Letter from Doke (29th Feb 2012)

Hi everyone

Last Thursday I played the Fitzwilliam end of month tournament. The Fitz is where I cut my teeth on the live scene and is still one of my favourite places to play. The field seems to get stronger every month and this month included a double UKIPT winner (Nick Abou Risk) and a November Niner (Sam Holden). I made it to the final table with just below average stack, but as one friend remarked with average stack just 11 big blinds, it's basically a hyper turbo at that point. I won two of the first three hands but then ran nines into kings to exit in 7th. No matter how far you go in a tournament you're always disappointed (unless you win it) and before I was even home I got atext from a friend saying a four way chop had been agreed. Still, I feel like I've had a fairly barren start to my live poker year by my standards with just a second last table in the IPC and a 3rd in an EMOP side event, so it was good at least to notch up another cash and a final table.

I played the Super Poker event at Citywest on Saturday. The tournament drew a lot of criticism from some quarters (when I asked one young pro if he was playing it, he responded drily that he'd rather purchase three hundred and forty five Lottery scratch cards) but I enjoyed it (albeit not for very long). I always seem to run bad in Citywest: I haven't cashed in too many events out there and so it proved again. I also played an Irish Open satellite where I got it in on the second last table with two pair versus one on the turn but was not victorious. I did get a run in the last turbo side event I played but was hampered by getting kings cracked repeatedly and ended up going out next the bubble.

I recorded a brief interview with Iain Cheyne which I think you can see at the event website, and myself and David Lappin provided livestream commentary on the final table. I always enjoy commenting on the action and my friend David is a thoughtful contributor.

This week's strategy is a look at a key hand on the final table of the Super poker event. Folded around to eventual winner Vincent Buis, he covers Alan Mclean (father of tournament organiser Stephen) who has around 20 big blinds. This is almost the perfect stack size to reshove over a raise. Vincent is aware of this so he raises to induce Alan to shove if he has a strong but weaker hand (which he did with KJs). You sometimes hear players saying they'd prefer to just shove and get KJs to fold so they can take the blinds and antes without risking a suckout, but when stacks are this shallow you need to take every edge you can get. Let's imagine for a second that Alan would fold KJs to the open shove (which is not certain), then the gain from shoving including antes is about 2 bbs. Now compare this to what happens if Vincent induces and calls Alan's shove:

(1) AQ is approximately a 60% favourite over KJs, so 60% of the time, Vincent wins 21 bbs. 60% of 21 is 12.6, so when this happens Vincent can expect to gain 12.6 bbs.

(2) Of course, that means that 40% of the time Vincent's AQ gets sucked out on and he loses 20 bbs. So his expected loss is 40% of 20, or 8 bbs.

Subtracting 2 from 1, we see that on average Vincent can expect to make 4.6 bbs when he raises and induces a shove from AQ. This is greater than the 2 bbs he gains if he open shoves and gets it through, so mathematically raising to induce is a better play as it is more profitable in the long run.

The plan is to take a break from live poker until EMOP Lisbon. I'm looking forward to being able to devote myself more fully to online poker. One new feature I'm greatly enjoying on Irish Eyes is the introduction of a Preferred Seat option which allows you to always be placed at the same seat (table position). This is very useful when multitabling as your eye becomes accustomed to looking there and you can more quickly process your cards and make a decision.

On the promotions front, things to look out for on Irish Eyes in March include their WSOP Express promotion which will see 3 players win a package to this years WSOP (including entry to side event 56). Entry to try and win a package is only 1 earned VIP point.
Theres also a Sit & Go Most Played Race worth €22,500, an Endurance Challenge worth €8,000 and 6 EMOP Lisbon Iron Man Freerolls worth €2,000 each.

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

Doke