unbeatable game?

[jeffnc]

[ QUOTE ]
The size of a player's bankroll has absolutely nothing to do with whether that player can beat the game. Either the game is +EV or it isn't. Changing the size of the BR does not change the EV of the game.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your mistake is that you're assuming "+EV" = "beating the game". You absolutely must have the proper bankroll to play, or else EV is irrelevant. Consider this game. You pick a number from 1 to 10. You bet $1 and if you get it right you win $20. You have a bankroll of $1. Can you easily beat this game? Kind of weird how out of 11 players, only 1 player could beat that highly +EV game. The other 10 would lose everything they have. (Just guessing about 1 in 11, but it's not quite as good as 1 in 10.)

[jeffnc]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't see which ton of hands that can be added when it's capped preflop on every hand. When are you going to play 98s for 4 bets?

You'll play the top 10-15 hands and nothing else.

[/ QUOTE ]

That would be a really horrible plan. If you were to give up Axs, JTs, or 55 in a game where 10 players saw the flop, you'd be crazy. In fact I wouldn't be very surprised if some expert told me that A2s was more profitable than AJo or maybe even AQo in that game.

[Lucky Clubs]

[ QUOTE ]
I wish I could count on 1 hand how many of the "bad beat" hands in this thread are made up. Hand 1 probably happened, I would be confident in making a bet that instead of just flopping the nuts and losing it all again, you actually tilted off your last 100$. Why you would play any poker game with money you can't afford to lose while you were between jobs is beyond me.
-James

[/ QUOTE ]

And I wish I could say that the hands were made up. Losing a hand to a higher full house on the river after flopping a full house is part of the swings of poker. Losing with a nut flop to runners to catch four-of-a-kind is outrageous, but it really happened, which is why I posted it. If I had simply had cowboys cracked or my straight lost to a flush, it wouldn't be worth mentioning.

The problem with statheads on a personal level is that they stand so firmly behind their probabilities that they are willing to call people they don't know liars. I know the odds against catching running cards to four-of-a-kind, particularly against him pushing them with two aces out there. I'm also confident that I will never see a hand play out like that again in my lifetime.

I understand your skepticism, but if you don't believe a post, it's probably best to leave it alone rather than make snide comments about it. Because when it turns out your charge is unwarranted (and wrong, as in this case), it's particularly offensive to the poster trying to contribute to the discussion... and it makes you look like a certified jerk.

As for your criticism of why I would play with money I couldn't afford to lose between jobs, you're preaching to the choir. I confessed in my post that I was over-confident and shouldn't have been playing.

[brick]

Remember that the long run is very long.
You can 'run bad' for many sessions in a row and still be a winning player over the long run.

I play with a guys who always tells me "The long run hasn't got here yet". I'm not sure he is collecting as many Sklansky Bucks as he thinks he is!

It's a sure thing that you can collected tons of them here. And in-time Sklansky Bucks turn into real bucks.

BTW... Sklansky Bucks are pretend dollars that you gain each time you make a +EV play.
Are you sure that each and every play you make is a +EV play?
If not, you had better gain that confidence.

-Evan

[brick]

[ QUOTE ]
I was devastated to lose $220, particularly since I was between jobs and didn't have much more than that $220 to my name. I was so confident in my ability to be patient and take the swings that I thought I was sure to come out ahead.

[/ QUOTE ]

You should not be playing poker. $220 is less that what you need to play .5/1 online. You will see $100 slides very often playing .5/1.

Playing in a crazy 2/4 game is asking for $1000+ swings.

Here is a spreadsheet from the Small Stakes forum that shows how big and long swings can be. Use "F9" to refreash the data and view different possible outcomes based on the luck factor. It is gambling afterall.

http://members.tripod.com/help_please1/

[Rudbaeck]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I don't see which ton of hands that can be added when it's capped preflop on every hand. When are you going to play 98s for 4 bets?

You'll play the top 10-15 hands and nothing else.

