SCOOP 2024 - The Middle

As I looked back on my second week of SCOOP, I often found myself expressing the thought that a lot of the people I played against were fools who didn't know what they're doing, and if you listen to any group of poker players freshly busted from tournaments, you'll probably hear a similar sentiment. And yet, this perspective typically comes from the players who are out, the players that have not won. 

A few weeks ago I was playing a live tournament and a friend, 'Brentos', was sat to my immediate right. In one hand he gratuitously doubled me up, blind vs blind, by misplaying absolutely every spot in the hand. In fact, apart from folding pre, I don't think he could have made a single worse decision on any street throughout. Afterwards, I was winding him up but he stuck to his guns and justified why he played the way he did based on how he expected me to play, despite me not doing any of the things he imagined I would do. Our cognitive bias makes us unreliable narrators of our own stories. How do even we know where we sit on this graph?

I was really looking forward to a long a fruitful session of poker last Sunday, with two two day events, the $11 Pot Limit Omaha 8(hilo) and the $11 6max NLHE. As is often the case, I had to not-quite-max late register the PLO8, which would have been fine if I had been dealt any kind of decent hand to build a stack with. Alas, I lost almost half my 25bb starting stack with my "best" hand thus far. I opened with AK34 from the cutoff, was 3bet pot by a player who had left themselves with one big blind behind. I figured they must have an AAxx or A2xx type hand, neither of which I'm in good shape against but against my better judgement I called anyways and lost. I've noticed this sort of thing more often in holdem, sometimes you get junk for ages, get dealt a hand like AT and go mad with it because it's the best hand you've seen, even though you know better, I guess it's some kind of entitlement tilt. I was left short after that and bust not long later. I rebought but it didn't go any better the second time around, I lost a flip with the first decent hand I got dealt in either bullet and that was the end of the PLO8. 

Thankfully, while struggling in the PLO8, the 6max NLHE had started much better. Some idiot got moved to the table and kept open shoving EVERY hand off a 50+bbs stack, after a few hands I picked up AQ suited and picked them off for a nice early boost. I was chipping up nicely for a while, then it slowed down somewhat, and then I was just folding for quite a spell and my stack dwindled. Eventually, I was dealt pocket 9s UTG, with a 20bb stack. I opened for 2.6x and UTG+1 shoved for 30+bbs. I didn't like it but I don't think the big pairs put me all in there, they want action, this shove seems like the action of a player who is happy to take the pot here, right? So I called, they turned over AK and hit a king on the turn. Late registration had literally just closed, so the day's SCOOP was over for me, 3 buy-ins down and I have to say I was feeling a bit hard done by, because in my head at least, I deserve better than this. 

#42-L PLO8             -$11x2   836/2482 but with late reg still open

#43-L NLHE 2day    -$11      3491/9044

Monday night I it was just a vanilla $11 no limit texas hold'em tournament, I made a decent enough run which ended with a hand I couldn't win but I couldn't fold either. Action folded round to the button who raised 3x, small blind folded and I had 88 in the big blind with 23bbs. I considered a reraise but with my stack size I figured I would have to shove, and after the previous night's failures, I had one eye on making it into the money which wasn't far off, I decided to be cautious, and called to see a flop. The flop was 546 rainbow, I checked, button cbet 3bbs into a 7.5 pot. Once again I was faced with call or shove as my options but having deferred it once, I opted to check raise all in, but was called by a bigger pair.

I'm sure this was the correct play but pondering the hand afterwards, did I play this like am I bluffing with the best hand? 88 with a 546 board blind vs button seems like a strong hand, I'm killing it in terms of range and nut advantage too. Only the best hands can call me there, so either they have a really strong hand themselves or they don't, my overpair is irrelevant to some extent. So given the strength of my hand, should I just be check calling? I dunno, at the time I thought I played it right and as I mull it over I can't think of a way to not go broke in this hand, so maybe that was only ever the outcome. 

#47-L NLHE             -$11     1424/7629

The next night was time for something different. I am convinced no-one knows how to play Shortdeck/6+. I certainly don't but I do find it hugely entertaining trying to figure it out while watching a myriad of approaches from the other players too, like we're all trying to solve it but as far as I can tell, no-one is even close but maybe I just don't know any better. As with every shortdeck/6+ game, plays were all over the place, I was down, I was up, but ultimately I was out, although I did pick up a couple of bounties along the way, so it wasn't a complete washout.   

#56-L 6+KO           -$5.50    2460/3736         +$3.75

But then... SUCCESS! I finally won something! 

Okay, okay, so it was a twitter competition but by this point, I'll take any kind of win.

Thursday night offered more PLO8, but this time I managed to make a profit, albeit a small one. The first hand of the tournament I witnessed raised my spirits when I saw just total buffoonery on show. Preflop there was a pot raise and 3bet, one player had 889K, the other A445, they managed to get like 60big blinds in the middle without much improvement on either side. "This is going to be so easy" or so I thought. I identified two bad players, two good players and one complete nit at the table. Somehow one of the bad players had a huge stack, so Plan A was, play lots of pots with them and milk them for all that I can. And that worked. I regularly won some decent sized pots from them... but... I also ended up losing those chips getting caught in pots with the good players when trying to get at the bad players. As the end of late registration approached, I found myself with half the starting stack. So... Plan B, gamble and double up or Plan C, bust and re-enter. Either way, my stack will double. Unsurprisingly with how things had been going this week, it was of course Plan C that came into effect. But the second bullet went much better. I began again at a new table and built a stack simply value betting decent hands. I know I said I don't think anyone knows how to play shortdeck/6+ before, and I appreciate these are low buy-in tournaments but I'm not entirely sure a good chunk of the players know how to play PLO8 either. A reasonable run into the top 10% of the field saw my first profitable tournament of the week!   

