The IPO: not so special any more

 The apocryphal version of my poker origin is that I was second in my very first live tournament, and won my first big live multi day event. The first part is true (I lost headsup in the Fitz to Colette “Smurph” Murphy) but the second part isn’t. I “won” the first ever European Deepstack (in a five way chop) but had already played another big live multi day tournament: the first ever International Poker Open. I reminisced about that event in the RDS with Stephen McLean (the founder of the event) when we found ourselves at the same table in this year’s running of the event. Stephen had greatly underestimated the numbers and didn’t have enough dealers at the start, so several of the tables including mine were self deal. As a clumsy left hander, I was terrified at the prospect of having to deal, but luckily Neill Kelly at the table was an excellent dealer and took on the task for the whole table. This was good strategy when he bet the river and a player who clearly dreaded the thought of self dealing as much as I did decided not to put him all in but just flat call with the nuts. 

The following year the IPO moved to what was then called the Regency (now the Bonnington, renamed after an incident that gave a whole new meaning to the phrase "dodging bullets") and day 1 was abruptly ended on the bubble as the sponsors Boyle Poker wanted the drama of an early day 2 bubble. The saddest man in the room was Boyle Poker pro Marty Smyth who found himself left with one big blind after losing a massive all in, which he had to bag up for the night and come back to bubble the next morning. 

For the next few years the IPO was firmly established on the Irish poker calendar uniquely as the small buyin tournament with the big buyin structure. In 2012 there were even Irish poker awards held at the event  (I managed to win two), but in recent years the tournament has lost a lot of the shine it had in the early days. The Bonnington is just about the least attractive venue for poker in Ireland, and the event has bounced around a number of different sponsors since Boyle’s withdrew. 

Seniors

I started my campaign in the seniors. I had a fairly uneventful day 1 and bagged up in one bullet a bit less than average. On day 2 I tried to attack the bubble but it didn’t really work out and I got through the bubble with about half the average. I’ve already written an entire blog on the contentious ruling that seriously damaged my prospects in the event, so I won’t relitigate that, except just to say it took a while to shake off. I made the final table as one of the shorter stacks, but managed to execute one of my trademark “ladder to headsup” displays. Rory Liffey started as a big chipleader and took most of the final table out by the roots. I started the headsup at a massive deficit but felt I had a fairly good read of Rory’s tendencies, particularly his proclivity to use big sizings, and had worked out a counter strategy (it’s actually my favourite style to play against heads-up as the exploit is fairly easy, fight fire with fire), and had almost clawed my way back to parity when the big hand happened. 

I limp called T5s on the button, and when the flow came down T85 with two of another suit, I thought I might finally have the spot where I could get my opinion to put the lot in behind with any draw or one pair hand. However when we did get it in I found myself in about as bad a shape as I could be, up against T8, and there was no miracle 5 to save me. 

Shoutout to Rory who ran over the final table and was a deserving champion.

The main event 

 After two nearly efforts to secure a bag in the slower early flights, I late regged the hyper and ran like God to bag up chip lead in the flight. With little or no turnaround, it was straight into day 2. I cruised into day 3, and hit the final table as 5/9 with about 20 big blinds (stacks were very compressed). I was obviously hoping to still be involved at the business end, and played a decent sized pot against the chip leader right at the start. 

The hand

Chippy opens off 50bb. Folds to me in the BB (5/9 with 21bb, just below average) holding Q♣9♣. The payout structure is a little top-heavier than typical, which makes ICM slightly less severe than a flatter structure, but the compressed stacks exacerbate the ICM pressure.

I flat. There’s some low-frequency 3-betting (planning to fold to a jam) in theory, but I dismissed it in practice versus this villain, who I don’t expect to fold much. (When you’re bluffing, you need your opponent to fold sometimes.)

Flop (pot 680k): K♣ 8♣ 7♥  

I check. Chippy bets 275k (40% pot). I’m not folding, so it’s raise or call. Theory strongly prefers a call here—we have a big range disadvantage on this board and very few check-raises. The solver mainly wants to raise 87 (vulnerable value). Our hand is far too strong to use as a bluff to balance those few value raises. ICM makes this even clearer.

Exploitatively I briefly considered a check-raise but decided against it. I didn’t expect him to fold as often as he should. Even less experienced players can see the straight and flush draws that might check-raise and call off with a pair. Playing all draws aggressively is a simple strategy that worked well a decade ago (and still does in some pools), so it has some merit—more so if I’m shortest or covering rather than mid-pack at 5/9. I figured only his bluffs fold; some of those I can get to fold later if he shows weakness, and some of them my queen-high is already ahead of. This player type doesn’t double-barrel bluffs often enough, so one plan is: if I miss and a straight or scare card comes, and the turn checks through, I can bluff him off ace-high or a weak pair on the river.

Turn: 8♥ (pairs the middle card and adds a second flush draw)  

I briefly considered leading but decided against it. I don’t have enough 8x in my range preflop to justify a lead in a high-ICM spot. In these spots you typically expand your bluff-catch range to include more strong hands because you can get more value from an opponent trying to muscle you off your equity. When covered with high risk premium, our value-betting range contracts, our bluff-catching range expands, and our bluffing range contracts. The ICM sim below confirms that both our value-lead and bluff-lead ranges shrink to zero—we range-check, and we don’t even lead an 8. Another way to look at it: when we expect the opponent to use our risk premium to bluff more, the best way to get value with a strong hand is often to let him bluff. 

I check. He checks back.

River: 6♥ (completes the straight and the backdoor flush)  

I liked my hand as a bluff—it blocks the straight and unblocks the backdoor flush draw. In practice I thought he was capped; I didn’t expect him to check strong hands on the turn. This is how I’d play an 8, so I went for the bluff. The sim below also shows we have an automatic bluff on the river, but solver prefers an even smaller size, b25. This makes sense because if we had trips or better, we are targeting weak one pair hands to call. I felt this was the correct theory size but went a bit bigger as I think it generates a lot more folds. He might just sigh call ace high to b25 but fold it to b40.

He raises. Easy fold. I thought he might have slow-played KK on the turn, but on the stream it turned out to be a very thin value raise with AK—so thin I can’t think of anything worse that I call.

We break the hand down in detail on a forthcoming Chip Race episode.

After that I was pretty card dead. The only potential open I remember getting before my bust out was a bad suited ace in early position. I blinded down to the point KT became a shove on the button, and I ran into tens and didn’t get there. It’s obviously disappointing to bust in 9th when you come in 5/9, but I’d decided I was going to take an aggressive approach on the final table rather than focusing on laddering. Before the FT starts I got a text from my student and friend Ray Wheatley exhorting me not to chop this one. Ray gives me a lot of grief every time I agree a chop (kind of ironic given he agreed one in Killarney that ruined his team’s prospects). I’m always happy to chop side events or whatever as at the end of the day I’m a professional playing for money and looking to reduce variance, but when it comes to something like the IPO main event, I’m absolutely playing for the win. At this stage of my career, I feel it doesn’t make much difference whether I finish 9th, 7th or 5th, but a win would be a nice addition to my record. 

