Grinding

EOH Poker update: chip count up to 1051. Just over double my initial buy in. I am mostly playing tight but moderately aggressive poker on this site.

By choosing better hands (that means folding a LOT more than the other players) I start out ahead. When I connect on the flop it will usually be with a better pair. The trick is that, so many of the hands end up multi-way (lots of people seeing the flop) that one pair is not always going to be good.

It is also hard when you lead out with a bet and get called in three spots. Usually this means you are likely behind with one pair but on EOH it may mean that no one got anything so they are dumping ISK to see the next damn card. A mix of caution and aggression is definitely called for.

The merc campaign is turning around. We've stopped station games. We are pursuing the enemy where he is weak and using tactics that work to our advantage. Efficiency has risen over 35% in the past 2 days.

Bankrolls increasing all around.

Some games are different

It may be fair to say that EVERY game is different. But, being humans, we like to classify and label things that we deem alike.

So we call some games loose aggressive, we call others nitty or tight; some tables we classify as talkative and fun, others as serious and tough.

The generalized difference between low limit poker tables at Full Tilt and those on EOH is pretty broad. Full Tilt has much tighter play. EOH play is not only loose but swings between passive preflop to overly aggressive post flop.

I started last night at the lowest limit table on EOH. 9 handed with blinds of 1&1. Per the usual most flops saw 6-8 people limping in with no raises. Sometimes the small or big blind would raise one or two chips after half the table limped and everyone would call.

This is SUCH passive weak play..and clearly very loose.

Moving up to the mid limit tables on EOH w/ blinds of 2/4 I saw fewer players per hand (say 4-6 on avg.) and some increased raising frequency. Post flop play would see bets of slightly less than half pot to slightly more than the pot. This would often narrow the field to 2 or 3.

This is closer to the kind of poker you read about being 'optimal' or correct. I am becoming more and more aware that the only 'correct' style of play is that which garnishes the most chips. But there are reasons why raising is better than limping (usually).

All of these variabilities between tables serves to remind me that when you sit down to a game you have to bring more than just YOUR skill and experience. You have to come to the table ready to understand and absorb that game's dynamic and nuances. Then you have to play the style that this particular table defines as 'optimal'.

I continue to try to broaden my skill sets to be ready for each new table.

This reminds me of our current war dec. My merc corp has been getting hammered in the opening rounds of our most recent contract. Why? I don't think we have adjusted quickly enough to the new table. The last contract we were on, we could sit in a battlecruiser or two at the war targets' undock and they would occasionally come out and try to fight or play station games. We did very well because they weren't very skilled at pvp or station gaming.

Those same tactics on this deployment have resulted in multiple losses for us and very few for the WTs. This is a different game demanding different tactics.

Poker, Life, Internet spaceships.....it's all the same and every table is different.

Brief Update

Short post this morning:

C-MAC, the merc corp I fly with, has deployed on a contract about 20 jumps from our normal area of operations. So, for the next week I am living out of a rented hanger in a foreign station. It never gets old!

I've been playing both Full Tilt for real money and EOH for Isk. The games are VERY different. I play ring almost exclusively and the difference on each site is astounding. Players on EOH will call a 50+ chip open raise with anything and get all of their chips into the pot with any draw and ANY pair. I'm not making an emotional statement here...this is how it is for the majority of play on EOH. Playing in such loose aggressive games takes time to adjust and a whole different perspective. I'm working on that.

Full Tilt play is much more selective (if you get re-raised you can bet they have a hand) and not as over the top aggressive (just because they're calling doesn't mean they have nothing).

Playing both tables at once takes some focus.

I bought back onto EOH about 5 days ago for 50million isk (500 chips). I'm up to about 860 right now and will try to keep track of the progress.

I’m Freeeee…..Free Rollin’

Over the weekend Selene De’Celeste, the originator and owner of Eve Online Hold’em (EOH) ran a free roll tournament with a prize pool of 1 billion isk to the top three spots.

For those unaware, a free roll poker tournament requires no registration fee or buy in, it’s free! Selene asked a small favor from the Eve poker community in exchange for putting up the billion isk prize. 20 people needed to make a post on the official forums supporting EOH. I must admit a great deal of surprise that it took the EOH Poker channel with over 130 people therein more than 30 minutes to get 20 posts on the forum supporting poker for isk.

