OO MTT NLHE 2007 Poker Tournament Main Thread

[Trent Steel]

Yes, this has to be an insane amount of work keeping all the details in order. I very much appreciate it.

Speaking of people taking a long time, I don't know what TMH is doing since he read my PM, but hasn't acted on his hand.

[The Meal]

Yes, this has to be an insane amount of work keeping all the details in order. I very much appreciate it.

Today should have been the worst of it. After this, assuming I keep on top of things, there shouldn't be a similar amount of work required on my part in such a short period of time.

That said, if someone else wants to run a H.O.R.S.E. tournament, I'll definitely sign up for playing in it.

Speaking of people taking a long time, I don't know what TMH is doing since he read my PM, but hasn't acted on his hand.

Maybe he posted his hole cards at twoplustwo.com and he's waiting to hear back on the consensus? Or maybe his cards pushed him over the edge, never to return to OO again?

~Neal

[Austin]

Yes, this has to be an insane amount of work keeping all the details in order. I very much appreciate it.

Today should have been the worst of it. After this, assuming I keep on top of things, there shouldn't be a similar amount of work required on my part in such a short period of time.

That said, if someone else wants to run a H.O.R.S.E. tournament, I'll definitely sign up for playing in it.

Speaking of people taking a long time, I don't know what TMH is doing since he read my PM, but hasn't acted on his hand.

Maybe he posted his hole cards at twoplustwo.com and he's waiting to hear back on the consensus? Or maybe his cards pushed him over the edge, never to return to OO again?

~Neal

Did you decide one way or the other with regard to having people help you manage tables after elimination? I think Lord Mortis volunteered way back in the planning phase but I don't recall your answer.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

I'm not really arguing the point

Thanks. If I see something is an issue, I'll step in to correct it. That said, I appreciate feedback from folks when they are and are not having fun with things.

~Neal

Well, there's one thing I'm not having fun with in the single table thread: Austin has too many chips. Please correct, ASAP. kthanxbye.

[The Meal]

Did you decide one way or the other with regard to having people help you manage tables after elimination? I think Lord Mortis volunteered way back in the planning phase but I don't recall your answer.

I said then: probably not, and to this point think that's probably the most accurate. That said, things may conspire to have me change my mind when the time comes. I allowed for that contingency in the original post in this thread.

~Neal

[LordMortis]

That said, if someone else wants to run a H.O.R.S.E. tournament, I'll definitely sign up for playing in it.

I can put out feelers and run it, but I won't run nearly as cool of a tourney as you.

I'm really loving HORSE. And while I find myself actually getting worse at most of the online games I've been playing. I'm keep getting better at all of HORSE (except the R for some reason) HORSE is the game that reminds the poker is about patience as much as anything. The change in games makes patience easier to just wait out bad cards after bad cards hoping the change in formats brings a change in luck.

[The Meal]

I'm at the Moneymaker table? Why'd I get stuck with the loser name?

(Though Gold got extremely lucky last year as well).

Honestly? I rank Varkonyi below both of those two by a longshot.

~Neal

[The Meal]

I deleted the "blinds example" from earlier in the thread, as I thought that real estate was better utilized with the blind/hand summaries and future blind expectations.

But folks do deserve the ability to calculate future blinds on their own. At some point in the game adjusting to the structure could be the largest factor in determining who wins, and therefore I think it's my duty to lay this out for folks.

I do intend to list the expected blinds for the next 20 or so hands, but as you'll see, these numbers will change as soon as tables get consolidated. There's a separate equation used when we're playing on 5 tables as opposed to when we're down to 4, 3, 2, or 1 table.

Advancing blinds defined:

• The mechanics probably aren't too important, but things are set such that the overall preflop chips per pot goes up roughly 7.2%/N per hand, where N is the number of tables in play (always assuming 10 players at the table per hand to make these calculations). The ratio of blinds and antes is SB = 1/2 BB, and ante = 1/16th BB.
• Why ~7.2% per hand (when down to one table)? Because that makes the total preflop chips at the table double every 10 hands, which seems like a very nice pace. (Mathematicians take note, the actual calculation uses 7.17735%.

