ILX Online Poker Tournament!!

no mac stars :(

aw :(

Bump?

No Mac version.

same with me on the mac front. i could do full tilt.

Maybe we need a separate Mac-only tournament?

I don't actually know if I have the privileges to set up a tournament at Full Tilt - I'll look into it though.

lol i'll play prolly.

should be around....

need to sign up though.

would play, buy also on a mac.

Does everyone have a mac or are the PC users just not reading the thread?

don't macs have a PC emulator on it?

I assume the mac users who've posted don't have the necessary equipment?

Ok I'll do it just for yuks. Date and time should be no problemo.

i would definitely play but can't guarantee i'll be in a location with internet access on sunday evening. would feel like a bit of a twat going to the pub to do it.

Hi guys,

I've emailed Full Tilt and I can indeed set up a tourney there - it's not as straightforward as Stars, and requires 4 days grace so this Sunday is out, but perhaps in a couple of weeks?

So if we provisionally say 9pm GMT/4pm ET on Sunday 11th November, who's able to participate?

I'll also post details for people who aren't yet signed up to Full Tilt so that they can get rakeback on their accounts (this is free, easy and totally worth doing if there's any chance you'll continue to play at the site). If anyone wants more info or anything, just email me via ILX.

(btw if anyone IS on for this sunday's tourney, we can still play it - again, let me know. Tom, even if it's just you and me it could be fun!!)

cue 9/11 NEVAR FORGET gags

i'd still be up for this sun.

smashing - can we get a few more punters?

11/11 is Remembrance Sunday in the UK. Good times. That date and time for me, assuming I figure the Mac/software/account stuff out in time.

Just installed the Full Tilt client and set up an account. Seemed to go OK, despite using a weird Windows-y installer. I have no idea how to play poker online though, so Sunday week could be interesting.

I think I can do this on the 11th if it's FTP and not Stars (Mac user here as well; I have a Sunday home game at 7 EST, but I can show up late.) Buy-in's still going to be $5+.50?

Caek you got a rakeback deal right...

Yeah, the idea is $5.50 on FT for the 11th (and we're also going to have a go (PC users only ;_;) this sunday on Stars, as originally planned)

If this works out maybe it could become a semi-regular thing?

oh yeah 11/11 not 9/11. duh. i will sign up for FT. Think I signed up for stars already...

hello i don't know whether GNER trains have Wifi, if they do i'm definitely doing it. way to break the boredom of a 5 hour train journey.

APPARENTLY SO. okay this will cost £10 but i guess I JUST HAVE TO MAKE SURE I WIN

Mark C will have all your monies.

Tom before you sign up for FT, go to raketherake.com and sign up through them. In fact, anyone who needs to sign up, do so - this means you'll get 27% rakeback on all hands you play at FT in the future (and you can only do it before you sign up).

yeah awes im in !

Woohoo!

"Caek you got a rakeback deal right..."

I have no idea what any of the nouns in that sentence mean. I am particularly interesting in the meaning of "rakeback". Could you elaborate?

hey mark do you control the tourney set up? lets make it a ds for more lolz!

what's a ds?

Double shootout? I dunno, I think a simple freezeout would be about right for the first go :)

Caek - when you play poker online (and indeed live), the house takes a proportion of each pot played - this is called rake. Although it's small - 3-5% - in the world of poker, where the margins are everything, it can make a substantial difference to your profitability.

Rakeback is a scheme offered by affiliates - people/companies who have a deal with the poker sites to bring in new players, and are rewarded for doing so. As an incentive to new players, these affiliates can sometimes offer rakeback - i.e. a set proportion of the rake you pay is returned to you. Full Tilt affiliates offer 27% rakeback - so if, in a month, say, you pay $500 in rake, you would receive a payment of $108 at the end of the month from your rakeback provider.

You may think $500 in rake is a lot, but it really adds up - I play about 30-40 hours online poker a month, at low stakes, and I reckon I pay on average about $600 for the privilege. The beauty of poker, of course, is that a good player will make up that amount, and more, in the profit they make at the table.

Caek - the problem is, once you've signed up for site like Full Tilt, you lose the opportunity to get a rakeback deal - logically, because you found your own way to the site, so they're not going to pay an affiliate for bringing you to them.

On the plus side, there are lots of other sites that offer rakeback, so if you get to the point where you are playing online regularly and rakeback would be a not inconsiderable benefit, you can always move to one of these other sites ensuring that you do sign up through an affiliate.

double stack double stack! little more room to breath play around see some cards try some stuff etc.

