Letter from Doke (4th January 2012)

Hi

Doke here again wishing you all a Happy New Year. May 2012 be the year when all our hands hold and all our draws are filled.

2011 ended on something of a high for me online. On Tuesday I won a $109 freezeout on Stars. The following night, I won a $50 freezeout on Stars to set up a possible online Triple Crown (given out by Pocket Fives to players who win three large tournaments on three different networks in a seven day period). Thursday was supposed to be a day off, or rather offline, but a relatively early bustout in the Fitz end of month gave me some time to sneak in a few games online. I ended up headsup with Miguel Silva in the High Roller on Merge. Unfortunately,I busted shortly after losing a flip for the win.

The following night I was down to the last three in a $10k $100 freezeout on Party. Unfortunately, the competition couldn't have been much stiffer: Brazil's Joao Mathias Baumgarten and Canada's Sebastian Sikorski are two of the top online mtt players in the world. Fortunately, I managed to win my flips on this occasion after getting headsup with Joao to clinch my second triple crown (my first, the first ever by an Irish player, was won just before Vegas this year).

Of course, the first question most of my friends asked when they heard was that most Irish of questions: "How much did you get for it?" The answer is nothing (beyond what I got for winning the tournaments themselves): it's purely an honorary achievement.

Also, I'd like to say a very well done to my good friend Feargal Nealon, who chopped one of the Stars Sunday majors, the Supersonic turbo. Feargal crushes turbos so the result comes as no surprise.

This week's strategy looks at preflop bet sizing. The trend online (and more recently live) has been for smaller and smaller opening raises. Towards the end of tournaments, I tend to take this to the extreme and always open for a min raise. A lot of players think they have to defend against a min raise, but this is a mistake. The hand that crippled me in the Fitz EOM illustrates this. I opened for a min raise, got one caller behind, and the big blind decided he had to defend because "it's only a min raise". When the flop came A22 with two clubs, I was pretty sure my AK (with the king of clubs) was the best hand when the blind decided not only to lead out on the flop, but to shove all in for several times the pot. It's difficult to see him doing this with any hand that beats me (like a 2) so it's pretty much always either a worse ace or a flush draw. I therefore called instantly, and he sheepishly turned over 7c3c. Although it worked out for him on this occasion (he hit his flush on the river), his play both before and after the flop is losing long term. With 73,he's either going to have to flop two pair or better (approximately a 25 to 1 shot) or a flush draw (a 9 to 1 shot) to be able to continue profitably past the flop. And even when he does flop a flush draw, it generally just means he'll be getting his stack in as a 2 to 1 if called, as happened on this occasion. The flop play is unprofitable too: he's risking several times the pot hoping neither me nor the other guy have an ace, and if we have one, two times out of three his tournament ends here. People sometimes ask me why I don't raise more to try to get people to fold preflop, but my answer is I don't want 7 high folding in the long term.

This week sees the first ever Irish WPT, and I'm looking forward to playing Day 1 on Thursday.

Irish Eyes are again running their Winter Tournament Series at the end of January. This is great value with five tournaments in each of two series, one for low stakes and one for high stakes. It's two daily tournaments, one with a €5 buy-in and one with a buy-in of €50, running between Sunday January 22nd and Friday January 26th. There's €21,000 in added prizemoney for the players who come at in the top places in each league including an EMOP Prague package also to be won. There more about this on the promotions page of the Irish Eyes website.

Good luck at the tables - unless I'm at the same table :)

Doke