WGC Cadillac Championship: Punter plays the wind exponents

The Punter / Steven Rawlings / 06 March 2012 / Leave a Comment

Charl Schwartzel – Brings course and current form to this week’s event

“Tiger Woods was just four shots off the lead after day one in 2007 but that’s the furthest any winner has been after day one in the last seven years.”

With breezy weather forecast for the second WGC event of the year, our man plumps for an octet of wind specialists at tasty prices, and he also has a plan for day one. Read his preview here...

Tournament
The qualifying criteria for the WGC Cadillac Championship are extensive, verging on exhausting, but for those that want to know, the field includes the following. The top 50 in the official world rankings, the top 20 from last year's Race to Dubai standings and the top 30 from last year's FedEx Cup standings, as well as the top 10 from this year's Race to Dubai and FedEx Cup standing, and the top two players from the2011 Japanese, South African, Australasian and Asian Order of Merits. And that's it; nobody else gets a look in.

Venue
TPC Blue Monster at Doral, Doral, Florida

Course Details
Par 72, 7334 yards, stroke average in 2011 - 71.48

Doral was nicknamed the Blue Monster because water's in play on half the holes and it used to play really tough. It's now officially called the Blue Monster which is somewhat ironic because if the wind doesn't blow it's far from monstrous, and the scoring average comes down year after year with the advancement of technology. The average between 1962 (when it opened) and 1965 was 74.74. Last year it averaged just 71.48. The first hole (par five) is the easiest and the 18th (par four) the hardest. The greens are slightly above average in size at 6,500 feet and there are 108 bunkers on the course. Like last week's venue, the entire track is Bermuda.

Useful Sites
Course details
Weather
Venue Site

TV Coverage
Live on Sky Sports all four days, 7.00pm on Thursday and Friday and 5.00pm on Saturday and Sunday.

Last Five Winners
2011 - Nick Watney -16
2010 - Ernie Els -18
2009 - Phil Mickelson -19
2008 - Geoff Ogilvy -17
2007 - Tiger Woods -10

Typical Winner
Length off the tee is definitely a plus this week and the par fives are likely to be key. The last two winners both played the par fives in double-figures under par. A fast start appears essential too. Tiger Woods was just four shots off the lead after day one in 2007 but that's the furthest any winner has been after day one in the last seven years. An ability to play well in windy conditions is often important and judging by the early forecasts, that will again be the case this year.

Market leaders
Mike Norman covers the first four in the betting here and he advocates dutching them at around [2.6]. Given the form of Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods and Lee Westwood on Sunday, and the state of Phil Mickelson's game before he went on holiday, he could well be right but at the prices available, I'm going to look elsewhere. It's asking a lot for Rory to go in again, the jury's currently out re Woods' temperament in the mix, Westwood can't putt for toffee and Lefty won't be too keen to see the wind up.

Selections
The forecast has already changed slightly since I first started looking on Sunday and it could scupper my plans if it changes much further. It suggested very strong winds but now it gives merely breezy conditions. It's always a dangerous game to base your picks on a weather forecast but I haven't gone mad by any means. My plan is to get involved properly towards the end of, and at the end of, day one (see above re winners up with the early pace), but I've still picked out a few to get me started.

Charl Schwartzel pushed Ernie Els all the way here two years ago, played very well last week, can handle the wind, and looked over-priced at [36.0]. I didn't get as much on as I'd have liked at that price but I'm taking it easy from the off anyway.

Rory McIlroy wasn't the only youngster playing well last weekend. Rickie Fowler was scything through the field in the blustery weather. The wind can't blow hard enough for Rickie and if it does get really tough, he's the man to be on.

At a triple-figure price I'm giving Kyle Stanley a chance on his event debut. He has the length and par five performance required to prosper and he can play Bermuda and handle the wind. He hasn't a brilliant record in Florida and he missed the cut last week but when he challenged so strongly at the Farmers Insurance Open he'd missed the cut the week before.

After that it's a bunch of quality wind exponents at barmy prices, so come on wind, get blowing!