Ahh! I dunno if that's an option for private tourneys and also, it gives a distinct advantage to the stronger player so when we're starting off with presumably some less confident players taking part, we want to make it as fair as possible.

yeah maybe but everyone get to play longer too - eh either way is fine w/me tho

i think double stack actually suits less experienced players

i mean, unless you blow out all-in on the first hand. having more chips to play with = more tolerating for mistakes?

Thing is with blinds big relative to stacks it's harder to make mistakes or play badly because going all in is more likely to happen and it tends to be a real leveller between good and bad players.

That was really badly put.

Just a reminder - anyone who fancies playing this weekend and has a PC (or a dual boot Mac), see the first post in the thread for details of a game at 4pm ET/9pm GMT on Sunday. Email me if you want further info.

$180 up tonight! Bring it on chaps!

Can't seem to connect at the moment...

Hmm it seems fine for me. This is Pokerstars you're at, right?

Who else is up for this? Even if it's just a few of us it might be a nice hors d'oeuvre before next weekend's showdown :)

(see 1st post in thread for details of how to play)

Oops - forgot to say! Password is raggett

pokerstars, yup. just hangs on the 'connecting' box, although the network status button says everything's ok.

MY new power supply has gone kaput so I had to plug the old one back in just to get this far.

And now my digicam won't let me transfer the photos off it.

GGGAARRRARARARARAAAARARAAAARARGHGHH!!!H!!!!"!H"!"H!"12123o;hj14up

My PC: fucking me off for a good five years now.

Camera problem due to shitty usb connection. Pokerstars still not happy.

Fixed, apparently it was 'cause my sys clock had been reset and thought it was jan 2005?!

Haha! Have you signed up Tom? It could just be me and you but if so then we can use it as a tuition session if you like :)

Come on lads - 3 and a half hours till F!U!N!

Ah haf signed up yes.

yeah, new rolling thread would be good.

sorry i missed it dudes, totally forgot, went to the movies. next time i swear.

Okay, shall we try and do one this Sunday at 10pm GMT? I am less likely to win then as match of the day 2 is on :)

Thinking about it, I guess if people on American time can't play at 4pm they probably can't play at 5 either, and any later we start losing UK players to bed/MOTD2. Unless someone (in the US) specifically prefers 10 GMT then maybe stick to 9?

10 or 9 good for me. Probably prefer 9.

I'm cool either way - anyone else have thoughts? Actually I'd probably prefer 9.

I prefer 10 but I can make either. Just want maximum number of players.

Would 9.30 just stupidly over-complicate things?

I think unless anyone says they would play at 10, but not at 9, we may as well just keep it at 9.

So wait until US daytime posters get done with this thread? Give them another day?

Sure thing. They're all on holiday today, though.

Assholes.

you're going to all get owned next time when i'm not ill and my connection isn't fucked

That's 4 tourneys in a row I've pwned you, Chu.

I'm still too chickenshit to play for money online. I'll do it every chance I get in person, but I don't like using my credit card for stuff like that.

If anyone wants to play a pussy non-money game on Facebook, you can look me up. My name is Tre B@ker.

PP check yr facebook messages.

blimey 4 in a row?

I will, Mark, here in a few hours!

Ken - I outlasted you at the last Century one, I came 1st and 4th to your 2nd and 5th at Marianna's, and then the ILX tourney on Sunday, where I came first and you came last :)

I'd be okay with keeping it at 9 GMT; good times, and it was a nice warmup for my weekly Sunday night home tourney that starts at 6:30 EST. Speaking of which, here's a hand from last night:

Blinds at 100/200; my stack's about 6,500. I was the chip leader at my table; second stack was about 6,000 and the rest were 2,000-4,000.

I'm dealt A9s on the button. Folds around to me, I raise to 600, SB (about 3,000 chips) and BB (about 6,000) both call. Flop comes down Kh7s2s. SB checks, BB bets 1500, I call, SB folds. Turn card is 9d.

BB pushes all-in for ~4000. At this point I have him covered, but not by a lot; I'm pretty sure I'm looking at KQ or KJ, so I know I'm behind, but an ace/nine/spade will win it for me. 14 outs, in other words. I think about it for a minute and finally fold face-up; he shows KJ. Somebody asks to see the river, so I deal it; it would have been 6s for my nut flush.

