Brian Townsend confesses to multi-accounting on PokerStars and FullTilt Poker

This is an unbelievable story. Brian Townsend over a short period of time has developed  a good reputation as being an excellent online cash game player and has been building up his entrepreneurial skills with his association with the Cardrunners site. He had a somewhat meteoric rise to fame last year, although from the results point of view has had a flat 2008 resulting in the need to drop down from the very high stakes he was playing. This probably peaked last year when he was playing in Bobby’s room during the 2007 WSOP playing against the top pros and had huge swings against Sammy Farha.

This is a youtube video of him playing a $363,000 pot against Patrik Antonius in one of the Fulltilt million dollar cash games.

He has now announced that this year he has been multi-accounting on Pokerstars and Fulltiltpoker in his blog.

He has been suspended from his red pro status on Fulltiltpoker for 6 months, although we haven’t heard what Pokerstars are doing.

The confession is certainly open, although I get the feeling that it was one that was made out of necessity because he got caught and this is the only honourable way out of the situation. However it only goes to show how easy it is for someone to setup more than one account. He says that at no stage did he play at the same table; the reason he did it (he states) is that he wanted to play anonymously whilst playing at lower levels.

This does make you wonder how many people do multi-account for more sinister purposes!

The now famous Scotty Nguyen HORSE $50,000 final table: WSOP 2008

Most of you probably know about this now. Here is a nice compilation of the ‘highlights’ of the 2008 WSOP HORSE final table. Scotty Nguyen is drunk and out of control. Bad behaviour, but wow is it compelling viewing!

Cruising along in August

Just a quick update. August has been good to me so far. After 12,000 hands I am up almost 9 buy-ins.

My bankroll is currently $767, however I am only about 1,500 hands away from a $100 bonus, then another 1,000 hands away from becoming a Silver Star VIP. That will allow me to cash in my FPPs for another $100. Then I only need to play about another 5,000 hands to get another $50. So technically my bankroll is actually over $1,000 for the first time!

I can’t wait until I analyse my stats at the end of the month; I will give a full update here, including graphs. I have been flopping sets left, right and centre to make up for the drought I had in June and July.

Cheers

End of July Reflection

I can summarise July with the following 2 facts:

1. I lost $111.25 over 14,608 hands.

2. I moved up to 25NL lol!

Most of the loss was actually in 25NL. After a good start I had one single session where I lost $115 (ie all of my months losses) due to a combination of bad play and bad luck.

I feel comfortable with the decision to move up. I have made up most of that loss and feel like I am playing solidly. The decision was triggered by the Pokerstars offer of 40% bonus for depositing towards the end of July. My bankroll stands at $609, however I have a “virtual” bankroll of $859 on the basis that in about another 13,000 hands, I will pick up my $100 bonus for the deposit, plus I will be able to cash in for another $100 using my FPP as I qualify to be a Silver VPP on Pokerstars. Then after about another 5,000 hands I can cash in for another $50 using FPP. The caveat to this of course is that I don’t go bust in the next 13,000 hands!

Then hopefully it is on to $1,500 for the next move up!! Maybe. It might not happen, but I think over the next 2-3 months I will get to play ~50,000 hands and get an idea of whether I am a winning player at this level. Of course my experience with 10NL tells me that you probably need > 100,000 hands to know that for sure.

I know I still have a lot to learn. One of the things I am grappling with at the moment is overplaying big pairs like top pair, good kicker, and overpairs. I showed the hand I lost with AA v a flopped two pair (which accounted for almost half my monthly loss!) Since then I have lost with AK a few times when I probably should have folded without a showdown. I am sure this is a leak and it can be a considerable one. I am now trying to think about each situation in a hand in terms of EV. For example, take the following hand from a session today:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $0.25 BB (5 handed)

UTG ($25)
Hero ($28.85)
Button ($14.60)
SB ($15.25)
BB ($26.10)

Preflop: Hero is MP with , .
1 fold, Hero raises to $1, 2 folds, BB raises to $3, Hero calls $2.

Flop: ($6.10) , , (2 players)
BB bets $3, Hero calls $3.

Turn: ($12.10) (2 players)
BB bets $6, Hero folds.

Final Pot: $12.10

Results in white below:
No showdown. BB wins $12.10.

