As my poker game progresses, I have been focusing my attention on the question of perception. How important is it to form the correct perception of another player’s game and how important is it to understand their perception of you? The answer I am finding agrees with everything I have ever heard. Understanding the interrelationships between the players at the table is the most important aspect of performing well in a NL Hold'em game. People become more important than the actual cards. Having an accurate read on both how someone else is playing and on how they perceive that you are playing affects every decision that you have to make, from starting hand requirements, to how much to raise, to whether to push or slow play, to whether to make a tough call.
It is important to understand the fundamentals of the game, but it is more important to know when and why to play outside of those fundamentals. Playing formulaic poker just can't succeed in the long run.
Every action you take and every action that you see and opponent take is based upon perceptions of situations between you. You are successful when you accurately form a perception of why they are doing certain things. They are unsuccessful when they are inaccurate in their perception of why you are doing certain things. It is in your best interest to create situations where you understand more clearly than the other player why a hand is being played out the way it is, both from your side and from their side. When you achieve this zenful state of full understanding, the poker table becomes a magical place where every decision you make seems remarkable, from calling down a huge bluff with an under pair to pushing a set hard when it seems impossible that your opponent will actually call.
I have been there and it is glorious.
But I am not getting there as often as I think I should. Why is that?
It takes time to form an accurate perception of another player. You need to see a lot of hands to get a good read on him/her. What are their requirements for raising? What are their betting tendancies with big hands. Do they only recognize the value of what they hold and not give credit for the potential value of their opponents holdings. Can they lay a big hand down? Do they have buttons that can be pushed. This is my biggest failing. I don’t give myself time to figure a player out. I need to do this better. Rather than coming into a game firing on all cylinders, I need to take a few orbits to observe how they play, why do they bet, what do they bet, what are they laying down and what are they sticking around with, do they push their strong hands and how do they play draws. Once I have taken the time to understand my opponents, I will then be prepared to understand their impression of me ( or to form it ).
It takes much less time to create an impression in other players. Their perception of you as a player can be manipulated in just one hand. It is much easier to manipulate their impression of you than it is to get a clear read on them. Make a ridiculous raise with 97o and win a hand with it and you have formed a perception in their mind that you are a dolt. Bet the nuts and get called down and suddenly, you are a rock in their minds. Understanding where you currently stand in their vault of thinking – your table image – is actually pretty easy. You just have to think it through. Are they getting frisky with you? Are they firing back at you more often? Why is that? It is because of how they perceive you. Your actions have created a perception that has changed the way they are playing. It is in your interest to play counter to their current perception. If they think you are stealing pots, then get a great hand and push it like you are stealing, let them come over the top and commit themselves and then just bleed off the rest of their chips. If you are perceived as a rock, then steal pots with impunity.
When you understand your opponent and then create an impression of yourself in them, then you are in great shape. Every decision you make can be weighted with your newfound knowledge. You know how likely it is that they will play back at you with nothing. You know that when they bet they have something. You know why and when they would bluff and your reads become much more accurate.
But the key is time. I need to take the time to feel it out. I need to take the time to understand what is going on around me. Once I have done this, then I have put all the percentages in my favor and I can start to play some poker.
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Friday, September 02, 2005
A Sad Pathetic Little Man
My three kids practice football at two different locations. When I am at practice for my youngest, I can pick up “kevsnet” if I take a folding chair out next to the baseball field and aim north. This connection is a little shaky and I keep losing my disconnect protections. It definitely adds to the drama to play there. I have been repositioning the last few days and it is getting a little better.
At my two older son’s practices, I can park my car a little bit away from the field and pick up “Ted’s Network” clear as a bell. This is by far my best poker playing location when I am stationed next to a football field. The only problem is that I don’t have a clear site line to the field.
I can’t play party poker at work because it’s blocked and I really like my job and would hate to get fired, but, at lunch, I just found a nice spot at the local park to escape. If I take a folding chair and walk halfway across the park to the shade of some pines by some nearby houses, I am in range of “linksys” and get a great signal. “hpsetup” is also there, but I haven’t quite got the positioning right to get that one in clearly. The only problem with this spot is that the laptop screen is a little hard to see. I have trouble finding the cursor sometimes and have to squint to tell suits.
Overall, it’s pretty pathetic really. Is it illegal to steal internet? I don’t know. Is it illegal to play internet poker? Probably. Is it sad that a grown man would be doing both on a regular basis? Definitely.
Imagine the site of some asshole wandering around a park carrying a laptop open in front of him and continually clicking refresh on the advanced screen of the wireless internet connection screen hoping that this is the spot to perfectly pick up and eventually steal someone’s internet connection. The walkers, joggers, rollerbladers and other proper users of the park facilities must have wondered what the hell was going on. Until I grabbed the folding chair, it probably looked pretty official. But, once I had the chair and now that I regularly sit there staring at a laptop screen and smoking one cigarette after another, I definitely must look like the biggest loser on earth.
I used to play beach volleyball every day at that park. Some of the hot female walkers used to check me out, tanned golden brown, somewhat cut from regular working out and hours of weekly volleyball, or so I liked to imagine. But since my back operation, I am not allowed to play volleyball anymore, and I have become a pathetic shell of my old self. Just give me some breadcrumbs to feed the damn birds and the picture will be complete. Those same women actually turn away in confused revolution at the site of gut sporting geek of a man sitting in a canvas folding chair under a tree next to the jogging path, smoking cigarettes and gesturing wildly at the laptop screen in front of him.
Fuck ‘em!
At my two older son’s practices, I can park my car a little bit away from the field and pick up “Ted’s Network” clear as a bell. This is by far my best poker playing location when I am stationed next to a football field. The only problem is that I don’t have a clear site line to the field.
I can’t play party poker at work because it’s blocked and I really like my job and would hate to get fired, but, at lunch, I just found a nice spot at the local park to escape. If I take a folding chair and walk halfway across the park to the shade of some pines by some nearby houses, I am in range of “linksys” and get a great signal. “hpsetup” is also there, but I haven’t quite got the positioning right to get that one in clearly. The only problem with this spot is that the laptop screen is a little hard to see. I have trouble finding the cursor sometimes and have to squint to tell suits.
Overall, it’s pretty pathetic really. Is it illegal to steal internet? I don’t know. Is it illegal to play internet poker? Probably. Is it sad that a grown man would be doing both on a regular basis? Definitely.
Imagine the site of some asshole wandering around a park carrying a laptop open in front of him and continually clicking refresh on the advanced screen of the wireless internet connection screen hoping that this is the spot to perfectly pick up and eventually steal someone’s internet connection. The walkers, joggers, rollerbladers and other proper users of the park facilities must have wondered what the hell was going on. Until I grabbed the folding chair, it probably looked pretty official. But, once I had the chair and now that I regularly sit there staring at a laptop screen and smoking one cigarette after another, I definitely must look like the biggest loser on earth.
I used to play beach volleyball every day at that park. Some of the hot female walkers used to check me out, tanned golden brown, somewhat cut from regular working out and hours of weekly volleyball, or so I liked to imagine. But since my back operation, I am not allowed to play volleyball anymore, and I have become a pathetic shell of my old self. Just give me some breadcrumbs to feed the damn birds and the picture will be complete. Those same women actually turn away in confused revolution at the site of gut sporting geek of a man sitting in a canvas folding chair under a tree next to the jogging path, smoking cigarettes and gesturing wildly at the laptop screen in front of him.
Fuck ‘em!
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Football - a poker story.
The scene is not unusual for a weeknight in any suburban town in America. A gaggle of parents are milling about in front of their awkwardly parked cars; some sitting in little nylon folding chairs, others aimlessly pacing back and forth. The cars are pulled right up onto the grass, strewn about at odd angles, right next to the field where their children are waging a series of mini wars. The parents are absentmindedly engaged in conversation, pretending interest in each others jokes and tales of suburban misadventure, all the while keeping one eye turned towards the football field in front of them. On the field, three squads of football players are being put through their paces, running drills, engaging in small scale scrimmages, and the parents are each keeping score of their child’s progress – and the perceived lack of progress by his immediate competition. Little battles are being waged, for playing time, for bragging rights, for chances to be written up in the weekly news letter.
There is a big hit on the field and one parent screams out his triumph. Johnny just put one to little Timmy and all it temporarily right in the world. The coaches make the parents stay a certain distance from practice and the parents aren’t really supposed to shout out anything, but when one of the kids really puts a lickin’ on another kid, the exultation is understandable and almost impossible to muffle.
A row back of the main pack of cars, parked at an even stranger angle than the others (to better get a signal), is a tiny black Focus. The windows are cracked, but that doesn’t prevent the condensation from the breath of the sole occupant from forming and fogging up every inch of window in the car. It is humid, and the passenger has opted to just crack the windows, reducing the odds of getting eaten alive by bugs but increasing slightly the discomfort and ever increasing wetness of the car interior. Every once in a while, he turns on the engine and lets the air pump for a little bit, then switches it off and baths in the temporary comfort. But overall it doesn’t bother him that much since his mind is elsewhere.
Perched on his lap, across a tightly folded leg, is his laptop. The reason for the strange angle of the car is that it is better to get a signal from “Ted’s Network”. Who is Ted? Our driver doesn’t know, but he does know that Ted hasn’t secured his wireless network and that Ted has conveniently located his network (home) in close proximity to the football field where our driver is forced to “hang out” in case one of his son’s needs to be carted to the emergency room. While hanging out, on a whim, our solitary parent decided to see if anyone left their network open around here and sure enough, Ted obliged.
There are four tables of $0.50/$1 NL Hold’em running on Football Parent’s laptop and he is as happy as he has ever been at one of his kids practices. While the other parents pretend interest in each other while secretly hoping that their child will tear their “friends” child’s arm off, Poker Parent is knee deep in massive check-raises and subtle slow plays. He is turning sets and cracking aces and having his own kings cracked. He is watching whole stacks of checks moving between players in generally clockwise procession around the tables and he is lost in it.
On the screen, in the upper right game, two beautiful red aces appear. The action is good leading up to him. It’ raised to $4 and then called before the action returns to him in the BB. He makes it $12 to go and both players call. He is breathing a little heavy now and the windows are steaming up even more. He didn’t want two callers but now that he has 'em, let's play.
… in a distant world he hears what might have been Franky getting his fifth sack of the scrimmage which isn’t unusual for that kid. Is that Franky’s father yelling, “Take his head off!!!”? He just can’t be sure…
What he is sure about is that the flop is probably pretty good for him, but is a little scary. Two black tens and a red 4. He wants to check raise here. See if he gets action. Take a chance. Hopefully not lose his whole stack, but put some pressure on. He hopes no one has a ten. He checks and they both check back, damn it. He’s kicking himself. He learned nothing.
But, the turn is perfection, a single black ace of spades… ACES FULL!
Now he bets, enough to get some action and hopefully a big raise from someone holding a ten. He leads out for a third of the pot, $12 bucks. How much do I have in my stack anyway, he thinks? $125 left. They both have slightly under that, but we are all playing at slightly above table stakes here. This could be a big score. Sure enough, he is getting action. The first player just calls. But the player on the button moves all-in! Perfection! Now, think for a while, make it look like it is a tough call for you. Maybe, just maybe, you can get the first caller all-in too. Maybe they both have tens. Would that be as perfect as it gets? He is picturing dragging a $400 pot in his head while feigning a difficult decision but then the questionable stability of “Ted’s Network” comes to mind. OK, OK, don’t take any chances here. Just call while your connection is still sound. And, sure enough, the connection is perfect, the call is made and all is well in the world. All except that caller one thinks better of the situation and bails out.