The actual mechanism at work:

• I created a "No Ante Raw BB" column in a spreadsheet. This number starts at 50 for the first hand. The idea here was to start things off at a similar level as what is used in the WSOP Main Event this year (which starts at 25/50/--). This No Ante Raw BB value is the number that gets incremented by the factor ( 7.2%/N ) with each successive hand.
• Next I created a "Price Per Round" column, which is exactly 1.5* the previous column. The history behind these two columns involves my initial attempts at doing the entire tournament ante-free.
• Next I calculate the BB based on the PPR column, above. The Excel equation is =FLOOR("PPR Cell"/4,2) . This equation takes the Price Per Round for the current hand, divides by 4, and tosses away any amount required to drop the outcome to the nearest smaller even number. Example: Price per round is 79, what is BB? 79/4 = 19.5, the next smaller even number is 18. BB in this case is 18.
• The SB is then calculated to be exactly half of the BB (and since the BB is forced to be an even number, the SB is always a whole number).
• Finally the ante is calculated using the Excel function =FLOOR("PPR Cell"/16,1) . As with the first FLOOR calculation, this takes the Price Per Round value, divides by sixteen, and then rounds down to the next lower whole number. So with our example of PPR of 79, the Ante is 79/16 = 4.9375, which rounds down to 4.

Those are the nuts and bolts. If you try to recreate this yourself (using Excel or something else) and have any troubles, let me know and I'll help you error check and verify that your algorithm matches the output of my own.

~Neal

[The Meal]

Also, not for this hand, as it's already been raised, but for future use is there an effective way to do that thing where you check/call, but fold if it gets raised? Just for speeding things up a bit. (This question may have been answered in another thread that I didn't read closely...)

You can send me a PM to that effect (please include your table name and hand # in the subject line) and I can make it happen.

~Neal

[Crux]

Are we going to do anything regarding differing table speeds? If Table A gets 2-3 times as many hands in as Table B due to a couple of slow players at Table B, Table A's big stacks will have a pretty sizable advantage when table merges occur. Or are we going all the way to heads up play to form a final table?

[The Meal]

Are we going to do anything regarding differing table speeds? If Table A gets 2-3 times as many hands in as Table B due to a couple of slow players at Table B, Table A's big stacks will have a pretty sizable advantage when table merges occur. Or are we going all the way to heads up play to form a final table?

As players bust out, we will be keeping the numbers at each table even. Once we're down to 40 players remaining in the tournament, the slowest table will be broken up and those players distributed to the other four tables. I'll continue to keep the tables even down to 30 players in the tournament, when there will be a redraw for the final 3 tables. Play will continue this way down to 2 tables (me keeping the numbers at the tables as balanced as possible) and then down to the final table. Once we've got 10 remaining players, there will be a final redraw for the final table.

There is some advantage to being at a table that takes its turns more quickly, but this is somewhat mitigated by the nature of the advancing structure.

~Neal

[The Meal]

Anonymous Issue There's a glitch with the image for the Ace of Diamonds!

Fix Lower your level of image ad-blocking such that the text "ad" isn't filtered.

~Neal

[SpaceLord]

Anonymous Issue There's a glitch with the image for the Ace of Diamonds!

Fix Lower your level of image ad-blocking such that the text "ad" isn't filtered.

~Neal

Meh, it's not like I will ever get an Ace anyway!

[Padre]

Just a sort of inquiry out of pure curiosity:

You've said you're making the card draws with an actual physical deck.

Do you draw the flop, turn and river cards in advance for each hand? I assume you do, as otherwise you'd have to keep a bunch of decks around for each hand currently in play...

[Grundbegriff]

Do you draw the flop, turn and river cards in advance for each hand? I assume you do, as otherwise you'd have to keep a bunch of decks around for each hand currently in play...

Doesn't statistical fairness require one deck per table?

[Inverarity]

Just a sort of inquiry out of pure curiosity:

You've said you're making the card draws with an actual physical deck.