It is possible that a lot of people aren’t paying close attention to the chat in that channel and therefore missed to call for support. It is also possible that a lot of Eve poker players couldn’t be bothered to open an ingame browser and type of few lines of positive feedback for a unique and incredibly popular game within a game.

Regardless, eventually the community came around and the first 50 people to register in room 23 on Poker Mavens got a 3 in 50 chance at the money. Third place was awarded 200 million, second got 300 million and first place took a full ½ billion down in isk.

The typical one table tourney on EOH begins six handed with 5,000 chips and 50/100 blinds. This is a decent chip to blind ratio for a fast six handed table. Sadly the structure for the free roll was a definite crap shoot with 1500 starting chips and 50/100 blinds elevating every 10 minutes. To be fair, the owner and bankers running the poker room gain nothing in terms of monetary benefit from a free roll. The owner puts up the whole prize pool and there is no juice.

Juice is the portion of a tournament players’ buy in that goes to the house for expenses and profit. So the benefit to the house for a free roll is purely getting more players onto the other tables and in this case some enhanced advertising to boot.

I didn’t last long at all in this free roll. With such a short starting stack the opening 10-20 hands will often dictate whether you’re in or out of this kind of tourney. I got all my chips in with pocket 5s vs Agent25 holding A8 offsuit. Ace on the turn and curtains for me in 46th position.

I did rail the final table but I left my notes at home (blogging from work for the win). According to my sketchy memory the final five consisted of Nuke (EOH banker) with a big stack, Agent 25, Clixor, Unreal, and Zuter. I do hope I’m remembering the names correctly. There was quite abit of back and forth with Nuke open shoving his 25-30k chips into the 500/1000 blinds fairly often. This kept the pressure on the other players by denying them any cheap chance to see a flop. Eventually, Nuke’s aggressive play led him out in 5th and after saying it would happen when there were 6 players left, Zuter busted out 4th on the money bubble. Unreal took third place. Agent25 and Clixor battled back and fourth over fewer than 20 hands with Clixor rivering the winning 500million isk and Agent25 grabbing 2nd place.

Overall it was a fast fun free roll. Probably the best kind. Grats to everyone and thanks to Selene for putting up the game. And thank you to the EOH community for supporting the cause.

Cooperation as a weapon

Cooperation may not be the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about poker or pvp. I think its fair to say the word conflict might be a more prominent describer of those activities. But the saavy warrior on the felt or in a pod will use every edge she can get to win every challenge.

C-MAC, my new corporation, conducted a pos take down in hi-sec last night as part of an ongoing merc contract. We used a small fleet of about 15-20 battleships in a remote repping configuration to rapidly put a small tower into reinforced. The mission itself is not so unique or noteworthy but the nuances of how it went and why are important.

Cooperating with others in a hostile environment is a common theme in MMOs today. Raids, Battlegrounds, Clans/Tribes/Guilds and for EVE: fleets. These are the areas in which we participate together with like minded people to reach a common goal.

There is room for solo activity. And some prefer it. But most would agree that there is a synergistic enhancement of fun and progress when working with others toward a common goal. You can do more with a team than without.

How does cooperation apply to poker? Some might think of collusion, that is, working with one or more other players by passing information and acting in a coordinated manner to take advantage of the non-participating players at a poker table. Cheating.

But this is not the most common form of cooperation in poker. What happens more often (and what you as a player should be working to improve your skills at) is understanding other players goals and tendencies in given situations and using them to work together towards a common end.

Example: Three players see a flop after some initial raising. One player is rather short stacked. The other two are relatively deep. Everyone seems to like the flop as the first deepish player bets out, the short stack player goes all in and the third player calls.

Here is the cooperation part: the first player doesn’t know for sure what the other two have. He wants to see this hand to the end. So he can re-raise and hope to push the third guy out or he too can call and see the turn card. That’s what he does.

The turn is a blank. The first player checks to the third guy (remember our short stack guy is all in and waiting to see what happens at the end of the hand). The third guy can check or bet out.

At this time, any more money that goes into the middle will go into a side pot between the first and third players. #2 is all in and the main pot is all he can win. Unless player #1 or #3 is certain they can beat the all in player and the other deep stack, there is a lack of pot odds to drive further betting.

The two remaining players will often ‘check it down’. This is cooperation. They are protecting their remaining chips and not putting themselves at greater risk by starting a new pot.

