Sloe Times

So I've continued my reading today as well as got a quick, yet unspectacular, SNG game in this morning. The thing I got to thinking about today is determining as a player what type of Holdem game is the best one to play. There's limit and no limit holdem and they can be played in ring, mini-tournament/sit-n-go, or multi-table tournament style. To help organize my thoughts on the subject I thought I'd put to electron my thoughts on each one to help me examine if I'm really spending my poker time playing the right type and style of game.

Ring Games

Limit Holdem on Paradise can be played for stakes from $0.02/$0.04 to $40/$80. The recommended bankroll to play limit holdem ring tables is 300 times the BB so you'd want $12 up to $24000 depending on your situation. This would seem to be the best type to play because you're never really put to a significant decision like you are in no limit, or are you? I'd say that the play has to be tighter in this type of game because it seems like many people are on the straight or flush draw so you have to be willing occasionally to see it to the end. Now this may not be true at the higher limit games, but my experience with the low limit ones reflects this. As a matter of fact, I sat down at the $0.50/$1 today and walked away +$1.25 after doing a yo-yo for awhile being up as much as ~$10. For the most part it was interesting, but it definitely appears to require some time to put in and some patience for the other players. I have an uber Monster hand during this session that was just stunning so I've got to break out the highlight reel for posterity.

I'm one behind the button and the dealer tosses me Ah Jc, there's one caller by the time it gets to me so I call (I probably should have raised here), the button folds, SB calls, and BB checks. Now you could have tipped me over with a feather when this flop hits, I mean I had to do a double take just to make sure I wasn't dreaming. The flop is Ad Ac As. Those jackpot bells I heard yesterday were nothing compared to the church bells heralding the return of the king baby! I'm thinking that the only way to maximize this pot is to play it low key and let everyone else bet it, if I even glance at it the wrong way I figure they'll bail. Fortunately the person to my left bets $0.50 and I call, SB calls, and BB folds (this fellow was playing multiple tables so I'm assuming he had no pocket pair for this one). Not that it really matters what the turn and river brought but it was 2s and 4c respectively. I could only hope it would be something that would pair someone up but it's unlikely with that garbage. It goes check, check on the turn so I bet and both players call, yay! It goes check, check on the river so I bet again hoping they'll both call again thinking maybe high-card will win with the trip As on the board. SB folds, but I do get one last call so it wasn't a wasted bet. Sure enough, the caller did have a pocket pair for the house.

<rant>
Something I noticed while playing was that at least two or three of the other players were playing other tables and very slow to act. Mostly this makes me somewhat grumpy because that slows down my game. On the flip side, if these same people are in a pot through the turn you can bet they have something, so you need to have a better something if you're there. I'm sure there are some dissenting opinions on this, but I think that people who play multiple tables, especially against anyone who's paying attention are hurting themselves. They'll miss getting paid off on good hands just from wearing the big sign on their head that screams "I only play premium hands because I'm not paying attention!" Ok, enough of that rant, the fact is you'll get this type on any ring table, it's just the facts of life in online poker.
</rant>

No limit Holdem can be played at stakes of $2 up to $500 on Paradise. I've personally never had any consistent play with this because like limit, it requires time to play so that you can manage the swings. I think that you have more options with NL in terms of the cards you play because half the table being on flush or straight draws is somewhat less likely, and even if they are, you have the ability to punish them for chasing in NL that you don't really have the opportunity to do in limit. I played about 3 hours of NL this evening on top of the hour or so I played the limit game. Of course it was my mistake, BIG mistake to have not gotten up sooner. I was just about to get up from the table and I'm dealt KK. Well hell, I have to stay and play this. Let's show the instant replay of how NOT to play shall we?

WARNING! - You are about to witness a train wreck.
The board flops granny teeth and I potted it. Everyone folds except for one guy who re-raises. Not one fucking warning bell went off like it should have. I'll chalk that up to being tired and letting my focus slip. I shove back and he re-shoves and at this point I'm thinking to myself that this is a little crazy, doesn't he know I have KK? I call. The turn brings more garbage, I rationalize to myself that maybe he's sitting on a 4 flush but the turn didn't help so maybe he'll go away now, I push more chips into the middle and he calls. The river brings yet more garbage and by now the pots at about $240 and he's got $40 left. I check and he bets the $40. Way too late I see that the light at the end of the tunnel is the train coming to hit me as I call. His bullets took down my cowboys and we're looking at a glorious -$300 for NL ring. Bad Sloejack, back to the SNGs for you. The worst part is that beyond calling down with a beat hand, I also missed the subtle change in the table that went from passive to aggressive and didn't adjust my playing to keep up.

Tournaments

Multi-table tournaments can be extremely challenging. The toughest part for me seems to be post break. I do ok and even occasionally lead into the break when I play these but something happens and it's a rapid downward spiral shortly after we resume. I honestly haven't played enough of these to really figure out what's going wrong there but that will be for far future exploration. The only thing that I keep in mind here is that multi-table tournaments seem to come in two flavors. The standard single fee and the re-buy + add-on tournaments. The pots and pay off places are generally larger in the R+A tournaments but the caveat here is that in order to be competitive you have to plan on at least one re-buy and an add-on at the break which makes the entry fee a little misleading for some. The last note about these tournaments is that they require a time investment. Since I've never finished one (well that's not true entirely, I won a seat at a bigger tournament through a satellite once) I can't really say exactly how long these last but it appears to be 2 - 3 hours at a minimum if you make it to the end.

Sit and Goes are single table, 10 player, tournaments. They pay out 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place finishes at 50%, 30%, and 20% respectively. A first place finish returns almost 4x your buy-in. On paradise the best value for your money is going to be on the 10+1 tables and up. The 5+1 might be more in your budget, but the house clip on the fee is obviously a tad more here. In my experience these tournaments are generally over in approximately an hour and rarely play more than 80 hands from beginning to end. My 20+2 tournament this morning that I took 1st in was 76 hands and lasted 60 minutes and 12 seconds.

I started writing this bit this morning just after the SNG tournament. After writing, reading, and doing "research"; it's been a long day so I'm going to wrap it up here. For me, SNGs are the best value for the time I have to play and monetary investment. I think if I had more time to invest the high limit games like the $200 NL or maybe the $1/$2 Limit could be more profitable but even thinking about that for any period of time leads me back to the same conclusion. If I play a consistently strong game for the same amount of time I would invest in the ring games to make them pay off, I could probably (and historically) make more money playing SNGs. I'm not going to make any recommendations but maybe you'll find my opinions useful in helping you decide how to spend your time playing online.