WGC Cadillac Championship Selections:
Charl Schwartzel @ an average of [34.0]
Rickie Fowler @ [55.0]
Kyle Stanley @ [100.0]
Louis Oosthuizen @ [160.0]
Thomas Bjorn @ [210.0]
Paul Casey @ [250.0]
Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano @ [450.0]
Greg Chalmers @ [450.0]

I'll be back later with a preview of the weeks other event, the Puerto Rico Open.

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There's just one event to concentrate on this week but it's a cracker. Read Steve's thoughts on the Honda Classic here......

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Can We Assume No-Limit Hold'em Always "Plays Bigger" Than Limit?

Poker Strategy / Short-Stacked Shamus / 01 September 2011 / Leave a Comment

Back during the World Series of Poker I recall a certain "WSOP Hand of the Day" between Matt Matros and Jonathan Lane that came up during Event #52, the $2,500 Mixed Hold'em (Limit/No-Limit) tournament eventually won by Matros. The pair were heads-up for the bracelet, and after Lane had won a sequence of LHE hands to take the lead, Matros retook the advantage and after winning this particular NLHE hand soon cruised to victory.

I've had the chance to help cover a few of these Mixed Hold'em events at the WSOP over the years for PokerNews, including a couple of memorable ones in which Gavin Smith won his first bracelet (in the $2,500 Mixed HE event in 2010) and Erick Lindgren his first (in the $5K version of the Mixed HE in 2008).

In these tournaments, players alternate between a half-hour of fixed-limit hold'em and a half-hour of no-limit holdem. When talking about that Matros-Lane hand I mentioned how often in these events -- especially during the latter stages -- LHE "plays bigger" than NLHE, thereby resulting in larger chip swings. That observation was somewhat anecdotal; that is to say, I was thinking of what frequently had happened in the tournaments I'd seen, and not of any sort of mathematical breakdown of why that might be the case.

Obviously with these WSOP mixed HE events the schedule of blind increases directly affects how "big" LHE and NLHE play, relatively speaking. But the issue got me thinking... how do LHE and NLHE compare when we're talking about regular cash games? In other words, what are the relative "swings" players experience when playing LHE as opposed to NLHE?

On the surface, it might appear a simple question to answer. Perhaps thinking about how we can only win a few bets per hand in LHE while we can double-up or lose our entire stack in a single NLHE hand, for many of us our instinctive response would be to say no-limit clearly "plays bigger." In fact, it is a commonly-held assumption that players who wish to avoid big swings are encouraged to stick with LHE rather than try NLHE, since in the fixed-limit game they stand to win or lose much less on average.

But is that actually the case? Like I say, watching these mixed hold'em tourneys has gotten me wondering -- when it comes to comparing entire sessions or longer-term segments of play, is it possible that LHE sometimes plays as "big" or even bigger than NLHE?

In The Math of Hold'em, authors Collin Moshman and Douglas Zare devote a series of sections to "Statistics and Variance" in which they explain concepts like "standard deviation" and their application to bankroll management. There the authors note how when it comes to online poker, in limit hold'em "your standard deviation is typically about 15 big bets per 100 hands for full ring, [and] about 17 big bets per 100 hands 6-max."

Adding the disclaimer that all of these figures are obviously going to be affected by how loose or aggressive you and/or your opponents are, Moshman and Zare go on to note that when playing NLHE online "your standard deviation is typically about 85 big blinds per 100 [hands] for full ring, and about 95 big blinds per 100 for short-handed." (The authors note also how the relative deepness of the stacks are going to affect things in NLHE, too, but to keep things simple we'll set that aside.)

So let's say I'm a "typical" player and I am trying to choose whether to sit down at an LHE or NLHE table. I have $100 with which to play, and I'm going to take a seat at either a $0.50/$1 NLHE table or $2/$4 LHE table. And while I expect to win, I also don't want to lose my money too quickly, so I'm trying to pick the game that poses the least risk to my hundy.

I'm thinking here of what players often buy in for at these particular limits when playing online. I know, for example, that in Internet Texas Hold'em, Matthew Hilger (interviewed here) says with regard to LHE that "I prefer to sit down with at least forty times the big bet to minimize the chance that I might have to add chips later." Thus I wouldn't really be following Hilger's advice by sitting down with my 25 big bets here. But just eyeballing the games I think many would probably think of $0.50/$1 NLHE and $2/$4 LHE as being in the same neighborhood, stakes-wise.

