The Good and Bad of 24h Triple Draw

[Tom Bayes]

I had two incidents of note playing some 24h this afternoon, one which is sort of funny and should give the triple draw enthusiasts a chuckle. The other pissed me off and I've emailed support to see what will happen.

First the funny story. There was a rare cash game of deuce-to-seven triple draw lowball going on at 24h, at the €0.25/€0.50 level. I joined in and did pretty well, picking up about €8 in 30 minutes or so. Poor players and I ran into the triple draw dream, a player who thinks it's a high game and blithely continues on in that fashion for several hands, never bothering to ask why their flushes and full houses can't drag a pot. We had one of these players and I was just trying to isolate this player, knowing that it would be almost impossible to lose if he didn't figure out it was lowball. I pick up a 7642x, raise, and get my wish as everyone drops except Mr. Clueless, who is in the BB this hand. I proceed to brick all three draws, pairing my seven on the last draw. Against normal opposition you would either have to try a bluff or give up if the bluff would have no chance. But against this guy I bet after the final draw not as a bluff, but as a value bet, assuming that with 3 draws for a high hand that he has certainly come up with something "better" than a pair of sevens. Sure enough, he calls and I win the hand. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

Part of me feels a little bad about this, but the stakes were low, the guy didn't ask what the rules were, and he had several hands to figure out something was amiss. A few hands later, the other players at the table had soaked up the last of his 10 Euro buy-in and Mr. Clueless disappeared.

The second is what has pissed me off. I entered the [info]markgritter Open, or the €3/rebuy triple draw tourney that runs on Tuesday afternoons. Mark won this tourament last week but apparently wasn't availabe to defend his title or saw I was entered and refused to enter ;-) 75 entrants, usual clueless play. 12 were paid and I got in the money. Got screwed by chasers a few times after passing the bubble and was down to a short stack. But that's not what pissed me off, that's normal for low stakes poker. I was down to barely over 1 BB, picked up a 7632x and went for it, getting all my remaining chips again against a single opponent. I bricked on the first two draws, then the game froze before I could make my third draw (I had a pair of sevens at this point and the opponent had just stood pat). At first I thought I had lost my internet connection at the worst possible moment, but I could still browse the web.

By the time I was able to reconnect to 24h I had been eliminated in 8th, someone else was out in 7th, and the final table was just starting. Out of curiosity, I opened the final table and they were all chatting about how everyone had been bumped for a couple of minutes. Grrrrr.... I apparently did not get my chance to draw out to stay alive and the tournament was allowed to continue with all players disconnected from the server. I just sent 24h Support an email and I'm curious to see what their explanation will be. I won €16, not much considering I invested €12 with 2 rebuys and an add-on. I likely would have lost the hand anyways-it's even possible I could have been drawing dead. But this left a bad taste in my mouth. [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

[BadPenguin]

Tom,

I was observing the end of this tournament and saw the hand you're talking about, with your pair of 7's. That must have been incredibly frustrating. About the same time I was watching the other of the last two tables and 3 out of the 4 players at that one were "away from the table", according to the 24h software. The fourth guy picked up a huge number of chips in just a minute or two - the hands at 24h come so fast it was all of 4 or 5 seconds for everybody else to get folded and the chips pushed to this guy. I didn't stick around to see if he was the one who ended up winning.

Does that happen much at 24h? I haven't played there often but the same thing happened to me in a Soko tournament the other day, though the blinds weren't big yet so the effect wasn't too bad. My internet connection was OK but I was declared "away from the table" for a couple of minutes. (Still managed to finish only 2 spots out of the money, despite never having played "Soko" before in my life...)

Back to the TD tourney, there was one play I saw several people make more than once that seemed pointless to me. That was the "stand-pat & check" play after the first or second draw. I don't know much about TD, but it seemed to me that there are only two possible reasons to stand pat - either because you think you have the best hand already or because you're trying to bluff. In either case a bet seems fairly mandatory, doesn't it? Maybe a few of these were check-raise attempts, but how often is someone who just drew 2 cards going to bet into someone standing pat?

- Brian

[spaminator101]

the funny part hilarious
the other i realy dont care

[MarkGritter]

[ QUOTE ]

Back to the TD tourney, there was one play I saw several people make more than once that seemed pointless to me. That was the "stand-pat & check" play after the first or second draw. I don't know much about TD, but it seemed to me that there are only two possible reasons to stand pat - either because you think you have the best hand already or because you're trying to bluff. In either case a bet seems fairly mandatory, doesn't it? Maybe a few of these were check-raise attempts, but how often is someone who just drew 2 cards going to bet into someone standing pat?

[/ QUOTE ]

I think some players try this with a hand they are uncomfortable with but don't think they can improve, like T7643. Once you've decided to stand pat with this hunk of crud, it may actually be 'correct' to check if you are not going to drive anybody out of the pot, as you may have less pot equity than the people drawing.

Fear of a check-raise, particularly in a tournament situation, may cause players to try this as well.

[Tom Bayes]

Well, 24h Support refunded my buy-in. I'm OK with that, since there's no way of knowing if I would have won the hand had I gotten the last draw, and even if I had I might not have moved up the pay-outs.