Shoutout to Seamus Brady who took it down in a chop. I played with Seamus a lot from a few tables out. I hadn’t played with him before and I gather he’s fairly new to the game, but he is a wonderful positive presence at the table, and pretty fearless, so fair play for taking it down. This could very well be the start of an illustrious career.

The good

As ever, shoutout to the uniformly great staff at the event: dealers, floor and registration. Although I got a ruling I was far from happy with, I have nothing but praise for the staff. The one flaw I spotted was on the first few days a lot of blind increases went unannounced meaning different tables were playing different levels, but when I raised this with Nick O’Hara it was immediately addressed. 

It’s also great to see a livestream at an event like this, it greatly adds to the sense of occasion. However, it’s a shame poor Tower was largely left to his own devices as far as commentary went. Having done commentary on my own in the past, I know what a grim task it is, and as great a job as Tower did (he’s definitely one of the best when it comes to flying solo), he really shouldn’t have had to do so much of it alone. In the past at the event when we were sponsored by the sponsors, we saw it as part of our job to not just do some commentary whenever we were free, but also to round up volunteers who would be good. This seemed to be totally absent this year. If they felt they couldn’t find good volunteers this year (although I couldn’t help but reflect that Ireland’s GOAT commentator, David Lappin, currently part of the Stars team and who has been offered gigs at WPTs and Tritons was in the room and wasn’t asked) and the WPTGlobal ambassadors didn’t fancy it, they couldn’t find have hired a full time commentator like they have done in the past with Andrew Hedley and Tom Parsons). I know it’s not cheap to put on a livestream, so springing for the relatively minor additional amount to hire a commentator seems like a no brainer. While I’m on the subject of the livestream, I’m not sure a live cash game featuring players largely unknown to Irish viewers is the best content. 

The seniors event boasted a great structure as ever, maybe the best seniors structure I've seen anywhere. Shoutout too to the music mix tape which greatly added to the vibes in the room when it was playing. 

The bad

The side event schedule, particularly before the weekend, seemed a little flat. Killarney was a perfect example of a packed slate of side events meaning anyone who bust one tournament could hop straight into another attractive one. By contrast, there were nights in the Bonnington when there was no decent sized side in terms of buyin and runners. I couldn't help but notice the prize pools generated in Killarney were several multiples higher. The lack of a women’s event is odd to say the least at a festival this size. I think the organisers would do well to freshening up the schedule next year: it’s become a bit stale and samey in recent years.

The structure of the main event was changed slightly this year with one early level taken out. I have no problem with this (I’d actually go a bit further and speed things up early on: I prefer structures that don’t start too deep but stay reasonably deep all the way to the final table, to ones like this that start very deep but shallow out at the business end) but it did cause an unanticipated problem in the first two flights. It was stated clearly on the structure sheet that 12.5% of the field would be paid, but the first two flights played past this point. However, to his credit, organiser Nick responded by refunding the buyin to the players in question (I was one of the affected players, busting my second bullet just before the end of the second flight). Mistakes happen, and once they’re adequately dealt with and learned from, aren’t a big deal. 

And the ugly….

I have to say it: the Bonnington is a grim venue, my least favourite in Ireland, and one of my least favourite anywhere. It seemed to be getting better in recent years, but seemed to go backwards again this year, particularly in terms of the food options available at the venue.

The online sponsors also seemed to be phoning it in: no craic den or special activities, no added promotions, not even any merchandise as I found out when I asked on behalf of a foreign visitor. All of this contributed to a flat atmosphere at the event. 

Final verdict

From its inception to the middle of the last decade, the IPO was a real highlight on the Irish poker calendar. It held a unique place as "the people's event", the low buyin tournament with the big buyin structure and feel. Through no fault of its own, it is no longer unique, with the IPT running half a dozen similar events every year generating even bigger prize pools with more attractive side events in more attractive venues. Ten years ago, the Irish Open was at its lowest point, from which it has bounced back to being the best live festival in Europe, if not the world. It would be great to see a similar resurgence from the doldrums for the IPO, but for it to happen, something (or in fact many things) need to be changed and improved.

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Best festival of the year!

 When I published my last blog, I got a message from my friend, former student and occasional chauffeur Ray Wheatley:

"What, no Killarney blog? Best festival of the year!"

That's as good a summary as ever for the very special place Killarney occupies in the Irish poker calendar. The natural beauty of the surroundings and the impressive venue and abundance of great restaurants and pubs never fails to engender a fairly special atmosphere.

Chauffeur Ray

It was Ray who drove me down to Killarney. On the way he was dealing with queries and quibbles about the team competition he'd organised: people rarely realise how much work and hassle something like that is until they organise one themselves. We both jumped into the mystery bounty straight away: I never got going but Ray did, all the way to the FT.

Anyone for seconds?

I managed to keep my good form going with another profitable trip, thanks entirely to side events. I've long espoused the view that live poker is a volume game, and you have to jump into as many events as possible at these festivals. I chopped a nightly for €5500 five way (officially I was second), and turbo freezeout  for almost the same amount headsup (again, officially I was second).

Both final tables were very shallow, particularly the freezeout, and I was working with 2-8 big blinds for most of it. The final hand was an interesting spot to say the least: 

Mark Johnson raised 4x on button off 11 or 12 bbs (it was hard to keep track of the stacks because lots of small chips in play). I fold 93o in the small blind leaving 2 bbs behind. To my delight, chipleader Charlie O'Neill called in the big blind. I'm not praying for them to clash with an SPR already less than one.

Flop is 633r, and Charlie  shoves. Mark is in agony and calls A8o after an eternity, and Charlie's 44 holds and somehow I'm headsup.

Charlie offered a favourable chop saying "You look like you've played a lot more poker than me and I really want the trophy so what do you want to give me the win?" I'm always happy to chop in those circumstances given the asymmetry that exists by how much the trophy means to my opponent compared to me (whereas I wouldn't agree a chop in a main event that didn't give me the trophy). And to be honest, Charlie pretty much ran over the final table and made several very ballsy calls so he totally deserved the win.

The main event

I got through the hyper leg to day 2 a bit below average, but barely won a pot in day 2 to bust in a flip about twenty from the money. One of my students (and an ex-student) made it all the way to the final table. Before that started, several people tipped Tadhg Ryan to me for the win, and so it proved. He beat Irish legend Padraig Parkinson, who was cheered as if he had won. Parky has had a few runs in recent years including a deep one at the Irish Open to prove there's life in the old dog yet. 