#66-L PLO8            $5.50x2   280/2965         +$13.09

During lockdown, I played a weekly homegame on Pokerstars with a group of poker friends, we'd get on Discord, have a few drinks as we played, and chat away. Over time the numbers began to shrink and it faded away but in recent months one of the group started playing the 'Big 22' on Pokerstars every Friday night and encouraged the rest of us to join in and it's revitalised our weekly social game. A couple of the players in the group happen to enjoy mixed games (one even has a WCOOP 8 game win no less) and they have been encouraging the rest of us to play an 8 game tourney running alongside the Big 22. I want to be good at mixed games, there's some kind of aspirational prestige attached to mixed games, of being a true all round poker player. So alongside the Big 22, I have been playing the $7.50 8 game MTT (come on Stars, make it $8!). Week after week, I have failed to even get above the starting stack, I just don't understand how other players are building stacks because I am simply not seeing any way to get chips, at all. But I persevere. Discussing strategy with my mixed game experts, I have improved, but still, I have never been in any danger of winning a single cent in mixed games thus far.      

My knowledge of the 8 games looks something like this:

• no limit holdem: beating the low stakes to fund losing at midstakes
• pot limit omaha: as above
• omaha hilo: again beating the low stakes, never tried playing higher but I imagine it would follow the pattern above 
• limit holdem: the boring sibling of no limit holdem. I probably don't know the intricacies behind it but I think it's just decent starting hand selection and then just don't fold if you have any kind of equity?
• stud high: I don't get it. I know how it works, I just don't get it, it doesn't click. All I do is lose chips.
• razz: even though it's technically stud, somehow I have a much better understanding of razz. I think it's easier to construct opponents hands in razz. I like to think I'm okay at razz.
• stud hilo: it's half stud, half razz, so I should be half decent at it but no, I'm just as terrible at this as stud high.
• 2-7 triple draw: as it turns out, I don't even know the hand rankings...

My mixed game loving friends were talking up Saturday nights SCOOP 8 game events. While they were playing the $22 medium tournament, I was thankful there was a $2.20 low variation with my zero expectation of seeing any of that money again. As ever, I late regged. A few hands in and I'm in the big blind playing 2-7 triple draw. The button opens and I call with J6632, I draw 2 cards and now hold 7632A, that's very near the nuts, right? Right? So I start blasting, blasting as much as limit games will allow anyways. Bet, stand pat, repeat. Meanwhile the button is calling while drawing, THE FOOL! He can see me standing pat and betting, what does he think is happening here? We get to the river, and for some reason, the button is given MY pot. What the hell. He has 8 high, I have 7 high, what's going on? I began furiously typing a message to my friends about the hand. But wait, don't want to look stupid, let's have another look before sending. I check 'Mastering Mixed Games' by Dylan Linde, which I rescued from the loft earlier in the day for some last minute study. He doesn't mention aces at all when talking about hand ranges. Hmm... and then the penny drops, aces are high, this is 2-7 triple draw after all. Oh. In my head, I had been thinking of it as razz but with a slightly different format but it's not that at all. This was looking like an even shorter lived endeavour than I had anticipated. 

I frantically sifted through the pages of the Linde's book hoping to gain a basic understanding but before I could we had moved on to another game. Thank the poker gods for omaha! I quickly doubled up in my first round of omaha hilo, before adding to my stack in the NLHE and PLO rounds, mostly folding during the other games. That was to be the pattern for much of the tournament until something surprising happened... I won a big pot in stud high! I was shook. I continued adding to my stack in the holdem and omaha games while pretty much sitting out the stud and 2-7 triple draw. I wasn't actively sitting out but I was trying to only play solid starting hands in those games and just didn't get any. There were probably hands I should have played, or that you would play if you knew what you were doing but I didn't, so I was sticking to the basics. Also, with the time it takes for a couple of 2-7 or stud hands to play out, it can take up a whole level, so I think the number of hands I'm missing is actually minimal. This approach led me to the unprecedented position of doing quite well in an 8 game tournament as we approached the bubble. My goal was simple, make the money. One of the best things about large tournament fields is that bubble doesn't last very long, and with an above average stack, I sailed right into the money without any fuss. Bustouts were coming thick and fast and I continued to ladder up. My 4 games took me deeper and deeper until I cracked the top 100. 

Before SCOOP began, Pokerstars sent out an email summarising your past SCOOP exploits, how much you've won etc and it said my deepest ever SCOOP finish was 75th. Could I beat my all time best SCOOP result in 8 game? Yes, yes I could. With the number of tables down to single figures, I started getting ideas above my station. I didn't imagine I could win the tournament but a final table? Well why not? That didn't seem so far fetched now. But these are dangerous thoughts to have and soon my luck would run out. Despite of the complexities of the mixed games, ultimately, it was the classic no limit hold'em flip that was my undoing. It folded to me on the cutoff, and with 12 big blinds I shoved A8 suited, only to be called by the big stack in the small blind with pocket 6s. The flop brought an 8 but also a 6, and with that I was out in 36th place. 

#73-L 8game KO    -$2.20     36/2421            +$8.28

My deepest ever SCOOP run! And I don't even know how to play half the games! I have won more money in other tournaments but this is without a doubt my highlight of any SCOOP to date. 

And I have found my place on the graph.