Looking back at Moshman and Zare's figures, then, let's do some math. If during 100 hands of LHE I experience "standard deviation," I'd expect to win or lose as much as $60 (full ring) or $68 (6-max.). Meanwhile, if during the first 100 hands of NLHE I remained within the expected range, I'd be looking at winning or losing as much as $85 (full ring) or $95 (6-max.).

One can win or lose more, of course. As I mentioned, the authors do note that the relative looseness/tightness of a game can affect the standard deviation -- by as much as 15% in either direction in LHE games and 30% in NLHE games, they say. That means that if I happen to draw a loose LHE game, it could in fact "play bigger" than would a tight NLHE game.

All of which is to say, that while it looks like NLHE typically is going to be a game in which one experiences somewhat larger swings than in LHE, the difference isn't necessarily as enormous as one might expect. In fact, it looks here as though the chances that I'll burn through my $100 -- or, perhaps, double it -- aren't hugely different whether I play $0.50/$1 NLHE or $2/$4 LHE.

That's, assuming, of course, I'm equally proficient in both games. And that my opponents are as well. And, well, a lot of other things, too.

Even so, I think we can still take away another lesson here -- in fact, one about avoiding another assumption, namely, the one that says by sticking with LHE we'll avoid the big swings of NLHE.

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Dancing On Ice: Sam plays the audience again

Dancing On Ice / Eliot Pollak / 02 March 2011 / Leave a Comment

It's all over bar the dancing (on ice, of course)

"Attwater told the buxom milkmaids who read Cosmopolitan magazine that he is cripplingly shy around women - the textbook boyband tactic, the equivalent of covering yourself in honey to attract mates. The women LOVE that drivel."

Saucy Sam knows how to get the voters' hearts pumping faster and that makes him a skated shoo-in for top honours in the 2011 Dancing On Ice, says Eliot Pollak

With that little-known awards ceremony, 'the Oscars', jamming up our tabloid newspapers, news from the ice rink this week, has been sparser than tourist buses in Libya. But in spite of all this, a momentum shift appears to have occurred. You can't touch it, you can't smell it, but man alive you can cop a feel.

Having wobbled of late, Sam Attwater appears to have played a cleverer game over the past few days, and stuck himself right back in the mix. In a most thrilling contrast, Attwater has counteracted his poise on the ice by floundering like a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest, whenever he opens his heart and talks women.

First we had the pretend romance, then some serious backtracking, now he's told the buxom milkmaids who read Cosmopolitan magazine that he is cripplingly shy around women - the textbook boyband tactic, the equivalent of covering yourself in honey to attract mates. The women LOVE that drivel.

Far be it from us to rain on the parade womenfolk, but as history will tell you, he's probably lying, and in fact, has a pop at anything that moves. No matter, Attwater is running away with this, [1.86] to win, and money placed elsewhere is simply money wasted.

The betting suggests that the firm favourite to come second is Laura Hamilton, who currently lies at [3.5] on the markets. Her appearance in the skate-off last week however, has very much put the Cat Deeley amongst the pigeons. For the bold punters out there, a little nibble at [12.0] for her to be out this week may be surprisingly shrewd. For the more conservative amongst you, LH is [1.2] to be top lass, and [1.56] in the 'without Attwater' market.

Elsewhere amongst the D on I riff-raff, classy gentleman Jeff Brazier took a pop at the various cast members of The Only Way is Essex, by suggesting that they don't accurately capture the fierce intellect of the place. Instead, insists Brazier, viewers should look to Stacey Solomon and Olly Murs. Because they aren't on television enough obviously.

We could go on and on discussing Chloe Madeley's overdose of fake tan or Vanilla Ice's tears after being given the shove on Sunday night, or we could even do a paragraph or two on Holly Willoughby's anaemia. But instead the last word to Holly, who speaking of her illness said, "It was really weird waking up Monday morning saying, 'I don't know who went out.'" Incidentally, the majority of the British public share those sentiments. Just without the 'really weird' bit.

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