… practice has stopped and the kids are gathered around for a quiet word from the coach. The parents conversations tend to stop at these times as they cock their heads and try to listen into whatever pearls of wisdom the coaches are giving their aspiring pros half a football field away. The words are never quite heard, but each parent will get a full rundown later anyway…
Inside the Focus, our hero is ecstatic. The river card is running off, and sure enough, it’s a blank. The only card that would have been bad was probably a ten, but a little black three can’t hurt. There is no straight flush out there. Nothing to beat my mans godly Aces full. Eddie KGB took Matt Damon’s whole BR with just this very hand.
… everyone is listening very intently right now…
Something is wrong. The chips are going the other way. A fucking computer malfunction or some such shit. What the hell! He glances at the other players cards. Nothing. Just a fucking middle pair. I HAVE ACES FULL!
Oh, shit. The realization hits him. It is a middle pair all right - a pair of tens. Quad fucking tens!
… the coach is hitting upon a technical nuance of proper blocking in quiet contemplative tones…
The surprise is too great. The shock is too powerful. The sudden jolt too emotional. It must come out! “MOTHER-FUCKING-GODDAMN-MOTHER-FUCKING-QUADS???!!!! WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT HORSE SHIT! JESUS CHRIST!” Our Hero smashes the dashboard as hard as he can with his open palm and the air duct cover pops out, flying across the car and out the cracked window. “MOTHER FUCKER! MOTHER FUCKER! Mother Fucker!” He is furious and screaming at the top of his lungs, but it is trailing off. “Jesus Christ that sucks!”
… what was once quiet is now absolute stunned silence. Two children turn their head to the parking area and then quickly turn away, as if Mike Caro had just caught them flopping the nuts and filmed it for a DVD. Not their Dad, their turned heads are trying to convey. The coaches jaw drops. Hoards of parents are staring in utter disbelief as our driver exits the car and slams the door shut, looking for the vent cover and trying to get his composure. He is still muttering obscenities. Only now does he start to realize that there are people staring at him. He turns to the masses and freezes, in stunned realization being viewed by a hundred or more other people who are equally stunned by what has just transpired. The moment lasts what seems like forever. It is excruciatingly painful. As painful as getting Aces Full beaten by quads. Then one by one each observer pretends to go back to what they were doing as if nothing had happened…
It was just another night at football practice.
There is a big hit on the field and one parent screams out his triumph. Johnny just put one to little Timmy and all it temporarily right in the world. The coaches make the parents stay a certain distance from practice and the parents aren’t really supposed to shout out anything, but when one of the kids really puts a lickin’ on another kid, the exultation is understandable and almost impossible to muffle.
A row back of the main pack of cars, parked at an even stranger angle than the others (to better get a signal), is a tiny black Focus. The windows are cracked, but that doesn’t prevent the condensation from the breath of the sole occupant from forming and fogging up every inch of window in the car. It is humid, and the passenger has opted to just crack the windows, reducing the odds of getting eaten alive by bugs but increasing slightly the discomfort and ever increasing wetness of the car interior. Every once in a while, he turns on the engine and lets the air pump for a little bit, then switches it off and baths in the temporary comfort. But overall it doesn’t bother him that much since his mind is elsewhere.
Perched on his lap, across a tightly folded leg, is his laptop. The reason for the strange angle of the car is that it is better to get a signal from “Ted’s Network”. Who is Ted? Our driver doesn’t know, but he does know that Ted hasn’t secured his wireless network and that Ted has conveniently located his network (home) in close proximity to the football field where our driver is forced to “hang out” in case one of his son’s needs to be carted to the emergency room. While hanging out, on a whim, our solitary parent decided to see if anyone left their network open around here and sure enough, Ted obliged.
There are four tables of $0.50/$1 NL Hold’em running on Football Parent’s laptop and he is as happy as he has ever been at one of his kids practices. While the other parents pretend interest in each other while secretly hoping that their child will tear their “friends” child’s arm off, Poker Parent is knee deep in massive check-raises and subtle slow plays. He is turning sets and cracking aces and having his own kings cracked. He is watching whole stacks of checks moving between players in generally clockwise procession around the tables and he is lost in it.
On the screen, in the upper right game, two beautiful red aces appear. The action is good leading up to him. It’ raised to $4 and then called before the action returns to him in the BB. He makes it $12 to go and both players call. He is breathing a little heavy now and the windows are steaming up even more. He didn’t want two callers but now that he has 'em, let's play.
… in a distant world he hears what might have been Franky getting his fifth sack of the scrimmage which isn’t unusual for that kid. Is that Franky’s father yelling, “Take his head off!!!”? He just can’t be sure…
What he is sure about is that the flop is probably pretty good for him, but is a little scary. Two black tens and a red 4. He wants to check raise here. See if he gets action. Take a chance. Hopefully not lose his whole stack, but put some pressure on. He hopes no one has a ten. He checks and they both check back, damn it. He’s kicking himself. He learned nothing.
But, the turn is perfection, a single black ace of spades… ACES FULL!
Now he bets, enough to get some action and hopefully a big raise from someone holding a ten. He leads out for a third of the pot, $12 bucks. How much do I have in my stack anyway, he thinks? $125 left. They both have slightly under that, but we are all playing at slightly above table stakes here. This could be a big score. Sure enough, he is getting action. The first player just calls. But the player on the button moves all-in! Perfection! Now, think for a while, make it look like it is a tough call for you. Maybe, just maybe, you can get the first caller all-in too. Maybe they both have tens. Would that be as perfect as it gets? He is picturing dragging a $400 pot in his head while feigning a difficult decision but then the questionable stability of “Ted’s Network” comes to mind. OK, OK, don’t take any chances here. Just call while your connection is still sound. And, sure enough, the connection is perfect, the call is made and all is well in the world. All except that caller one thinks better of the situation and bails out.
… practice has stopped and the kids are gathered around for a quiet word from the coach. The parents conversations tend to stop at these times as they cock their heads and try to listen into whatever pearls of wisdom the coaches are giving their aspiring pros half a football field away. The words are never quite heard, but each parent will get a full rundown later anyway…
Inside the Focus, our hero is ecstatic. The river card is running off, and sure enough, it’s a blank. The only card that would have been bad was probably a ten, but a little black three can’t hurt. There is no straight flush out there. Nothing to beat my mans godly Aces full. Eddie KGB took Matt Damon’s whole BR with just this very hand.
… everyone is listening very intently right now…
Something is wrong. The chips are going the other way. A fucking computer malfunction or some such shit. What the hell! He glances at the other players cards. Nothing. Just a fucking middle pair. I HAVE ACES FULL!
Oh, shit. The realization hits him. It is a middle pair all right - a pair of tens. Quad fucking tens!
… the coach is hitting upon a technical nuance of proper blocking in quiet contemplative tones…
The surprise is too great. The shock is too powerful. The sudden jolt too emotional. It must come out! “MOTHER-FUCKING-GODDAMN-MOTHER-FUCKING-QUADS???!!!! WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT HORSE SHIT! JESUS CHRIST!” Our Hero smashes the dashboard as hard as he can with his open palm and the air duct cover pops out, flying across the car and out the cracked window. “MOTHER FUCKER! MOTHER FUCKER! Mother Fucker!” He is furious and screaming at the top of his lungs, but it is trailing off. “Jesus Christ that sucks!”
… what was once quiet is now absolute stunned silence. Two children turn their head to the parking area and then quickly turn away, as if Mike Caro had just caught them flopping the nuts and filmed it for a DVD. Not their Dad, their turned heads are trying to convey. The coaches jaw drops. Hoards of parents are staring in utter disbelief as our driver exits the car and slams the door shut, looking for the vent cover and trying to get his composure. He is still muttering obscenities. Only now does he start to realize that there are people staring at him. He turns to the masses and freezes, in stunned realization being viewed by a hundred or more other people who are equally stunned by what has just transpired. The moment lasts what seems like forever. It is excruciatingly painful. As painful as getting Aces Full beaten by quads. Then one by one each observer pretends to go back to what they were doing as if nothing had happened…
It was just another night at football practice.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Rare Live Poker at the Taj
$1/$2 NL Hold'em. $300 Buyin.
The player directly across from me has been hyper aggressive all night. He likes the big bluff. He has used it and won a nice sized stack, $500, by pushing in a bunch of times and getting others to fold. I have about $260. I find suited connectors in the BB. He raises and I call along with 3 others. The flop is jack high but gives me an open ender. I check, table folds to my man who bets $30 into a $60 pot. He seems to be winning to bluff when no one shows strength, but what if someone shows strength. I raise to $90. He thinks for a while and pushes all-in. I have to fold, damn it. He shows AJ. It was just some bad luck that he happened to catch the flop and was willing to push into my raise. Oh well. I will get him later. I am sure of it. I did learn something though. He makes reasonable bets when he does make his hand. He makes unreasonable bets when he misses.
Time passes and I watch my man play many pots with all-in bluffs. He wins some, but eventually, as always happens, it catches up to him.
Outside of this one hand, he is not making hands, but continues his bluffing ways and gets himself caught a couple of times. He is down to $100 but shows no ability to change styles. Everyone has picked up on this guy and everyone is willing to call him with just about anything. I have $180 or so. I find A10 in the SB. It is limped to him and he opens for $15. He could do this with any ace or any broadway cards. Button calls and I call. The button is new to the table and has a stack of about $150.
The flop is AKQ rainbow. There is $50 in the pot. Knowing this guy, I can tell what he has by how he reacts to a weak bet by me. I bet $15. He will come over the top with a weak hand, probably for his whole stack. He will call if he hit two pair. Sure enough, he comes over the top for the rest of his $100 stack. I put him on a weak ace. I am going to call this. But the button thinks for a while and then calls.
What should I do?
In retrospect, given the amount of time that the button thought, I probably should have considered my hand good and pushed in. But I didn't have anything on this guy. He was new to the table. I didn't know how well or poorly he played. But, he has just flat called a bet and a giant re-raise. Don't I have to respect that? I am losing to AJ,AQ,AK,QK,TJ, JJ,QQ,KK,AA. How can I call now that the button has called? I fold.
Bluffer had A5. Button had Q3s! Argh.
A few hands later, bluffer catches a monster and then walks away from the table with $500 or so. Damn it!
I end up leaving down $180 for the day, my first ever loss at the casino cash games (4th trip). I would have scored a $500 pot on that hand if I had shown some steal ones. Instead, I let a call from an unknown take me off my play. It was probably wise, but it still hurts. Why did that fish have to sit down and be on the button on that particular hand. So frustrating.
The player directly across from me has been hyper aggressive all night. He likes the big bluff. He has used it and won a nice sized stack, $500, by pushing in a bunch of times and getting others to fold. I have about $260. I find suited connectors in the BB. He raises and I call along with 3 others. The flop is jack high but gives me an open ender. I check, table folds to my man who bets $30 into a $60 pot. He seems to be winning to bluff when no one shows strength, but what if someone shows strength. I raise to $90. He thinks for a while and pushes all-in. I have to fold, damn it. He shows AJ. It was just some bad luck that he happened to catch the flop and was willing to push into my raise. Oh well. I will get him later. I am sure of it. I did learn something though. He makes reasonable bets when he does make his hand. He makes unreasonable bets when he misses.
