Multi-day Tournament

On Sunday I finished the extremely fun and highly rewarding (although somewhat exhausting) experience of a multi-day tournament.

750 starters, who qualified for this $20,000 tournament by being the best at their respective venues consistently over a period of three months. We started out with 2,500 in chips and 25/50 blinds.

The first day (which I wrote about here) went by quite slowly, because of the low blinds, which ended up on 200 /400 in the end of the day.

On Sunday, around 300 people came back to play as long as needed in order to get to the $15,000 first prize.

The play was very challanging as there was no weak players around. These are two interesting hands I can remember:

I was on the small blind and everyone folded to the button which raised about three times the blind. I looked down at A9 off-suit, so I re-raised to almost the current pot. Big blind obviously folded but the button called, which made me realize he wasn't stealing. A nine high rag flop came up (giving me top pair, top kicker). The button checked, I bet out and the button called. At this point I might have thought he had an pocket over-pair, but I felt that he was holding AK or AQ. It was confirmed when the king turned and the button bet out, I folded and he did turn over AK.

Everyone folded to me on the button and I looked down on a 7,3 of spades. As the blinds were already 400 / 800 I decided to try a steal, intending to let it go if any of the blinds called. I bet out 3.5 blinds and the big blind actually called. The flop was 7,5,10 with two spades. Second pair and a flush draw was enough for me to bet out again, since he might give up the pot right there but if he actually hit the ten or had an over-pair, it was still a coin flip with me actually in front with my 15 outs. It turns out the big blind did have something, since he went all-in, which I called. He turned over the A10 and we went on a race. A blank on the turn was bad news but the 3 came on the river to give me two pair and double me up (to around 90k).

Around six hours into the game we were down to about 30 people, with the money payed out to the final 9. With the money coming close, everyone tightened up, which queued me to steal some of the blinds, which were getting ridiculously high (since it toke so long to get through the field) and were now at 10k and 20k with the average stack at around 200k.

When we got down to the final two tables, we had a massive crowd on the rails and the tournament director pulled out the mic to commentate on the important hands. We stayed on the bubble for almost twenty minutes as no one was making moves and me card dead (I wasn't going to steal with 9,2 off-suit). In the end it was me who toke out the bubble. I raised to 60k with a K,Q of clubs from middle position and the short stacked button went all in with A,10 off-suit. I called and the king on the turn sealed the final table.

Next post: The final table (along with some photos).

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For the curious and impatient, I'll write how I faired in the comments.

And the results are in!

The results came through for the little (read: $50,000) match-up between Phil Laak, Ali Eslami and the poker playing AI program 'Polaris' (reported here)

First you might be glad to know that the humans won, but it was a close one. The players played four sessions each played simultaneously in separated rooms. Each of the players received the cards Polaris was getting in the other room and vise versa (so if Polaris got a A9o against Laak who got a KQs , at the same time Eslami would get an A9o against Polaris's KQs - Obviously neither the players nor Polaris was able to communicate to its counterpart in the other room).

The first session was declared a tie with Elsami up by $395 and Lakk down by $465. From the second session onward Laak found his rhythm and didn't lose another session (although he only won the fourth one by a mere $110), he finished with a total win of $2670. Eslami on the other hand lost the second session (down a staggering $2495) and the third one (down $635), he did finally manage to snatch a win on the last session but the $460 did not help his cause and he finished with a cumulative lost of $2265 which Laak's win only just covered.

In the post game comments, both Laak and Eslami agreed that they were forced to play the best heads-up game they could master and that they could not have continued much longer and still sustain a win. This is a big compliment to the Polaris programmers, since it establishes the fact that the program was not predictable and managed to 'play the players'.

In the same video (which you can find here along with the game's blog) Eslami states that he played extremely predictable and that anyone with knowledge of poker would have been able to find Eslami's range ("the best heads-up poker he can play"?). I find that odd, since I would imagine that the first thing you do when faced with a poker-bot (which can calculate everything that is happening in seconds) is play anything but predictable; by changing gears, representing hands and even sacrificing a bit of chips in order to tell the bot that you might call him all the way on Jack high. It appears that this is exactly what Laak did, which made Polaris fold more hands and sometimes pay with fourth pair when Laak had third pair (Laak even decided to make a shirt which says "Polaris Pays").

We'll still have to wait for the team from the University of Alberta to posted the detailed hand logs to see how Polaris truly plays but for now we can look at some highlight hands to draw some conclusions. It seems Polaris has the ability to minimize his loss in those hands you can't get away from such as when Laak turned a full house with his Q8o while Polaris turned trip 8's, while on the same hand Eslami lost quite a bit more. Polaris also caught a few of Laak's bluffs when he called Laak's Queen high river bet with King high. However, as mentioned above, Laak did manage to get Polaris to pay on those marginal hands.

The 'Polaris experiment' is still far from over, as even after four sessions the sample of hands played is not large enough to draw a conclusion from, especially in a game like poker, where you always need to account for variance (even more so since the win was by such a small margin). Still, the programing team definitely has a lot of material to help them understand how to improve and maybe (read: we hope) later pit Polaris v2 against Doyle Brunson and Phil Ivy.

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Fighting the bubble

After I busted out on the bubble in a small tournament yesterday, an acquaintance of mine (a regular at that tournament) asked me why did I play so many hands on the bubble when I was second in chips? In his experience, one should tighten up and not play anything but monsters and wait for either the 3rd or 4th in chips to bust out. Obviously that reasoning is sound, but I disagree with it both specifically in this situation (for the reasons I discuss below) and mostly as a general approach to tournaments.

