Historic Day! Will You be Watching?

It may have seemed like it's been a long time coming, but history will finally be made today.Millions will be eagerly watching events unfold wherever they are in the world on this important date and like the moon landings,Diana dying, or the Twin Towers attack,people everywhere will no doubt always remember witnessing..... Bullmeister and Acornman mulling around in the background during the Full Tilt Million Dollar Cash Game being shown tonight on Sky Sports 2 at 10pm!

In a reoccurring theme I've not played much poker since my last post.I did play a couple more $26 ,45 player games on FT and although I'm sure they can be very lucrative,they can also be pretty soul sucking when running like crap.The s-man was over last night,this time without his PS3 and headed home after a fine evening watching Stallone in Cobra.I remember loving that film as a kid ( 14 when it came out) and enjoyed it again despite the crap 80's rock power ballads! ( no Whitesnake or anything decent!)

I've managed to resist those Super Turbo bankroll suckers on Full Tilt recently but hit a couple of $14's before bed,bubbling one and being sucked out on in the other game.I did at least get to bed for 12.30 and will be trying to stick to a reasonable bedtime from now on.Whenever I've been off on annual leave etc,I always promise myself I'll smoke less and get to bed earlier!I think I have to stick to that to keep my mental health in good order as I had some pretty dark thoughts running through my head just before Xmas.

Righty,to the poker and I've now begun checking some of my sng exit hands using SNGET ( sit n go software I mentioned in my last post) to determine if my exit push/calls are correct.I'd always been a little scared of the tech/maths stuff when using these tools,especially as I used to play exclusively 18 player games where the payout structure differs to the 9 player games to complicate matters further.In actual fact it was quite simple to input the figures involved,adjust the villains range and discover if my move ( push or call) had a positive or negative expected value.

When I first began playing sng's I'd have looked at the example hand given and used an odds calculator to work out how A7o/s ( off suit) plays against the villains K9s (suited).Now I've been playing a little longer I instinctively push/call based on previous patterns,stack sizes,image ( villains and mine) and a host of other factors.For the hand below I didn't say to myself,"Aha he's pushing with about the top 23% of hands,a call here would be slightly +ev".I do get a rough picture in my head of the type of hands I feel are being pushed into me and then try and guage the strength of my own hand in comparison before making my decision.

You can't do these during play but the idea is that over time,with enough practice,it will be easier to recognise a good push/call from a bad one.I was relieved to read Manhaton1te ( one of the very best 18 player low-mid stakes sng players) write on a forum that he just plays by feel and doesn't use software tools.At the end of the day it's not the tools themselves but the information ( hand ranges ) we put in which really makes the difference.I think I have a reasonable grasp on the push/call end game, but I'm always willing to learn and SNGET software etc can only help me improve my roi.

In the example below from a Party $33 turbo,the villain shoves his K9 sooted from the button on the bubble.Nobody likes being on the end of a "donkey call" but there is definetly a fine art to calling light at the right times too.I felt it was a close one when he shoved and the main reason I called was because I felt I was slightly ahead of his range and I would have been in a fairly weak position if I'd folded.The button would have had 3340 compared to my 1640 ( and I had another 200 to pay in the small blind next) and the implied collusion which often sees the shorty picked on could have seen me exit quite soon.I'd probably have had to shove any two cards into the big stack on the next hand if I'd folded.




The hands highlighted in purple using Poker Stove are my best ( conservative) guess at the hands he would be pushing into me.




Using that hand range I can then give the button player this range using the SNGET tool and it then tells me the expected value of folding or calling in this spot.



It looks like my call was slightly +ev here.

Ok,I hope that wasn't too dry and boring! Thanks for reading and if you disagree with any of the above ,feel free to comment and I'll edit as required if you're right!

Back soon...