The team event

The team event proved very exciting and went down to the wire. My "three to watch" for the festival were Darren Harbinson, and the twins Ray and Robbie Bryant. With Darren otherwise occupied, Ray Wheatley graciously suggested I be subbed in so the twins wouldn't be at a disadvantage. We started poorly, but then wrestled the lead on the penultimate day with Ray also getting second place points in a PLO event. With 12 left in the 400 event, it was looking really good for us with myself and Ray still in....but so were the members of our 3 nearest challengers (Ray Wheatley, Killian Farrell, Liam McVeigh). I lost a flip to exit in 12th, but Ray Bryant had the most chips of the contenders left and given we just had to match what the others achieved to stay ahead, it was looking good.

Unfortunately for us Ray ran horrifically on the final table, and when he bust in 6th our chances were slim. They disappeared when a 4 way chop was agreed, clinching the €6500 that was up top for the winning team. The fact that 4 teams could still technically win before the chop tells you how close it was.

All in all, the inaugural team event was a massive success, and really added something to the festival as a whole. Special props to Ray Wheatley for running it, and giving players something that was not only rake free but had money added (by the IPT, Paddy Power and Ray himself). It's fair to say he had to put up with more aggravation than he should: people should remind themselves when someone is doing something on a volunteer basis, they really shouldn't be subjected to this. Hopefully that won't dissuade Ray from organising something similar in future.

Away from the tables

Although I kept myself occupied at the tables, I did get out for some soul soothing runs in the National Park, a lakeside walk with my friend Katie Swift and several great meals. I also shot some content in the Edgecore booth for Brian, the AI coach I'm involved in developing. I'll be writing more on that soon.

Next up on the tour is the Glasgow stop in the beautiful Alea Casino, from where this blog is being posted. I wasn't planning on travelling for this, but after my results in Killarney I hurtled up the IPT leaderboard from the depths of Hell to 15th, so I want to give myself every chance of cementing my place in the top 16 to qualify for the grand final. Two years ago, I just missed out. I also have very happy memories from my last trip to the Alea.

I’ll end with a shoutout to the always wonderful staff. People who only play the IPT may not realise it but they’re pretty much the best in the business. It alternately amuses and frustrates me when I sometimes see how bad the staff at other events like the WSOP are, and pretty much the best staff from floor through dealers and reg staff are the ones who work for the lowest buyins I play. Special shoutout to Damo who I believe made his debut on the floor in Drogheda, and took to it like a duck to water. All the biscuits!

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The Ruling That Made Me Message Every Top TD I Know

Background

It's day 2 of very good structured Seniors event at IPO. I bagged up a little less than average but made a good start to day 2 so was hoping to attack the bubble. That didn’t work out, in no small part due to the villain in the hand I’m about to post, a very experienced and skilled pro (the only other pro at my table, and one of only two left in the tournament). He’s been shoving over my opens a lot and defending his blinds, and attacking mine, and playing well post flop. He’s therefore by far my most dangerous opponent at the table.

We get through the bubble but now I’m down to about 20 BBs, about half the average. He continues to attack my light opens and I never have a hand to call off until this hand comes up.

I open 99 in early position, knowing and having already decided my hand is strong enough to call if he shoves. It folds to him in the small blind, and he verbally declares "All In" and pushes his stack forward. His all in is for a bit less than I have. The big blind snap folds, I snap call and table my 99, and villain pushes his cards forward towards the dealer face down. The dealer then pulls them into the muck. I'm reasonably certain villain had missed my open because he looked startled when he saw my hand (and I don't think 55 is a snap shove against an early position open (whereas it is if it's just folded to the small blind)).

After some confusion I suggest the floor be called. He says “no point, I know what the ruling will be, my hand is dead”. I ask him what he had and he says and he says “Fives”. I say if he can identify the cards in the muck they might be able to retrieve them from the muck (I’ve seen that done in Vegas). I’m friendly with the villain so wanted to give him every chance.

Floor comes. Cards can’t be identified in the muck (they’re not at the top or the bottom, just embedded there) and villain can’t remember what suits he had.

What should the ruling be?

I assumed his hand was now dead, but would have accepted them rooting in the muck and retrieving the two fives. The ruling given was he only had to pay 2 BBs, the amount of my initial raise. I was flabbergasted and my opponent also seemed surprised and asked if I wanted to object. I shrugged and declined, because the floorman who made the ruling is top class, one of the best I know, and I didn't want to start arguing for my opponent's elimination with him.

My head was honestly spinning after the ruling which I could not understand (I'd basically been punished and my chances in the tournament seriously damaged due to a mistake my opponent had made in conjunction with dealer, while my opponent had unwittingly benefitted considerably from this own mistake), so I immediately messaged Matt Savage (the GOAT in my opinion) and a bunch of other top TDs I know, thinking maybe they could explain why this was the ruling. Instead, they unanimously confirmed my opponent's hand should be dead in their view, I should be awarded the full pot, and were staggered by the ruling. I also messaged a bunch of top pros and some recreationals, and they were as horrified and staggered by the ruling as I was. It’s probably the most upset I’ve ever been at the table as I felt an overwhelming sense of injustice at having my prospects in the tournament seriously harmed by a mistake my opponent had made in conjunction with the dealer through no fault of my own. Getting up to average stack after a long period of being short would have allowed me to attack the final table bubble, particularly with my most skilful opponent removed from the picture.

However, as a pro you have to shake these things off, and I navigated my way to headsup and second.

Players views

Several players I asked about the ruling were so shocked by it they asked me if the floorman might be biased against me, or wildly incompetent. I quickly ruled out both as the person in question is someone I'm very friendly with (we have had him on the Chip Race), and regard very highly (he's a top EPT floorman). In my opinion, he's one of the best in the business, so I spoke to him privately a few days later. He explained it’s a ruling he’d only give at this particular festival, where the whole thrust of the rules as dictated by organiser and festival TD Nick O'Hara is to protect recreationals when they make mistakes like this. He said if it was an EPT or anywhere else he’d have ruled the hand dead. When I pointed out neither myself nor my opponent were recreationals, his response was "I ran bad on that", and I grudgingly accept that if there's a general rule designed to protect recreationals, it also has to apply to pros. When I asked why he couldn't just retrieve two fives from the muck, he pointed out there might be more than two in there, so how could he decide which two they were when villain didn't know the suits. Again, reasonable point, although I'd argue only pull the fives that are beside or near each other. He said he only ruled cards could come out of the muck if they're clearly identifiable, and I agree totally with him on that. I had a situation in the 10k bounty at the WSOP years ago where I called a shorty shove with AQ, my opponent mucked his hand after I tabled mine, and the ruling given was his cards could be retrieved if he could name them both with suits. He named Ace of hearts King of diamonds and the floor found them at opposite ends of the muck, immediately arousing my suspicion that my opponent had freerolled the opportunity to change his hand from something that was dominated into something that dominated me.

