Islewars

A few entries ago I tried to compare multitabling to video and computer games. While I was working on it something clicking in the back of my mind but I didn’t quite have access to it at the time. Now I remember what it was.

There was a very simple DOS game that I played, and played a lot. It was a shareware game called Islewars. Something like a simple Risk game, you had to try to take over control of countries on various continents and islands. To do so, you would wage war against neighboring countries using the armies you had in that country against how ever many your opponent had in the defending country. The defenders always had a slight mathematical advantage, and each round you received bonus armies for the total number of countries you controlled plus extra for any entire continents or islands that you controlled.

The startup options included 1) how many randomly placed countries you would control at the beginning, and 2) how many armies might be on any country. In other words, you could say you wanted 11 countries and the range of starting armies would be 1-5 per country. The number of countries any of your three computer opponents would have and the exact number of armies on any one country was random so you might start out in good shape, or one of the computer players might start out very strong.

It was fun, and I played a lot of games of it. There was strategy involved, adapting to various situations, adapting to changing situations, planning, attacking, shoring up defences, anticipating the other players moves, looking for vulnerable points, keeping an eye on the strengths and battles of the opponents and trying to keep the overall balance of power even between the computer opponents which would allow me to slowly build up my resources until I was ready to challenge. Because of the level I chose to play at, I almost always started out with the fewest starting countries and armies so I needed to target takeovers of small islands to be able to collect more bonus armies and gradually catch up.

There were a few aspects of it that made it fun for me. One is that because of the level that I played at I always started at a disadvantage. However, because I could understand the computer opponent’s choices I could often keep them under control while I made faster progress by knowing how to target appropriate islands. The predictability of the programming made it possible for me to win 60% of the games even after starting at a disadvantage and that combination of winning percentage combined with always starting at a disadvantage made me feel like I knew what I was doing.

Now, if I could only do this at poker!

Mind you, if I play at low enough levels, I probably could. The $1 STTs still pay me more than the rake, but I want to be doing this at $25NL.

~

Later Edit: People seem to still search for “Islewars”. If you’ve played this, let me know. I’d love to hear from other Islewars players!

Know your level

One thing that permeates this blog in many different ways is the difference in playing levels. There isn’t a lot of categorized discussion about it on the internet, other than when people say “at this level, expect …” In other words, they understand there is a difference, but I’m surprised at the lack of delineation or attempts to define specifics.

“Value bet”, “don’t bluff the calling stations” are standard adjustments, and I’ve noted a bunch of characteristics in another blog entry, but it makes it tough sometimes to try to learn from books, videos, internet postings when they are talking about players at $100NL or $50 tournament buyins. You can’t make the same analysis because micro players will have a much wider range, you can’t make the same plays because the micro players will not understand. A stop and go means nothing to someone who sees they have a gut shot straight or overcards and they’ll call off most of their stack. You can’t assume heads-up that the player hasn’t got an Ace just because they didn’t raise because they don’t know how big a hand with any Ace is heads-up.

And of course the same applies within the micro levels as well. I’m having fun lately with the $1 turbo STTs when I don’t have time or the focus to play anything else. The rake is ridiculous, but so is the competition. Last night, lying in bed, I looked up my remaining competition on Sharkscope. Of 5, only 2 had positive ROI, and one of them had only played 28. One of the losers had played over 1,000 and was -$747 and the other two were around 500-700 with losses of $400 and $500 respectively. They must have won sometimes, and they’re only playing cheap tourneys so that’s a lot of losses.

The point for me is that since I play a fairly wide range of game levels, I have to be able to shift gears and adjust for what I expect to find at any given level. Aggression is bad against calling stations, but good against tight/weak players. Preflop raises and c-bets may be a waste of chips against limp/callers, but shoving two pair on the flop may get calls from weak draws. QQ and JJ can be good preflop shoves as you can get called with A2o or even KTo, but be prepared to get sucked out on. $10NL seems to be the most troublesome for me as it seems to be a crossover point. At $25NL the number of limp/callers drops enough that I seem to be more comfortable playing the game that I like to play but it requires attention to reads that I’m not always willing to put in.

Amazingly bad

A minor posting attempt.

Lacking time and focus I played a $1 SnG turbo last night ’cause I had 1/2 hour to kill. And today I signed up for a freeroll on CD, forgot about it and came back 20 minutes into it.

Both were interesting because of some of the bad plays I got to witness. Bad calls from big stacks, but those were sometimes helped by bad pushes against raises from the mid and short stacks. Middle stacks shoving back with JT, mid stacks calling off half their stack with weak aces. ITM in the SnG I guess it didn’t matter anymore. I got in short, worked my way up and they kinda gave up or something. In the freeroll I lucked out twice (as Action Dan says, you have to get lucky a few times to go deep in a MTT), tripling up with a shoved 77 when the donkey big stack chased off the other caller to protect his AQ that missed entirely, and then catching a straight with 99 up against JJ and 66. Still a lot of poor play at the FT, after I arrived there 7 of 10 but once I got a stack people folded to my raises or called and folded.