Time passes and I watch my man play many pots with all-in bluffs. He wins some, but eventually, as always happens, it catches up to him.
Outside of this one hand, he is not making hands, but continues his bluffing ways and gets himself caught a couple of times. He is down to $100 but shows no ability to change styles. Everyone has picked up on this guy and everyone is willing to call him with just about anything. I have $180 or so. I find A10 in the SB. It is limped to him and he opens for $15. He could do this with any ace or any broadway cards. Button calls and I call. The button is new to the table and has a stack of about $150.
The flop is AKQ rainbow. There is $50 in the pot. Knowing this guy, I can tell what he has by how he reacts to a weak bet by me. I bet $15. He will come over the top with a weak hand, probably for his whole stack. He will call if he hit two pair. Sure enough, he comes over the top for the rest of his $100 stack. I put him on a weak ace. I am going to call this. But the button thinks for a while and then calls.
What should I do?
In retrospect, given the amount of time that the button thought, I probably should have considered my hand good and pushed in. But I didn't have anything on this guy. He was new to the table. I didn't know how well or poorly he played. But, he has just flat called a bet and a giant re-raise. Don't I have to respect that? I am losing to AJ,AQ,AK,QK,TJ, JJ,QQ,KK,AA. How can I call now that the button has called? I fold.
Bluffer had A5. Button had Q3s! Argh.
A few hands later, bluffer catches a monster and then walks away from the table with $500 or so. Damn it!
I end up leaving down $180 for the day, my first ever loss at the casino cash games (4th trip). I would have scored a $500 pot on that hand if I had shown some steal ones. Instead, I let a call from an unknown take me off my play. It was probably wise, but it still hurts. Why did that fish have to sit down and be on the button on that particular hand. So frustrating.
Friday, August 19, 2005
Recent Visitor Activity
A recent visitor came to my humble blog after performing the following search:
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=%22stripped%20to%20my%20boxers%22&ei=UTF-8&fr=FP-tab-web-t&fl=0&x=wrt
I would just like to let this individual know that it is a very infrequent event when I talk about being "stripped to my boxers" and to assure said individual that there are no pictures nor will there be any in the near future.
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=%22stripped%20to%20my%20boxers%22&ei=UTF-8&fr=FP-tab-web-t&fl=0&x=wrt
I would just like to let this individual know that it is a very infrequent event when I talk about being "stripped to my boxers" and to assure said individual that there are no pictures nor will there be any in the near future.
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Hall of Fame Entry Two
It only took a day, but there is a new worst play of all time entry into my newly founded Hall of Fame. capnrod takes the cake with this hand. It is $25 NL table on party and capnrod has been bluffing his whole stack all night. The table empties and we are heads up.
$25 NL Texas Hold'em - Thursday, August 18, 01:00:07 EDT 2005
Table Table XXXXX (6 max) (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 2
Seat 3: HERO ( $29.55 )
Seat 5: capnrod ( $32.95 )
capnrod posts small blind [$0.10].
HERO posts big blind [$0.25].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to HERO [ Ah Ks ]
capnrod calls [$0.15].
HERO raises [$0.50].
capnrod calls [$0.50].
** Dealing Flop ** [ 8d, Qc, Kh ]
capnrod checks.
HERO bets [$1].
capnrod calls [$1].
** Dealing Turn ** [ Ts ]
capnrod bets [$0.25].
HERO raises [$2].
capnrod calls [$1.75].
** Dealing River ** [ Jc ]
capnrod is all-In [$29.20]
HERO is all-In [$25.80]
capnrod shows [ 9s, 8h ] a straight, nine to king.
HERO shows [ Ah, Ks ] a straight, ten to ace.
capnrod wins $3.40 from side pot #1 with a straight, nine to king.
HERO wins $58.10 from the main pot with a straight, ten to ace.
Wow! Way to go capnrod. You are now the top worst play of all time. You call the turn raise with a gutshot that is very likely to be counterfeited. Then, when the gutshot hits, you put in your whole stack when you have every other possible holding beat except for someone holding an ace, which is pretty likely, who will automatically call because they have the nuts. Why bet your stack? I can't call that with two pair. I can't call that with a 89 for that matter. I can't call that with a set.
Yes, capnrod is going to be immortalized. He, like no other, has grabbed hold of a very rare opportunity in poker. It happens so infrequently that it takes a truly unique individual to see the amazing possibilities of the situation. Yes, it is true. He was able to get all his money in there when EVERY hand that he has beat will fold and EVERY hand that beats him will call!
This feat of bravery may never be topped!
When he pushed in I remember being slightly irritated. I couldn't believe that he was pumping up the rake on this split pot so much. I called and changed my view to check on another table without even watching the results. I had to go back to the hand history to figure out why the stacks were so out of whack on my return.
... maybe he thought that a six card straight beats a five cards straight... who knows.
$25 NL Texas Hold'em - Thursday, August 18, 01:00:07 EDT 2005
Table Table XXXXX (6 max) (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 2
Seat 3: HERO ( $29.55 )
Seat 5: capnrod ( $32.95 )
capnrod posts small blind [$0.10].
HERO posts big blind [$0.25].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to HERO [ Ah Ks ]
capnrod calls [$0.15].
HERO raises [$0.50].
capnrod calls [$0.50].
** Dealing Flop ** [ 8d, Qc, Kh ]
capnrod checks.
HERO bets [$1].
capnrod calls [$1].
** Dealing Turn ** [ Ts ]
capnrod bets [$0.25].
HERO raises [$2].
capnrod calls [$1.75].
** Dealing River ** [ Jc ]
capnrod is all-In [$29.20]
HERO is all-In [$25.80]
capnrod shows [ 9s, 8h ] a straight, nine to king.
HERO shows [ Ah, Ks ] a straight, ten to ace.
capnrod wins $3.40 from side pot #1 with a straight, nine to king.
HERO wins $58.10 from the main pot with a straight, ten to ace.
Wow! Way to go capnrod. You are now the top worst play of all time. You call the turn raise with a gutshot that is very likely to be counterfeited. Then, when the gutshot hits, you put in your whole stack when you have every other possible holding beat except for someone holding an ace, which is pretty likely, who will automatically call because they have the nuts. Why bet your stack? I can't call that with two pair. I can't call that with a 89 for that matter. I can't call that with a set.
Yes, capnrod is going to be immortalized. He, like no other, has grabbed hold of a very rare opportunity in poker. It happens so infrequently that it takes a truly unique individual to see the amazing possibilities of the situation. Yes, it is true. He was able to get all his money in there when EVERY hand that he has beat will fold and EVERY hand that beats him will call!
This feat of bravery may never be topped!
When he pushed in I remember being slightly irritated. I couldn't believe that he was pumping up the rake on this split pot so much. I called and changed my view to check on another table without even watching the results. I had to go back to the hand history to figure out why the stacks were so out of whack on my return.
... maybe he thought that a six card straight beats a five cards straight... who knows.
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Hall of Fame Entry One
A hand from my last trip to AC. Sometimes people just don’t get it.
This is a $1/$2 NL with a max buy-in of $300. UTG has been playing very tight poker. She has accumulated a nice stack of about $500. UTG+1 has been playing stupid poker, he lost his first $300, re-bought for $300 more, and only has $100 left. I am on the button and I have about $500. The table has been a little bit crazy. Pre-flop, any bet less than $20 is getting called 4 or 5 way, so $20 has been the standard raise to get people out pre-flop.
UTG raises to $20. There is no doubt that she has a strong hand because she has been playing ultra tight and now she is raising big from UTG. UTG+1 calls. There are two other callers, and the action comes to me. I am holding QQ. I re-raise to $80. UTG calls and UTG+1 calls, leaving $20 sitting in front of him. There is now $280 in the pot.
The flop is an ace and two rags. UTG bets $80 and we both fold. I am pretty sure that she has AK. She shows her hand, and sure enough she does have AK.
This is where I have to laugh. After she shows her cards, UTG+1 decides to show his too. He flips over pocket 4’s. He is a little sheepish. The table stares at him in disbelief. Remember that after this call, he only had $20 left in his stack. He looks around at the strange looks he is getting and says, “I was trying to catch a set, but if I missed my set, I was done with this hand.” My jaw drops! Are you kidding me. I look down at the 4 little red chips sitting in front of him, the tattered remnants of his stack, and I have to hold back from laughing. I am in shock. I finally gain my composure and manage to get some words out. “Bad luck, man,” I say.
How stupid was this play. Let’s review. He knows that UTG is very strong. He knows that I probably have big pockets. He should know that he is basically dominated this hand. He admits he is dominated by saying that unless he caught a set, he was done with it. Now, at the time he calls the re-raise by me and the call by UTG, there is $220 in the pot. He is calling $60 more. The odds of catching his set are 8-1. The pot is paying 3.6-1. About the worst call ever! Even implied odds say he can only get $20 more out of each of us. So that’s $260 in the pot when risking $60 which is only 4.3-1. This is what made his call so very bad. He had no stack left. He wasn’t getting any worthwhile implied odds. The EV of this play (as he explained he was playing it) is -$22.8. Just awful.
But, what is worse is that he then claims that he will NOT continue with this hand unless he catches a set, which he proves by folding when UTG leads out. He folds with only 4 red chips in front of him and $360 in the pot, $300 of which he can get. Even if I fold, that pot is paying 15-1 on his last $20. If I call, he gets 16-1. He is still only about an 10-1 dog in this hand if she does have AK and there is still a chance that she missed totally. It is an automatic call. But he folds! An absolutely terrible call pre-flop and an even worse fold after the flop. All in all it was one of the worst plays I have seen in a long time.
It wasn’t a failed bluff or a missed read, or a slow play gone bad. It was simply a fundamental lack of knowledge about poker. Every time I have played down at the casinos, half of the table seems to lack basic knowledge about pot odds. They bet too little, too much, or just make ridiculous calls. But what made this bit of stupidity so very special was that he followed one stupid play up with an even stupider play. I can understand a desire to gamble. Some players are just having fun and that is fine. It definitely benefits me. But to be in a gambling mode before the flop and then not want to gamble after the flop, when the former is unprofitable and the latter is profitable, takes a very special fish. Not only doesn’t he understand pot odds, but he isn’t even consistent in his stupidity.
…I have to start a hall of fame for these kinds of plays. This is the first entry.
This is a $1/$2 NL with a max buy-in of $300. UTG has been playing very tight poker. She has accumulated a nice stack of about $500. UTG+1 has been playing stupid poker, he lost his first $300, re-bought for $300 more, and only has $100 left. I am on the button and I have about $500. The table has been a little bit crazy. Pre-flop, any bet less than $20 is getting called 4 or 5 way, so $20 has been the standard raise to get people out pre-flop.
UTG raises to $20. There is no doubt that she has a strong hand because she has been playing ultra tight and now she is raising big from UTG. UTG+1 calls. There are two other callers, and the action comes to me. I am holding QQ. I re-raise to $80. UTG calls and UTG+1 calls, leaving $20 sitting in front of him. There is now $280 in the pot.
The flop is an ace and two rags. UTG bets $80 and we both fold. I am pretty sure that she has AK. She shows her hand, and sure enough she does have AK.
