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As I discussed in Parts I and II there can be a large array of exploits when it comes to online poker. What may be considered immoral to some, may not be to others. Is it a question of morals? If something isn’t specifically banned by a site, is it still wrong?
For me the answer is… maybe.
I certainly consider everything mentioned in Part I to be cheating. In Part II I’d only consider the “Dark Grey” areas to be cheating.
My theory on the whole issue relates to a generational gap between the players. As a parent myself I know first hand that the way a child is taught to act and behave in our present time is different than I was brought up. Socially children are taught that everyone’s a winner. Every child gets a blue ribbon now, deserving or not. The reality of course is that not everyone is a winner. In fact there are very few real winners and society is not dong the children any benefit by shielding them from that fact.
With the online poker community being comprised of mostly very young adults it also lends to a technological gap. Home video games were around when I was young, but not until I was about to enter High School. Now every kid has a video game console, or a PC, or both. My kids friends are always wanting to use cheat codes to beat the games. It’s an accepted practice and the real struggle to improve and beat the game on your own is a foreign concept to them. This could, and I believe does, spill over into online poker. After all, to them their just using the cheat code equivalents.
The purists that believe online poker should be the mirror image of live poker will never be satisfied. Their just not the same games.
Those that believe in taking every exploit available will more than likely always be able to. These things just can’t be policed effectively or even detected for the most part.
In the end, its a matter of if your willing to accept the flaws so you can have the convenience.
I have several casinos in town where I can go play live, but I don’t. Staying home with the family is too important. For that I’m willing to run the possibility of being “cheated”.
It’s also a matter of numbers. Let’s face it. For every smart person in the world there are 20 stupid ones. No amount of help will make these people winners so in the end it will probably all even out anyway.
I am in the process of starting up a new website. This website will be poker related but won’t involve strategy posts or affiliate stuff.
I am looking for someone with Wordpress theme knowledge. I am finalizing what I want the site to look like and I need help. I could take the time to learn how to do it but I really need to concentrate on content at this point. If anyone knows how to do theme development and can help build the site please contact me. All I can offer at this point is credit for the work as payment. We may be able to work something out for future compensation but we would have to discuss it.
I also am looking for logo and banner design. Again I have an idea of what I’m looking for but I’m far from an artist. If you can offer any assistance It would be greatly appreciated.
I may also be soliciting some writing help. If their are any aspiring writers with an eye for good software design and some technical know how let me know.
In follow up to my previous post I have to say I just listened to the most disturbing poker podcast I’ve ever heard. This was the Feb. 21st episode of the Pocket Fives podcast. During the interview a player not only professed the virtues of smoking pot while playing, he practically encouraged it by saying most of the top players smoke.
I’ve never been a real big fan of this podcast but I will now never listen to it or visit their website again. The target audience for them are teen and young adult males so I consider the interview to be wholly irresponsible. If they want to claim journalistic integrity by not censoring the interview then they also need to present the other side and point out the dangers and side effects of the drug. The interviewee himself said he hadn’t smoked for a few hours so he wouldn’tbe stuttering through the process.
Most of you may say, “who cares.” But I’ve got to tell you, as a parent, that is some scary shit.
I’ve been on a bit of a tear lately. Last night playing in the PSO league and also in The Mookie I managed to final table both. In the league event I was a dominant chip leader through most of the tournament and then got unlucky at the final table. In The Mookie I held the chip lead as well for quite a while but then I tightened up to much when we were down to the final two tables. This left me without enough ammo to mount much of a fight at the final table.
The two events were eerily similar. PSO League: 71 entrants 180 Minutes of play 7th place
The Mookie: 73 entrants 182 Minutes of play 6th place
Pretty weird huh?
Anyway the $12 turbo SNG’s have also been going well and my bankroll has seen exponential growth this week. I’m now up to $908.70.
No this is not a review of the movie. I haven’t even seen it. Instead I’ve reached the 300 milestone in $6.50 Turbo SNG’s. Things have gone well so far and I think it’s time to take a shot at the $12 SNG’s. I’ve played a few already and I don’t see a difference in the quality of play so I’ll expect to maintain my previous results.
Both my ROI and ITM have increased slightly over the last 100 SNG’s so that a good thing.
