an actual poker post

[ed note: i have no idea why my template is FUBARed, if you can shed some light, please let me know]

First, to april, when she said that I was on a tournament rush and I didn't agree.

She was right:


Now that the housekeeping is out of the way, some thoughts on Triple Draw:

I've been playing a lot more triple draw these days - it's the next big thing; it's as juicy as the hold'em games used to be, back in the day. I also have the benefit of having a good TDL player (who has a milestone annual mummy tummy unzip day celebration coming up tomorrow) to barrage with questions constantly. It's also probably the easiest way to clear the pokerstars bonuses and is a sweet spot for getting at least silver star status, if not gold. Check out the math, courtesy of the degreed Australian:

Given: A TD pot has to hit $20 if there are 4 or more players to get the first FP point, and has to hit $40 to get a second FP point.
This means that almost all 5/10 hands get 1 pt, and a lot of them would get 2. But for 2/4, $40 is 10 BB. Normal action is something like: post, post, raise, one caller from the BB.

Preflop, $9
First draw: check bet. Another $4. Pot now $13
2nd draw: Check bet call. Another $8. Pot now $21 (one point!)
3rd draw: Check bet fold. Final pot: $21.

With 3 players in, it usually gets close to $40, esp if there's multiple raises predraw. We figured 5/10 accumulates points about 1.7 times faster than 2/4, and basic math with empirical data shows that to be pretty close - 5/10 is about 7/4ths faster. And that's not even counting when you get maniacs and it gets to $40 preflop.

Granted, the hands take longer to play, but at 5/10 you can get about 75 FPP/table/hour, which means it only takes 53 table hours of playing to get 4,000 points. Not too shabby. It takes about 100 table hours to do the same at 2/4, which is 4 hours of playing 25 nights a week. yowsa.

...next, what I learned about how to play TDL...