Tag Archives: Midnight Madness

40.40

Posted on by

Just a couple of uneventful and unprofitable games last night, both lasting about two-thirds of an hour, after the previous day’s flurry.

A shot at Midnight Madness petered out after some calls with decent hands failed to connect and I had to abandon ship. At the end, an ace-high flush draw died without issue and I was out in 2,357th place (Full Tilt’s new multi-entry thing is wreaking havoc on place calculations).

A $5K guarantee tournament right afterward didn’t go anywhere either. We started at 2,000 chips and I never broke above 2,600.

I told Tomer D had almost caught up to me in the home league’s POY race (we’re sending someone to the WSOP for one of the $1K events). He wrote back:

Tell your friends their best investment would be to send you to the WSOP even if you don’t win the race because you have a private coach there 🙂

Keep Poker Weird

Posted on by

Not a lot of luck at the virtual tables yesterday (two turbo 6-max and one regular tournament on PokerStars, plus a Rush re-buy tournament and Midnight Madness on Full Tilt). Every decent hand I had seemed to get drawn out on (Make your second pair with a three on the river against my single-paired AhJh? Check!)

I did participate in one of the strangest hands I’ve ever seen during the Rush game. Six players went to the flop with 80 chips each in the pot. I was in the hijack position with Kc6c; not the strongest hand but worth a big blind.

Nobody raised on the flop, turn, or river, and the board showed
AdTdTs8h8s at the end of the last round of bets. This was the lay of the land:

  • (small blind) 6h6d
  • (big blind) QsKd
  • (under the gun) KsQd
  • (under the gun + 1) folded preflop
  • (under the gun + 2) 5h5d
  • (under the gun + 3) folded preflop
  • (hijack me) Kc6c
  • (cutoff) folded preflop
  • (button) Js9s

Among six hands, no pair to anything on the board. No pocket pair better than the eights on the board. A six-way chop with everyone getting back their 80 chip investment.

Hand 130: Where Tournaments Go to Die

Posted on by

Logarithmic chart comparison of two tournamentsJust idly comparing chip counts of a couple of tournaments. The blue line is from a July Full Tilt $5 re-buy game with a $2K prize pool where I took second place (after a heads-up chop deal) and the red line is from the $2 PokerStars tournament I cashed in yesterday.

Thought it was just interesting how the two trajectories were more or less congruent until about the 130th hand. In July, I caught a Jh on the river on hand 130 to turn my JdTs into two pair and beat an all-in AdAc. Last night it was my aces on hand 131 that were beat by a set of queens. Aces, hand 130 (ten times thirteen!). I’ll just be keeping my eye out for a pattern.

Midnight Madness didn’t go any better tonight. Out in 1,275th place. The guy following me (VPIP of 50%) had been going all-in with close to the starting chip level far more regularly than was warranted. There were four players in at 200 chips to the flop. 4d6d7d came out and it was checked around to Mr. All-In who proceeded to do it yet again. The two players ahead of me folded. I had the all-in covered and AcQc in my hand. As I suspected, when his cards flopped, he was holding nothing better than Jc9c and I had him beat until the 9s showed up in the river. I managed to squeak back up to 1,100 before I was eliminated. He ended up going out before I did even with the double up. Playing the tournament did release a $10 bonus, though, so it was almost a freeroll.

Double Negative Unflush

Posted on by

Only half an hour into tonight’s Midnight Madness and I haven’t had anything in thirty hands. A big stack at the table has more than three times the starting stack and is throwing his weight around with a VPIP of over 70%. In the small blind I pick up KdAh and raise to 200 with two limps ahead of me. The big blind drops out but both of the limpers match the bet. The flop comes out 5h7h6h and I check. The big stack drops a bet of 420 and I figure it’s time to put up or shut up with my nut flush draw, pushing in my remaining 985 chips. The third guy folds but the big stack stays in, flipping over 4c3d for a flopped straight from a hand in the 15th percentile. I still had about a 35% chance but the turn and the river didn’t bring me another heart.

Deep-Sixed

Posted on by

Forty minutes into Midnight Madness (40/80 for the blinds) tonight and I get pocket aces on the button with a raise and a call at 160 ahead of me. I pop it to 480 and the only caller is the big stack (9K where nobody else is above 3K and most are under 2K). The flop is JsTc6s. I bet 800 with another 1,300 behind, he puts me all-in, and shows pocket sixes when I call. Ks and Ts on the board, so the full house takes me down again.

Dialing In?

Posted on by

Full Tilt Midnight Madness tournament results

I’ve played Full Tilt’s Midnight Madness eight times now, mostly in the week since Christmas, with a deep run last Saturday night. Since that win, I’ve been trying to fine-tune a new strategy based on the results of my pre-flop calculator testing.

I see a few possibilities from the results above:

  1. I don’t have enough data points to accurately gauge the results of the new strategy.
  2. I’m too distracted by looking up hands on the new tables I’m using to pay attention to the rest of the action and play as well as I had been.
  3. I’m delivering consistent results but I need to get a better feel for the new strategy and improve it.
  4. The new strategy sucks compared to the old strategy.

Crowded

Posted on by

Full houses were my bane in a tournament tonight. I called a bet on the turn with a straight in my hand and a set of threes for the bettor, then a queen on the river paired his other card, leaving me with just a bit more than the big blind, which was a couple of hands away from me. I managed to triple up going all-in with T7o and hitting a straight just before I was forced to take whatever I was dealt, but another full house in the next round took me down for good.

Full Tilt’s Midnight Madness was a bust tonight. Only big chip win in the 40 hands I played was with a Mutant Jack, then my king-high flush was beaten by an ace-high flush.

Progress or a breakthrough on the pre-flop odds calculator I’ve been working on (or not) since last Christmas (the original Objective-C files are dated Christmas Eve, 2009). Maybe more on that soon.