Do you draw the flop, turn and river cards in advance for each hand? I assume you do, as otherwise you'd have to keep a bunch of decks around for each hand currently in play...

And I assumed just the opposite, that he was in fact doing exactly that - keeping a bunch of decks around for each table currently in play (I imagined stuffed animals in small little chairs, each representing one of us).

In fact, I'd be disappointed if that wasn't how he was doing it (well, I could live without the stuffed animals part).

[Grundbegriff]

I guess the only way to settle this is with photos of the actual tournament hub....

[Padre]

Do you draw the flop, turn and river cards in advance for each hand? I assume you do, as otherwise you'd have to keep a bunch of decks around for each hand currently in play...

Doesn't statistical fairness require one deck per table?

Not if you deal out all the pocket cards, then the flop, turn and river (in advance), and then shuffle. For each hand.

[The Meal]

After the Christmas under-the-sea 2006 (MHS's stocking, like usual, was a sight to behold!), I think I could deal out a 10-person table to nothing but 8-legged critters. Unfortunately, I'm an engineer at heart (/punchline: "why can't they play at night?"), so I'm much more about function over form.

I've got one crappy two-color deck of (/searches for the ) cardboard Gold Crown brand, Harbro, LLC, Brighton, MI 48114, 2004 Gold Crown cards with a red scale design on the backs that get used for each and every deal. My process involves sitting down at my computer desk, shuffling the deck at least 7 times, riffling it a few extras, then cutting the deck myself (no cut card). I then proceed to deal out 10 seats (regardless of the number of players at the table), assigning the first hand dealt to the SB. I then burn a card, and flip three cards for the flop, burn a card and flip one more for the turn, and finally burn one final card and flip up the river. I then punch everything into my Excel spreadsheet. In figuring out who's hands are ranked how, I have a column where I punch in everyone's seven cards from high-to-low (including differentiating in order of spaces-hearts-diamonds-clubs). I then have a column where I depict everyone's five-card hand, a column where I convert the five card hand's into text (i.e., "two pair - A's & 8's K" for :Ac::8d::8c::Ks:), a column where the hands are ranked from 1 to 10 numerically based on rank, and finally a column that indicates if any of the hands are tied with any of the others.

I deal one hand ahead for each table. If folks get bumped and tables get consolidated, I'll leave cards dealt with the seats, and assign players to seats regardless of the hand already dealt. Periodically (every five to ten deals) I count to ensure 52 cards remain in my deck (not that MHS would remove, say, all the tens and not tell anyone, but I double check I haven't dropped any cards). When the forum is wonky, I sit and stare at my monitor, trying to refresh, while I idly shuffle cards.

That about sums up the process.

~Neal

[MHS]

After the Christmas under-the-sea 2006 (MHS's stocking, like usual, was a sight to behold!), I think I could deal out a 10-person table to nothing but 8-legged critters. Unfortunately, I'm an engineer at heart (/punchline: "why can't they play at night?"), so I'm much more about function over form.

I've got one crappy two-color deck of (/searches for the ) cardboard Gold Crown brand, Harbro, LLC, Brighton, MI 48114, 2004 Gold Crown cards with a red scale design on the backs that get used for each and every deal. My process involves sitting down at my computer desk, shuffling the deck at least 7 times, riffling it a few extras, then cutting the deck myself (no cut card). I then proceed to deal out 10 seats (regardless of the number of players at the table), assigning the first hand dealt to the SB. I then burn a card, and flip three cards for the flop, burn a card and flip one more for the turn, and finally burn one final card and flip up the river. I then punch everything into my Excel spreadsheet. In figuring out who's hands are ranked how, I have a column where I punch in everyone's seven cards from high-to-low (including differentiating in order of spaces-hearts-diamonds-clubs). I then have a column where I depict everyone's five-card hand, a column where I convert the five card hand's into text (i.e., "two pair - A's & 8's K" for :Ac::8d::8c::Ks:), a column where the hands are ranked from 1 to 10 numerically based on rank, and finally a column that indicates if any of the hands are tied with any of the others.

