The poker tables in sihanoukville are run by different groups, the casinos are just renting them out to the groups and they are not involved in anything else.. So in oriental you have two or three different groups who are running poker tables with different stakes..

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Collusion must be rife among the Chinese in some of these other rooms?

yeah,softplay between shareholders or friends and showing cards to each other but not to the rest of the tables is very common,sometimes they even openly discuss your range and if they can call or not when you bet big/go all in on the river,but at least in the last case they stop when you start to complain

Do the dealers take much interest in what is going on? Thanks for all your useful info, I might visit for a couple of days just to catch up on how things work there.

the dealers normally just start to say something when you start to complain,can't blame them, because they are working for the group which rents the table,and not the casino..

not a wise idea to argue too much with your boss or a friend of your boss.

but all of this goes mostly for the 2/5+ games,the smaller stakes are mostly full of westerners and run by westerners who have a different approach to the rules of the game..

To Value Cutting and Samcx:

Thank you for your advice.

Not only your Asian opponents but also both of you would take me to the cleaners ( something I would not enjoy) if I went to the table with less chips.

Napoleon Bonaparte might have been an evil man but most commentators regard ed him as a military genius. When considering officers to be promoted to general he only considered one factor, was this officer lucky, if he could show he was lucky he immediately became one of Napoleon's generals. Every one's life is influenced by luck factors but it can be very unevenly spread.

I am not a good card player like you guys because firstly I do not have the luck factor when the cards are being dealt. Therefore I could not beat you guys or the Asians if I did not have a stack size advantage.

To prove my point I once played 4 years online under the strict guidance of a coach, we played to the same chart and instructions, limit mid stakes. Playing at the same limits over 4 years my net winnings were roughly 9% of his, we agreed poker was not for me and parted company. I put his charts and instructions in the rubbish and embarked on research to see if there are other factors than the cards that could be used. Annette Obrastad said the game can be played with little attention to the cards but a lot of attention to bet sizes and observing the opponents closely

Inspired by Dan Harrington's theory that decisions should be influenced by stack size as a ratio of the blinds and opponents stack sizes I set out to see if a more extreme case could be made for eliminating some of the luck factor by using stack size as the main component for decision making.

I played for another 10 years but went to no limit S&Gs and tourneys, I retired from online about 3 years ago mainly because I thought the games were not getting easier. Kept no records but discovered yesterday I can extract from Official Poker Rankings a 7 year period covering some of my activity . Their archives do not seem to go back beyond 2007 which was after I was already playing my new strategy.

Playing very regularly and often multi tabling the following was up lifted yesterday from OPR from that period playing on Poker Stars and Full Tilt:

Tourneys: 45 or more players entered= 15,500
First place 326
2nd 215
3rd 237
4th to 10th 987
Final tables 1,765
In the money 17%
Return on investment 14%

I do not suggest for a moment any one should or can learn anything from this. Except that I proved to myself that when the luck factor is reduced the results can be rewarding for a poor card player. I had been inspired by the teenage prodigy from Finland Annette Obrestad who famously won a 180 player tourney without once looking at her hole cards.

Based on my stats it is apparent that the further a tourney goes the more the luck factor reduces and players start more being guided by their stack sizes. This is the moment I come in because I'm not good at cards but I'm very good with maths.

It was fun but would not work well against you guys or the Asians because my results were very dependent on playing against players where I could successfully work out at what point they would fold. Players at a final table get there because they fold a lot of hands. I can play that environment but if players refuse to fold I am toast. The other key thing was being able to impose an image of being a very tight player. Against loose players in a cash game I'm likely to be history unless I have a stack size advantage which allows for taking the inevitable losses which I would incur. My punchline is that luck is not evenly distributed among the players and basically I'm an unlucky player on the cards but a lucky player if I can work on my stack size theory

I vote for less talking and show us an example of your revolutionary maths applied to a hand.

Hi Info shove:

I was responding to a specific post, sorry for the length.