Now I’m all for protecting recreationals as much as possible but this just seems a step too far. Leaving aside my opponent wasn’t recreational but was the only other pro at the table, I just don’t think any ruling should ever reward a player for their own mistake (in conjunction with a dealer mistake), at the expense of an opponent who did nothing wrong. However, I accepted the ruling at this point, and changed my view from "the floorman must have made a horrendous mistake" to "he made the correct ruling based on the instructions he was given".

It’s fairly clear a ruling like this opens up the possibility of angles. Say I get to the river, I check, my opponent, bets 2 BBs, I shove as a bluff, opponent snaps and tables the nuts, then I can push my cards to the dealer, hope he mucks them, and I just have to pay 2 big blinds. So while I don’t blame the floorman who was implementing the rules as he understood them for this specific festival, I do still think the ruling is terrible, and the worst I’ve seen.

I was prepared to let it go as just an IPO thing (which I still think is terrible and should be changed at future events), but a chat I had later with Nick suggested it’s worth exploring alternatives like this instead of automatically ruling an all in players hand dead in situations like this. As I said, I'm all for protecting recreationals, but there's a limit, and that limit should be "Thou shalt not punish the other player in the hand who did nothing wrong, or reward the player who made the mistake". If this becomes a general ruling, every player has a strong incentive to try to get their hand mucked when they see the hand they are up against in an all-in is a massive favourite.

The final words

I'll leave the final words to some of the recreational players in the Simplify Poker Academy I ran the ruling by:

Donald Sloss

As a recreational player I expect to play by the same rules. By all means dealers can help by explaining rules but actions should stand and mistakes become learning experiences. Well done for not tilting and still getting heads-up.

Rob Kiersey

It's an absolute joke of a ruling. I get that they want to have some leniency towards recreationals but this is just ripe for an angle.

Edward Cherrie

This is a shocker and very unfair to put the responsibility back onto you to object to this terrible decision. Nobody wants to be that person at the table and puts you in a awful position.

Colin Quarry

Very surprised that you accepted this (as for the further explanation...🤣🤣)

David Lappin

One tiny thing I suggested to both Nick and floor. 

Let’s say he says “I had a red and a black five but can’t remember suits”, and then you go to retrieve and there are three five’s in there… I am 100% making it part of retrieval rule that you get the suits that are dominated by the other player’s holdings if you have the lower cards and not a dominating suit if you have the higher cards.

While there are situations when this could backfire and lead to elimination (clean suit getting there or highly unlikely straight flush) it minimises those times

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He 4-Bet Me With a Deuce, Then Barely Played Another Hand

 Our Uber Driver Didn’t Speak English… So Lappin Spoke Louder

I’d never been to Castellon before, or even Valencia where we flew into. Lappin’s plane from Rome landed at almost the same time, and after I cleared security my phone was telling me he was only 80 metres away (yes, we have Find A Friend tracking on each other’s phones). We toyed with the idea of trying to navigate the Spanish rail system, but ultimately decided €90 split between two for an Uber was the play.  

David couldn’t remember the name of the hotel he’d booked for us, but knew it was right beside the casino, so he told me just to type Casino Castellon into the app. This turned out to be poor strategy because there are two casinos in Castellon, Casino Castellon, and the other one where the actual event was, which is actually in Grau. We realised this as we approached Casino Castellon, and realised we were still miles from our hotel (the name of which David had retrieved). Our non English speaking driver was unbelievably patient with her two non Spanish speaking passengers. David did that thing where you realise the person you’re speaking English to doesn’t speak a word of English so you….rephrase what you just said using different English words, louder and more vehemently. Meanwhile I’m struggling with the app to figure out how to change the destination on a ride that is in progress. I managed to complete that task before David found English words our driver understood, and we were merrily on our way. I gave our driver a hefty tip for her patience. 

The main event 

I late regged this not quite at the end of the reg period (recently I’ve been experimenting with entering about an hour before max late reg, trying to spin, knowing I can do a max late reg bullet if it doesn’t work out) and got off to a great start almost 5x of my stack at a very soft table. I then got moved to a tougher table, and played a few interesting hands against the same maniacal villain.

Hand 1: Folding AKo to Retain a Double Average Stack

I raise AKo utg to 4500 at bb2k playing 135k. A good reg playing about 100k flats utg1. Another decent player shoves hj for 29k. The chipleader on the table playing over 250k looks at all the stacks for a while, and then flats. It folds back to me (bb, a German former pro, tank folded tens he said later).

I was very cognisant of recent study I’d done showing that in these spots we tend to have either slightly better than the price threeway (typically about 35%) or be in awful shape (if we run into AA or more likely another AK) with less than 22%.

The big blind told me afterwards he folded tens because he thought all the ranges were uncapped: he’d been at the table since the start so would have a better idea than me of the other ranges.

I folded fairly quickly. Another consideration was edge passing: in such a soft tournament getting the lot in with only slightly better than the price needed didn’t seem great when I can just fold and retain a double average stack.

Results: UTG1 snap folded, shorty had QQ, and held against chippy’s very optimistic 88. I made a mental note that chippy was too wide moving forward

Hand 2: Too Strong to 3-Bet Bluff, Too Weak to 3-Bet for Value

This happens a while later. In the mean time the chip leader has maintained a VPIP of almost 100 so now I know he’s way too wide. He opens lojack to 4K (bb 2k) and I flat ATo. Even against someone as wide as him it didn’t feel like it was strong enough to three bet for value, and felt far too strong to threebet bluff. The reg in the small blind makes it 21k off about 60k. The opener flats and I now fold a hand that does very poorly 3 way.
The flop comes J high and they get it in with the reg’s JTo (so he squeezed very light, obviously responding to how wide he knew chippy is) and the chipleader’s AJo which holds. Again, this seems like a very loose call to a squeeze that size so it reinforced my impression of the chipleader.

Hand 3: Jack Sinclair Said “When They Put the Big Chips In They Always Have It” — But He Had a Deuce!

Chipleader opens hijack to 6k at bb3k now playing about 350k. I have AQo in the small blind playing almost 200k which seems like a pretty trivial threebet (to 24k) against villain. He thinks for a while before making it 72k.

