World Series of Poker Main Event Final Table Tips

The 2018 World Series of Poker Main Event is history, with all 78 bracelets having been won. The final table was entertaining from start to finish, although that final night with the marathon heads-up was quite a test for viewers.

Being able to see every hand including hole cards is of course quite educational for poker players. So, too, were these strategy tips reflecting the changing dynamic that occurs as the table goes from nine-headed to heads-up.

Watching #WSOPMainEvent2018 final table intently. Haven't seen either of these yet. pic.twitter.com/2ELXJSLEeM

— Short-Stacked Shamus (@hardboiledpoker) July 13, 2018

Okay, I mean this is just confusing. #WSOPMainEvent2018 pic.twitter.com/tCsmRE1yHR

— Short-Stacked Shamus (@hardboiledpoker) July 13, 2018

Now this actually makes sense. #WSOPMainEvent2018 pic.twitter.com/9mO49WtEkC

— Short-Stacked Shamus (@hardboiledpoker) July 13, 2018

Okay, here we go. Whole new ball game. #WSOPMainEvent2018 pic.twitter.com/GHnm54eMBg

— Short-Stacked Shamus (@hardboiledpoker) July 14, 2018

“It’s five-handed, so play changes.” #WSOPMainEvent2018 pic.twitter.com/X34XDLAVPa

— Short-Stacked Shamus (@hardboiledpoker) July 14, 2018

Last time I got to four-handed in a tournament I blanked on both of these. Finished fourth. #WSOPMainEvent2018 pic.twitter.com/MuW4I4k24v

— Short-Stacked Shamus (@hardboiledpoker) July 14, 2018

Here we go! Truly is a game of adjustments. #WSOP2018MainEvent pic.twitter.com/czlzykAwPQ

— Short-Stacked Shamus (@hardboiledpoker) July 15, 2018

It all comes down to this. #WSOP2018MainEvent pic.twitter.com/h28ikPTybC

— Short-Stacked Shamus (@hardboiledpoker) July 15, 2018

Travel Report: EPT13 Barcelona, Day 11 -- Learning Games

Was a nice morning and early afternoon today, as I had a chance to visit the pool for a short while and also to go for a longish walk along the coastline to see all of the beachgoers. Saw a bunch of dudes gathered around a table playing some sort of dice game at one point (and snapped the pic at left).

When I tweeted the photo earlier today, Remko Rinkema shot back that “Looks like they have a lot of skin in the game,” reminding me of one of my other favorite Remko quotes: “Imagine how much funnier I am in Dutch.”

They had a cup they used to shake up the dice, and one had drawn lines on a sheet of paper for tallying the score. Anyone know what game they might be playing? (Click the picture to embiggen.)

Speaking of not understanding games fully, I had a couple of funny things happen in short succession while helping cover Day 2 of the €10K High Roller at European Poker Tour Barcelona, both suggesting something similar -- and perhaps not so obvious when looking at these tournaments from the outside.

In order to get to the High Roller tables in the back right of the spacious tournament room one had to pass through a few dozen other tables in the front, and early on there was a pot-limit Omaha hi-lo tournament happening. It was a smallish side event with a 72-player cap and a €550 buy-in.

As I was passing through, that tournament was going on break and I noticed lingering at one of the tables two seated players, two more standing up, and the dealer engaged in an animated conversation while pointing to a set of community cards on the board. From the looks of things, one of the players had just lost the hand, but had questioned the result afterwards.

“You use three of these and two of these,” another player was saying, pointing first to the board cards then to the player’s hole cards. The player was nodding, and before I got out of earshot I heard him express his appreciation.

A little later I was back on the other side of the room with the High Roller, and noticed a couple of people near the edge of the playing area but didn’t pay them too much mind. Then someone came up behind me and after greeting me in Spanish had a question for me.

“What is the short stack?” he asked. Thinking initially he was one of the group I had seen observing the tournament, I asked him what he meant. Was he asking who was the shortest stack in the room at that moment with about 150 players left or what size stack at that point in the tournament qualified as “short”?

He clarified that he was asking the latter. The blinds were 2,000/4,000, and I’d just reported a couple of hands in which players with 10-12 big blinds had shoved all in. “About 40 or 50 thousand,” I said. “That’s when people are going all in,” I added, using my hands to mimic the gesture of pushing chips forward.

He nodded. “Good,” he said. “I have to wait.”

I watched him then proceed back over to the edge of the tournament area and take a seat behind a stack of about 110,000.

It wasn’t hard to figure out what was going on. They were about 30 eliminations off the money, and he was trying to gauge whether or not he could fold his way into the money. Indeed, over the next hour-plus he mostly did just that, but alas went out a few spots shy of the bubble bursting.

It had been amusing to see the player in the Omaha hi-lo event being confused about the rules. It was more surprising to encounter the one in the €10,300 high roller inquiring about short-stack strategy as the bubble approached.

All of it reminded me that the stakes for which players are playing don’t automatically suggest anything in particular about their skill level or experience. These were exceptions, of course, but I don’t think it’s that uncommon to find players in low buy-in non-hold’em events who aren’t completely clear about the games they’re playing. And when you have a €10K NLHE tourney with nearly 600 entries, there are probably going to be more than few less experienced folks among the field.

One more day of poker to go here in Barcelona, with the €10K playing down from 36 players to a winner and the Main Event final table also playing out. Check that PokerStars blog all day and night on Sunday to find out how things turn out.

Book Learning

There was a time years ago when I’d read any poker strategy book I could find. I scribbled about many of them here, and ended up writing reviews of dozens for various outlets over the years, too.

