Let's try... small stakes sit and gos

I've decided not to bother with cash for the time being, don't feel like it.

I load up a couple of $1 + $0.20, 6 player SnGs instead. Top three paid.

1st $3.00
2nd $1.80
3rd $1.20

1000 starting stacks, blinds 10/20, okay a bit short but manageable. Ridiculous rake, must be very tough to make money playing these. Start off pretty tight (fold the first couple of hands on both tables) and then my connection goes... brilliant. So i make a cup of tea until it magically returns.

When i get back in, there's already only five players left on both tables. Fairly typical i think to lose players very early on, full of nutters, could probably fold to the money most of the time. Would be a good experiment actually, eighteen-table these $1 SnGs for twenty hours a day and just leave them running. Find out if it's a winner or a loser. Well worth a try...

Anyway, get back in obviously below average but get dealt some cards and I'm suddenly chip leader on both tables. Get to four handed chip leader and i started playing a bit too tight i think. Still expected to win at least one. Get to heads up in one, no outdraws, no nothing, i push a 445 flop with 23, he calls with AK, good call, i miss, i lose. Very unspecial tourn.

Other one still three handed I'm big chip leader, blinds shooting up, i push the button with AQ, bb calls with AJ and flops a J to double up. Still chip leader, whittled bb back down to short stack, i push the button again with AQ, sb out of the way, bb calls with QT, flops a T and rivers another T to double up again. My kings hold up on a K high flop vs his A7 to double up and everyone about level again, i try to raise from the small with nowt and bb has none of it, over the top and I'm short stack. Next hand i push the button with A9cc and bb calls with A8. Flop is blank with the 4c, turn is 8c. Any 9, any club. River 4s and I'm out. Good laugh.

Money in: $2.40
Money out: $3.00

Number of games played: 2
Average profit per $1.20 buy in: $0.30

Will continue this experiment until i get bored. Don't think it'll last very long, do you?

Poker - it's just not cricket

Got right back into my cricket since I've been back in Brum, what a great game! On Sunday i played my first game in at least four years (first game of anything, that is) against a top side, Alvechurch. And the lack of match practice showed.... after just twenty three overs in the field i go down with cramp like a little girl. How?! It's only half way through the first fucking innings, and it's not as if I'd done much running either. Spent more time on my arse than on my feet trying to stop the hardest cricket ball known to man with my body. That was a mistake.

The innings finally finishes and i stumble off the pitch probably the most worn out I'd ever been. I took an easy catch and saved my fair share of boundaries, not a bad little session. One learned spectator described it as one of the best fielding performances he'd seen in his whole life. He was 123 years old. If that's true, excellent...

So, into bat, we're chasing 209 from our 45 overs against an average bowling attack. I optimistically say to our captain, my mate Ben, 'we've got half a chance here, haven't we?'.
'No, Nath, we haven't won a game all season' was his miserable response. What a skipper, what a team!

I'm due to bat at number five in the order so i just sit back, soak up the lovely sun and try to ignore the masses of blood dripping from my right knee. Opening batsmen are usually quite good so i don't expect to be in for a good while yet. This would give my legs ample rest before the run fest to come.

Seven minutes later I'm at the crease... what the fuck was our top order playing at? So, we'd lost some early wickets, the aim of the game now was to just stay in for a bit, then start pushing later on. We couldn't really afford to lose any more wickets this early. Solid forward defence is what's required here. First ball.... i try to smash it out of the park. I don't know what came over me. I missed the ball by a mile which, in turn, missed my stumps. The keeper missed it as well and so we took one 'bye'. Good cricket all round. This took me to the non-striker's end giving me a bit of time to think about what I'd done. The other lad batting has a right go at me, tells me to calm down. I say, 'oi, don't have a go at me, I've got a bad knee, you know?' Anyway, i settle down, hit a nice four and take a couple of easy runs and then the drinks break comes, a little early because of the ridiculous heat of the sun.

That's done the trick, back to the crease, re energised i decide to go against the plan - slog every ball out of sight. Saves on running. 'What can go wrong', i think. I take big swings at the first two balls after the break and completely miss. I connect with the third which spoons right up in the air and somehow finds the one fielder they've put on the off side. Bloody typical. One learned spectator said it was one of the unluckiest things he'd ever seen in his life. I returned to the clubhouse to what i can only assume was a sarcastic round of applause.

We lose the game, get dressed and go for a very undeserved pint. Whilst there i was asked if i fancied a game on Tuesday night. Quite flattered, i of course accepted. 'I can't have done that badly, then,' i thought. Turns out they were just very very short on players and were asking literally anyone they saw. Never mind, it was great fun and i was looking forward to another game during the week.

The next day it's fair to say i was slightly regretting having accepted the invitation. For i couldn't move my legs. Grazed elbow, scabby knee, hungover head were just three of the side affects of a day down the cricket club. I was struggling, and tomorrow i had to do it all over again.