I deal one hand ahead for each table. If folks get bumped and tables get consolidated, I'll leave cards dealt with the seats, and assign players to seats regardless of the hand already dealt. Periodically (every five to ten deals) I count to ensure 52 cards remain in my deck (not that MHS would remove, say, all the tens and not tell anyone, but I double check I haven't dropped any cards). When the forum is wonky, I sit and stare at my monitor, trying to refresh, while I idly shuffle cards.

That about sums up the process.

~Neal

Life is going to get interesting when you get a job. I know it shouldn't shock me how much work this is for you since I live with you, but since we are rarely in the same room and I've therefore never seen you actually go through this process, it's pretty amazing to me. Thanks for all the hard work!

[The Meal]

Life is going to get interesting when you get a job. I know it shouldn't shock me how much work this is for you since I live with you, but since we are rarely in the same room and I've therefore never seen you actually go through this process, it's pretty amazing to me. Thanks for all the hard work!

Hey, if I could convince everyone in this tournament to send us $163.05 each month, we could return to our previous level of spending. Somehow I don't think this MTT adds enough value to anyOOne else's life to justify the request.

~Neal

[Grundbegriff]

shuffling the deck at least 7 times

Ironically, Diaconis has shown that seven imperfect shuffles will adequately randomize a deck, but that eight perfect faro shuffles will reset the deck!

[The Meal]

shuffling the deck at least 7 times

Ironically, Diaconis has shown that seven imperfect shuffles will adequately randomize a deck, but that eight perfect faro shuffles will reset the deck!

After reading Busting Vega$ (Ben Mezrich) during our last trip, I concluded that imperfect shuffles are the way to go. Fortunately my shuffles are rather imperfect *and* I alternate riffles with overhand shuffles. I figure that's got to adequately randomize things.

~Neal

[LordMortis]

Periodically (every five to ten deals) I count to ensure 52 cards remain in my deck

Are we still talking about poker?

[The Meal]

Periodically (every five to ten deals) I count to ensure 52 cards remain in my deck

Are we still talking about poker?

Do you want my ?

~Neal

[The Meal]

Hrmph, those over-raises are gonna cost you at some point.

Action: Fold
Action on SpaceLord

What do you mean "over raises"? I'm betting only 5% of the original stake! It won't be long before the blinds exceed this.

This game is going to last forever if everyone tosses chips like they are manhole covers.

Actually, unless folks start taking your cue, the blinds are going to stay tiny for a while. Of course, once we start consolidating the tables, the blinds rise much more quickly.

I pity the short stacks coming into the final table. I fear that I've foobar'ed the structure at both ends -- too slow early (so folks could have some play) and too quick late (so I won't be dealing with this game forever).

A scenario...

66 * 10,000 chips = 660,000 chips in play for the final table. Average chipstack at the final table will be 66,000 chips. Let's take a wild guess as to what the range of stacks will be.

120,000
108,000
96,000
84,000
72,000
60,000
48,000
36,000
24,000
12,000

As a list, that works. Of course, I've seen final tables start where one stack has more than half the chips in play as well. But I'm just making an example up for demonstration purposes.

Let's say at that point the blinds that first hand are 2250/4500/1125. The next ten hands will look like:
2250 4500 1125
2411 4822 1205
2584 5168 1292
2770 5540 1385
2968 5936 1484
3181 6362 1590
3410 6820 1705
3655 7310 1827
3917 7834 1958
4198 8396 2099
4500 9000 2250

The antes are such as huge portion of the money in the pot each round (my attempt at spreading the pain evenly, instead of having the blinds become "gotchas" as they go up each hand), that Jeff's play appears to be closer to optimal than "standard" size bets.

If in a blind-only (no ante) "high-M" game, the typical preflop raise is 3x the BB, then you're offering an opponent who'd have position on you rough pot-odds of 2-to-3 (call 3x the BB to win a pot of 4.5x the BB). At a 10-person table with SB/BB/ante ratios as set up in this tournament (picture: 10/20/5), a 3x the BB bet would be giving that same player odds of 3-to-7 to call (call 3x the BB to win a pot of 7x the BB). To lay the first caller odds of 2-to-3, you'd have to bet 8x the BB (call 8x the BB to win a pot of 12x the BB). Yowza!