Not very exciting I know, but the way I thought about this hands was not in terms of whether I made a bad lay down (which I may have), but in term of EV. Btw, I didn’t know much about this player with few hands played between us. I know that there are times when I would have raised on the flop, or even shoved here. But unlike other times when I would literally click the all-in button with my eyes closed (lol), I stopped to think about it and used all of my time (regardless of other tables waiting for me). Here was an unknown player reraising me preflop and then betting on the flop on a scary board. I thought that if I reraised on the flop, if he shoved what do you do? I am not ready to give up the hand yet and a call was still cheap reasonably cheap with 3:1 pot odds. So I called to then reassess where I was at. Then he put another half pot bet out and I decided to call it quits. My rationale was on the basis that if I played this hand with exactly these circumstances an infinite number of times, my AQ is going to lose money here.

However, the session didn’t all go bad:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $0.25 BB (6 handed)

Hero ($29.40)
UTG ($25.85)
MP ($48.40)
CO ($31)
Button ($43.15)
SB ($4.95)

Preflop: Hero is BB with , .
1 fold, MP raises to $1.25, CO calls $1.25, Button calls $1.25, SB calls $1.15, Hero calls $1.

Flop: ($6.25) , , (5 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $2.5, MP calls $2.50, CO calls $2.50, Button folds, SB folds.

Turn: ($13.75) (3 players)
Hero checks, MP checks, CO checks.

River: ($13.75) (3 players)
Hero bets $10, MP raises to $20, CO folds, Hero raises to $25.65, MP calls $5.65.

Final Pot: $65.05

Results in white below:
Hero has 2s 2h (full house, twos full of sixes).
MP doesn’t show.

The villain had pocket 3’s for a rivered straight.

Good luck in August everyone!!

GooOutcome: Hero wins $65.05.

When you think YOU just had a bad beat……

I stumbled upon this the other day and it made me feel a bit (a little bit) better about some of my recent beats. It is a hand by the young (21yo), successful internet guy Andrew Robl (known as GOOD2CU). He was on Poker After Dark recently (same episode as Tom Dwan, Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, Huck Seed and Brian Townsend).  And if you want to  have something to aspire to (or get jealous of!) you can check out his digs in Las Vegas in the Cardplayer.com High Stakes Living series. When watching this, remember that he seriously started playing at the age of 18.

Anyway, have a look at this hand for a $68,000 pot against a player called “varmint”:

** Hand # 2070449240 starting – 2008-06-26 20:04:33
** No Limits [Hold 'em] (200.00|400.00 NL – Cash Game) Real MoneyGOOD2CU sitting in seat 1 with $34062.21
varmint sitting in seat 2 with $75685.00[Dealer]
varmint posted the small blind – $200.00
GOOD2CU posted the big blind – $400.00** Dealing cards to GOOD2CU: 8s, 2h
varmint called – $400.00
GOOD2CU checked** Dealing the flop: 2c, 8c, 2s
GOOD2CU bet – $600.00
varmint raised to $1200.00
GOOD2CU raised to $3600.00
varmint went all-in – $74285.00
GOOD2CU went all-in – $30462.21** Dealing the turn: 5h** Dealing the river: 5c
GOOD2CU shows: 8s, 2h
varmint shows: 2d, 5s
varmint wins $68923.42 from the main pot.

So Andrew had 8 2 on a 8 2 2 flop against 5 2, all in on the flop. As he points out in his blog, the only way to lose is runner, runner 5 5. He says that the odds of not doing this is 49 to 1. My calculator says that the odds are 332 to 1. The chance of winning is 96.06% but there is a 3.64% chance of chopping.

Good players know when to lay down Pocket Aces

“Good players know when to lay down Pocket Aces” + this hand = I am not a good player.

I think that this hand, more than any other, has depressed me and made me wonder whether I can be a winning player at higher stakes.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $0.25 BB (6 handed)

SB ($26.80)
BB ($39.45)
UTG ($14.50)
Hero ($41.45)
CO ($28.60)
Button ($24.25)

Preflop: Hero is MP with , .
1 fold, Hero raises to $1, 1 fold, Button calls $1, 1 fold, BB calls $0.75.

Flop: ($3.10) , , (3 players)
BB bets $2.25, Hero raises to $6, Button folds, BB raises to $15, Hero raises to $40.45, BB calls $23.45 (All-In).

Turn: ($82) (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($82) (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $80

Results in white below:
BB has Jc Kc (two pair, kings and jacks).
Hero has Ah As (one pair, aces).
Outcome: BB wins $80.

