Last day of the Blaze Promo on Betvictor today and even after all that's happened, the swings, the roundabouts the rungood (not often tbh), the monster bad beats and the poor plays and all the other fun stuff, I'll still miss it. I must be a bloody masochist.
Anyway, since I got kicked out at stoploss very quickly yesterday I thought I'd take a chill pill and ponder on the my good and bad points, the bits I like and the bits I don't about the experience. A sort of pros and cons if you will.
Pros first!
Volume:
Stoploss permitting, I can get huge volume from this game, I think 100K a month isn't even close to being beyond reach, not by any stretch of the imagination. If there is one thing I can certainly do it's volume. Suits me sir!
Player Pool:
Not the greatest players around. Yes there are the regs but for obvious reasons they're easily identifiable and most of the rest are gamblers all turning up for a shot at that cannon. Games are very loose indeed, especially preflop; in fact, probably the loosest I've encountered so far. Once a player is in a hand you often need a crowbar to get them out! Both pros and cons there.
Available games:[i][/i]
Plenty of seats available to keep the multitablers busy. I played 6 on occasion when it was a regfest and all nitty/passive stuff going on but mostly played 2, sometimes 3 and sometimes 4. The pool is usually around the 120-150 mark but can go way over that on a weekend. playing late the numbers drop but the standard drops further still.
Rakeback:
Rakeback is nice; rakeback is always nice. There's the Betvictor 4K rake race and the pokerVIP top 777 race to add to that, so it adds up and if you can put plenty of volume in it becomes a nice little earner.
Learning:
I would say my thoughts about learning are ambiguous as far as Blaze poker is concerned but I wont delve too far into that here. Suffice to say, volume and learning can go hand in hand if well balanced and utilized to the fullest, giving a progressive player an almost exponential advantage over standard table players imo. Yes yes, pros and cons; I know, I know.
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Speaking of cons,
Cons,
Fast Folding:
Fast fold poker is just that, fast fold. Once you click that fold button the game is gone and you're moved to a new one. Watch out for the rhythm of it, you can fold monster hands by getting a nice little cadence going folding out trash on 4 - 6 tables, it's relentless and then you spot JJ utg and - oops, snap/folded, dammit!
I've been guilty of both cadence and auto-piloting by the way. Take you time, don't miss out on those button hands and think before you act.
Advice: Take your hand off the bloody mouse before it's your turn to act - and stop hovering the mouse pointer over the fold button before you get dealt in even!
Slow down, it's not a fucking race to see who can fold the most hands in an hour, chill, let the game come to you, don't try to keep up with it.
Another problem here is that again, once the fold button is clicked the game has gone and so has all the action. So, no history of how people play, unless you are in a lot of situations with each person in the pool of course. This involves volume again and many people just haven't the time, which is why they might play Blaze in the first place, to get a lot of hands in for a short time, then jump out.
HUD/Tracking:
There is no HUD in Blaze so tracking in PT4 isn't available and although HM2 works at tracking to a certain extent without a HUD, it's a mediocre solution at best..
Some may think progression is stifled because of this but I disagree somewhat, particularly at the start of a player's journey and have said so on many an occasion, but I do agree posting hands etc for advice becomes problematic. I don't know if there is the option of having your hand history sent to you.
There is a recent trend of sites restricting tracking software anyway, so we may not even have the option soon.
Tilt:
This is a biggie. Because you play so many hands in a short period, bad beats and suckouts are also going to happen a lot more frequently. Be wary of this as getting stacked by some random 3 or 4 hands in super quick succession can very easily put a microstakes player on tilt.
As mentioned earlier, these games a very loose and very swingy in nature, so you could lose 10BI in a session here playing sensible and it wouldn't be insane. Seriously, I know from experience.
Advice: Think about how strong your mental preparation is before jumping into Blaze, or any other fast fold variant for that matter. Be very sure to work on it a lot and hang your ego on a coat peg before you play or you'll go broke in this game very quickly. It's ok, you can pick it up again on the way out.
I would also, if you are just starting out at a fast fold game, have a bit larger bankroll, just to be comfortable until you settle in.
That should do it for me for now. I'm a bit tired now and need food! I know it's not a comprehensive guide to fast fold variants, that's not the intention. The intention is for me to remember this stuff for myself.
My own experiences at Blaze? Not entirely an unmitigated disaster, but a disaster nonetheless. Why? Well,
I think I was unprepared for the swingy nature and such loose play.
I also think at the start I assumed I could just walk in and smash the game like I did standard tables and when I didn't I was unlucky, right?. I was, but that wasn't the whole story.
I've lost so much I got so embarrassed I stopped wanting to log into skype and admit it so I stayed 'invisible'. Tit.
It's taken me some time to come to terms with all that happened, I've had quite the rollercoaster ride. I would say I've learned how to control my game and thinking a by a huge margin, I've stopped all that really fastfold cadence crap and I top to think before I act.
I've learned to read people's bet sizes much easier and can bluff-catch for Wales. I can spot an orphan pot a mile away and am more confident making bigger sized bets to take them down.
My barreling frequencies have improved and my 3bet and 4bet bluffs have jumped up an immense amount, as has my squeeze percent.
I'm pretty sure the latter two are now bigger than my 3bet percent was before Blaze.
So lots of positives even if I lost money. this time however, I'm not going to say I'll expect to beat the standard games easier now, because I've learned easier is a ruse, but let's just say I'm confident and leave it there.
Too long didn't read I suspect? I got owned in blaze and it hurt, lost huge, learned a lot and my game is stronger for it.