This is where I have to laugh. After she shows her cards, UTG+1 decides to show his too. He flips over pocket 4’s. He is a little sheepish. The table stares at him in disbelief. Remember that after this call, he only had $20 left in his stack. He looks around at the strange looks he is getting and says, “I was trying to catch a set, but if I missed my set, I was done with this hand.” My jaw drops! Are you kidding me. I look down at the 4 little red chips sitting in front of him, the tattered remnants of his stack, and I have to hold back from laughing. I am in shock. I finally gain my composure and manage to get some words out. “Bad luck, man,” I say.
How stupid was this play. Let’s review. He knows that UTG is very strong. He knows that I probably have big pockets. He should know that he is basically dominated this hand. He admits he is dominated by saying that unless he caught a set, he was done with it. Now, at the time he calls the re-raise by me and the call by UTG, there is $220 in the pot. He is calling $60 more. The odds of catching his set are 8-1. The pot is paying 3.6-1. About the worst call ever! Even implied odds say he can only get $20 more out of each of us. So that’s $260 in the pot when risking $60 which is only 4.3-1. This is what made his call so very bad. He had no stack left. He wasn’t getting any worthwhile implied odds. The EV of this play (as he explained he was playing it) is -$22.8. Just awful.
But, what is worse is that he then claims that he will NOT continue with this hand unless he catches a set, which he proves by folding when UTG leads out. He folds with only 4 red chips in front of him and $360 in the pot, $300 of which he can get. Even if I fold, that pot is paying 15-1 on his last $20. If I call, he gets 16-1. He is still only about an 10-1 dog in this hand if she does have AK and there is still a chance that she missed totally. It is an automatic call. But he folds! An absolutely terrible call pre-flop and an even worse fold after the flop. All in all it was one of the worst plays I have seen in a long time.
It wasn’t a failed bluff or a missed read, or a slow play gone bad. It was simply a fundamental lack of knowledge about poker. Every time I have played down at the casinos, half of the table seems to lack basic knowledge about pot odds. They bet too little, too much, or just make ridiculous calls. But what made this bit of stupidity so very special was that he followed one stupid play up with an even stupider play. I can understand a desire to gamble. Some players are just having fun and that is fine. It definitely benefits me. But to be in a gambling mode before the flop and then not want to gamble after the flop, when the former is unprofitable and the latter is profitable, takes a very special fish. Not only doesn’t he understand pot odds, but he isn’t even consistent in his stupidity.
…I have to start a hall of fame for these kinds of plays. This is the first entry.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
A Word About Raising
A long post, but I think it is worth a read.
It is amazing to me how many players do not understand how to raise. They understand that they should raise. They understand that raising is important. But they don’t understand when to raise, or, more importantly, how much to raise.
To these players, raising serves one of two purposes. One, it gets more money in the pot when they have the best hand. Two, it steals pots when they are bluffing. When they want to do the former, they seem to always raise too little. When they want to do the latter, they seem to always raise too much.
We can take my post yesterday as an example of raising too little. In the first hand, I have flopped a flush draw holding Jh6h. The flop is the kind of flop that misses a lot of players (KcKh4h), a pair of high cards and a very low card. The pot was un-raised, so there is a lot of reason to suspect that neither of my opponents has a pocket pair. This is a perfect chance for someone from the blinds to put in a good bet and steal this flop. An added benefit is that I have the flush draw, so my bluff is really a semi-bluff with many apparent outs if I get caught. So I bet, $3 into a pot of $3.50, an aggressive bet at a small pot.
My opponent (who later will claim that I am a fish), guesses correctly that I am trying to steal this pot. It is a pretty reasonable conclusion. He has paired the 4 and thinks he is ahead, which he actually is. A good read. Good reads like this can make good poker players. Unless, there is another hole in their game. Then it makes them broke. He demonstrates his hole. He needs to raise here for two reasons. One, he needs to define his hand and find out if he is really up against a king. Second, he needs to get rid of many other possible hands that can beat him. Any holding with two cards higher than a 4 is actually only about a 3-1 dog to him right now. So, even if I hold J6o, I am still going to end up drawing out on him 25% of the time. But, since I bet, it is pretty reasonable to believe that I have even more outs, something like a flush draw. Well a flush draw is 4-1 to hit on the next card and 2-1 to hit by the river. In reality, my combination of a flush draw and two overs to his pair makes me about 50/50 to win this hand by the river. Given this, he needs to raise significantly to try to deny me odds to call.
What does he bet? He raises to $6. A raise of $3 into a $9.50 pot. There was $6.50 in the pot. He called $3 and raised $3. He gave me more than 4-1 odds to call that bet. Awful… absolutely terrible. What on Earth was he attempting to do with that raise? I cannot even speculate as to his misguided thinking. Either weakly call, or don’t even bother with that raise. My speculation is that he is trying to represent the king here. He is raising to tell me that he has the king. OK, do that. Make a play. Represent the king. But don’t give me odds to call EVEN IF YOU HAVE THE KING!!! Jeez! If he had the king, I would bet 4-1 to have him beaten on the next card. He is giving me more than 4-1 with his raise. Not good. Terrible. Fishy!!!! A more reasonable raise would be to give me 2-1 odds to call. Something like a raise to 12. So, he is calling $3 to put $9 in the pot and raising by $9 more. There are $18 in the pot and I need to put in $9 to call. I would only be getting 2-1 odds from the pot. I would need 4-1 to call and would have to fold (in most cases). But he flubs it. He raises by $3. Yikes.
I easily call his raise. The pot is now $15.50. Not only am I getting odds now, but I have to question whether he even has a king.
Some may say, but you actually put in $6. $3 for the bet and $3 to call his raise. This is true, but the two bets were unconnected. My $3 bet was because I thought I had excellent odds to win the hand right there (with outs if I lost that bet). Once that bet was made, it was gone. It became part of the pot. I lost that bet. The raise was a new bet. Therefore, he had to give me or deny me odds based soley on the amount of his re-raise, which he did not.
Players like this are players who are consistently being sucked out on. They don’t realize that they are supposed to be being sucked out on, not because they are unlucky, but because they suck!
I miss my card on the turn, damn it! Oh well, I am going to give this one up. I didn’t catch, but that’s cool, I pretty much had odds the whole time. I check. Wait, WTF. My opponent bets $5. What the hell is that? Wow, the pot is paying $15.50 and he only bets $5? That’s $20.50 and I only need to call $5. I need 4-1 to call here and get pot odds. He gave me exactly the right pot odds to call. Hmmm…wait a minute. Is this guy smarter than I am giving him credit for? Does he already have a full boat? Is he purposefully giving me the correct odds to call? Hmmm… NA. I call.
Sure enough my flush card comes. I make a medium sized bet. He calls, and I take the pot down. Now think about this. He lost $23 on this hand because he didn’t know to put $6 more dollars into that raise. Here is the conversation that follows.
Allnightwc: damn fish
HERO: looks that way doesnt it
This is very telling in an of itself. He doesn’t realize that HE is the fish. He doesn’t even realize that he has totally misplayed this hand and just given away money. He believes that all players who river flushes are fishes because he has heard that fish chase. No, my friend, good players will sometimes bet their draws and good players will almost always chase when you give them the right odds. You, my friend, are the fish.
Let’s move on to the last hand. He plays this hand so poorly that it gets really ridiculous to even talk about. First, let me say that raising with 72s is a really bad idea. Don’t do it. It is stupid. But, but this point, I thought it would be funny to try to take this guy out with the hammer. I was actually hoping to win this on the flop with a continuation bet, show it to him, and get him even more worked up. Things worked out differently than I had hopedJ
I flop the flush. The pot is $8.50. He bets $3 at me. I raise, which considering how weak my flush is, is a very smart play. My hand is pretty safe right now, considering that the Ad is already out there, but still, I don’t want him drawing with a lone Kd to beat me. I raise to deny him odds to draw. He has 7 outs if he has one diamond, which is about 6-1 against catching on the turn. I bet enough that the doesn’t get near those odds. I bet $10, which is a call of his $3 and $7 more. He will need to put in $7 into a $24 pot. I am manipulating the pot to only offer 3.5-1 on his call. A call by him with one diamond is not unreasonable, but he needs implied odds to think it will pay off. Trust me, if a fourth diamond came, I was not putting in one more red cent, so he had NO implied odds on this hand. But he didn’t know that. His call was not totally unreasonable.
Anyway, here he goes again, raising. He raises $4 more. What? HUH? What the hell is that? Again, he misunderstands the fundamental reason to raise. He is raising just because he thinks he has the best hand. But, if he is correct and he does have the best hand, then this raise is totally screwed up. It protects nothing. He isn’t even holding a diamond. So, at the very least, he MUST protect his top pair against a flush draw. Again, a flush draw is 4-1 to catch on the next card. What odds does he give? He gives 35-4 or 9.5-1 odds. Yikes! I am calling that with a gut shot let alone a flush draw. Not that it mattered, because I had a flush already, but… even if he is right and I can’t beat a pair of aces right now, his raise is pathetic! He must raise enough to deny me odds to draw to a lone diamond. It is that simple. He does not because he does not understand why you raise. There was $22.50 in the pot at the time. He had to call $10. So a bet of $30 was pretty reasonable if he thought he had the best hand. That would take $20 to call. He would be offering 52.5-20 or about 2.6-1 odds. Not good enough to draw on with a lone diamond. Of course, it was ridiculous to think that his pair of aces with a 2 kicker was good at this point, so any raise was a pathetic move, but if he was correct in the read then his raise was completely and utterly wrong. He reopened the betting for no legitimate purpose.
I moved in, because I suspected that he had a lone diamond and was protecting my flopped flush. At this point, there is $35 in the pot and I need to call $4 more so the pot will end up somewhere around $40. I only wanted to give this nut 2-1 odds to call figuring that he would probably tolerate that. Since I need to put in $40 more, and I have him tilted already, I figure an over bet of his whole stack would stand a good chance of looking like a bluff and getting a call from him. I push all-in and sure enough he makes the ridiculous call with a pair of aces and a two kicker into a made flush.
Here is the deal. If you raise, you are raising with a purpose. You are trying to protect your hand. You need to raise enough to do that. You must make a raise that is pretty close to the size of the current pot to properly protect most hands. Don’t raise if you don’t suspect that you are ahead. Never raise too little. Never reopen the betting unless you need to do it to protect a strong hand. If you are going to bluff, bluff like you have the hand. Make a bet that people will believe is commensurate with the raise they would expect from the hand you are bluffing that you have. If you bluff, but your bluff is too small to protect the hand that you are pretending to have, don’t be surprised when you get called. Mostly, don’t raise without a purpose... ever!
I wanted to say a few things about raising too much, but I have done that in the past. Read about my dad's driving leasons below for my thoughts on giant bluffs.
Anyway... good luck at the tables.
It is amazing to me how many players do not understand how to raise. They understand that they should raise. They understand that raising is important. But they don’t understand when to raise, or, more importantly, how much to raise.
To these players, raising serves one of two purposes. One, it gets more money in the pot when they have the best hand. Two, it steals pots when they are bluffing. When they want to do the former, they seem to always raise too little. When they want to do the latter, they seem to always raise too much.
We can take my post yesterday as an example of raising too little. In the first hand, I have flopped a flush draw holding Jh6h. The flop is the kind of flop that misses a lot of players (KcKh4h), a pair of high cards and a very low card. The pot was un-raised, so there is a lot of reason to suspect that neither of my opponents has a pocket pair. This is a perfect chance for someone from the blinds to put in a good bet and steal this flop. An added benefit is that I have the flush draw, so my bluff is really a semi-bluff with many apparent outs if I get caught. So I bet, $3 into a pot of $3.50, an aggressive bet at a small pot.