It is purely psychological. You struggle for hand after hand being dealt crap, then play pots with average hands and miss the flop, try bluffs and get reraised…and then you finally get AA and your mindset is that you are happy to go all the way with this hand. But that is a bad mindset. In my June Reflection I mentioned that I was having a bad run with AA. I only won 60% of hands at showdown. After this hand, I am now wondering whether AA is actually a big leak for me. Perhaps the low W$SD numbers are due to bad selection of when to take the hand all of the way.

In this particular hand, my opponent was telling me that he had something big on the flop. It is easy in retrospect. But the problem is that at the time, I wasn’t even thinking it through, and that is how you lose. When someone reraises your raise after you raised him on the flop, warning bells should ring, regardless of how innocent the flop seems. In reality, there is very little I beat here that reraises a raise (a bluff, and maybe, maybe AK). Given this situation again, I will try to fold (if I have the strength!). The added problem here is that we both had big stacks (about 1 and 3/4 buy-ins)…..so the difference between folding and going all the way and being wrong is losing 1/4 buy-in versus 1  3/4’s of a buy-in.

Just to rub it in, EXACTLY at the same time I had AA on another table which got rivered for more than half a buy-in (I had Set Aces; he rivered a straight)! More than 2 buy-in loss in about 30 seconds.

Anyway, you live and learn. I am still up a buy-in at this level and I plod on….

Back to Poker and I have moved up!

Well I am back from my break……… If it proved one thing it is that I must be addicted to this game because going two weeks without playing was tough!

I have made a big decision today. I decided to take advantage of the bonus deal that Pokerstars is offering today to allow me to get my bankroll up to where I can move back up to 10c25 NL ($625). The more I thought about it the more I thought that if you are at least a break even player you are crazy to not take advantage of what is basically free money.

5c10c NL Holdem was getting a bit stale: over 116,000 tracked hands at that level I have won $710 at 3.1 BB/100. If you have read my blog you will know that I am obsessed with variance; in the first 85,000 hands I was up $770;in my last 30,000 I am down 6 buy-ins! It has been very frustrating. Whilst I am not a great player, and I make a lot of mistakes costing chips unnecessarily, I truly believe that I was running very bad over these hands.

I am much better placed now to give 10c25c NL a good run compared to my previous attempt. Not only do I start with 25 buy-ins = $625, but I have some backup. Firstly, once I qualify by playing enough hands (will happen ~end of August  I estimate) I will receive my $100 bonus. On top of that, by then I should have qualified as a silverstar VPP and cash in my FPP for $150. So that is an extra $250 I will be able to add to my bankroll and hopefully I will never see 5c10c NL ever again.

I am already off to a good start. 30,000 hands at 5c10cNL and down 6 buy-ins……..I am already up 2 and a half buy-ins after only 246 hands at 10c25c NL. I sat at two easy tables…..everyone folded whenever I put out CBets, then cashed in nicely from 2 flopped sets. I hadn’t been able to do that for a long time at 5c10 NL.

I have decided that from now I will ensure I have 30 buy-ins before moving up. That means I will need $1500 before moving to 25c50c NL. But I am in no rush. From here I need to win 22 buy-ins taking into account my bonus money due…not that huge. If it takes until the end of the year then so be it.

Cheers

2 weeks off poker

I am having a 2 week break in sunny Queensland. No computer, no internet….that means no poker. After my last 5 weeks it has probably come at a good time. Having said that my last few days have been solid reworking my bankroll back up from $390 to $445.

Looking forward to coming back and going on a 2 month heater!

Cheers

End of June Reflection

Well it is the end of a financial year, and the end of what feels like a bad month for me. I decided to play one last session last night and I was brutalized. Over  1229 hands I had AA 5 times, went to showdown three times all-in and well ahead and got sucked out on each time! Two outer on the turn, 4 outer on the turn  and runner, runner flush ….lol. Wow….just brutal.

I guess that saying you had a bad month when you actually won is not a bad thing. However the reality is that I played a total of 29,489 hands and won a whole 2 buy-ins ($20.88 ) at the not-so-impressive win-rate of 0.33 BB/100 hands.

The first comment to make is that  30,000 hands is by far more than I have ever played before in one month. Prior to this I was 2 tabling and would play about 8,000 hands per month. I have made the move up to more tables recently playing up to 10 at a time. However, over the last week or so I have cut back such that I usually play 6. I feel comfortable at this number and plan to continue with this. I usually play close to 500 hands per hour when I 6-table. I found that I was making to many rushed decisions at 10-tabling resulting in -EV plays.