All good poker players discuss hands, strategy, lines of play, etc with other poker players. This interaction enhances the skill and development of all participants. This might not be the optimal approach if there were only 10 poker players in the world but with a field as large as poker currently has, working on your game with others is a great cooperative tool.

Whether it is poker or pvp, cooperation is a tool that needs to be honed and sharpened right along with aggression and sublety.

Poker and Mercenaries

The long lost blogger returns! Once again I am jacked into the pod and leaping between stars. For many months I was exploring the very visceral and exciting world of Darkfall. Great game. Reminds me of EVE a lot.

But, as Letrange reminds us about EVE and the Eagles, “You can checkout any time you like; but you can never leave.”

Speaking of Letrange and AMC, I have retired from Worm Hole industries and found a new position with Costolle Military Assistance Corporation (C-MAC). This is a mercenary corp with a lot of pilots I’ve flown with in the 22nd Black Rise Defensive Unit (BRDU) and old friends from Faction Warfare in Draconis Combine.

Now, I’ve never done merc work but I have to say – it suits me. And here is why: it is business. And I enjoy business. I like having a clear focus and plan and purpose as I go about my activities. There is a definitive measure of success and an obvious pathway towards growth and progress.

As a matter of fact, merc work reminds me of poker (what doesn’t?). In poker you measure success by the upward mobility of your bankroll. Each session is a campaign, each hand a battle. You’re not taking that guy’s chips because you hate him, it’s just business. And business is good.

In C-MAC, when we are preparing for a new contract we do a lot of homework, intelligence gathering, review of standard operating procedures, detailed planning for upcoming operations, etc. This is a lot like the reading, data mining, and networking you might do before a big tournament to decide upon the best approach given your game and your opponents.

When we engage in hostile operations, C-MAC does so with the right amount of force in the right place at the right time in order to disrupt or destroy the maximum amount of enemy assets as possible. In poker, you put the right amount of chips at risk in order to influence the decisions of your opponent and to extract as much value from each hand as possible.

I am happy to be working with a new team of professionals. There are some poker players amongst the group as well!

Poker Updates: Full Tilt has a new game called Rush Poker. Now, I avoided trying this for quite awhile because I figured it was some kind of soft gimmick that wouldn’t help my game. But it is really a great tool. Here is how it works: you start at a normal table with your normal buy in; say $.10/.25 NL. You post the big blind and the action starts. If at any time you fold (or even click the fold button prior to the action coming to you) you are IMMEDIATELY moved to another table with a brand new hand.

What this means is that you can see an incredible number of hands per hour. In live poker you are lucky to see 30-40 hands per hour. At a normal online table you can see around 100+ hands per hours. If you multi-table you can get up to 500-600 hands per hour but your attention is split between each table and your expected value (EV) / Return on Investment (ROI) will drop.

In Rush Poker you can see well over 500 hands per hour (sometimes up to 800/hr) all on the same table. You do lose the ability to get reads on your opponents because they change every hand but you gain the ability to rapidly fold away the vast majority of mediocre hands while waiting for the best EV hands available. It seems to be a good tool for reinforcing solid poker practice. BUT! If you have leaks in your game this type of poker will amplify them and cause you to lose more $.

I haven’t been on EOH in awhile. I need to get my account unlocked and the chip stack refilled to see how things are there.

That is all for now.

Brief Updates

Dominion is out. Looks good.

Mining Director I is done, the Industrial Command Ship skill is the last step to Orca pre-reqs. But it is expensive. Then there is that little hurdle of actually purchasing the Orca.

I'm researching a great deal about the manufacture and industrial aspects of EVE. I'm reading alot in Market Discussions and blogs about the supply chain from Moons -> Components -> End Products. I really want an income stream other than 30day pilot licenses to fill the wallet.

My reasearch skills are progressing and I am close to Research Projects in order to allow multiple R&D agents.

My mining skills are improving with T2 strips on the Hulk and Veldspar / Plagi. focal crystals in place.

I moved the small tower out of our Worm hole system as the corp is looking for new ground deeper in W space. But prior to the POS take down I put up my first Labratory and researched several BPOs' material efficiency. I'm selling some bomb launchers, gas miners and medium cargo rigs on the market now.

I need to finish bringing my ship assets to the hi sec HQ so I'm not strewn all over empire. Then I'll be joining the corporation in the new Worm Hole.

So much to do....so little time....