My thinking now was although he’s loose, this is the first 4 bet I’ve seen him make. I was instantly reminded of something my friend Jack Sinclair always says about overly loose recreationals: “it doesn’t matter how loose they are in terms of opens or calls, when they put the big chips in they always have it”. He hadn’t four bet 88 or AJ earlier when he had the opportunity so the obvious question is “does he ever haves worse hand than AQ?”

I tanked for a while studying my opponent and he looked comfortable so I decided to fold.

He showed a deuce! Answering the obvious question, just not the answer I expected. 

I guess he was hoping to tilt me but actually I was thrilled because 

(1) free information

(2) knowing now he’s too wide in his 4 bets I can widen my 3 bet continue range 

The Chip Leader Who Showed a Deuce and Then Vanished

I was actually feeling great because I thought I’m going to get some great spots to double up or win big pots against him going forward in a very good slow structure. 

What happened next was the most surprising thing of all: he barely played a hand for the rest of day one and bagged up a short stack (much shorter than mine)! After he folded for the next hour I wondered if he was adjusting to the fact that he knew I’d attack his opens wider, but I think he just decided he’d had enough for day 1.

Why the day one chipleader never wins the main event

This famous article by David Sklansky years ago explains that day one chipleaders in big field events are almost never studied skilled players. Instead they are gambley overly loose players who give themselves the opportunity to be on the right side of variance. Typically, they’ll get it in bad a few times in big spots where more skilled or studied players would just fold, and get lucky. 

I was reminded of this at the end of the day when I bagged up an above average stack well short of the chiplead. Had I called in the AK spot (the run out was AKxxx so I’d have won a massive pot) and another spot with 66 I’d have won two huge pots I shouldn’t have been in, and bagged up,a massive chip lead. 

The 66 hand came late in the day. A tight player playing 25 bigs opened utg for a min raise, it folds to me in the small blind (with 66). This hand is way too weak to get in pre against a strong under the gun range, but it makes a fine flat mostly as a set mine. When you’re set mining, you want the stacks to be deep enough for the payoff to be worth it (which they are, just about, in this case) and your opponent to have a strong hand that will pay you off when you hit (you’re much better off set mining against a nit who raised under the gun than a maniac who raised the button). So I called, and the big blind who I hadn’t seen play a hand yet shoved, the opener reshoved and I obviously have a trivial fold. The hands were kings and jacks, but my flopped set would have won. 

Day 2

I started on the feature table, and after a period of card death early on saw me wither back, but I stayed patient and started to build. Being on the feature with mostly recreational players can go one of two ways typically: they all go batshit crazy running crazy bluffs and making hero calls, or they go the other way and play very straightforward not wanting to be seen making a big mistake. This table chose the latter route which is good when you’re not making hands and your profit is mostly coming from bluffs, whereas the former is ideal if you’re making hands. 

We got moved off the feature before the bubble, but the table continued to play passively clearly prioritising just getting into the money, so I kept the pressure on, took the chip lead on the table, and got through the bubble with twice the average. 

Unfortunately, the post bubble period couldn’t have gone much worse, as I barely won a hand and kept running into big hands. I bust on a table that included Barny Boatman. Barny is always great fun to talk to and on this occasion among other things we talked about my latest pet theory: contrary to what they believe, most poker players are running above EV. My reasoning here is that poker is a zero sum game, and players who are genuinely running below EV are more likely to quit while they’re behind (either because they’re demoralised or broke) and winners are more likely to keep going. 

Shoutout to my buddy Jonathan Rees who took down the event, and my enemy (but also co-author) Barry Carter who made the final table. 

The high roller

I hopped into this just after busting the main, got a stack going, then took some hits, and navigated the bubble short. It was a high quality final table that included Party ambassador Natalie Bromley, 888 ambassador Ian Simpson (who has been on a heater recently and ended up winning this too) and several other good players. I’ve been on a bit of a heater myself specifically in these Party high rollers recently, my most recent ones being a 5th in Birmingham, 4th in Madrid, 2nd in London and a win in Glasgow. On this occasion, I bust in 7th after Ian Simpson sucked out on me blind on blind. I had a great time though and played with some great people, including tour regular, Simplify Poker member and student of mine Luke Bird. Luke had a great trip overall finally tabling both the win the button side event and another one, and satelliting into the high roller. 

While I’m doing shoutouts, big one to another Simplify Poker  Academy member Paul “the Rock” Romain who took down a side event. Great to see a happy Paul with a smile on his face. 

 

Overall, it was a really great trip in a lovely chill location that felt like a smaller friendlier safer version of Barcelona. The casino staff and the poker room were great, and the Party staff and ambassadors always do a great job making everyone welcome and creating a fun atmosphere. The only problem I had was because I ended up playing long days, and because there were no dinner breaks or anything longer than 15 minutes (due I believe to concerns that the restrictions on opening hours made it difficult to have enough time to have long breaks and ensure the tournaments finished before the casino had to close) I basically went the whole trip without a proper evening meal. That’s a minor quibble though, and I would definitely recommend this stop to anyone considering it, and hope to be back myself. 

The next stop on the tour is in Cork. See you there!

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Poker Used to Reward Memory of Bad Habits: Why That Changed

We interviewed Jason Wheeler for the Chip Race podcast yesterday. It's a great all round interview with someone who has been around for 20 years and understands all facets of the poker industry so I recommend giving it a listen when it airs in a couple of weeks, and he made lots of interesting points, but one that really caught my attention as something I hadn't really considered before: he said that since the arrival of solvers, specific exploits against weaker players have a shorter shelf life. In his words, in the old days they'd go on making the same mistake over and over every night, maybe not even realising it was a mistake, whereas nowadays they can just look it up in GTOWizard or whatever when they go home.

It got me thinking: can you think of any other non obvious ways solvers have changed poker? I asked this question at the Simplify Poker academy and got some interesting responses.

John Campbell:

May seem obvious when I mention it, but so many players are aiming to be unexploitable and not thinking through the dynamics of exploitation of player tendencies which Jason is clearly aware of.

The relationship between unexploitability and profitability are not proportional, skirting the lines between playing against GTO types, Nits, Maniacs, and LAgs is something that a lot of players forget when the become lost in the sauce of solver theory.

I think the Player profile feature on GTOW will make node locking more practical in the coming year for keeping people in touch with playing in the real world. Maybe they could create a feature that tells us our player type, Then Jason would have even more to complain about! I'm sure I'd be some sort of LAg, Maniac, Glass cannon, Fish Hybrid!

Funnily enough, the first ever HUD I used (pre PokerTracker) which I don't remember the name of used to do this, using Hellmuth's animal classifications.

Martin King:

Bit of a left field one, but solvers allow me to overcome empathy issues at the table.

