POTD #24 Running Out of Time vs Henrick Hecklen

There is so much variance in poker results that it can often be hard to separate something that helps or hinders your edge from something that is just dumb luck. I believe home court advantage exists in poker. You play better if you’re sleeping well and aren’t jet-lagged. However, if you can overcome jet lag, I’ve found it has helped me to be at locations where I’m forcibly cut off from the outside world. In Asia and Australia, you frequently begin playing when the rest of the world is asleep-- you’re not distracted by the news or social media or friends and family because they’re dormant. At times, that’s invigorating and allows you to focus; at other times, you feel adrift and lonely, and being on the other side of the world is enervating. Try as one might, the reality is, your mood and energy levels are often dictated by your results.

When high rollers discuss how to generate a home court advantage, they often sound like athletes. For many players, optimizing sleep, diet, and exercise regimes lead to a HCA. It’s the official position of this blog that poker is a game, not a sport, so in today’s entry I will focus on something not athletic: feeling comfortable.

At one point in time, my online MTT volume was split between PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. I was breakeven on Pokerstars and had a 100% ROI on FullTiltPoker. I was playing these sites simultaneously, so it’s not like I had better sleep or diet habits on one site over the other. (I was also 20; I didn’t have sleep or diet habits at all.) I do think the wide gap in ROI was mostly luck, but I also felt more comfortable when I had a deep run on FTP; I knew the nuances of their blind structures deep in tourneys; perhaps opponents Sharkscoped me and were intimidated by my results. Feeling confident and intimidating your opponents are not black magic; they’re real things that can improve your win rate.

Today’s hand takes place during Triton London 2023. I’ve travelled to play poker in London six times, played in eight different poker rooms¹, and stayed in six different hotels². I’ve had a moderate amount of success, but the nomadic London poker scene has never made me feel at home the way I do at, say, The Atlantis.

However, when I play EPTs or Tritons, what makes me feel at home is my familiarity with how the tournaments work: the structures, table breaking order, chip sets, the pace of the tournaments, knowing the floor staff and dealers. My experience has given me knowledge that makes me feel at home at the table. Today’s hand threw me for a loop in two regards: it’s a mystery bounty tournament, a format I’m unfamiliar with, and Triton Poker had just introduced “fast action” time bank chips. For those unaware, there used to be a lot of stalling nearing the money in live poker tournaments. To combat that they added shot clocks: Each player has 30 seconds to act and is given a fixed number time extension chips to use in the event they took longer than 30 seconds to act. This worked well except that nearing the money bubble you’d have tables full of 7 people taking their full 29 seconds, and it would take five minutes to play a hand. To combat that, Triton implemented “Fast Action,” where, if it’s unopened preflop and your turn, you only get 10 seconds to act. They’ve been a welcome addition to Tritons and have sped up the game. 2023 London was the first time anyone had played with fast action. It threw me out of my routine and caused me to blunder a hand.

The Hand

Triton London 2023 Event #3: $40k (20k+20k) Mystery Bounty

Level 15: 15/30k/30k (SB/BB/BBA) 200k Starting Stack. 23 Left, 20 Cash

HH: Triton Poker App

It folds me in the small blind with J♦️9♦️ with 465k, Henrik has 1.1M in the BB. I limp, he goes all-in, I fold.