Tuesday comes and i wake up feeling even stiffer than i did on Monday morning. How am i going to play cricket tonight? Figured it was only a twenty over match so couldn't really do any harm. I get there and it takes a good ten minutes of stretching before my legs feel anywhere near up to it. One learned spectator said it was the most thorough and bestest stretching he'd ever seen.

Pervert.

Fielding first again, i didn't really see much of the ball for much of the early stages. I was offered a bowl but given that the last time i tried was over four years ago, and even then i was consistently wayward, i politely declined. They got off to a smashing start with the bat, we dropped a tough catch to get rid of a danger man early on and he went on to score a very quick 19. We dropped another catch as they continued to just swing at every ball. I guess that's the way to play these short over games. I started to look forward to my bat. Licence to swing.

Mid way through the first innings we took a flurry of wickets, some good bowling and one of the catches of the century from my good self (closed my eyes and was lucky to hold on). One learned spectator...

Taking the catch sadly reopened Sunday's knee wound and it started to pour. But i guess that's a sacrifice one has to take when you're playing at the very top level of your sport...?

They set a target of 111, not a bad score, i think we did well to keep them that low really after their start, and we set about chasing it. Our openers looked very good early on, steady scoring, hard hitting from what looked like pretty quick bowling. I was due in at number six and was dreading the prospect. I finally get into bat and we need some runs. I had a big hitter at the other end so decided to just stick around. Unfortunately my defence is an absolute waste of space so i very quickly decide to go for broke again.

Some fella comes into bowl from a very short run up, so i expect spin, the ball comes flying out of his hand at some speed so i take a big swipe at it. It clips off the outside edge and the pace on the ball takes it to the boundary. Before the next ball was bowled I'd decided that i was going to hit it as hard as i could. Was just hoping it wasn't bowled directly at the stumps because it's very rare i actually hit one. It does come dead straight but luckily for i me i catch it perfectly, right out the middle. Hit it really hard..... right at the bowler. I saw the umpire scrambling out of the way and the bowler dived over to catch it. Fortunately his hands completely missed it, leaving him a lovely bruise on his chest. Looked very very painful. Next ball i smashed for four which didn't help him in his recovery i guess.

I stay in bat for a while longer, mainly swinging and missing, my mate Ben (who was playing for the opposition today) came on to bowl and i was really hoping to smash him about a bit, even though i knew this gave him a better chance of bowling me out. We needed runs so i just went for it. I faced about ten balls and scored one run... nothing more needs to be said about that really. Dismal.

It was an exciting finish to a brilliant game. We lost a few wickets in the penultimate over which left us with the tough ask of scoring 24 runs from the last over. Can't remember exactly what happened but i hit a four at some point and maybe one other so, on strike, i was left needing 12 runs from the last two balls to win! I knew i really didn't have the power but had a bloody good go at the second to last ball, came right up the pitch and took a huge swing.... missed completely, and was lucky not to be stumped. Can't remember the last ball, was too knackered.

So we lost the game but i was happy with my figures of 22 not out from 23 balls. Not quite enough but hopefully I'll get better with time. As i walked off the pitch i could suddenly feel the blood dripping down my leg again. Too much running. Got changed and cooled down and settled down with a pint of strongbow, weird choice, probably the loss of blood. As i sat i could feel the bruise on my thigh bruising right up from where i got hit when batting. Didn't make anything of it at the time because i didn't want to come across as being weak but i knew that was going to really hurt in the morning. As was everything else. What i needed was a big rest from cricket, and anything strenuous for that matter, for at least a week. No more doing anything for me thank you very much.

I have a couple of pints in the clubhouse and call it a night and head out of the club for a well earned and, with any luck, lengthy rest. But naturally, ever the wally, before leaving i agree to two more games at the weekend, 100 overs on Saturday and 90 on Sunday....

Yeah, very clever! I guess i just can't help myself.

Low stakes Pacific

Okay, my blogging last month wasn't really up to scratch, was it? Despite playing almost every day for the first two weeks of July i failed to tell you all/both about it. It turned out to be quite a fun couple of weeks.

Here's a brief summary of the bits i can remember:

Well, as you know i started off by plugging $30 onto my old stomping ground, Pacific. I was really quite looking forward to playing again after at least a year away from internet poker. Had some good memories playing online in the past, but plenty of bad ones as well. I wanted to forget about all of that, how i used to play, however much i'd won/lost, it didn't matter.

I just wanted to start again as a new player, a new person. (For the full effect was going to change my username, but really couldn't be arsed in the end. Typical, i haven't changed at all!) Good start... I guess veryskin is with me for good.