So: mathematically, I guess it's a sound call folding there, esp. with my read correct, but would you have chased the 14-outer having bet 1/3 of your stack? In a cash game there'd be no question, but in a tourney I'm inclined to gamble a little. Regardless: I folded, made it to the final table, wound up bubbling on the last hand (pushing with what's left of my stack with 33; losing to J4 when a turned jack hit). I don't feel like I played anything badly all night...

that's quite a loose use of pwn mark!!!

Oh come on Ken, considering our relative success I have to grasp what I can get.

GYA - the difference between cash games and a tourney is the marginal value of your chips. In a cash game, 100 chips is worth the same if you have 1000 as it is if you have 101. In a tourney it's very different - your stack is one of your prime tools, and if you lose it, not only can you not buy back but you can't wield it aggressively, you have no fold equity, and suddenly you have to rely on getting good cards in a short period of time to stay alive.

So, in a tournament, if I am *just* getting odds to make a call, but if I lose (and with 14 outs I'm losing 3/4 of the time) my stack will be crippled, it's an easy fold.

In your example, you are being asked to put 4000 into a 8800 pot. So you need to win 31.25% of the time to break even. 14 outs is 30.4%. So it's a solid fold in a cash game (assuming your read is 100% - in reality you'd have to factor in the possibility it's a bluff, which in this case would make it a call), and I think a pretty easy one in a tourney since the chance of him bluffing aren't worth as much as the marginal value of the chips you could lose.

The other way of looking at it, of course, is that in a game of imperfect knowledge, the expected values of either decision are so close that there's no real wrong or right play, each is as good as the other. But personally, because it's a tourney, I think the fold was good.

Okay - should we assume the Americans aren't going to play, or don't care about the time? I think also we should each try and persuade ILXor chums who we know play the game to participate, even if it means lending them the buyin at first (which I'm happy to do). If we could get, say, 20 people for a tourney, how cool would that be?

ILXor chums is this chums who are ilxors or chums of ilxors?

I meant the former, though I guess at some point friends might be okay - just not friends who are really good at poker, and who might discover ILX as a result?

how do you lend people the buyin?

They sign up at Full Tilt, I transfer the money to them on the site.

there's a way to do that??

Yes! There are some conditions attached, I forget which, but if you open the FT software and go to "requests" or something (in the drop down menus I think) it gives you the option.

can you test this out by sending me some $$$?

it sounds like a great way of doing commission-free international money transfer..

Yeah - AIM me when I'm at home and we'll see what we can do.

can you test it out by sending me some $$$$, too?

Hmm.

hey i asked first!!!

So I get why you play four tables at a time - too boring otherwise. Got to 3 down, 6 to go in a $5.50 tourney, everyone being tight but not particularly aggressive, no huge bets so everyone's stack staying the same, I was bobbing around 10*BB. Got bored after half an hour, pushed when I shouldn't have. Oh well.

Heh - yeah, I know how you felt. The main reason you should play as much as you can concentrate on is because then you won't be distracted, and you'll slip into The Zone that much quicker and more easily. And, of course, you make 4 times as much money.

(last night I four-tabled 6max $50NL for 90 minutes and lost $57, meh)

i find full tilt particularly dull. i haven't been on one single tourney (the one with you lot excepted) that's been anywhere approaching fun. everyone's stupidly tight and basically it comes down to who ever ends up with a hand wins. it's like watching a 2 hour long episode of the lottery draw where the balls spin for the whole 2 hours and one ball drops out that determines the winner.

which is a fucking bugger cos i put $600 into the account..

i might just join a $500 tourney and blow it all.

at least it'll be over quicker

Ken your sample size is pathetically small!

If it's so tight, then become a lagg, run over the table with raises and re-raises! Bet very flop, push over raises! You'll win a lot and you'll have a blast doing so, and you'll extend your game.

Or just play the $1 everyone's-a-donk games if that's the kind of games you want. Full Tilt is just like other sites, there's so much less difference between sites than people think.

i've been playing the tourneys innit.

i push mark. and then i pick up their pathetic blinds. and then they call me when they have a monster and i don't hit and i fold and lose all the pathetic blinds. it's sad it is.

these guys hate gambling more than i do!

Ken if that's how you see poker maybe you should quit altogether :)

i've never not quitted!

it's just the greed of the $600 bonus in my account that's keeping me going

being ill on a train with crap wifi didn't help matters i'll give you that

?

I was hoping for more answers before emailing full tilt. I'll try anyway if people are going to be around at 9 tonight?

I could be... but you said they needed four days grace to set it up?

Yeah, it didn't work. Next Sunday? I might start a new thread.