Of course, ratios are a bit differently for folks calling from the blinds, with multiple people in the pot, as the M's decline, etc. But I think it prudent for folks to put some thought into bet sizing with the modified structure we're playing with. (And then put a lot more thought in the implications of the structure *doubling* every 10 hands once down to a single table).

~Neal

[Pyperkub]

The thought is:

It's better to be a have than a have-not!

I'm still working to get my head completely around the slower table dynamic when consolidation begins. I'm pretty sure that whatever I think it will be, will be wrong.

PS I'm hoping for completely new table names too! I hereby nominate Table Chan and Table Brunson for the final table...

[The Meal]

The thought is:

It's better to be a have than a have-not!

Most definitely. But when is the appropriate time to make that jump?

I'm still working to get my head completely around the slower table dynamic when consolidation begins. I'm pretty sure that whatever I think it will be, will be wrong.

Especially since things *speed up* once we consolidate tables.

PS I'm hoping for completely new table names too! I hereby nominate Table Chan and Table Brunson for the final table...

We're redrawing once down to 30, so that's 3 names, and the final redraw is for the last table. I'm with you on the new threads/names. (Although I was leaning towards Brunson/Chan/Hellmuth for the next 3, and whoever wins the current Main Event for our Final Table.)

~Neal

[Papa Smurph]

Hrmph, those over-raises are gonna cost you at some point.

Action: Fold
Action on SpaceLord

What do you mean "over raises"? I'm betting only 5% of the original stake! It won't be long before the blinds exceed this.

This game is going to last forever if everyone tosses chips like they are manhole covers.

Actually, unless folks start taking your cue, the blinds are going to stay tiny for a while. Of course, once we start consolidating the tables, the blinds rise much more quickly.

[snip]

To lay the first caller odds of 2-to-3, you'd have to bet 8x the BB (call 8x the BB to win a pot of 12x the BB). Yowza!

I just want to point out that Jeff's raise was 25x the big blind. A large raise even with your analysis suggesting something more like 8x the big blind. Not that there is anything wrong with Jeff's play. I was just table talking, not really complaining.

[The Meal]

Yeah, and good table-talk to use as a jumping-off point for something I've been meaning to point out.

I think it'd be misleading to say "8x BB raises are the new 3x BB raises," as it's only specific to the case of getting a non-blind caller behind. If it's the BB that's the single caller, than the equivalency to a no-ante 3x BB raise is a 5x BB raise.

And of course, all these numbers require a table with 10 antes. Right now we've only got one of those in play.

~Neal

[LordMortis]

I can't speak either in terms of pure math or advance poker stategy as I am simply not that good and I don't get stuff at that level... Meaning I'll never be an advanced poker player, I guess...

But it seems to be me that pot odds aren't as relavent as they would normally be (at the moment). Basically the ante is too small even with an ante in addition to the blinds.

When you have 10,000 chips and the consideration of only opening ante of only 63 chips, you have a pot that many will get in on and most will stick around for and yet bet tiny for, according to the pot odds. But the reality here is that we are looking at antes relative to 10,000 chips. Pissing away 200 chips on a strong hand with a lot of outs is not issue to bully somone out of a pot. If it's not an issue to bully with, then it's not an issue to stand up to if as a defender you have pretty good outs as well. And for weak hands, 63 chips relative to 10,000 when people ought be willing to bully aren't even worth looking at unless you are seeing five or more folds before you (IMO).

It doesn't make for a bad poker enviornment, just one where you play differently. I like different.

Again, I'm not advanced poker dude. I'm probably barely above novice poker dude, as I simply can't train myself to see the table in the same terms of logic that advanced poker players do. I'll never glance at a table and see comparative ratios that become plot points on a chart when I see cards. I've tried to train myself in these ways when I was younger and fialed and my ability to learn and recall gets worse as I get older, not better.