My opponent (who later will claim that I am a fish), guesses correctly that I am trying to steal this pot. It is a pretty reasonable conclusion. He has paired the 4 and thinks he is ahead, which he actually is. A good read. Good reads like this can make good poker players. Unless, there is another hole in their game. Then it makes them broke. He demonstrates his hole. He needs to raise here for two reasons. One, he needs to define his hand and find out if he is really up against a king. Second, he needs to get rid of many other possible hands that can beat him. Any holding with two cards higher than a 4 is actually only about a 3-1 dog to him right now. So, even if I hold J6o, I am still going to end up drawing out on him 25% of the time. But, since I bet, it is pretty reasonable to believe that I have even more outs, something like a flush draw. Well a flush draw is 4-1 to hit on the next card and 2-1 to hit by the river. In reality, my combination of a flush draw and two overs to his pair makes me about 50/50 to win this hand by the river. Given this, he needs to raise significantly to try to deny me odds to call.
What does he bet? He raises to $6. A raise of $3 into a $9.50 pot. There was $6.50 in the pot. He called $3 and raised $3. He gave me more than 4-1 odds to call that bet. Awful… absolutely terrible. What on Earth was he attempting to do with that raise? I cannot even speculate as to his misguided thinking. Either weakly call, or don’t even bother with that raise. My speculation is that he is trying to represent the king here. He is raising to tell me that he has the king. OK, do that. Make a play. Represent the king. But don’t give me odds to call EVEN IF YOU HAVE THE KING!!! Jeez! If he had the king, I would bet 4-1 to have him beaten on the next card. He is giving me more than 4-1 with his raise. Not good. Terrible. Fishy!!!! A more reasonable raise would be to give me 2-1 odds to call. Something like a raise to 12. So, he is calling $3 to put $9 in the pot and raising by $9 more. There are $18 in the pot and I need to put in $9 to call. I would only be getting 2-1 odds from the pot. I would need 4-1 to call and would have to fold (in most cases). But he flubs it. He raises by $3. Yikes.
I easily call his raise. The pot is now $15.50. Not only am I getting odds now, but I have to question whether he even has a king.
Some may say, but you actually put in $6. $3 for the bet and $3 to call his raise. This is true, but the two bets were unconnected. My $3 bet was because I thought I had excellent odds to win the hand right there (with outs if I lost that bet). Once that bet was made, it was gone. It became part of the pot. I lost that bet. The raise was a new bet. Therefore, he had to give me or deny me odds based soley on the amount of his re-raise, which he did not.
Players like this are players who are consistently being sucked out on. They don’t realize that they are supposed to be being sucked out on, not because they are unlucky, but because they suck!
I miss my card on the turn, damn it! Oh well, I am going to give this one up. I didn’t catch, but that’s cool, I pretty much had odds the whole time. I check. Wait, WTF. My opponent bets $5. What the hell is that? Wow, the pot is paying $15.50 and he only bets $5? That’s $20.50 and I only need to call $5. I need 4-1 to call here and get pot odds. He gave me exactly the right pot odds to call. Hmmm…wait a minute. Is this guy smarter than I am giving him credit for? Does he already have a full boat? Is he purposefully giving me the correct odds to call? Hmmm… NA. I call.
Sure enough my flush card comes. I make a medium sized bet. He calls, and I take the pot down. Now think about this. He lost $23 on this hand because he didn’t know to put $6 more dollars into that raise. Here is the conversation that follows.
Allnightwc: damn fish
HERO: looks that way doesnt it
This is very telling in an of itself. He doesn’t realize that HE is the fish. He doesn’t even realize that he has totally misplayed this hand and just given away money. He believes that all players who river flushes are fishes because he has heard that fish chase. No, my friend, good players will sometimes bet their draws and good players will almost always chase when you give them the right odds. You, my friend, are the fish.
Let’s move on to the last hand. He plays this hand so poorly that it gets really ridiculous to even talk about. First, let me say that raising with 72s is a really bad idea. Don’t do it. It is stupid. But, but this point, I thought it would be funny to try to take this guy out with the hammer. I was actually hoping to win this on the flop with a continuation bet, show it to him, and get him even more worked up. Things worked out differently than I had hopedJ
I flop the flush. The pot is $8.50. He bets $3 at me. I raise, which considering how weak my flush is, is a very smart play. My hand is pretty safe right now, considering that the Ad is already out there, but still, I don’t want him drawing with a lone Kd to beat me. I raise to deny him odds to draw. He has 7 outs if he has one diamond, which is about 6-1 against catching on the turn. I bet enough that the doesn’t get near those odds. I bet $10, which is a call of his $3 and $7 more. He will need to put in $7 into a $24 pot. I am manipulating the pot to only offer 3.5-1 on his call. A call by him with one diamond is not unreasonable, but he needs implied odds to think it will pay off. Trust me, if a fourth diamond came, I was not putting in one more red cent, so he had NO implied odds on this hand. But he didn’t know that. His call was not totally unreasonable.
Anyway, here he goes again, raising. He raises $4 more. What? HUH? What the hell is that? Again, he misunderstands the fundamental reason to raise. He is raising just because he thinks he has the best hand. But, if he is correct and he does have the best hand, then this raise is totally screwed up. It protects nothing. He isn’t even holding a diamond. So, at the very least, he MUST protect his top pair against a flush draw. Again, a flush draw is 4-1 to catch on the next card. What odds does he give? He gives 35-4 or 9.5-1 odds. Yikes! I am calling that with a gut shot let alone a flush draw. Not that it mattered, because I had a flush already, but… even if he is right and I can’t beat a pair of aces right now, his raise is pathetic! He must raise enough to deny me odds to draw to a lone diamond. It is that simple. He does not because he does not understand why you raise. There was $22.50 in the pot at the time. He had to call $10. So a bet of $30 was pretty reasonable if he thought he had the best hand. That would take $20 to call. He would be offering 52.5-20 or about 2.6-1 odds. Not good enough to draw on with a lone diamond. Of course, it was ridiculous to think that his pair of aces with a 2 kicker was good at this point, so any raise was a pathetic move, but if he was correct in the read then his raise was completely and utterly wrong. He reopened the betting for no legitimate purpose.
I moved in, because I suspected that he had a lone diamond and was protecting my flopped flush. At this point, there is $35 in the pot and I need to call $4 more so the pot will end up somewhere around $40. I only wanted to give this nut 2-1 odds to call figuring that he would probably tolerate that. Since I need to put in $40 more, and I have him tilted already, I figure an over bet of his whole stack would stand a good chance of looking like a bluff and getting a call from him. I push all-in and sure enough he makes the ridiculous call with a pair of aces and a two kicker into a made flush.
Here is the deal. If you raise, you are raising with a purpose. You are trying to protect your hand. You need to raise enough to do that. You must make a raise that is pretty close to the size of the current pot to properly protect most hands. Don’t raise if you don’t suspect that you are ahead. Never raise too little. Never reopen the betting unless you need to do it to protect a strong hand. If you are going to bluff, bluff like you have the hand. Make a bet that people will believe is commensurate with the raise they would expect from the hand you are bluffing that you have. If you bluff, but your bluff is too small to protect the hand that you are pretending to have, don’t be surprised when you get called. Mostly, don’t raise without a purpose... ever!
I wanted to say a few things about raising too much, but I have done that in the past. Read about my dad's driving leasons below for my thoughts on giant bluffs.
Anyway... good luck at the tables.
Monday, August 08, 2005
Some times it is just so easy
$100 NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, August 08, 02:02:43 EDT 2005
Table (6 max) (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 6
Seat 1: player1 ( $61.20 )
Seat 3: HERO ( $238.73 )
Seat 4: player2 ( $80.60 )
Seat 5: player3 ( $151 )
Seat 6: Allnightwc ( $67.35 )
Seat 2: player4 ( $97 )
HERO posts small blind [$0.50].
player2 posts big blind [$1].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to HERO [ 6h Jh ]
player3 calls [$1].
Allnightwc calls [$1].
player1 folds.
player4 folds.
HERO calls [$0.50].
player2 checks.
** Dealing Flop ** [ Kc, 4h, Kh ]
HERO bets [$3].
player2 folds.
player3 folds.
Allnightwc raises [$6].
HERO calls [$3].
** Dealing Turn ** [ 8s ]
HERO checks.
Allnightwc bets [$5].
HERO calls [$5].
** Dealing River ** [ 2h ]
HERO bets [$12].
Allnightwc calls [$12].
HERO shows [ 6h, Jh ] a flush, king high.
Allnightwc doesn't show [ 4s, Ah ] two pairs, kings and fours.
HERO wins $48 from the main pot with a flush, king high.
... the conversation starts
Allnightwc: damn fish
HERO: looks that way doesnt it
... a little later, HERO wins a pot with pocket kings
player2: wow u get those fcks alot
HERO: yeah... been lucky... for a fish
HERO: right, allnight?
Allnightwc: yup
player2: not a fish its called card rack
Allnightwc: better stupid and lucky i guess
HERO: allnight, on that fishy hand.... why did you give me odds the whole time? And you call me a fish... lol
... later, HERO steals a pot with nothing and claims kings
HERO: there they are again
Allnightwc: whatever
$100 NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, August 08, 02:56:03 EDT 2005
Table (6 max) (Real Money)
Seat 5 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 2: player4 ( $71.50 )
Seat 3: HERO ( $352.18 )
Seat 6: Allnightwc ( $75.70 )
Seat 5: player5 ( $45.40 )
Seat 1: player6 ( $100 )
Allnightwc posts small blind [$0.50].
player6 posts big blind [$1].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to HERO [ Qc Ac ]
player4 folds.
HERO raises [$4].
player5 folds.
Allnightwc calls [$3.50].
player6 folds.
** Dealing Flop ** [ 7s, 4h, 4d ]
Allnightwc bets [$3].
HERO calls [$3].
** Dealing Turn ** [ 3h ]
Allnightwc bets [$2].
HERO calls [$2].
** Dealing River ** [ 3s ]
Allnightwc bets [$5].
... figuring he is beat, HERO makes this comment
HERO: well played... take 5 more
HERO calls [$5].
Allnightwc shows [ Qd, Kd ] two pairs, fours and threes.
HERO shows [ Qc, Ac ] two pairs, fours and threes.
HERO wins $27.55 from the main pot with two pairs, fours and threes with ace kicker.
HERO: oh nm
... later, HERO raises with tens and all fold
Allnightwc: not to be rude but we all fold the best hand
... later, HERO flops two pair and makes Allnightwc lay his second pair down
HERO: that had to hurt
Allnightwc: what your bluff
HERO: no your having to lay down to me
... later, HERO loses a big pot to another player, Allnightwc was not involved
... He pipes in anyway
Allnightwc: nh
... the very next hand
$100 NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, August 08, 03:00:27 EDT 2005
Table (6 max) (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 2: player4 ( $80.40 )
Seat 3: HERO ( $336.13 )
Seat 6: Allnightwc ( $76.15 )
Seat 1: player6 ( $94 )
Seat 4: player7 ( $39 )
Allnightwc posts small blind [$0.50].
player6 posts big blind [$1].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to HERO [ 7d 2d ]
player4 folds.
HERO raises [$4].
player7 folds.
Allnightwc calls [$3.50].
player6 did not respond in time.
player6 folds.
