Push Monkey Flu

Linda said to answer in the blog. I got to thinking about all she’s putting out there – combined with some of the stuff already in her Chris Forum. I thought the thing had grown to the point of a blog with some extra comments in the forum thrown in.

The conversation over SnG’s got heated. JB actually suggested we take our beef to the private message area. The thing about Linda and I is we both defend our ideas to the end. I know that she’s my friend. If someone tries to nail me, she’s in my corner without fail. But, we rag each other unmercifully. In a forum, we look like flamers of the highest order. Actually, its our basic chatting but that doesn’t translate well to the word. Put us in a bar at midnight and nobody will think they need to call a bouncer. It is the difference that the net can’t compensate for.

This has transpired in the Chasing Chris forum. It is a repeat of an instant messaging exchange of the past. The thought was to put it out there for others to think about and Linda made it a continuation of the old stuff – which the rest of the world wasn’t privy to. So, it looks nasty but it ain’t.

The idea was simply that one could use SnG to limit variance a bit. She’s currently on a cooler and I am too. It is pretty much at the same root cause. Lower level ring and tournaments attract bad play. At tournament, you need aggressive play to compensate for blind progression. It isn’t a plus at ring play. As pointed out in our blog and articles by Clearspine and his review of the Harrington on Ring, small pot approach is beneficial to ones bankroll playing ring. That isn’t followed well at lower limits or often in middle limit cash games.

Whether it is the cash games or a SnG, we win and lose. Dropping a buyin can happen with either. Win the SnG, you take a 4.5 to 5 times win. That isn’t a rate you’ll drag from most ring sessions. Yes, you have to get there but a decent SnG player is pretty much going to see 60% profitability of a very extended period.

So there is the discussion we had in a nutshell of my construct. Today, Linda discussed her cooler and threw in reference to our exchange. She played two and won one of those. She wasn’t happy with the results – although the average guy might kill for 50% wins. She just doesn’t like SnG. At this point, I’m not a huge fan either. I did play a few and I didn’t make a dime. That’s short term results and I at least hope I could return to doing them with a profit. That may be a pipe dream but, if I put back the discipline required, I think it’d be a go.

The thing about it all is that whether it is a table of push monkeys, calling stations or the clueless, you get suckouts galore. Linda calls it bad beats and maybe some of them are. But, the sad fact is that few of our opponents are drawing dead. Keep enough of them around and your advantage disappears. The beats look horrendous and are. But, when you run 5 river rats there at the end through a hand calculator, you see that AA or whatever you see that you are a very slight dog at 48.8% against those random hands. Throw in a couple of decent ones and it is nasty. No, they don’t all have 15 outs twice but quantity can trump quality.

So, there you have a bit of the background. I am now moving to the Chasing Chris forum to respond further and flesh out my views. That will mean I will dominate and succeed. After all I’m a guy and those are chicks over their in the Chris blog, right? I always have two thought centers working although the one may be a bit blood starved to accommodate the other. Their second thought center revolves more around verbal input. [several really bad puns could go here]

ADDENDUM:

Playing stud has been a true learning experience. Its been more than just transitioning from a no limit to limit structure. The big change may have been position. Position in the flop games is something to always keep in mind. You need to be profitable in late position play. With stud that’s all out the window. I did play a few SnGs recently at NLH and I was amazed at how that aspect had left my game as an intuitive activity.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 12:40 pm and is filed under Journal, Poker Thoughts. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.