Back in the day, Moneymaker era, I'd have serious trouble making exploits that I knew took advantage of someone's weakness. Or if I knew that person really needed the cash I might take a chop or fold a marginal hand that I'd never do these days.

Being able to rationalise my actions as part of a learned mathematical game strategy, it takes the emotional baggage away from the gamble.

That's something that gets raised by a lot of my one to one students. Especially female players.

Martin continues:

Solvers also do a lot of knitting.

I remember playing poker for at least a decade where the general rote was one liners and isolated heuristics. There was some joined up thinking, but only when ideas naturally together.

Solvers mean that even the most basic players come to the table with a game plan, because you can't learn solver-ism (I'm coining that) in a linear way.

Eg preflop bluffs selection. Back in the day it would simply be whatever whim took you in the moment (most hands could be rationalised), or a Brunson suited connector hand as a semi-bluff. You raised or 3-bet preflop, that was your bluff move, if it failed, then c'est la vie and hope the flop saves you.

These days there's a formulated post flop plan, even at the most rudimentary basic solver-ism level. 'This is the big blinds board' or knowing that being OOP comes with significant EV loss, and them going hand in hand with the BTN not betting range on low connected flops, and wielding their positional advantage more freely.

It's just a lot more joined up, and when you see a player having an understanding for one side of the coin, you need to expect they still do when the coin flips.

Barry Carter:

I would imagine that tilt is less of a thing now. Whereas both you and I agree that solvers 100% can become mental game crutches for a lot of players, I think a lot of mindset issues would come from the uncertainty in poker. Solvers give players, at the very least, a sense of certainty (even if the player might actually still be wrong).

Judging from how well your books with Jared are still selling, I suspect there's still plenty of tilt around.

What other differences do you think solvers have brought?

If you want to join in discussions like this, sign up for the Simplify Poker Academy.

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On the occasion of my daughter's wedding

 This is the Father of the Bride speech I delivered at my only daughter's wedding:

People hate really long wedding speeches, so I’ll try to keep this short. As the father of any daughter will tell you, it is one of the great love’s of any man’s life,  particularly when it’s an only daughter. It differs from other great loves like mother, or wife in many ways: not least because you know your daughter from birth. 

Fiona was born on the 23rd of May in the year (redacted). I was woken from my slumber that morning by my wonderful wife who had wonderful news: her water had broken. Less wonderfully, that meant we had to go to the hospital right away. I asked if it could be postponed to let me sleep a bit longer. Apparently, it could not be. 

When we got to the hospital, Fiona very kindly postponed her first appearance for several hours which allowed me to catch up on my sleep, much to the chagrin of the nurses who were a lot less reasonable in my view. 

It was my first time witnessing child birth, and I kind of dreaded it after witnessing lots of screaming scenes in movies. However, I needn’t have worried: my two favourite ladies made it the most drama free arrival one could imagine, and my main memory is that when I said Fiona was unexpectedly beautiful, Mireille (high on laughing gas) quipped “Future rose of Tralee”. 

The following day they’d both decided they’d had enough of hospital, and I carried Fiona under my coat in a sling or whatever you call those things back to our apartment. 

So….that’s the first two days covered, on to day 3….maybe this speech won’t be as short as you all hoped. 

Fiona was the lowest maintenance baby you could ever imagine….she never cried, raised her voice, or complained. She could amuse herself easily, lying on her back crinkling paper. If you forgot to feed her there might be a little moan after a while, but that was it. 

She seemed to enjoy listening to music. She would listen peacefully as I worked at my computer with the radio on. An early favorite was 2 Unlimited’s “No Limits”. As soon as she heard the opening bars, she’d squeak, and extend her little arms, the universal symbol for “Lift me Daddy, it’s dancing time”. For those unfamiliar with the song in question, it has a rather fast driving beat which meant I probably shook her more vigorously than was wise, but as far as we know….no brain damage. 

We moved to Paris just before she turned 1, and she decided it was time she started walking. She started to add words later: her first was “baby”, which initially I thought was uncharacteristically self centred until we realised she was referring to me, copying the word her mother used. We were very popular socially in Paris with my coworkers but quickly realised it had nothing to do with us and everything to do with Fiona and her ability to charm visitors. The main highlights of my days in Paris were when it would come time to put her down for the night. She marked the occasion every night by improvising a new song, which followed a formula: lots of nonsense words and pointing at different things in her eyeline, but always ending with the word baby pointing at me. As the year went on, she started to concede we weren’t all going to start using her nonsense words, and replacing them with the actual words for whatever she was pointing at. 

For most of our time in Paris, we lived in one of three houses behind a gate in Nanterre. The gate reassured us not to worry too much when Fiona started wandering outside, as her adventurous nature prompted her to do. She got to know the neighbours before we did. When we finally invited the nice English couple who lived next door and they saw Fiona they laughed

“Oh. She’s yours. She comes into our house through the cat flap all the time”

We moved to Germany when she was four. By now she was very verbal in two languages, and she added a third quickly. In fact, I’m pretty sure she was talking German by the time we landed in Germany.  

As Fiona grew older, I realised just how much of her personality she’d inherited from me beyond her love of music. Her ferocious competitiveness, her fiery intolerance of fools and her low boredom threshold were all things I could relate to. I also realised she inherited my calmness in a crisis when she fell off a wall and broke her arm. As Mireille  ran around screaming in panic at the sight of the bone jutting out of the arm, Fiona was calmness personified

“I think you should probably take me to the hospital, mam”

Her interest in music persisted. One of my happiest memories is bringing her to a Robbie Williams concert. Her arm was still in a cast from the accident. My friend Mark Plati was Robbie’s bandleader at the time, and was able to get us up onto the stage beforehand. Fiona had her heart set on Robbie signing her already well signed cast. As we waited, we caught the attention of support band Ash, who made a fuss of her. Lead singer Tim signed her cast, at which point the drummer offered to do the same and was told in no uncertain terms that would not be necessary or even welcome, as space had to be left for Robbie Williams. 

For the most part our musical tastes aligned very nicely, like the time we went Lansdowne Road for a Red Hot Chili Peppers/New order concert where I’m pretty sure she was the youngest person there by several decades. The one time I cringed when she told me who she wanted to see next was Avril Lavigne. I instantly pictured how out of place I’d look in a sea of skater boys and pre pubescent girls but I did what any decent father would do: I delegated that one to her older brother Paddy. Sorry Pad. 

When she left home to go to college in Limerick, I got a text from her late evening. She was playing in a poker home game with a bunch of lads and had a question:

“Dad….is it true you’re not allowed to check raise on the river?”