** Dealing Flop ** [ Td, 5d, Ad ]
Allnightwc bets [$3].
HERO raises [$10].
Allnightwc raises [$14].
HERO is all-In [$322.13]
Allnightwc is all-In [$55.15]
** Dealing Turn ** [ Kd ]
** Dealing River ** [ Tc ]
Allnightwc shows [ 2c, Ac ] two pairs, aces and tens.
HERO shows [ 7d, 2d ] a flush, ace high.
HERO wins $259.98 from side pot #1 with a flush, ace high.
HERO wins $151.30 from the main pot with a flush, ace high.
HERO: lol
HERO: hammer time
Allnightwc has left the table.
HERO: sorry that was too funny
HERO: think he punched the monitor?
Table (6 max) (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 6
Seat 1: player1 ( $61.20 )
Seat 3: HERO ( $238.73 )
Seat 4: player2 ( $80.60 )
Seat 5: player3 ( $151 )
Seat 6: Allnightwc ( $67.35 )
Seat 2: player4 ( $97 )
HERO posts small blind [$0.50].
player2 posts big blind [$1].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to HERO [ 6h Jh ]
player3 calls [$1].
Allnightwc calls [$1].
player1 folds.
player4 folds.
HERO calls [$0.50].
player2 checks.
** Dealing Flop ** [ Kc, 4h, Kh ]
HERO bets [$3].
player2 folds.
player3 folds.
Allnightwc raises [$6].
HERO calls [$3].
** Dealing Turn ** [ 8s ]
HERO checks.
Allnightwc bets [$5].
HERO calls [$5].
** Dealing River ** [ 2h ]
HERO bets [$12].
Allnightwc calls [$12].
HERO shows [ 6h, Jh ] a flush, king high.
Allnightwc doesn't show [ 4s, Ah ] two pairs, kings and fours.
HERO wins $48 from the main pot with a flush, king high.
... the conversation starts
Allnightwc: damn fish
HERO: looks that way doesnt it
... a little later, HERO wins a pot with pocket kings
player2: wow u get those fcks alot
HERO: yeah... been lucky... for a fish
HERO: right, allnight?
Allnightwc: yup
player2: not a fish its called card rack
Allnightwc: better stupid and lucky i guess
HERO: allnight, on that fishy hand.... why did you give me odds the whole time? And you call me a fish... lol
... later, HERO steals a pot with nothing and claims kings
HERO: there they are again
Allnightwc: whatever
$100 NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, August 08, 02:56:03 EDT 2005
Table (6 max) (Real Money)
Seat 5 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 2: player4 ( $71.50 )
Seat 3: HERO ( $352.18 )
Seat 6: Allnightwc ( $75.70 )
Seat 5: player5 ( $45.40 )
Seat 1: player6 ( $100 )
Allnightwc posts small blind [$0.50].
player6 posts big blind [$1].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to HERO [ Qc Ac ]
player4 folds.
HERO raises [$4].
player5 folds.
Allnightwc calls [$3.50].
player6 folds.
** Dealing Flop ** [ 7s, 4h, 4d ]
Allnightwc bets [$3].
HERO calls [$3].
** Dealing Turn ** [ 3h ]
Allnightwc bets [$2].
HERO calls [$2].
** Dealing River ** [ 3s ]
Allnightwc bets [$5].
... figuring he is beat, HERO makes this comment
HERO: well played... take 5 more
HERO calls [$5].
Allnightwc shows [ Qd, Kd ] two pairs, fours and threes.
HERO shows [ Qc, Ac ] two pairs, fours and threes.
HERO wins $27.55 from the main pot with two pairs, fours and threes with ace kicker.
HERO: oh nm
... later, HERO raises with tens and all fold
Allnightwc: not to be rude but we all fold the best hand
... later, HERO flops two pair and makes Allnightwc lay his second pair down
HERO: that had to hurt
Allnightwc: what your bluff
HERO: no your having to lay down to me
... later, HERO loses a big pot to another player, Allnightwc was not involved
... He pipes in anyway
Allnightwc: nh
... the very next hand
$100 NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, August 08, 03:00:27 EDT 2005
Table (6 max) (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 2: player4 ( $80.40 )
Seat 3: HERO ( $336.13 )
Seat 6: Allnightwc ( $76.15 )
Seat 1: player6 ( $94 )
Seat 4: player7 ( $39 )
Allnightwc posts small blind [$0.50].
player6 posts big blind [$1].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to HERO [ 7d 2d ]
player4 folds.
HERO raises [$4].
player7 folds.
Allnightwc calls [$3.50].
player6 did not respond in time.
player6 folds.
** Dealing Flop ** [ Td, 5d, Ad ]
Allnightwc bets [$3].
HERO raises [$10].
Allnightwc raises [$14].
HERO is all-In [$322.13]
Allnightwc is all-In [$55.15]
** Dealing Turn ** [ Kd ]
** Dealing River ** [ Tc ]
Allnightwc shows [ 2c, Ac ] two pairs, aces and tens.
HERO shows [ 7d, 2d ] a flush, ace high.
HERO wins $259.98 from side pot #1 with a flush, ace high.
HERO wins $151.30 from the main pot with a flush, ace high.
HERO: lol
HERO: hammer time
Allnightwc has left the table.
HERO: sorry that was too funny
HERO: think he punched the monitor?
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Live poker is like a rabbit…
… behind an electric fence.
I don’t play live that often. I want to, but my life (read as wife) is pretty demanding, and with the kids schedules and my work schedule, and the time commitment it takes to haul my ass down the expressway to AC, getting the 8 hours or so it would take to have a good live game experience is just so rare for me. Playing live is something I want to do more of, but it is just so much easier to click on the computer at 9 or 10 O’clock at night, after the kids and wife have hit the sack, and get in a couple hundred hands then it is to schedule (read as beg) the time to get down to AC.
… I have an electric fence for my dog. He is really good and well trained and the ‘zapper’ is tuned way up to keep him away from temptation. The rabbits know the limits of the fence and sometimes sit just on the other side of boundary, nibbling on clover (bad lawn care) while my dog salivates just five feet away. Since my dog is a natural hunter, watching him sit there is a little disheartening. But, every once in a while, despite whatever pain he will have to endure, he snaps and just bolts through, bearing the pain for the brief instant because the temptation of chasing that rabbit is so strong. The pain is huge, to which I can attest having been unwilling to put something on my dog that I had not felt myself first (what a bad idea that was), but the pleasure of that chase is just so great that the pain doesn’t matter for that instant in time. It only happens about once a month, and when he gets home, he looks really happy. …
I was my dog last night. Despite the pain associated with HAVING to go down to AC last night (read as argument) I did it anyway. I had the bug bad. No amount of explaining can properly frame how I felt to my wife. Her arguments as to why I shouldn’t really take off at 8 O’clock on a Wednesday night to drive one hour down to AC when I had to work the next day might have made a lot of sense (read as DID make a lot of sense) but I just had to go.
I trotted up to the fence, took a deep breath, and bolted through. The zap was immense, but a few minutes later, I had a huge smile on my face as I chased down the expressway to catch rabbits down at the Taj.
I got to AC at about 9, quickly got a seat at a $1/$2 NL table, bought in for three hundred clams and went to work. I don’t have a lot of stories and I don’t want to bore you with a lot of hands, so I will jump right to the chase, I won $500, cashing out $800 at about 2AM. The table was full of Donkey’s chasing flushes and calling down with nothing. Winning $500 was easy, so I’m not saying that this was much of an accomplishment. It just was. I did have a really great time, and the guy to my right was a great guy with whom I had a ball joking with all night.
The guy was from the Pittsburgh area. 6 weeks ago, he fell off a ladder and shattered his leg. He had 3 operations and acquired a serious infection in the process. He just got out of the hospital last week after a five week stay and he went with his buddies to AC this week. He is actually still on intravenous antibiotics for the infection and he still has a great deal of pain in his booted leg. The IV is in a fanny pack, worn on his front, and the line actually goes in his arm, up the vein, through his shoulder, and into his heart. His leg is so painful that every time he bumped the boot he would let out an audible grunt of pain.
… the rabbit he was chasing must have been mighty juicy!!
A running joke the whole night was that I kept forgetting to tip the dealer when I dragged a big pot. Blame internet play. I would remember hands later and get her/him back then. I told Pittsburgh that he was supposed to kick me every time I forget… get it, kick me… his leg is a total mess… get it? Never mind. It seemed funny at the time.
Since I don’t play live very often, there was one hand that I found incredibly interesting. I find it so interesting because it was a hand I think I would have lost on the internet, but that I won live. The table was incredibly loose and was calling most raises all the way around. So, the standard raise had kept creeping up to where it had finally topped out at $20 (that’s right, 10xBB). It was the only raise that could get anyone out of the pot. I found tens in the cutoff. There were a couple of limpers and I saw the button reaching for chips. I wanted to see where I stood so I raised by the standard amount (Now $20), thinking he would re-raise with Queens or better, which he did not do. He simply called. I think raising when you know the button is going to act behind you is important with Jacks and Tens because you want to be able to bet them with confidence if the flop is junk. Without raising, you can’t rule out the button having bigger pockets then you. Since this hand was live, the fact that he reached for a raise allowed me to know he was going to raise and to make a play that helped define his hand for me. Both blinds called and the limpers bailed. I figured I could still be against Jacks or a lower pair so even with a good flop, I still had a little trepidation, but far less than I would had I called and he raised.
The flop was J83 all diamonds… a pretty good flop for me, although I couldn’t remember if I had a diamond. I was tempted to look, but I knew this was a bad idea. I didn’t want to show any weakness. Besides, I was busy watching the other players to see if they peaked at their cards. None did. The blinds checked and since I had a pretty good shot at being in the lead here, I bet, half the pot or $30.
This is when the button did the second thing that allowed me to win this hand. He checked his cards, thought for a second and called. It was obvious what he was checking for. He was checking to see if he had the Ad. There was no other reason for him to check his cards except for that reason. He didn’t remember the suit of his ace. At this point, only a hand like AdJ was scary to me, but I was pretty sure that he would have re-raised with that hand. I knew what he had. He gave me a perfect indication that he was on the draw. When the blinds folded, I knew I was in great shape. On the turn (a blank), I lead out again, betting 2/3 of the pot and he called again. The river was a blank and I made a small bet, which he did not call.
On the internet, this hand might have played out much differently. I would have bet the same on the flop, but, when he called, I would have been in a spot. Was he calling on the draw or calling with a jack? I would have had to check the turn, which he could easily pick up as weakness and exploit either now or on the river with a nice sized bluff. I would probably lay down to that bluff.
But live, he gave his hand away. He didn’t have a Jack or a made flush but he did have the Ace of Diamonds and he made it absolutely clear that he was drawing to it. I had no fear when I bet. If I diamond fell, I would have folded to ANY bet by him. I didn’t even bother to figure out whether one of my tens was a diamond or not because I knew I was gone on the river if one fell.
The rest of the table asked what I had afterwards, offering up some guesses “AJ”, “KK”, “QQ”, and “JJ” I heard. I showed my tens and got some curious looks. They didn’t know why I bet it so heavily, which is why I showed it, because I guessed that they couldn’t know why I liked my hand so much, and I guess that if I let them know that I would give some action with an underpair that they might not respect my bets later.
