MZone Report - Poker Calculators For Tournaments

Up until recently, there wasn’t a single poker calculator that was designed for tournament play and of all the software I have tested over the last 2 ½ years, this struck me as somewhat fascinating. The fact is, online poker has thrived because of new players signing on after watching WPT or WSOP reruns.

Both of those shows ushered in new television celebrities the likes of Gus Hansen, Daniel Negreanu, and Chris Moneymaker. As a result, hundreds of thousands of players took to the poker sites in search of ring games. Not. They came because of the tournament action and qualifiers that could, for a s little as a couple bucks get you on a final table on television vying for millions!

These players need help at the game, and many software designers obliged with poker calculators. Using poker calculators however often meant you had to adapt the information it provided while playing tournaments because tournaments and ring games are completely different strategies.

I was in a forum recently where players admitted using two different poker calculators to help compensate for tournament structures. Those players who are using two poker calculators are welcome at my table anytime. Too much of a good thing can make you a geek in this case, and it will take away from your game.

Regardless of all this, the bottom line in tournaments is that the only history you should be focused on is the recent history. Any particular player can take on many characteristics during a single tournament (never mind hundreds). Too much past data not only takes your attention away from the game but skews it into thinking how credible your opponent's hand may or may not be.

I prefer keeping things in a simplistic display with hard core data that reflects what has transpired RECENTLY - as in the last 10 hands or so. I think of all the poker calculators you can use for internet poker, Tournament Indicator does this better than anything on the planet right now.

The only stable period where long term stats MAY be useful is in the first 2 or 3 levels. However this stage is more reliant on hole card strength anyway. Once your table has reached a variance in MZone stacks, well then long data term is all but useless. You don't need it, and you don't really WANT it either.

Rather than be reliant on profiling, I strongly feel that reading opponents has more to do with what they are "feeling" at a game critical intersect in the tournament. If I can get an inkling on that player's feelings, I am much, much farther ahead than looking at historic data collected at different tournaments and ring game levels from long past.

Final Table Tournament Play and Your Poker Calculator

So many dynamics of the game come together at the final table. A mixture of stack sizes, experience, excitement, anxiety, and the thought of having that message pop up on your computer saying, Congratulations, You Placed First in the Tournament and $2,375.00 has been deposited into your account! Nice!

You may have been using your poker calculator during the tournament to help get you to the final table, but now with this new mixture of dynamics present, it may not be as useful to you in moving up pay-out positions. I never play an online tournament without using my Holdem Pirate Poker Calculator. I use the VPIP meter to keep close tabs on the type of player I am paying against, as it truly helps in identifying what they may be raising with. All of this changes at the final table, particularly as a result of short stacks combined with huge blinds and position.

First of all if you are a big stack you are going to be playing a lot more hands than your poker calculator is recommending. This is especially true of you are up against a short stack who is all in and you are last to act. Your poker calculator will say to fold hands like QTs, or AJos, but if your stack is 4 or 5 times bigger than his, this is an automatic call. I would even play more speculative hands in that spot like T9s, and pocket pairs right down to deuces.

Conversely if you are a short stack your play is wide open as you have nothing to lose but move up. In position if your stack can cause some damage to some medium stacks to your left in the blinds you are actually situated better than it may seem. Post flop aggression with first in pressure is your move here with hands that could range from Ace-anything, any pair, suited connectors and any two paint cards. Most of these combinations are instant fold warnings from your poker calculator. So you really should only use it as an indicator of hand strength. When I am short stack I am looking for anything over 75% in position. Thats one of the reasons I really like using VPIP meter because it will give you a percentage strength on your hand, but more importantly a indication of the aggression at your table. From that information, you may, even being a short stack may want to survive just past the next round of blinds if you figure you can move up a pay scale or two just by sitting and folding. I have done exactly this too, earning an extra thousand dollars in the process. In that game I was happy to blind out!

So when you get to the final table, a quick glance at the VPIP meter is about all youll need to determine your strategy, and do you best to move up the money.

MZone Report - The Five Stages of a Tournament

You may be confused about this title.

After all the likes of Harrington, Gordon, Hellmuth, Duke, and even Vorhaus have reinforced through numerous writings the idea that there are three stages to a tournament. Maybe they believe that, but I really think they may be holding back the goods. I will tell you some of the goods right here and now. Three stages to a tournament is far too simplistic and none of these writers really play by that belief either, whether they believe it or not.

Here are the stages for online poker. See if you can recognize them and judge for yourself if they should be thought of as segments on their own.

Early stage. This is a no-brainer, but with most online poker tournaments it can usually be defined as the first hour of play. In the tournament I enter that’s about four blind levels. In that first hour you are going to get to look at about 70, maybe even 100 hands played. It’s also the level that will see about half the field eliminated. Most of them will be monkeys and the ones who didn’t survive the all-ins against monkeys. So sad. Oh well.

The Middle Stage is called just that, because you have reached and surpassed the middle of the field and the real chip-up or get out stage begins here. How you emerge from this stage into the next will determine a lot about your strategy for the rest of the tournament. Now we get down to about 25% to 40% of the field.

Near The Money Stage or NTM. Oh, Dan and Phil didn’t mention this stage did they? No bother, it didn’t really matter did it? Of course I am poking fun at them. It is actually a critical stage because many players have a lot of things on their mind in this stage - most of them having to do with money. There is quite a shift in thinking when real money is on the line. Many players’ bankrolls are going to be their mind as well, and this creates a different playing environment. Some will tighten, some will loosen, and some will become prone to error and over betting. For a lot of fresh players, this is the most stressful part of the tournament.

In The Money or ITM. Ok now a lot of stress has been alleviated but oddly a new “anxiety” has entered the game as bankroll considerations are less of a burden now. The thing is, just inside the money, really isn’t that great, especially if you paid full pop to get in, rather than a satellite. This anxiety emanates from decisions about advancing deeper into the money. ITM can be a drawn out segment involving many difficult decisions. It is here where bad beats are feared most because a double may assure you of a final table appearance and possibly serious cash. These are often the bad beats that are most talked about too. On the other hand if you are orange or red mzoned in this stage, a go for it attitude against certain players may take a lot of limp-money pots which by this time are substantial.

Final Table. The prize structure is really important here and is one of the main factors in deciding to play a hand or not. In other words, the value of your hole cards becomes stronger here and how you play preflop may win this tournament for you, as many more hands are likely to be determined way before the river. The top three usually get the bulk of the cash so players really have chops set on that, but other short stacks may just be happy to have made the final table and could very well be playing relaxed and win some hands with sub-par holding. There aren’t going to be many (any) weak players at this stage no matter what your buy-in, so the final table often turns into a game of cunning and will.

Next time you play a multi-table tournament online, don’t forget to divide by five.