Meals and Deals

Still in holiday mode around here after yesterday’s marathon of football and repeated helpings of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and everything else. Even had a full serving of sushi near night’s end to add a weird (though delicious) twist to the gourmandizing extravaganza.

Got two of three games correct yesterday, having gone with the Steelers in the nightcap and endured that painful almost-but-not-quite finish for Pittsburgh. Feel good about the pick even if it didn’t work out, as it seemed like a reasonable gamble to go with the visitors.

Speaking of taking gambles, this week over on the Learn site I’ve been exploring the topic of final table deal-making, partly inspired by the preponderance of deals I saw being made during the recently concluded MicroMillions 6 series on PokerStars -- the deals, of course, often being proposed and agreed to primarily to avoid taking gambles late in a tourney when the stacks are shallow and the pay jumps steep.

The MicroMillions series can be especially interesting when it comes to final table deals because many of the players involved in the discussions aren’t necessarily that well versed in the nuances of final table deal negotations. With such low buy-ins (many of the events are just a couple of bucks or thereabouts to play), there are a lot of players making the final tables who’ve never come close to winning, say, $1,000 in a single tournament (or more). So it stands to reason some might not have ever dealt with dealing.

Watching some of the discussions take place, I started thinking about how it might be somewhat useful to give a little primer on the process, and so ended up writing a three-parter this week on Learn talking about final table deals, how they work, and some of the pros and cons for making them.

The first part mainly just introduces the topic, then in the second part I spent some time explaining the what “chip count” (or “chip chop”) deals were and what a deal based on the “ICM” (“Independent Chip Model”) method of assigning cash values to stacks was. That latter discussion took a little while to get through, but I hope it comes off as easy enough to read and ultimately helpful.

Then in the third part I got into some of the reasons why people want to make final table deals as well as reasons why others do not. Again, it goes on a while, in part because I spend some time talking about both a wild heads-up deal in Macau from a year ago and the famous story of Moneymaker offering a deal to Farha in the 2003 WSOP Main Event (and Farha refusing).

But like I say, I hope the articles end up being of use to someone who might eventually find him or herself at the final table of a MicroMillions event (or some other tourney) and thankful for having had an introduction to the whole process of such deals.

Here are the links to those three articles:

Let’s Make a Deal: Introducing Deal-Making in Tournaments

Let’s Make a Deal: “Chip Count” and “ICM” Deals

Let’s Make a Deal: Reasons For and Against Final Table Deals

Have a good weekend, all. I’m off to see if there’s anything left on that carcass in the fridge.

That’s What’s the Deal We’re Dealing In

Pretty much since returning home from Las Vegas and the World Series of Poker, I’ve been occupied for much of each day following these MicroMillions 5 tournaments on PokerStars. This is the online series that features teeny weeny buy-ins -- usually only a buck or three -- and huge fields, thus enabling players who make deep runs and/or win often to enjoy thousandfold returns on their investments (and then some).

Unlike the Sunday Millions, Super Tuesdays, or other higher buy-in, regular weekly events on the site, these MicroMillions events generally don’t feature too many recognizable usernames at the end. Not coincidentally, they don’t usually feature too much talk of final table deals, either, although occasionally some players making it to the final few will manage to talk about chopping and even cut some deals here and there.

Was watching one event yesterday -- a $1 no-limit hold’em event with rebuys and a turbo structure -- in which the final three players did succeed in pausing the tournament to discuss dividing up the remaining prize money.

The tourney had attracted more than 27,000 players, and the chip stacks at that point were humongous with all of the rebuys and add-ons. The leader had more than 622 million, second-place had about 245 million, and the guy in third had 86 million. The blinds were big too, though -- about to go to 6m/12m, and increasing every five minutes thereafter -- so we’re talking stacks at that point of about 52 big blinds, then about 20 BBs, then just over 7 BBs.

“Chip chop” figures were produced (leaving $2,000 for which to play) which would’ve guaranteed the guy in first about $13,600, the next one about $9,700, and third place a little more than $8,000. Meanwhile, the scheduled payouts at that point were $15,184.64, then $11,051.44, then $7,170.05. (“ICM” numbers -- also an option -- were not discussed.)

The players in the top two positions were amenable to the proposed payouts, but the guy in third said he figured the $800 or so difference between third-place money and what he’d be guaranteed with the deal wasn’t enough to justify going with the chop. “I might as well take my chances,” he typed, and as it happened he’d end up finishing in third shortly thereafter.

Watching this play out, my first thought was that he was right to refuse the deal, even though it ended up costing him the $800 or so. If he had taken it and then come back to win, he still would have earned less than second-place money. Was kind of an interesting spot, I thought, given that the tournament really had reached a stage where it had become an all-in-or-fold affair and thus the skill component had been minimized, yet for the third-place player a deal still seemed like a less than attractive option to take.

Not being that well-versed in deal-making -- and perhaps because I’m also somewhat risk-averse, relatively speaking -- I usually watch these deals play out and think it often better to take guaranteed money than chance losing out, although I know there are often various dynamics in play that can make it less favorable or even incorrect to take a deal. Thus did I find it interesting to watch this one and find myself siding with the guy holding out.

What do you think? Would you have held out, too, if you’d been in the third-place player’s position?

(Title, of course, from Frank Zappa’s “The Torture Never Stops.”)

MicroMillions III Underway at PokerStars

Yesterday I was referring to the rebirth of Full Tilt Poker and games going on there from which we Americans are prohibited from participating. Today my thoughts have turned to the MicroMillions III series just underway on PokerStars, also not available to U.S. players.