In the above tournament, it was a straight forward decision not to tighten up because of the bubble, because the tournament took a long time to get down to four, the blinds were already at 1k and 2k compared to an average chip stack of about 8k. This is quite unusual for tournaments (as far as I am aware), but it does raise a situation where if the small stacks do manage to double up before blinded off the game, even the chip leader will leave himself in a dangerous situation if he refuses to make a move. In this instance, my principal of playing my game and per chance busting out is preferable to allowing myself to be blinding out.

My aversion from tightening up on the bubble, however, goes well beyond the above situation. Simply put, Poker is a game of edges, the other players tightening up because of the bubble gives me an edge - it allows me to steal more pots and more blinds; which either places me in a very nice position to go all the way once the bubble bursts or seldom (and you'll be surprised how seldom) find myself busting. I never understood why people work so hard during the entire tournament- finding edges to exploit, taking calculated risks, building their stacks and then stop all that come bubble time. All they do is lose chips (theirs and the potential ones they could have had) while trying to survive, ending with a medium-short stack that is worth pocketing -maybe- 25% over the buy-in.

Playing aggressive during bubble time is just another calculated risk that gives me a big edge and a favorable risk-gain ratio, as a poker player, I would never be able to walk away from that.

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Human vs. Computer - Poker style!

If anyone remembers, a few years back there was a chess match where a chess champion took on a computer program called 'Deep blue' as an experiment in Artificial Intelligence (AI). Now a team of scientists took up a harder challenge, getting a program to play a game of 'imperfect knowledge' a.k.a limit holdem.

From the University of Alberta website:

"A team of computer science researchers at the University of Alberta are pitting Polaris, their poker-playing computer program, against two of the best Texas Hold 'em card players in the hemisphere. The purse is $50,000 in the 2,000-hand match between...Phil Laak and Ali Eslami and the Alberta team, led by Jonathan Schaeffer." (Link)

First I must say, I put my chips on Laak and Eslami; not because my lack of faith in AI but for two other reasons: First because humans can change their style which will cramp what the program learned and the predictions it makes. The second reason is a quote by Schaeffer stating: "There is a mathematically optimal rate at which you should bluff". Math is a big part of poker, no doubt, it is impossible to play poker in a high level without understanding pot odds, implied odds etc. However, it is just one tool of many, optimizing you're bluffs depends not only on the maths but on reads, betting pattens, what is showing on the board and much more.

It remains to be seen if the program can really 'intelligently' understand motivations and anticipate random changes in how a player plays, not just relay on maths. I will however follow the story and the game, which will be presented as live updates on the site (linked above).

(In the near future I will also be writing a post about the danger (and opportunities) such programs can present to online poker)

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The eye on the prize, not on the game...

Yesterday I had the pleasure of playing in a multi-day invitational tournament. 750 of the best players from New South Wales (Australia) - out of about 6000 - playing for a $20,000 prize pool over two days.

What I found was that even the best players sometimes sacrifice their game and tighten up because they are so bent on making it to the final day. While I played my usual game, I was able to steal even more pots then usual just because my felt mates had a vision in their heads of being there on the second day and would not risk their stacks even when they were 3 to 1 favorites. Apparently, it was more important to them to reach day two with even a minimal stack rather then play their A-game and either reach it with enough chips to really contend or bust out.

I found this insightful, since we sometimes overlook the importance of what the other players want (beside winning obviously) and its effect on their game. Once we figure out the order of their priorities, one can try and use that in order to induce mistakes.

Next time you're on the felt, talk to the other players, get them to tell you what they want out of the tournament, even how hard or expensive they find the entry was. Once you know, compare those findings to how they play and take advantage of how tight and loose those aspirations make them.

Just another tool for your poker tool-box.

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For those interested: I ended up with 11k in chips, chip leader at 38k.

Edit note: I edited this post as I found some information was not correct (now that I'm in personal contact with the top tournament director) - Starting field was 750 people (not 300 as I reported last week).

WSOP TV Coverage

The ESPN coverage of the World Series of Poker does cover the idea of the tournament - that is to say the 'name' players, verbal banter, emotional peaks and crushed players. But what it does not cover- is poker.

I understand that there is only a short time (about 45 minutes) to cover sometimes ten or thirteen hours of play. However, it must still be possible to show other hands then only the all-ins, which in the end, once one call or fold is made (usually a straight forward decision in those instances), are no longer in the players hands, which negates any chance to watch strategy and maybe even *gasp* learn from the plays. Watching those hands can come close to watching someone pull a lever on a slot-machine; it will always be entertaining to watch his reactions to winning or losing a million dollars but we aren't watching the clever and highly complex game that we all love.

One instance that really disappointed me was the coverage of the $1,500 No-Limit event where Alex Jacobs, the chip leader and favorite to win, took third and O'Leary came from behind (short stacked) to win. Going by the coverage, I would dismiss O'Leary as a lucky Irish that got good hands at the right time, however, since I actually followed the action almost hand to hand on PokerNews Live I can say that it wasn't the case. Some of the hands during that final table were really worth watching and I was impatiently waiting to see those hands play out live with the ability to see the hole cards, which of course never happened.

How about cutting short the extra 'fun' segments (e.g 'The Nuts')? While instead search through the hours of taping and find those special hands that show thought and strategy from both sides of the hand. That, along with seeing the hole cards would really represent what we love and find entertaining about watching the game.

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Note: If you'd like to see a properly covered poker tournament, check out the Professional Poker Tour (PPT). You can find full episodes on a certain 'popular' video site I won't mention.

This blog is...

I started this blog to write mostly about poker and a little about life.

I'll try to share the insights and ideas I have and will get along the way. Please feel free to add you're two bits as well or even start a discussion.

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