The rest of my hands were pretty mundane. Get a good hand. Bet it. Have the chasers chase and drag a pot at the end. Get a good hand. Bet it. Have the chasers chase. Have the catchers catch. Fold when they over bet the pot. Rinse and repeat.
I left about 2AM. I got home at 3AM.
… when my dog returns from his chase he has one more problem. Despite the big smile on his face, he now is stuck. He can’t get back in the yard because the fence is still on. So he sits out in the street and barks until we realize he is out there. Basically, he gets it on both ends. He takes the hit for leaving the yard, and, after all of his fun is done, he either has to take the hit again, or he has to patiently wait until we decide to let him back in …
I am still waiting.
I don’t play live that often. I want to, but my life (read as wife) is pretty demanding, and with the kids schedules and my work schedule, and the time commitment it takes to haul my ass down the expressway to AC, getting the 8 hours or so it would take to have a good live game experience is just so rare for me. Playing live is something I want to do more of, but it is just so much easier to click on the computer at 9 or 10 O’clock at night, after the kids and wife have hit the sack, and get in a couple hundred hands then it is to schedule (read as beg) the time to get down to AC.
… I have an electric fence for my dog. He is really good and well trained and the ‘zapper’ is tuned way up to keep him away from temptation. The rabbits know the limits of the fence and sometimes sit just on the other side of boundary, nibbling on clover (bad lawn care) while my dog salivates just five feet away. Since my dog is a natural hunter, watching him sit there is a little disheartening. But, every once in a while, despite whatever pain he will have to endure, he snaps and just bolts through, bearing the pain for the brief instant because the temptation of chasing that rabbit is so strong. The pain is huge, to which I can attest having been unwilling to put something on my dog that I had not felt myself first (what a bad idea that was), but the pleasure of that chase is just so great that the pain doesn’t matter for that instant in time. It only happens about once a month, and when he gets home, he looks really happy. …
I was my dog last night. Despite the pain associated with HAVING to go down to AC last night (read as argument) I did it anyway. I had the bug bad. No amount of explaining can properly frame how I felt to my wife. Her arguments as to why I shouldn’t really take off at 8 O’clock on a Wednesday night to drive one hour down to AC when I had to work the next day might have made a lot of sense (read as DID make a lot of sense) but I just had to go.
I trotted up to the fence, took a deep breath, and bolted through. The zap was immense, but a few minutes later, I had a huge smile on my face as I chased down the expressway to catch rabbits down at the Taj.
I got to AC at about 9, quickly got a seat at a $1/$2 NL table, bought in for three hundred clams and went to work. I don’t have a lot of stories and I don’t want to bore you with a lot of hands, so I will jump right to the chase, I won $500, cashing out $800 at about 2AM. The table was full of Donkey’s chasing flushes and calling down with nothing. Winning $500 was easy, so I’m not saying that this was much of an accomplishment. It just was. I did have a really great time, and the guy to my right was a great guy with whom I had a ball joking with all night.
The guy was from the Pittsburgh area. 6 weeks ago, he fell off a ladder and shattered his leg. He had 3 operations and acquired a serious infection in the process. He just got out of the hospital last week after a five week stay and he went with his buddies to AC this week. He is actually still on intravenous antibiotics for the infection and he still has a great deal of pain in his booted leg. The IV is in a fanny pack, worn on his front, and the line actually goes in his arm, up the vein, through his shoulder, and into his heart. His leg is so painful that every time he bumped the boot he would let out an audible grunt of pain.
… the rabbit he was chasing must have been mighty juicy!!
A running joke the whole night was that I kept forgetting to tip the dealer when I dragged a big pot. Blame internet play. I would remember hands later and get her/him back then. I told Pittsburgh that he was supposed to kick me every time I forget… get it, kick me… his leg is a total mess… get it? Never mind. It seemed funny at the time.
Since I don’t play live very often, there was one hand that I found incredibly interesting. I find it so interesting because it was a hand I think I would have lost on the internet, but that I won live. The table was incredibly loose and was calling most raises all the way around. So, the standard raise had kept creeping up to where it had finally topped out at $20 (that’s right, 10xBB). It was the only raise that could get anyone out of the pot. I found tens in the cutoff. There were a couple of limpers and I saw the button reaching for chips. I wanted to see where I stood so I raised by the standard amount (Now $20), thinking he would re-raise with Queens or better, which he did not do. He simply called. I think raising when you know the button is going to act behind you is important with Jacks and Tens because you want to be able to bet them with confidence if the flop is junk. Without raising, you can’t rule out the button having bigger pockets then you. Since this hand was live, the fact that he reached for a raise allowed me to know he was going to raise and to make a play that helped define his hand for me. Both blinds called and the limpers bailed. I figured I could still be against Jacks or a lower pair so even with a good flop, I still had a little trepidation, but far less than I would had I called and he raised.
The flop was J83 all diamonds… a pretty good flop for me, although I couldn’t remember if I had a diamond. I was tempted to look, but I knew this was a bad idea. I didn’t want to show any weakness. Besides, I was busy watching the other players to see if they peaked at their cards. None did. The blinds checked and since I had a pretty good shot at being in the lead here, I bet, half the pot or $30.
This is when the button did the second thing that allowed me to win this hand. He checked his cards, thought for a second and called. It was obvious what he was checking for. He was checking to see if he had the Ad. There was no other reason for him to check his cards except for that reason. He didn’t remember the suit of his ace. At this point, only a hand like AdJ was scary to me, but I was pretty sure that he would have re-raised with that hand. I knew what he had. He gave me a perfect indication that he was on the draw. When the blinds folded, I knew I was in great shape. On the turn (a blank), I lead out again, betting 2/3 of the pot and he called again. The river was a blank and I made a small bet, which he did not call.
On the internet, this hand might have played out much differently. I would have bet the same on the flop, but, when he called, I would have been in a spot. Was he calling on the draw or calling with a jack? I would have had to check the turn, which he could easily pick up as weakness and exploit either now or on the river with a nice sized bluff. I would probably lay down to that bluff.
But live, he gave his hand away. He didn’t have a Jack or a made flush but he did have the Ace of Diamonds and he made it absolutely clear that he was drawing to it. I had no fear when I bet. If I diamond fell, I would have folded to ANY bet by him. I didn’t even bother to figure out whether one of my tens was a diamond or not because I knew I was gone on the river if one fell.
The rest of the table asked what I had afterwards, offering up some guesses “AJ”, “KK”, “QQ”, and “JJ” I heard. I showed my tens and got some curious looks. They didn’t know why I bet it so heavily, which is why I showed it, because I guessed that they couldn’t know why I liked my hand so much, and I guess that if I let them know that I would give some action with an underpair that they might not respect my bets later.
The rest of my hands were pretty mundane. Get a good hand. Bet it. Have the chasers chase and drag a pot at the end. Get a good hand. Bet it. Have the chasers chase. Have the catchers catch. Fold when they over bet the pot. Rinse and repeat.
I left about 2AM. I got home at 3AM.
… when my dog returns from his chase he has one more problem. Despite the big smile on his face, he now is stuck. He can’t get back in the yard because the fence is still on. So he sits out in the street and barks until we realize he is out there. Basically, he gets it on both ends. He takes the hit for leaving the yard, and, after all of his fun is done, he either has to take the hit again, or he has to patiently wait until we decide to let him back in …
I am still waiting.
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Poker is like...
... a driving lesson from my Dad.
When my father taught me to drive he put me to a test. He said, "You are never allowed to pass on a two lane road."
I objected, “But dad, it is perfectly legal to pass on a two lane road when the line is dashed.”
“I realized that,” he said, “but YOU are not allowed to do it.”
“That’s crazy. Why not?” I asked.
To which he devised this test. We took our little driving test onto the nearest windy two lane road we could find. We drove on it until I came up behind a slower car. He then asked me to tell him every time I thought it was safe to pass. I did really well, getting it correct something like 49 out of 50 times.
He said, "Like I said, you are never allowed to pass on a two lane road."
"BUT DAD!," I protested, "I was right 49 out of 50 times!"
My dad said, "But son, you are dead now!"
In poker, making the Big Bluff is the same idea. It is going to win you a few hands. You will win a little bit most times when you make the Big Bluff. That little bit will feel really good, like shaving 3 minutes off the drive to your friends house because you blew by granny on Kettlebridge Road. You have pulled a fast one and the fractional gain feels so much better than it actually should. But, every now and then, when you least expect it, you will find yourself driving headon into the nuts.
A bluff doesn’t have to be huge to win. So the question becomes, why risk everything for such small gains? The player that put that beat on me re-raised all-in with NOTHING, after I had already raised the flop. That player used the Big Bluff, and sure enough, there was a truck coming his way.
When my father taught me to drive he put me to a test. He said, "You are never allowed to pass on a two lane road."
I objected, “But dad, it is perfectly legal to pass on a two lane road when the line is dashed.”
“I realized that,” he said, “but YOU are not allowed to do it.”
“That’s crazy. Why not?” I asked.
To which he devised this test. We took our little driving test onto the nearest windy two lane road we could find. We drove on it until I came up behind a slower car. He then asked me to tell him every time I thought it was safe to pass. I did really well, getting it correct something like 49 out of 50 times.
He said, "Like I said, you are never allowed to pass on a two lane road."
"BUT DAD!," I protested, "I was right 49 out of 50 times!"
My dad said, "But son, you are dead now!"
In poker, making the Big Bluff is the same idea. It is going to win you a few hands. You will win a little bit most times when you make the Big Bluff. That little bit will feel really good, like shaving 3 minutes off the drive to your friends house because you blew by granny on Kettlebridge Road. You have pulled a fast one and the fractional gain feels so much better than it actually should. But, every now and then, when you least expect it, you will find yourself driving headon into the nuts.
A bluff doesn’t have to be huge to win. So the question becomes, why risk everything for such small gains? The player that put that beat on me re-raised all-in with NOTHING, after I had already raised the flop. That player used the Big Bluff, and sure enough, there was a truck coming his way.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Broken Reality
How does it happen that money doesn’t become money any more? When is it that the only thing you see is chips? The stakes are going up, but the game is the same. When betting $20 all-in once used to be a big deal, and shelling out $100 in a NL Tournament home game was once one of the scariest thing you ever did, and then suddenly you are at a place when calling a raise with 78s for $40 is not a big deal and re-raising $200 on a stone cold bluff is completely natural, and playing nightly $100 MTTs is as easy as breathing.
When is it that you start thinking of expenses in terms of Big Blinds and going to dinner in terms of a re-raise. When is it that the money from gambling justifies whatever expense you have because an expense might be covered by the next all-in bet. When do you start worrying?
I ask because it’s all becoming intertwined. Money on the table is just chips and money in real life is just bets on the table. It’s an odd feeling. Strange days indeed.
To catch you up. I took most of my profit from my big MTT win, $3000, and cashed it out. I then continued to win at reasonable stakes ring games and cashed out again, another $2000. So, from my low a couple of months ago of $22, I have cashed out $5K. I had $1600 left on Party and $400 on Noble poker that I put there to try to cash on their bonus. So I was up $7000 total if you count the virtual dollars.
… and that is part of the worry, isn’t it? They are virtual dollars to me. It’s all twisted. Money is chips and purchases are big bets and, oddly enough, real money online is starting to feel virtual to me, like health points in a video game…
But when does virtual money become real money with my mind in this confused state where money is chips and chips are frags and frags are not anything like money at all? Why is it all melding together yet staying so damn disjointed? I am confused. Up and winning but confused and scared of what I might be becoming.