One advantage of playing more hands per month is that it helps smooth out the bad runs. I had plenty during June but still ended up ahead (albeit only just!). Playing 8,000 hands you can have a bad losing month; this is less likely over 20,000 hands as you should have some winning runs along the way.

My current bankroll is $427.29. Interestingly my bankroll on the 1st January was almost the same! I haven’t gone anywhere! However my BB win-rate for the year is well and truly positive because having got my bankroll up to $600 I hit a bad run at 10c/25c NL which is 150% higher than 5c/10c. A loss of 10 buy-ins at the higher level is worth 25 buy-ins of 5c/10c. This is the justification for lifting the bar on when I move back up. Having moved up when I was at $500 earlier this year, I will not do so now until I have $625. This is made even more secure because of my Pokerstar bonus points. I have almost 12,000 FPP now. When I reach Silverstar status, I will be able to cash these in for $50 per 5,000 points. I have worked out that once I have reached 10c/25c NL I will have to play about 16,000 to 20,000 hands in a month to get the Silverstar status. By then I will probably have  ~15,000 FPP, and be able to cash in for $150………6 buy-ins! I have to think positive and reflect that when I went back to 5c/10c NL towards the end of April my bankroll was $230, and I have been able to build it back up to $427.

I have taken some time to analyze my Pokertracker stats, and also to doing some reading. This has actually been extremely useful. There is so much info that can be gleaned from your stats, and I have a lot to learn to get the most out of Pokertracker. I will list a number of observations, comments, leaks, room for improvements, analyzes from stats and intended changes to my game as follows:

1. One of the my gut feelings is that my pocket Aces seem to have been cracked a lot in June. My pokertracker stats confirm that this has actually been a significant leak through June compared to May as follows:

Results of AA (June compared to May, 2008)

May: 79 times over 18,835 hands. W$SD  79.17%  BB/100 hands = 869

June: 139 times over 29,561 hands. W$SD 60.87%  BB/100 = 238.67!!!

In fact, I have won twice as much with KK than AA with almost exactly the same number of hands.

Now I don’t actually know what an expected W$SD and win-rate should be with AA, but it has to be a lot better than my June numbers. Of course I realize that I may have just played my AA hands badly and gone to showdown in bad situations. To clarify this would need a lot of analysis of each hand. However, there were a hell of a lot of times when I had my money in good and got sucked out on (as in the session last night).

2. Another leak that Pokertracker confirmed is that I have been flopping a lot less sets with pocket pairs than I should have. You are expected to flop a set 1 in 8.3 times when you have a pocket pair. Over 29,561 hands I had a pocket pair 1,731 times (1 in 17 times). On average you would expect to flop a set 208 times but did so only 120 times (1 in 14)!!!! Can that be right over this number of hands??? Thats 88 sets I missed out on!!!! My win-rate when I hit a set is 1,156 BB/100 hands. Thats 1017 BB’s that I have missed out on = $203.40  …… holy cow. I will have to recheck these numbers but they make fascinating reading. Maybe I am not so bad after all.

I thought this was wrong. I had a look back at these stats because I thought that it was too unlikely that I  missed out on 88 flopped sets. The problem occurred because I included all pocket pairs, including those that did not see a flop. Of course I should have included only those pocket pairs that saw a flop; there were 1263 of these on which I flopped 121 sets = 1 in 10.4. I should have flopped 152, therefore I was 31 sets short (not 88). Still, that is 358 BB = $71.70 = 7 buy-ins.

3. I can’t blame it all on bad luck. One big leak is that I cold call preflop way too much. Overall I cold called 4%, however the number is 12% on the button, 9.5% in the cutoff, and 9% in position 2. This is very bad. My win-rate when I cold call is -72.1 BB/100 hands! This compares to > 10BB/100 hands overall in these positions. It is now all so clear to me ObiWan. Good TAG players will only cold-call 1-2% in these positions. The rationale is that if you think a hand is good enough to play, then you should be raising when you are in position. If you just call you will miss a lot of flops and be forced to fold. By raising you are taking the initiative and follow up with CBets even if you have hit nothing.

4. I have been interested in Stealing the Blind strategy’s recently. I have Attempted to Steal the Blind 24% of the time. This has been slowly increasing over the month. In April it was 20%. In June I Attempted to Steal 1,433 times which represents 1 hand in 21 which is just over 1 in every 3 and a bit orbits. My win-rate with these hands is 69 BB/100 hands = $200.15. Another wow stat. That means with the range of hands that I am Attempting to Steal, if it folds around to me on the button or CO I have a win-rate of 69 BB/100 if I raise, and 0 if I fold. I know good players have higher win-rates than this. I remember reading a post by the famous ‘Pokey’ (who by the way has excellent articles posted on TwoPlusTwo) which commented that he thinks that you can increase your Attempt to Steal % up to even 40% without drastically affecting your win-rate. This means an increment to your profits.

