bust out.

maybe this isn't my game at all...
VS

I do my share of whining about the times I get out-drawn, so I hope I remember this hand...

Dont have a cow, heres your converted hand
PokerStars Pot Limit 5 Card Draw ($2.94+$0.36) t50/t100 ante t25 - 6 players

SB: t7,069
BB: t2,975
UTG: t752
UTG+1: t3,729
CO: t2,996 (Hero)
Button: t2,865

Dealing Hands: (t300) 6♣:6♦:7♥:A♥:A♦: (6 players)
UTG raises to t500, UTG+1 folds, Hero raises to t900, 3 folds, UTG calls t227 and is all-in

First Draw: (t1,754) (2 players)
UTG stands, Hero discards 1

UTG showed 4♥:3♣:5♠:A♠:2♥:, a straight, Ace to Five
Hero showed 6♣:6♦:6♥:A♥:A♦:, a full house, Sixes full of Aces
Hero won t1754

About 4 hands into this tournament, I was in last place, and I worked my way up to 8th after the hand above.

And I wasn't even wearing my "Chip and a Chair" T-Shirt...
VS

Just knowing the odds isn't enough...

I've been carefully observing the play of several $3.30 NL 2-7 Single Draw PKO regs.

Trapping vs Bluffing
Besides the odds, there is also trapping and bluffing
The regs seem to trap more than they bluff. First of all, trapping costs you fewer chips -- you can limp or minraise in early position, and call a bet. Whereas if you bluff predraw, you may need to fold without ever seeing the draw.
Bluffing seems more appropriate to late position, since if your bluff does get called, you can see what others have drawn.

ICM
Within 10 places of the money, the chip leaders start to raise much more. Makes sense

How likely is it that I will be outdrawn?
To figure this out, we need to examine the probability of each player not hitting.

Example
On the button, you hold: J♥:T♦:4♠:3♣:2♦:
You raise 3x, and get called by both blinds.
SB draws 1 as does BB

We'll assume that each of them is drawing to a 10, so has a 42.55% chance of hitting, and thus a 57.45 chance of missing. (see the odds chart)
For the probability that both miss, multiply those two together, and you get the unnerving result of 0.33
Why is that unnerving?
Because that is the odds that both will miss so there is a 2/3 chance the one or the other will hit.

Yuck,
VS

Finally!
Today, at the end of my session I checked my all-time FL $0.10/$0.20 5-Card Draw win rate.
For the first time ever, it is 1.6 big blinds (bb) per hundred -- or 0.8 big bets (BB) per hundred, which for limit games is a better measure.

There are players who show a winrate of 12 or more bb/100, but they don't last. You can get such a rate by being very aggro, but soon everyone catches on, so you have to dial it back a bit.

The black line in the graph below is a 100-point moving average, and each graph point is an entire session.
I'm not totally sure what I'm doing right, but I seem to be on some sort of sustained (~20K hand) heater.

I can live with that...

If you're not doing much, and don't mind being bored, I'll be streaming the two PokerStrategy.com player's club home games tomorrow at http://www.twitch.tv/maugr1s -- go to that link to get the exact time in your time zone.

Better yet, why not play the home games? If you're not a member, join here, then just register -- you'll need a PokerStars account, and at least 11 cents.
More if you want to rebuy and add-on.

Two games usually run -- an 8-game and an NLHE.

I might also be playing a $3.30 NL 2-7 Single Draw PKO -- but only if I make the buy-in playing other games beforehand.

All the best,
VS;

I played my first-ever Razz cash tonight. Previously, I had only ever played it as part of HORSE, 8-Game or 10-Game tournaments

I did OK -- better than I expected, but not as good as I'd hoped.
There are no Razz tournaments at low stakes during SCOOP, and I'm not rolled for $22 tournaments.

There are some $1.10 satellites that run the morning of May 8 just before the SCOOP tournaments.
I might have a crack at 'em.

Have a good weekend all...

>>I'm not rolled for $22 tournaments.
How about making 1-2 shots per year ?

Sure, but in NL 5-Card Draw or perhaps even 2-7 Single draw, but not for something that is fairly new.

I'll do the satellites and see where that goes.

Are you going to play any SCOOP?

Cheers,
VS

Yes, plan to play Low: Omaha-8, Stud-8 and Razz at 16-00 GMT. Honestly I am afraid to be too sleepy at bubble time, but let's see. Probability to be in the money like 18-20% anyway.

OK, I'll keep an eye out for you.

Best of luck,
VS