In short, X x's BB or whatever is something I don't would apply to me in this game. It may be bad math but such is life.

[The Meal]

Four things many people are screwing up:

1) Not identifying who comes next after they play. You should note who's next and that you've sent them a PM.

2) Not taking action in the form of "Action: blah." Folks can quickly scan down the page searching on the text "Action:" to figure out what's happened. I understand you like dashes more than colons. It's not helpful.

3) Not using a preposition with an Action: Raise -- ####. The default (in the absense of a preposition) is "by," but not everyone at your table knows that. Please be explicit with the "by" or the "to."

4) When sending me a PM, please include your Table Name and Hand number in the subject line.

Thanks, gang.

~Neal

[Austin]

I'd still like to see people put to "AWAY" after time out number 1. The first time out they're already folded anyway. All that can happen now is they maybe miss a hand if they don't come BACK before the next hand is dealt. So we finish a hand and wait another 24 hours for someone to return and if they don't, we get to keep playing with them away anyway. If they do make it back, they join back in.

[The Meal]

Just a quickie for everyone in the poker tournament -- I'm offline for a bunch of hours today (starting now), so don't feel ignored if I'm not dealing with your tables.

~Neal

[ScubaV]

I second Austin's motion. 24 hours can really throw off a table's rhythm, but 48 hours is excruciating. It hasn't happened yet at my table, though it could have in the case of gbasden if someone hadn't linked another post of his saying he'd be gone a week. For the person who's put as away, missing one or two hands is not a big deal, but for the table it can preserve a lot of continuity and continued interest in its happenings.

[LordMortis]

Speaking of the 24 hour rule.

If someone goes 24 hours without responding, is it OK to step in for the next person up. Make a declaration and PM that next person, thereby resetting the clock without the need for Meal or the next person's interference.

Example:

Player 1 on PM's player two that he is on the clock.
24 hours pass
Neither Player 2 nor Player 3 resonds.
Player 1 then posts in the the thread that time has expired and PMs Player there to let him know he's on the clock.

In short is it only a "right" of the next player to jump in after 24 hours or can anyone from the game advance the game with the proper protocol in a player's unintended absence?

[Austin]

Speaking of the 24 hour rule.

If someone goes 24 hours without responding, is it OK to step in for the next person up. Make a declaration and PM that next person, thereby resetting the clock without the need for Meal or the next person's interference.

Example:

Player 1 on PM's player two that he is on the clock.
24 hours pass
Neither Player 2 nor Player 3 resonds.
Player 1 then posts in the the thread that time has expired and PMs Player there to let him know he's on the clock.

In short is it only a "right" of the next player to jump in after 24 hours or can anyone from the game advance the game with the proper protocol in a player's unintended absence?

It's happened a couple times yeah.

Remus bet to godhugh. After 24 hours I took my turn and PM'd Dedewhale about his turn.

[LordMortis]

It's happened a couple times yeah.

Remus bet to godhugh. After 24 hours I took my turn and PM'd Dedewhale about his turn.

I'm not sure I'm being clear. If you were away and the person before you was away for 24 hours, can dedewhale put you on the clock with PM and a post while waiting for his turn? For that matter can anyone else at the table put you on the clock?

Basically, are the only people allowed to flip the hourglass, Neal and the person who is next in line or can anyone at the table do it?

[Trent Steel]

Basically, are the only people allowed to flip the hourglass, Neal and the person who is next in line or can anyone at the table do it?

I would say the last person to take action can do it. As long as you receive a PM, what's the difference between a player at the table or Meal?

The only problem would be if no PM was sent because then the player in the spot AFTER the one who timed out might not know what has transpired.

[Austin]

Basically, are the only people allowed to flip the hourglass, Neal and the person who is next in line or can anyone at the table do it?

I would say the last person to take action can do it. As long as you receive a PM, what's the difference between a player at the table or Meal?

The only problem would be if no PM was sent because then the player in the spot AFTER the one who timed out might not know what has transpired.

Yeah, send the next guy a PM when the one before him times out.