I’ve also managed to lower my 4th place finishes and picked up the slack with 3rd place finishes. First is where you want to be but I’m glad to get over the 4th place finish hump.
Here is my winnings graph just because it looks purrty.
Last nights Riverchasers tourney was a very fun, and very educational experience.
Staying true to my word I began the event with a much looser range than I normally would. I did not stay as passive as I had intended as the players were allowing me to be both loose and aggressive. It was quite the eye opening experience taking this tact from the very beginning. It also helped that I had hoyazo at my table for most of the time. He stated that he would be playing tighter than a mouses ass till we reached the points so I took advantage of his big blind at every opportunity. He only played back at me once and I went ahead and released my hand. He then showed “the hammer”, but I’m alright with that. I took much more from him than I gave.
I found that in order to really play this style I had to pay much more attention to my opponents than I usually do. I always try to pick things up, but this time I really had to put my opponents on ranges. This worked out swimmingly and I was able to adapt to each player pretty easily.
There were only three hands throughout the entire tournament where I knew preflop what I wanted to accomplish, and how I was going to play post flop. Of these three hand I played one incorrectly and won, played one correctly and won, and finally played one correctly and lost. I’ve thought about discussing the one I played incorrectly but I’m going to wait and see if any other bloggers mention the hand before I address it. This is the first hand in the tournament that hoy actually used the chat window so it may be mentioned.
I hit a real rough spot near the end where I thought I would bust out before the money. I made a correct read and got unlucky. This left me last in chips but the same player later doubled me up to put me in the top 3 so it worked out.
When we hit the final table I decided to approach it like I would a SNG. This led me to make some plays that others may have viewed as reckless or incorrect, but I was shooting for first place and I was going to do what I thought I needed to get there. This worked out for me until we were down to the final three. I had 65% of the chips in play at this point
In consideration of my recent MTT drought I’ve decided to completely rework my game.
Up until this point my strength has been preflop play. I’ve done an adequate job in the past and posted some decent yet moderate results. I also believe this is why I tend to play the SNG’s well. They are primarily (especially in the turbo’s) a preflop game.
My admitted achilles heel is postflop play. Although I’ve admitted this before nothing was ever really done to correct the issue.
Now I’m taking drastic steps. I’m going to adopt a preflop strategy that would be considered by many “experts” to be that of a donkey. That is to say I’m going to become a loose passive preflop player. Or as I like to call it, “Starting Hands By Gavin Smith”. Now I’m no expert, but I’m also not an idiot. I’ll try my best to avoid total domination situations unless of course I feel I can get paid off when my hand hits.
This new line will force me to become more comfortable with postflop play in MTT’s. The structure of online tournaments generally does not leave much wiggle room in stack to blind ratios. If I can build a stack early I should be able to exploit more situations. This will also more than likely lead to earlier exits than I’m used to. Of the rooms I currently play at UltimateBet offers the best early round structure. They also offer a decent quantity of low buy in events so I’ll mostly play there.
As always wish me luck and we’ll see if I can learn something along the way.
My rakeback payment was deposited into my Full Tilt account the other day. I knew it was going to drop since I had dropped my limits but I didn’t realize the extent of the… ummmm… droppage?
A glorious $26.22 in rakeback was all I mustered last month. It would probably serve me better to work on my UltimateBet bonus than work toward the rakeback.
The SNG’s have continued to work well for me but I’m dumping all my profits into losing MTT’s, so I’m not making much progress. I’m also starting to grow weary of continuous SNG’s and I’ve been feeling that itch to play the cash games again.
With that in mind I decided to play at UB and clear some of my bonus playing NL. I wanted to control my bankroll and considering my previous cash game records I decided to play a single table of $25NL. After 569 hands I had lost $7.44. Actually not to bad considering I was down about $50 at one point. I’ve forgotten the frustration of grinding out the small pots only to make one mental error and lose it all. Fortunately I cleared $5.89 in bonus so it was close to a break even endeavor.
I think I’ll still play the cash game one or two days a week though so I can have some variety.
Oh, before I forget. Due to my oldest boy getting a myspace page I decided to get one as well. I’m going to use for personal blogging and the poker content will stay here. Feel free to check me out at my MySpace page.