I mentioned in my post that none of what I post is likely to be of any help to anyone else.

Played about 4 million hands more or less. Tight image. Now believer in the theory that poker can be more about people than about cards.

Sorry I cannot be more helpful.

I guess I can only quote you the example of Dan Harrington, regarded as being the tightest player in the game. On his way to winning the final of the 1995 WSOP he played very tight until towards the end. But towards the end he is reputed to have shoved 46 all ins. This is still regarded as the most all ins ever by a winning player at WSOP. My point is that after a very tight image is projected a player has a massive advantage to intimidate. I wass never c onscious of any particualr hand but always watching my opponents to establishe where they were at and what my percentages were in relation to the blinds, the the players on my left.

The only word of wisdom I might offer is that late in a tourney be very wary of the biggest and shortest stacks for they can undo you, otherwise the medium stacks are the most likely to get out of the way of a late tourney charge. If the biggest and shortest have folded already, then the table belongs to me.

In Trying to address your question Infoshove I could add as follows specifically on individual hands : If the short stack shoves and it is folded to me in the big blind and I have at least 3 times his/her chips it is a call for me with any 2 cards. If the shortest and biggest stacks are on my left, it is a fold with any 2 cards. I would also stress that an out of position raise from a very tight player has a lot of authority to exploit in further action, if there is any further action. A lot of chips I accumulated were by playing at less than 10% of hands dealt and then suddenly an out of position raise with any 2 cards. Further, If the dealer raised 4 times the BB I would fold. If the dealer raised 3 times or less I was all in from the big blind if such a move was putting his/her tourney life on the line. That is pure psychology and my benefit was always the tight image

Every game type has different math and so needs a different strategy. You can't just mix limit games with mtts and nl cashgames and apply the same strategy. If your 'stack size theory' works in nl cashgame it's just coincidence as it usually reflects how much a player cares about money. Let's go online and watch 1ct/2ct nlh tables. You will see players that just openshove because nobody cares about 2$.
And forget about dan Harrington books. This is pretty basic stuff today (and is btw mtt strategy). The game has evolved a lot further than that.

Utterly fascinating thread, but the topic's straying a little, isn't it? I'd love to hear more about the current state of poker in Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville, and anything else related to it.

- Cheers.

Apologies Cambo bound. My fault, I am the culprit, I was originally asking how were the games generally played down there and we got diverted. We will await the answers on topic, if there are games in Sihanoukville, Pronto has given useful info.

I'm heading out to Sihanoukville in a couple of weeks to grind for a month. Will report back!

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PT has been awfully quiet since it was reported his room closed. Interested to hear what happened.

Me & a few other 2+2's bumped into PT on Saturday night in town, and sadly I think he said he is done with this thread completely... sad really as he alone has kept it alive for the last couple of years. Hopefully he'll be back soon.

Good one Bilesy, I'm heading back in 3 weeks so look forward to your report

PT said he's taking a break from 2p2 for awhile.

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I hope PT does post again; he was a fountain of useful, fascinating and fun info! Good luck to him anyway.

the chinese mafia got to him...

The triad's got to Poker_Triad?

Anyone know if there are any small games running - say 25c/50c - in Phnom Penh? If so, nit-fests or loosey-goosey?

- Cheers.

Big +1

I wish all my best for PT& his crew. I got to meet all of these guys this spring while visiting cambodia. Sad that things aint going too well down there, I had many good experiences playing at riverking/bao mai.

And I really hope u didnt get ****ed by the chinese this time..

Last time I checked red fox had 10cnt 20cnt game a couple nights a week, after the tournament. Thats probably closest to what youre looking for. .

Right, but they play Dealers Choice - weird games like "13 card Irish Poker" included

And it's more a shovefest than a game.

Seriously, such lowstakes are not profitable for a pokerroom. As a lot of the players are foreigners or somewhat rich locals (at least compared to the rest of the population) there is no reason for such stakes.