[/ QUOTE ]

That would be a really horrible plan. If you were to give up Axs, JTs, or 55 in a game where 10 players saw the flop, you'd be crazy. In fact I wouldn't be very surprised if some expert told me that A2s was more profitable than AJo or maybe even AQo in that game.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are on the button, six players are in before you, it's capped. Which hands do you call with and show a profit here? (If it's really saturday night wild you can count on the remaining three streets being capped as well.)

You're UTG, the last two orbits it's all been capped preflop. Which hands do you play?

When it's certain that it will be capped your implied odds get shot. The only thing that's not certain is that it will be capped on every street, so your preflop bet might well end up being the highest.

Your implied odds have been taken out back and shot. All that will happen on later streets is that there will be fewer and fewer people paying you off, and a real risk of the betting not being capped.

Just consider what hands you'd play in 4/2. That's the bizarre structure you might end up with in some of these games. (4/2 with a 1/2 blind. Since these pots are being raked for $3 every single time you are pretty much playing with 0 money on the table and your first bet is the biggest you will make. If there is a jackpot drop there is a negative sum on the table if you are first in!)

[jeffnc]

[ QUOTE ]
Your implied odds have been taken out back and shot. All that will happen on later streets is that there will be fewer and fewer people paying you off, and a real risk of the betting not being capped. Just consider what hands you'd play in 4/2. That's the bizarre structure you might end up with in some of these games.

[/ QUOTE ]

You have a semblance of a point, but that's not right. For one thing, you have 10 people in the pot. Right there it automatically makes playing a hand like 55 worthwhile. The reason you'd play 55 against 4 limpers is because of implied odds. The reason you'd play against 10 players is because of pot odds, regardless of the cost. Now, since 10 people see the flop, you've got more people that will see the turn and river too. And since there's so much money in the pot, they'll stay to see just about anything. So the implied odds are a little bit of a different bird, but they are not taken out back and shot.

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
There is only 1 problem a good player faces in these games - bankroll and variance problems.

[/ QUOTE ]

Isn't that what I was saying?

The bankroll and variance problems for even relative low stakes games of this type are huge. For that kind of bankroll, it's quite possible to leave 2/4 and go play 10/20 and make more money with much less drama, if you have that skill level. Which is exactly why everyone does that who can, without exception.

By the way, people play differently and have different strengths and weaknesses. You don't have to look hard to find 2+2 posts or posters claiming fantastic play under any circumstance, but it's not correct to say that any tool is as good as the next, especially for everybody. It's quite obvious that these super-wild games deny you the use of some tools and grant you different advantages -- "tools" they're not. However, positing the advantage you gain by everyone being a screwball in a limit game as automatically without question being as good as or better for every single type of winning player as are the advantages he possesses in other games is just making a flabby generalization and not thinking things through very well.

In limit games, after a very early point lousy play becomes NOT a mistake -- technically not poor anymore. When it's always capped preflop, and when everyone sees the flop, it becomes correct to chase with most anything, usually to the river. This creates big pay-offs when you hit, but it also means the expert's advantage is automatically lessened, as his opponent is making fewer mistakes. Nor can you influence opponents with your own play to make more mistakes. The difference between good and bad play smooths out dramatically, and so necessarily does the difference in advantage between them. Playing well and just calling with whatever you have in your hand at the time because the pot is so big become more indistinguishable in their effect, and the time horizon for the long run to make the difference clear sprints off into the far distance.

That advantage is what an expert typically tries to increase and preserve, as it's his tool in beating a game. Can he make more money playing in crazy games where ten people cap preflop and see every flop, and half or more see every river? Sure, but so can the worst player on the table, an advantage he much more rarely has in different types of games where the pot doesn't so often justify his calls and raises. The poor player will get the good player's money much more often in these games, because in limit play, the inflated pots of a super-loose game will justify and reward poor play more often. It's inevitable that contrarily it will reward good play less often. It's simple math.