For the non poker players among you, the check raise is the most sneaky and aggressive move in poker, where you lull opponents into a false sense of security by checking to imply you have a weak hand, and then when they bet, you pounce with a raise that can bruise the fragile male ego to the point you start inventing rules to stop it happening again. I assured my ferocious daughter there was no such rule, and I’d never been more proud of her. 

Whenever I think of Fiona, a lot of F words come to mind. Feisty, fierce, ferocious, at times fucking terrifying but also unscrupulously fair, and a wonderful friend. In  Enda, she has found the perfect foil to her fire, the temperance to her tempest, the gentle stream to her storm. Those who know Enda know his defining characteristics are gentle decency, quiet strength and patient kindness. When I think of them, I picture Enda as a gentle stream in which the feral creature that is our daughter can splash about. I imagine nobody knows just how fiery Fiona can be better than Enda….but if not….well it’s too late now son. 

To Fiona and Enda, may you have long and wonderful lives together, and we look forward to getting to know our new in laws the Kelly’s.

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A tricky spot and action clocks

The situation

5 left in an EPT tourney with a €1k buyin that got a 337 runners, and stacks are

HJ (hero) 6 BBs

CO 7 BBs

BN 10 BBs

SB 12 BBs

BB 30 BBs

Hero is dealt KQo but before we act CO moves all in and Button folds (both out of turn). The EPT rule is if we change the action by raising, CO retains all options (fold, call, raise) but if we fold or limp they must jam. So what are we doing? Hero estimates they have somewhere between 45-50% equity versus CO jamming range.

Analysis

OK, let's consider the options

1. Fold: CO now has to jam, and if everyone is calling correctly, he gets it through over 70% of the time, and gets called about 27% of the time (mostly by the big blind with a slightly wider range than he's jamming). So we probably ladder about 12% of the time, the CO doubles 15% of the time (really bad for us and we have to post bb and ante next hand), and the CO picks up 2.5 bbs the rest of the time (also pretty bad for us)
2. Limp with the intention of calling the jam if nobody else does: We are committing 6 bbs to a pot that will be 14.5 bbs, so for CEv the equity required is 41.4%. To this we add risk premium which is 6.2%, so we need 47.6%. We are about 2% short of this
3. Jam ourselves: this is the play if we didn't know CO has a hand strong enough to jam. Of course if we jam they get their options back, and should only call the hands they're supposed to. The problem is that that's just over 7% of their total range, but about 35% of their jamming range, so we have way less fold equity than normal. KQo doesn't make that much as a jam and knowing we are getting called 5 times more often by a strong CO range almost certainly makes it unprofitable.

However, with future equity knowing we have to post 2 bbs next hand, 2 is almost certainly the best option. I confirmed this by running a node locked HRC sim (so CO has to call his open jamming range) which now has KQo outperforming fold (by a narrow margin) and shove (by a wider margin)

Final question

Do you think you could make this decision in 80 seconds? That's all David Docherty (the player in question) had: 20 seconds, plus two timebanks worth 30 seconds each. I hate shot clocks on final tables for this very reason.

David's view

So I think the first interesting thing is my equity against his range. I considered I was roughly 45-49% in-game which seems to be accurate, but I'd also add that there's no way he's inducing anything or mixing 22 or folding any ace or folding KTo, T9s or any of the suited kings that are mixing. All of that considered, I think my equity will go up a percentage point or 2 from the just over 45% you ran the spot with, which should only make limp calling more favourable and the other two less favourable. I think jamming ourselves is clearly the worst of the three options, not just with this but maybe with any hand? Let's say we have AJo and want to induce vs the misclick but don't want a 3 way all in because we'd have to beat both players. I don't think the range that overcalls both jams will change significantly assuming he still sticks it in, and if he folds to my jam I think I'll get called lighter because my opponents will be able to deduce that my hand wants fold equity.

I think ultimately what these results are telling us is we do best when our opponent is all-in with his widest range and having to run his equity. If we fold with any hand that's in that 45-49% delicate equity range then we give him the opportunity to chip up while we'll be putting a third of our stack in blind next hand. If we jam, we give him the chance to fold and we may bust ourselves while not significantly changing our position within the tournament given we're definitely not getting a walk next hand. If we limp, we get full information on the rest of the table's hands, get to fold our way out of a potential cooler, still have a protected range, and can win the chips of the person at the table whose chips we desire the most.

Results

David won the hand, crippling the other guy. Then next hand was faced with another ridiculously decision (and no timebanks left now).

The next hand

David doubled through the cutoff in the previous hand, so he's now big blind and the stacks are:

UTG 1 BB

CO 10 BBs

BN 12 BBs

SB 30 BBs

BB (hero) 14.5 BBs

UTG puts his last big blind in, and it folds to the chipleader in the small blind who shoves. We have ATs in the big blind? Call or fold?

To make matters worse, there's a shot clock and we burned all our timebanks last hand, so we have 20 seconds to decide.

Analysis

This is another ridiculously close spot. I ran the sims and before I give the results I want to talk about some misconceptions people have about this spot:

1. UTG should jam any two: not true. Because the rule is BB first, if he folds this hand, next hand he gets to post his last big blind as a blind (no ante), so it has the same value. Therefore, he has no reason to shove a below average hand. In the ICM sim I ran, he therefore only shoves top 40% (a bit tighter than average because of the chance he might ladder this hand)
2. Yes but future game: Some people thinks because of future game UTG should go wider than ICM. The reverse is actually true: in the FGS sim he only shoves top 31%? Why? Because winning next hand is far more valuable than winning this one. If he wins this hand he's still pretty much committed next hand, and one of the big blinds he wins is worth a lot less than a big blind to him because it has to be anted. If he wins next hand he gets another whole orbit to find a good spot, and more chances to ladder
3. The small blind should shove any two: Not true. Obviously when he shoves the big blind has to call tight, but the downside of the disaster it is when we run into a top 5-10% hand compared to the upside of taking on URG with lots of dead money doesn't make shoving any two a good thing. Shoving 32o here loses $272 in the long run.

Because we are second in chips, our risk premium against chippy is now massive: 18.5%. We don't just need to be ahead, we need to be ahead by 18.5%. Is ATs? No. but it's super close so in practise you can go either way. In the ICM sim, calling ATs loses €58 in the long run. Some good players told me they'd call because they win the tournament more often, and therefore think it can be justified on future game equity grounds. In actual fact, running the SIM as FGS (with a depth of 4) rather than ICM does make the call profitable (+$696). 

In my experience, when players, even good players, talk about future game, they're only doing it to justify what they want to do anyway. Guys who play for the win will always say "I call because that wins the tournament more often", while guys who love a ladder will say "I fold and lock up a ladder". In actual fact there is a line, which the computer can calculate without factoring in emotions like "I love winning tournaments" or "I hate busting tournaments").