My consumption of such titles has slowed down considerably of late, as I imagine it has for most of us here in the distant wake of the poker “boom.” But I’ll read one every now and then, and will review them occasionally, too.

A couple of days ago Daniel Negreanu wrote a blog post offering to answer the question “Which Poker Books Should You Buy?” in which he makes a few different points about how to judge strategy texts, most of which make sense to me.

Negreanu spends some time in the post distinguishing between “mental game” books or those that might be filed with other sports psychology texts, and nuts-and-bolts poker strategy texts. He notes how when it comes to the former category, the author’s own record as a player isn’t necessarily a crucial issue. After all, people can help you become mentally stronger without necessarily even being poker players themselves.

However, when it comes to strategy texts or “books that teach you how to play the game better,” Negreanu maintains that “it is essential that the author is a successful, winning player over an extended period of time.” Thus does he strongly advise readers to check the credentials of the strategy authors -- i.e., their results -- before considering reading their books.

It’s reasonable advice, and I tend to agree with the distinction Negreanu makes between poker and other sports in which successful coaches need not have been players themselves.

Negreanu doesn’t really focus on the fact that there are plenty of very good players who aren’t so great at writing strategy books. (I’m remembering a few of examples of such books, some of which still gather dust on my shelf today.)

Thinking back, I’m remembering I actually reviewed a couple of Negreanu’s books back in the day -- his Power Hold’em Strategy (compiling chapters from many contributors) and More Hold’em Wisdom for All Players (which collected syndicated columns he’d written). I liked both books, although I’m remembering there were some sections of Power Hold’em Strategy I liked more than others, including Negreanu’s own good explanation of his “small ball” strategy.

Poker is also unlike other sports in another important way, one not irrelevant to this topic.

Most of us know instinctively whether or not we are expert enough at basketball, baseball, football, tennis, golf, or other sports to advise others. In poker, though, where accurate self-assessment can be more elusive, it can be a lot harder to arrive at such certainty.

Bright Ideas: Some Recommended Reading

Wanted today just to point to a few items over in the PokerNews Strategy section published this week that I think are especially interesting, for different reasons.

One is Bob Woolley’s lengthy response to the recently-revised Poker Tournament Directors Association rule book, titled “New Poker Tournament Rules You Need to Know.”

Bob (a.k.a. the Poker Grump) highlights 14 of the new additions/edits to rules for comment, serving both to inform readers of the rules and to give us something to think about when judging the changes as positive or otherwise. In most cases, Bob is in favor of what the Poker TDA has done, although there are a couple of exceptions. Check it out.

Another article I enjoyed was Nikolai Yakovenko’s discussion “Game Theory Optimal Solutions and Poker: A Few Thoughts.” It’s another long one, but well worth it if you’re at all interested in learning more about what “GTO” really is and what it has to do with poker.

Nikolai keeps it interesting throughout, and the discussion at the end about three-handed play between Daniel Negreanu, Dan Colman, and Christoph Vogelsang at the conclusion of the 2014 Big One for One Drop is enlightening, not to mention a helpful example with which to highlight some of the article’s main points.

Finally, I also liked Carlos Welch’s article from yesterday titled “Note to Self: If You’re Gonna Lose a Flip, At Least Lose It Right.” Carlos explores an interesting theory in that one, namely that since position is so important in poker, if you’re going to lose chips it is better to lose them to players on your right against whom you’ll have position and thus a better shot subsequently at getting those chips back.

Like the other two articles, there’s some genuinely original thought going on in Carlos’s article as he pursues this idea, the kind of thing that is sometimes hard to come by these days when it comes to poker strategy.

Indeed, for me all three of them feature actual “light bulb” moments. Check ’em out and see if they do for you, too.

Relatively Speaking

Big snowfall here overnight last night, starting around dusk and lasting pretty much until the sun came up this morning. Was kind of an eerie scene walking up to feed the horses around 6:30, with something around eight or more inches having accumulated.

We’ll sometimes go an entire winter without snow here in western North Carolina, so whenever it does happen we don’t necessarily take it in stride the way the top half of the country does. I happened to be in the grocery store yesterday midday and it was kind of a mad house with folks stocking up in anticipation of the storm.

As it happened, it wasn’t too long after I fed the horses and then put them out with some hay this morning that our power went out, no doubt due to some lines going down under the weight of the snow. We have a working generator here and had to use it last winter after losing power. We probably would have cranked it up today but the power returned during the late afternoon to make that unnecessary.

Since most of my work involves me being online, I had to tether with my phone for a few hours early in the day to connect and finish what I had to do. After that I signed off and enjoyed playing around in the snow a bit and also reading for several hours.

Still, the electricity was off long enough to start to miss a few of those amenities like heating up lunch in the microwave, having running water to shave and shower, and being able to keep our electronics all charged.

It reminded me vaguely of a short strategy piece I had over on PokerNews last week titled “If You Lose a Few Hands, Don’t Lose Your Mind” that focused in part on the psychological effect of losing hands at the start of a session and that feeling of being “in a hole” that we’ve all experienced.

It’s such a hard-to-shake feeling -- that is, feeling “down” after losing your first few pots, despite the arbitrariness of looking at your stack size when starting a session as a reference point. As an example, I talked about depositing $100 in an online account, running it up to $150, then sitting down to play again and promptly losing $15 right away. You’re up $35 overall, but you feel down.

Check out the article for more, including a funny cameo by my nephew. Meanwhile, I’m going to heat up some water in our electric kettle and have a cup of tea while watching the snow melt outside.

With the temps in the high 30s, it already feels a lot warmer. But you know, it’s all relative.