I always played a lot more on Stars than FTP, and thus never really got too heavily involved with FTOPS or the other tourneys and promotions on Full Tilt. Indeed, I was always more of a cash game player than a tourney guy in general, although I liked participating in various events on Stars, even jumping in to some low-level SCOOP events before the time came to cash out for good.

The first MicroMillions series came along post-Black Friday, and is one in which I would’ve loved to have participated given the chance. The MM features 100 different events with lots of tiny “micro”-level buy-ins that are perfect for recreational players with just a few hundy or less on the site (as was the case for me).

Looking over the schedule, the buy-ins range from 11 cents (the first event, a rebuy tourney) to a “Main Event” near the end with a $22 buy-in.

In between are events with buy-ins of $1 (13 of them, almost all rebuys), $2.20 (14, some rebuys), $2.22 (3), $3.30 (27, just a few rebuys), $4.40 (8, two rebuys), $5.50 (19), $8.80 (6), and $11 (8). And of course, all of the different games are represented among the choices, too, from no-limit hold’em to Badugi.

A great appeal of the MM series, of course, is being able to spend very little for a chance to win a lot. That first event has already finished -- the $0.11 one (with rebuys) -- and the winner took away a cool $1,761.22, probably after investing a quarter or two at most. Of course, that feat required topping a field of 53,780.

Meanwhile, registration has closed for Event No. 2, a $1+R NLHE event, and the first prize there is $18,536.10.

You probably heard the story of this year’s WCOOP winner, Marat “maratik” Sharafutdinov, a microstakes grinder who mostly stuck to $1-$3 SNGs and who played his way into the $5,200 buy-in event starting with just 40 frequent player points. He’d chop the sucker for $1,000,907.26, winning it outright after the deal. Here’s a neat article about Sharafutdinov by Rick Dacey for the PokerStars blog, if you want to read more.

Sharafutdinov is kind of the poster boy for a series like the MicroMillions, where no one is going to spin a few FPPs or pocket change into a million dollars, but there will be a few six-figure first prizes mixed in there.

Anyhow, for those who can participate, here’s the main site which includes the full schedule. Will be over in a flash, too, as the 100 events are packed into just 11 days, so jump in there if you’re so inclined.

Talking “English Only”

Was following those MicroMillions tourneys on PokerStars yesterday. Last week I mentioned the new series of events geared toward those who play lower limits or the “micros.”

The buy-ins for the 100 events go from $0.11 to $22, with most on the lower end of that range. Setting aside the rebuy events in which one can theoretically spend more, all but a dozen of the tournaments are less than $10 to play, with most of those around $1-$5.

Would’ve loved to participate in this one, but as an American I’m necessarily on the outside looking in. The lack of U.S. players is hardly hurting the turnouts, of course, as we’ve seen time and again on PokerStars, still the biggest online poker site in the world by far.

The seven events that took place yesterday drew a total of 215,380 entrees. The buy-ins were as low as $0.11 (Event #1, a rebuy event) and as high as $10.50 (Event #5, an NLHE knockout tourney). Altogether, the prize pools for the seven events added up to $762,607.33!

Event #2, a $1 no-limit hold’em event with an extended rebuy period (90 minutes), had the largest prize pool of the seven with 44,741 players contributing a whopping $217,456.33. There were a couple of things that stood out for me with regard to that particular event.

One was the wild story of Kenny “SpaceyFCB” Hallaert of Belgium who ended up finishing runner-up behind waterbee174 of Russia. Earlier in the day on Thursday, Hallaert finished 49th in the EPT Madrid Main Event for a €9,000 cash (worth something like $11,800 at the moment). Then in the MicroMillions Event #2, Hallaert actually had a bigger score of $12,562.45! (More on the event here.)

The EPT Madrid event cost Hallaert €5,300 to play, while it only took a few bucks at most him to participate MicroMillions Event #2. Wild stuff.

The other thing that stood out to me was something I noticed as the event was winding down. With 21 players left seated around three tables, I happened to catch chat happening at all three tables, and in each case the chat wasn’t in English. On two of the tables I saw a moderator hop on to remind players of the “English only” rule. One might have done so on the third, too, but I didn’t see. In any case, the chat essentially stopped all around from that point forward.

I noticed on one of the tables a player piped up to say something (in English) along the lines of “we’re outnumbered,” which led me to peek at the countries from which the final 21 players were. Russia had the most players left by a long shot with seven. Belgium, Germany, and Slovenia each had two players. And the other eight seats were filled by players from Belarus, Bulgaria, Canada, Finland, Israel, Mexico, the Netherlands, and Romania.

Indeed, while English speakers live all over the world, the only country among that list with English as an official language (along with French) is Canada. The Netherlands, where a mix of languages are spoken, also has a couple of regions in which English is a “recognized” (if not official) language.

The “English only” rule is something we find in live poker, too, such as at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, a rule designed to prevent collusion. There are a lot of countries -- more than 50 -- besides the U.S. that list English as an official or “de facto” language. If there is going to be a rule confining players to a single language in their chat while playing online poker, English remains an obvious choice. (That map at the top of the post shows where in the world English is most prominent.)

Still, it seemed curious to see a tourney in which almost everyone playing -- aside from perhaps a couple at the last three tables -- were non-English speakers being told to confine themselves to English.

If they were going to speak, it would have to be in a language that was not their own. Just as the currency with which they all entered the tourney and were trying to win wasn’t their own, either.

The game sure is, though.