Action clocks

Some organisers enforce the "act out of turn, get an automatic penalty" rule rigidly. EPT apparently does not, as no penalties were imposed after the hand on the two players who had acted out of turn. By contrast,  some other rules that I think aren't as important (like the nebulous one that if someone is persistently using too much of their shot clock, floor is called and they're on a 5 second clock from then on: I hate this because it's now on the dealer to define what too frequently and too much is, and does it really matter all that much if someone uses 16 seconds every hand?) are enforced rigidly. There's another rule I hate which is if most of your stack is in, the dealer has to call the floor and you're on a 5 second shot clock. That also is poorly defined (dealers weren't able to tell me what exactly constitutes "most of the stack", it's a matter of judgment). I'm not sure every dealer is qualified to make that judgment. Think of Jon Kyte's spot at WSOP: he genuinely had a tough decision with most of his stack already in (and in fact ended up folding). Imagine if they only gave him 5 seconds to make that decision?

These things falling within the realm of dealer discretion also opens up the possibility of unconscious favouritism. I had a spot ITM of the mystery bounty where I decided the correct play was to just call a raise 7 way keeping slightly less than a BB back, and see if I could flop equity before putting the rest in. I didn't, and now facing a bet I had to work out what equity I needed (roughly 6%) and if my hand had that even after missing. I ended up folding after using all my time. In that case, when the dealer realised I'd put 2 of my 2.95 bbs in pre, she looked towards the floor as if about to call them to put me on a 5 second shot clock, but then looked back at me, and smiled as if to say "I'm gonna let this one slide". This is a dealer I like very much and get on very well with, so nice for me, but not nice if I'm a random the dealer doesn't know or someone they actively dislike, and decide to call the floor. Another dealer I'm friendly with warned me privately about the "using too much of your clock every hand" rule after dealing to me where I was doing that: again I suspect they'd just have called the floor if they didn't like me.

One unintended consequence of these rules is because they are taking up so many dealer brain cycles, and because floor is running around imposing 5 second shot clocks on people, it's distracting from more important tasks. I noticed the amount of basic dealer errors increased dramatically once the shot clocks were introduced (after late reg closed) and they started having to focus a lot on the time rules, and for the first time ever at an EPT I saw floor forget to make important announcements like blind level increases (because they were too busy running around putting people on 5 second shot clocks). I'm in no way blaming the dealers (which I said in my last blog are the best in the business) for these errors: they're inevitable when you now place an additional load on them to operate the shot clock for every single action of every player, and also monitor players over several hands for using a nebulous "too much of their clock", and putting "most of their stack" in.

The worst example of this I saw at EPT Barcelona was in a hyper where every player just had 15 seconds to act (with a couple of 15 second time bank extensions). This was far too little time for many recreational players (and this was the most rec heavy field I played), and even the dealers were getting flustered. Almost every hand had a significant player or dealer error.

The 5 second clock

In my view, this rule is really problematic. It seems to be the view of the floor at EPT that if somebody leaves a small amount of their stack behind then it must be for the purposes of stalling. This is not at all the case: I've written several blogs trying to explain the benefits of the "leave one big blind behind" that aren't just "stall for a pay jump". David told me he witnessed a player bet all but one big blind on the river, be put on a 5 second shot clock, and also be told if they did it again they'd be put on a 5 second shot clock for every decision every hand. This is pretty ludicrous in my view: for example, often the correct play with the nut low on the river is to bet all but one big blind (intending to fold to a raise). Players should be free to use that play without risking being put on a 5 second clock for the rest of the tournament.

The vibes

I understand completely why tournament directors are tempted to introduce action clocks. They tackle the problem of stalling, which is one of the things recreational players hate the most. In fact I'd go so far as to say if you ask recreationals if they are in favour of action clocks, a healthy majority would say yes, to cut down on stalling. They'll go on believing they like action clocks until they suddenly have a huge decision and 15 or 20 seconds to make it, or they get their hand killed before they can make their decision.

It's not lost on me that in the hand I started this blog with, two players folded out of turn. I saw it time and time again: as soon as the action clocks came in, players were paranoid about using too much time, and acting out of turn by mistake if the dealer or another player even glanced at them. It also completely changed the atmosphere at the tables: tables which had been friendly with everyone chatting suddenly became grumpy morgues where players didn't feel they could commit brain cycles to chatter or any other distraction. The last table I played on at the festival was one of the grumpiest ever, with half the table tilted by rulings given against them for acting out of turn, or in one cases taking one second too long to act.

Corners and headers

I love football to the point I used to be a referee. It's a near perfect game, but two of the imperfections is that corners and throw ins are a case where the penalty doesn't fit the infringement. Only 3.3% of corners are scored, so defenders have a strong incentive to concede them if they judge the xG of an attack to be greater than 0.033 (which is pretty much every attack). Throw-ins are even worse: the team awarded the throw in doesn't retain possession from them much more than 50% of the time. This is why some teams are deliberately kicking into touch from kickoffs.

FIFA is obviously aware of these problems, and attempts were made to address them when I was a referee. For corners, they tried to make them tiebreakers when games finished level on goals (so if a game finished 1-1, the team with the most corners won). The problem? When they trialed it at junior football level, they found it completely changed the game, with teams deliberately "scoring" corners to try to win the game on corners (in the same way that when gaelic football changed the rules to make shots that passed over the crossbar the tiebreaker, teams now started shooting for points rather than goals). 

The proposed solution to the problem of throw-ins was to allow the team awarded a throw to kick the ball. The problem? This went too much the other way: the allure of effectively getting a free kick from the touchline meant teams adjusted and the game became one of trying to bounce the ball into touch off an opposing player.

Unintended consequences

The above examples show what often happens when the rules are changed to solve a particular issue, but the unintended consequences fundamentally change the game for the worse. I believe this is true of the action clock: once it's introduced, live poker is a different game, rewarding experienced players used to making quick decisions. Bullet chess is fun, but no serious chess player thinks the world championship or any prestigious over the board tournament should be decided in a minute. Action clocks introduce an additional work load on dealers and floor staff, and additional pressure on players, leading to more mistakes, more frustration, more arguments. They remove much of the ability of players to pick up and act on physical reads. How long did it take Mike to pick up on Teddy KGB's Oreo cookie tells in Rounders? A lot longer than 20 seconds.

In my view, action clocks change what used to be a gourmet live poker experience (EPTs) into an unsatisfying fast food one. Talking to one player at the end of the festival, he agreed that action clocks almost completely ruin the live experience, and he went further than me saying 

"Given a choice between a festival with action clocks and one without them, I'm picking the latter every time going forward".

As soon as he said it, I thought "I agree".

 I agree.

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