5. My VP$IP was 17.33% and PFR 12.79%. With points 3. and .4 it is now clear to me that I have to cold call less (which in earlier positions will mean folding), and playing more loosely (but aggressively) in late position. Making these adjustments will  bring these two numbers closer.

6. I have been fiddling around with the HUD in Pokertracker in the last couple of days. I now display VP$IP, PFR, Total AF, % CBet on Flop, and % Fold when facing a CBet. I have played with the color configurations so that it now looks more attractive and more readable. I will have to think about what other stats may be useful but there will be a limit to what you can fit on the overlay. My intention is to use these stats more when making decisions as I have tended to be a bit lazy and not even look at the stats.

7. I do use Table Selection when entering games. The ideal game for me is a loose game (high see the flop %), with big stacks and a fast hand rate. However I tend to focus less on this because players come in and out very quickly at microstakes and any or all of those conditions can change within minutes. I am beginning to think that using Table Selection to Exit games is more important. I now realize that even at this level there are actually many very good players. There is a tendency to let ego get in the way and try to outplay these players…..to take them on. The fact is it is a -EV decision to take on good TAG players with stats like VP$IP 17%, PFR 15% and aggressive. My intention is to try to be wary of this, and if any of these players are immediately to my left, I am outta there…onto another table. The fact is you don’t need to take on good players…at microlimits there are plenty of bad players!

These are my thoughts for now. I am about to play my first July 2008 session now. I need to flop some sets!!

Cheers

For those who wait patiently…..

Technically speaking I could put this post under the ‘Variance’ banner. But in reality it is a brag post…..lol. However there are also some discussion points in how my opponent played the hand.

To give some background, I was up 2 buy-ins when this hand happened. I had scooped a few big pots but also had the usual run of coolers and suckouts that I have had recently. Part of the brag is that I had wanted to finish the session about 10 minutes before this hand happened and had closed down 4 out of the 6 tables I was playing. The reason I kept the other 2 up was because I had identified a yummy donkey who was big stacked at the table where I was also big stacked. He was playing loose and passive preflop, but aggressive post-flop with a lot of bluffs. Indeed, most of my stack had been acquired by picking off his bluffs. Anyway, recently a lot of my sets have been hammered by players calling large bets with flush draws and hitting. The villain hit his flush  with this hand but……………………

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $0.10 BB (6 handed)

BB ($25.80)
UTG ($4.80)
MP ($11.20)
CO ($9.50)
Button ($7.45)
Hero ($27.45)

Preflop: Hero is SB with , .
1 fold, MP raises to $0.3, 1 fold, Button calls $0.30, Hero calls $0.25, BB calls $0.20.

Flop: ($1.20) , , (4 players)
Hero bets $0.5, BB raises to $1.4, MP folds, Button folds, Hero raises to $3.5, BB calls $2.10.

Turn: ($8.20) (2 players)
Hero bets $6, BB calls $6.

River: ($20.20) (2 players)
Hero bets $17.65 (All-In), BB calls $16 (All-In).

Final Pot: $52.20

Results in white below:
Hero has 2h 2s (full house, twos full of fives).
BB has 4d Ad (flush, ace high).
Outcome: Hero wins $53.85.

So he hit his flush card giving him the nut flush, but it was a beautiful flush card for me. Was it a bad call on the river by  the villain? In his situation, given the bad run I have had recently with so much already in the pot I probably would have called too. I could have had a smaller flush or even an AA or KK. But it was a horrible  call on the turn. The way I was betting I was clearly ahead at this point. I put 6$ into an $8 pot giving him pot odds of 1.3:1. He had 9 outs with 44 cards left (about 4:1 odds = ~20%). He either had to push hoping to get me off a high pair, or fold. As it turns out, of course I would have called had he pushed.

Just out of interest, this pot gave me a 2 and a half buy-in win, however it represents a 5 buy-in turn around, which was 1/8th of my whole bankroll at the time! That is, if he happened to have had a higher full house, I would have 5 buy-ins less than what I do now.

The other comment to make is that this hand illustrates very nicely why you should always play with the maximum buy-in. You can’t win this amount in a pot if you always buy-in short and then leave when you get up a bit.