In short, these are not unbeatable games, though they do take adjustment. But the profitability combined with the enormous volatility and outsize bankroll requirements for even modest-level games like this make them less of the bargain they seem on paper. Online games are almost never like this, so people who extrapolate what they must be like from their online experiences are almost always not thinking of these games the way they're really played. The negatives of these games don't so much outweight their positives that most people don't graduate from them as soon as possible. The proof is in the pudding; the same bankroll can on average make you more money with less variation in even slightly higher games. The last thing these games are is a panacea for anything but satisfying the itch of a gambling jones or having a great time when you want to just kick back and be wild with your friends.

[ QUOTE ]
Until those who fantasize or praise these games to the sky actually spend any serious amount of time playing them, which they usually haven't, they'll never know why so many people successful at much tougher games can't stand playing this type of game.



There is precisely one reason - there's a huge hole in their poker knowledge. There is no fantasy. If you want to find one at 2/4, you'll have to look a bit online. If you don't want to wait, simply sit down at a .02/.04 game at PokerStars that has a 70% flop. If you can't beat that game, you're not much of a poker player in my book. Same goes for free money games, which are even easier to beat.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't you play almost entirely online, if not entirely, jeffnc? This is the lack of experience I'm talking about, which leads to endless extrapolation about how great the super-crazy games really are, which tends to not be born out in how many people actually want to play them or stick to them once they have the skills to get past them.

[ QUOTE ]
Quote:
Online almost never gets even remotely near that loose.



"4-7 players per game? Are you crazy? There are definitely games like that.

[/ QUOTE ]

Four to the flop or river is nothing like the B&M games being discussed. Nor is five or six to the flop. At seven, now maybe we're starting to talk. At ten to the flop, betting capped every time, and little to no fading on the flop, now we're talking. And none of this measured "let's not bet or raise more than once" that you see in average play. The whole type of game being discussed is not what you're talking about.

As to those games that actually ARE being discussed, they are far from the norm online. I've never seen one yet. Nor am I so anxious to do so that I want to go play 2-cent and 4-cent games and find out, according to your suggestion, whether they are -- ahem -- "unbeatable."

I think you needed to think through your reply a little more.

These games aren't unbeatable, but they're not nearly as worthwhile as often posited by the people who don't play them and often have never even seen them. Needing the same session bankroll at a 2/4 game as you do at a 10/20 game isn't that attractive for many people; and if you have the bankroll, you'll make just as much if not much more at a 10/20 table with nowhere near the volatility.

[maxpowers21]

[ QUOTE ]
These threads are stupid.

This game is a gold mine.

[/ QUOTE ]

Perfectly stated. I second that.

[maxpowers21]

[ QUOTE ]
Yup, you can't extrapolate from regular games, especially online games, to what those games are like. Everyone likes bad players, but facing six or seven or eight people at the showdown, almost every time, is not the same dynamic as just having some bad players in the game. And when there's that much money in the pot, people are actually getting the odds to play almost anything a lot of the time, and their play is not technically as incorrect as you'd like, taking away the practical negative effect of a lot of their bad decisions and limiting the practical advantage of better decisions.

There's a reason that people who have actually been exposed to that type of game usually want to get beyond it as quickly as possible, even if they're beating it. There's far more volatility for that level than most people want to stomach, and while you can reliably work a skill advantage to earn a steady income if you step up a few notches, it's feast or famine at the truly crazy games, and luck plays a far, far larger role. It takes a lot of it for your aces to hold up on the river against seven people. It's worlds away from those games where one pair is often good and two pair is a lock. There are a lot of adaptations to be made, and until you've played those games extensively, analyzing what they "must be like" is pretty pointless.

You may or may not make a lot, but one thing is for sure -- you will spend a lot to get there, either way. A whole lot. You won't just lose a handful of bets on your busted hands. It's an expensive game either to win or lose. You can take the same amount of money you might go through in a crazy 2/4 game and play 10/20 and earn a nice steady return in a much less aggravating way. Which is exactly what most people do, as soon as they have the skill to do it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Umm... no.