Email Poke Tournament: A 1 orbit challenge for bragging rights

[22pajo]

i have lots of time on my hands this w/end. i'm available for selection

[Smurph64]

I am not playing I am just the dealer.

I agree this could be bad if people don't take it seriously and start donking it up but that isn't the point of the exercise.

The point of the exercise is learning what thinking processes we should be going through as we play our hands.

So many of us play multitable and go on autopilot, but poker is a lot more to it than that. I want to use this as a tool to get inside the minds of the players and help coordinate our thought processes.

I know for example that I don't range down a players hands as well as I should through each street, so as an observer I can learn what other players do when they are putting players on certain hand ranges.

Others need to know why a player makes a bet/raise in certain places; was it a value, protection, isolation, or bluff raise?

If you ever play a hand in slow motion like this is absolutely amazing all the different things you can think of.

I don't want players to get 72o and respond in their email, fold. Although acceptable, I want them to document why they are making the move, is it mathematical, what flops do you think you could have that you could win with 72o. Spend a few minutes at least and think about the hand, we have so many assumptions that by writing some down we may learn that they are false. What odds would you need to play 72o to be positive ev? If you were playing against a lunatic could it be profitable?

Even after they fold I want each person to document what they are thinking about with the hand as it's being played. Each player should document any read they have on their opponents, on their betting patterns etc.

Sure a lot of this appears useless on the surface since you don't have the time to do all this in a regular game but for those that are interested, their is research which suggests we make decisions based on thousands of stimulus which are subconscious processes even while our conscious mind works on only a small piece of the data given to us.

The results of each hand really aren't that important, its the process we go through that I want to have documented.

So far we have two respondents, if we only get 6 I think its worth giving it a go. I have seen this work and its really remarkable if the respondents take it seriously.

[Al_Money]

I'll do this if you need some more people.

[bravos1]

ok.. I'm up for this

[Thrakkar]

Sounds interesting although I fear the year will end sooner than the orbit...

Count me in, please!

-Thrakkar

P.S. I'd like to sit to Ozi's right, just to annoy him like I always do at the 2+2 tables! [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Bona]

So many situations are read dependent and a one orbit event hardly allows for reads. Is there value in collecting and posting each players stats as a starting point? exmple 20/10/2 is at least a starting point for the thought processes and thoughtful analysis?

[Smurph64]

Yes there is value to doing that. But we should have some understanding of the player already by reading the boards here.

[bozlax]

[ QUOTE ]
I agree this could be bad if people don't take it seriously and start donking it up but that isn't the point of the exercise.

[/ QUOTE ]

I get what you're going for, smurph. The problems I see are 1) you're going too far in the opposite direction with the speed thing (yes, a typical 2p2 table moves too fast to do any in-hand analysis, but at potentially several weeks per hand you're going to lose the interest of even the least ADD-addled player), and 2) the kinds of thought processes you're looking to discuss don't get developed in 1 orbit. That leaves you at the end of several months, playing your 4th or 5th hand and players in LP making up reads that they couldn't possibly have developed yet, to justify what are either ABC plays that don't require reads, or LAGtard plays you shouldn't be making after only 4 hands.

Further, you're considering re-deals on bad deals and making up "specials" to spice it up. In that case, why not just post playalongs with a series of hypothetical hands?

[hustalasta]

Don't any of the play money sites allow you to download hand histories? If so wouldn't it be easier and faster to get 8-10 players on one site and then everyone submit the hand histories to you?

[Smurph64]

I have to hope that not everyone will take 24h to post a response per hand.

I have some thoughts as to what to do to fix this up for you Boz as you make good points. Play alongs are fine but I don't think they accomplish the same thing.

Trying to brainstorm here to tighten up the process a bit and fix some issues you raised so bear with me.

6 players playing 5 tables simultaneously. Random seat selection each table. 15 bb per table. Winner has highest total for all tables combined.

All 5 tables are played at the same time so each player receives the 5 hands at once. Each person has to play one table at least per round. Rounds start when hands are completed on all tables. This should keep things flying around a little bit faster.

I think this opens the game more selectively, makes reads important, even with the little information we have on each other in this setting, it does mean at the end we are going to have 50 hands to look at with each player.

Each round I will post the results of the round for the boards with the results and the thought processes. I will pick the best hand for a playalong for the board to follow.

Essentially therefore, its not boring to the players because they are making the emails or pm's and its not boring to the boards because they only get updates after a round is finished.


I have no problem running multiple tournaments if we get 6 more to volunteer.

If players are able to get back quicker than 24 hours hands should run their course smoothly.

Worse case scenario this doesn't work in this setting but I think its a viable experiment to try.

So far we have the following volunteers:

Str8fish, Bona, 22pajo, Al_Money22, bravos1, thrakkar enough to make this a six max table.

You guys up for this?