Pacific is notoriously poor for tourns of any kind (big rake, small starting stacks, simply shit) so i was quite keen to build my bankroll playing almost purely cash with maybe the odd small multi and SnG thrown in for a bit of fun. But the last time i was on Pacific the smallest NL and PL cash tables were NL $10 and with only a $30 BR i would be VERY LUCKY not to go broke. I was determined not to go broke and relying on luck to build a bankroll is simply not an option, so these tables would have to be ruled out for the time being.

So, logging on for the first time, i was fully expecting to crawl my way through the low stakes SnGs. It would be a hard, slow process and i was just hoping my newly found enthusiasm would drive me through. I have to say, i wasn't 100% confident my temperement would handle it. I wasn't even 70% confident.

So when i logged on... RESULT! 1c/2c tables! $2 buy in cash, never thought that would excite me so much. For the first time in my life i was happy with something Pacific had done! And the new software was looking pretty good as well. Things were looking good.

So an instant change of plan: play $2NL until i feel comfortable enough with my bankroll to move up. Didn't set myself any strict rules about what games to play, short handed/ full circle, just 'whatever you fancy' i told myself. And i didn't completely ban SnGs either. As long as they were small buy in things they were fine but i was pretty sure that most of my time would be spent on the cash tables. Multis would be kept to a minimum for the time being.

That was the plan anyway...

The first few days were great fun, really enjoyed playing what were quite easily the smallest stakes i've ever played. The banter around the table was always good fun and i found it quite easy to make money as well.

I hear a lot of people complain about low stakes poker and how hard it is to make money. Two complaints are particularly common:

1) "The outdraws are ridiculous"
2) "It's impossible to bluff them. They never fold"

To tackle the first one, okay, some of the outdraws may be shocking and can be very annoying but you've got to expect that. It's not uncommon to have six or seven players per flop so your AK and AA is going to be outdrawn a lot of the time and you're going to lose a stack if you start getting excited about just one pair on the flop. You'll still make money, i guess, with hands like this because there'll always be someone in there with a weaker ace or just top pair but waiting around for these hands is a frustrating way of making a small profit from what are essentially very very weak tables.

'How can he call there with just middle pair on the flop?' If they can't be bluffed, don't bluff them. And most of the time you bet into them you'll have the better hand so willing them to fold middle pair is a mistake. There are times to bluff them, not many players will call on the river with ace high, you've just got to pick the right player and put him on the right hand. It's not hard to put some of these low stakes players on two overs and i find the turn is the best time to take them off hands. But you have to be sure, so until you can read them perfectly i guess keeping bluffing to a minimum is advisable. Most of the money made at these stakes is from made hands anyway but knowing which pots you can take with nothing will obviously add to the overall profit.

For the first couple of days i one-tabled for probably about three or four hours a day. I decided just to play the one table (9 or 10 handed where i could find it) for now so i could fully concentrate and determine the quickest way to win. It was very strange to start with, seeing five players MINIMUM to a flop was very odd. I started off very tight, playing only decent hands, big cards, pairs, big draws but soon realised that the money making was too slow.

I noticed that the average pot was huge compared to the blinds, usually 2c to see a flop with the final pot averaging over $1. So i just decided to see almost every flop as see what happened, calling with anything and hoping to catch a monster. Flopping one pair i decided was almost never any good and only called flop bets if they were cheap enough and i thought two pair on the turn would be good enough. If i missed the flop, oh well, i top up that 2c.

I also noticed that the bigger the pot was pre flop the more willing some of the players were to overbet the flop in a desperate attempt to take it down often with just one pair. And because of the size of the pot, more people were willing to call that down light.

So as a result of this i started played almost every pot minraising most hands i wanted to play (minraise as not to scare anyone away, and so rarely minreraising). This, strangely enough, often restricted agressive players behind me to just a call with better hands (common to see them raise to 10c with JT, KQ, etc after lots of limpers). Sometimes they pushed over with monsters, which is easy to fold to when you've just minraised to 4c with 56hh, but the same six players would usually see a flop but this time with over $0.20 in there already. Often a lot of the players at the table are sitting on less than $1 and needless to say, with so much in the pot, they find it very difficult to fold any pair. Even though they've only committed 4c to that pot they're willing to get their money in sometimes drawing dead.

So you can see that you don't have to flop a monster very often to take stack after stack at these tables for just 4c pre flop. Add to that the money you make from your big pairs, which you of course play properly pre flop, and you're raking it in!

Once i'd worked this out i started two and three tabling and by the end of the first week i'd built up from my $30 to $350. It was all very easy and the reason i've put this up is to help others trying to build up from a small bankroll... I hope the above advice makes sense and more importantly helps you make more money from low stakes. Ignore the fact that i played drunk a couple of times and went to NL $25, which crippled my bankroll, i'm sure you won't do that. I really wish i wouldn't!

Anyway, got to go, my bankroll didn't stay at $350 very long (classic veryskin) but i'll tell you about that some other time.

Bye for now and good luck!