$400 on Noble poker isn’t real money anymore, my mind tells me. What is the justification for that thought? My bankroll is $1500 on Party. That is my stake. The money on Noble was just put there to get some free cash. Since I played the site and didn’t like the site, the $400 has just been sitting there, untouched and … well, a little forgotten. It isn’t money any more. It is some credits on a video game I don’t like.
I took a loss on Party, dropping down to $1100 and I needed to get away. Away from Party because my mind was starting to connect those 500BB’s back to reality. I dropped $500 bucks. My mind was starting to realized that just three months ago dropping a half a grand would be heart breaking and life altering. I would have quit poker then. But now, it felt too natural and I didn’t care.
So, this warped mind of mine, where reality and virtual reality are starting to merge together, where a tank of gas is nothing more than re-raise and giving my kid $2 for an overpriced hotdog at a ballgame is nothing more than a laughable big blind, came up with a plan. That Noble money isn’t money anymore my broken mind begins to reason. I have my stake on Party, it is damaged but still more than Greg Raymer’s wife gave him to start his gambling career. So the Noble money was ‘free’ money, just a little chunk of what I had already won, and if I dropped it all it would be no big deal.
It became my official gamble it up fund. And I did. This weekend, I put the whole wad on a single NL game and won $600. So my Noble stake became $1000. I followed that up again by gambling that $1000 in another single game of NL Hold’em. I killed. I turned $1000 into $2600 in a matter of an hour. I was sky high.
… but was it money at all. It was my gambling fund. A pool of money that was there just to play with. But suddenly it was more than double the amount in my bankroll. My mind began to connect again. $2600!!! Just take it out. Back to reality…
That was not to be. It didn’t take long, but my mind began to justify again. It is earmarked money, I justified. Earmarked to take a shot. Earmarked to gamble it up. When were these gamble it up credits going to become money again? The answer is never. $100K or bust. WSOP or bust. It’s not part of my BR at all. It was not real money!
Of course I lost it… well most of it. That’s what playing $1000 tables without a bankroll will do. You can’t absorb the blips. And I blipped back down $2000 and then another $200 and I have $400 left. I am back to where this insanity started. Or am I? My holdings are. But how about my mind, and my heart, and my sensibility.
About a month ago I told a story about losing $1000 and being torn up. About thinking about it a week. About my heart pumping and about being humiliated. What is strange now is that this didn’t hurt. Not in the least. That can’t be good, can it?
So I am worried. $1K on Party. $400 on Noble. $5000 in the bank. Vacation coming from the wins. Everything seems OK in the greater scheme of things. But the underlying cracks are there. I liked gambling it up. I really liked it. Getting beat didn’t hurt me at all. How could so much change so fast?
Where am I now? What will the future hold? If I drop my remaining $1400, what will I do then? I am scared and I am wondering how I will adjust. Will grinding out $100 NL tables be acceptable for me any more? I am determined to try to get myself back to reality.
… we shall see
When is it that you start thinking of expenses in terms of Big Blinds and going to dinner in terms of a re-raise. When is it that the money from gambling justifies whatever expense you have because an expense might be covered by the next all-in bet. When do you start worrying?
I ask because it’s all becoming intertwined. Money on the table is just chips and money in real life is just bets on the table. It’s an odd feeling. Strange days indeed.
To catch you up. I took most of my profit from my big MTT win, $3000, and cashed it out. I then continued to win at reasonable stakes ring games and cashed out again, another $2000. So, from my low a couple of months ago of $22, I have cashed out $5K. I had $1600 left on Party and $400 on Noble poker that I put there to try to cash on their bonus. So I was up $7000 total if you count the virtual dollars.
… and that is part of the worry, isn’t it? They are virtual dollars to me. It’s all twisted. Money is chips and purchases are big bets and, oddly enough, real money online is starting to feel virtual to me, like health points in a video game…
But when does virtual money become real money with my mind in this confused state where money is chips and chips are frags and frags are not anything like money at all? Why is it all melding together yet staying so damn disjointed? I am confused. Up and winning but confused and scared of what I might be becoming.
$400 on Noble poker isn’t real money anymore, my mind tells me. What is the justification for that thought? My bankroll is $1500 on Party. That is my stake. The money on Noble was just put there to get some free cash. Since I played the site and didn’t like the site, the $400 has just been sitting there, untouched and … well, a little forgotten. It isn’t money any more. It is some credits on a video game I don’t like.
I took a loss on Party, dropping down to $1100 and I needed to get away. Away from Party because my mind was starting to connect those 500BB’s back to reality. I dropped $500 bucks. My mind was starting to realized that just three months ago dropping a half a grand would be heart breaking and life altering. I would have quit poker then. But now, it felt too natural and I didn’t care.
So, this warped mind of mine, where reality and virtual reality are starting to merge together, where a tank of gas is nothing more than re-raise and giving my kid $2 for an overpriced hotdog at a ballgame is nothing more than a laughable big blind, came up with a plan. That Noble money isn’t money anymore my broken mind begins to reason. I have my stake on Party, it is damaged but still more than Greg Raymer’s wife gave him to start his gambling career. So the Noble money was ‘free’ money, just a little chunk of what I had already won, and if I dropped it all it would be no big deal.
It became my official gamble it up fund. And I did. This weekend, I put the whole wad on a single NL game and won $600. So my Noble stake became $1000. I followed that up again by gambling that $1000 in another single game of NL Hold’em. I killed. I turned $1000 into $2600 in a matter of an hour. I was sky high.
… but was it money at all. It was my gambling fund. A pool of money that was there just to play with. But suddenly it was more than double the amount in my bankroll. My mind began to connect again. $2600!!! Just take it out. Back to reality…
That was not to be. It didn’t take long, but my mind began to justify again. It is earmarked money, I justified. Earmarked to take a shot. Earmarked to gamble it up. When were these gamble it up credits going to become money again? The answer is never. $100K or bust. WSOP or bust. It’s not part of my BR at all. It was not real money!
Of course I lost it… well most of it. That’s what playing $1000 tables without a bankroll will do. You can’t absorb the blips. And I blipped back down $2000 and then another $200 and I have $400 left. I am back to where this insanity started. Or am I? My holdings are. But how about my mind, and my heart, and my sensibility.
About a month ago I told a story about losing $1000 and being torn up. About thinking about it a week. About my heart pumping and about being humiliated. What is strange now is that this didn’t hurt. Not in the least. That can’t be good, can it?
So I am worried. $1K on Party. $400 on Noble. $5000 in the bank. Vacation coming from the wins. Everything seems OK in the greater scheme of things. But the underlying cracks are there. I liked gambling it up. I really liked it. Getting beat didn’t hurt me at all. How could so much change so fast?
Where am I now? What will the future hold? If I drop my remaining $1400, what will I do then? I am scared and I am wondering how I will adjust. Will grinding out $100 NL tables be acceptable for me any more? I am determined to try to get myself back to reality.
… we shall see
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Poker is like...
… fighting with your wife.
I have never won a fight with my wife. I have been right a lot of the time, but I have never won. Hell, even when I got what I wanted, I still lost. I am remarkably bad at winning fights and she has a sixth sense for verbal sparring that is impossible to defeat. Her tactic is undefeatable and her use of it is unrelenting. The move is so simple as to be comical in its simplicity. Never admit anything. When you are behind, raise the stakes. Keep the pressure on and never ever relent.
When I argue, I try to use logic and focus on the problem at hand. When she fights, there is no logic and she brings everything into the mix that she needs to win. I am stuck in the moment and she is using everything at her disposal. When I get a foothold with some bit of logic that seems to make sense and pins her into a corner, she comes over the top of me and brings up something unrelated and with which I have no footing. Her game is constant aggression and it puts me on my heals. If I play into her or I try to call her down, she just turns up the heat even more. If I call again, she moves all-in and I unquestionably fold.
I am a weak passive and she is the ultimate maniac. The only way for me to win is to flop the nuts and have it hold up to 5th street. But that doesn’t happen very often and by the time it does, she has my whole stack.
To win at poker, you have to play the way my wife fights. Aggression, aggression, aggression! You don’t have to be a maniac, but you have to play to win and that means betting and raising a lot.
There is an old axiom that it takes a better hand to call than it does to raise, but I often wonder, sitting around at these weak passive tables, what percentage of these players have actually considered what this means in terms of their game. To me, it became clear in February when I really took some time to consider why I wasn’t winning consistently. I blindly decided to add more aggression to my game and suddenly everything turned around. Just adding blind aggression turned me into a winner. Whenever I was going to call, I raised instead. Whenever I was going to check, I bet instead. If I was going to call when I knew he was really strong, I folded instead. Boom, I was a winner.
This blind aggression has been refined over the last few months, and what was totally without logic but was winning me money now has a basis to it that I understand fully. “It takes a better hand to call than it does to raise”! If you understand why this is, then you will understand big bet poker. The rest is easy.
Consider this hand from two nights ago:
I am playing 4d5d from late position in a NL Hold’em game. It is limped to me by 3 players. I raise to 4xBB. I get one caller. The flop is 6,7,10 rainbow and he checks. I bet almost the pot. He calls. The turn is a 3 completing my straight. He checks and I bet again, pot sized. He re-raises me but only doubles my bet. I push all-in. He calls and shows 89 to take my stack.
What a terrible example, huh? I lost.
Well, not really. I played this hand really well. He played this hand poorly. I will win a lot of money in the long run by playing my way. He will lose a lot of money by playing his way. Understand why this is and you will understand how to win in the NL Hold’em rings.
My wife asked me afterwards how I did. I said I lost money. She gave me the look and I considered defending myself. I considered explaining logically how my losing money was just like her winning a fight. Then I thought better of it. I had lost enough hands for the night.
I have never won a fight with my wife. I have been right a lot of the time, but I have never won. Hell, even when I got what I wanted, I still lost. I am remarkably bad at winning fights and she has a sixth sense for verbal sparring that is impossible to defeat. Her tactic is undefeatable and her use of it is unrelenting. The move is so simple as to be comical in its simplicity. Never admit anything. When you are behind, raise the stakes. Keep the pressure on and never ever relent.
When I argue, I try to use logic and focus on the problem at hand. When she fights, there is no logic and she brings everything into the mix that she needs to win. I am stuck in the moment and she is using everything at her disposal. When I get a foothold with some bit of logic that seems to make sense and pins her into a corner, she comes over the top of me and brings up something unrelated and with which I have no footing. Her game is constant aggression and it puts me on my heals. If I play into her or I try to call her down, she just turns up the heat even more. If I call again, she moves all-in and I unquestionably fold.
I am a weak passive and she is the ultimate maniac. The only way for me to win is to flop the nuts and have it hold up to 5th street. But that doesn’t happen very often and by the time it does, she has my whole stack.
To win at poker, you have to play the way my wife fights. Aggression, aggression, aggression! You don’t have to be a maniac, but you have to play to win and that means betting and raising a lot.
There is an old axiom that it takes a better hand to call than it does to raise, but I often wonder, sitting around at these weak passive tables, what percentage of these players have actually considered what this means in terms of their game. To me, it became clear in February when I really took some time to consider why I wasn’t winning consistently. I blindly decided to add more aggression to my game and suddenly everything turned around. Just adding blind aggression turned me into a winner. Whenever I was going to call, I raised instead. Whenever I was going to check, I bet instead. If I was going to call when I knew he was really strong, I folded instead. Boom, I was a winner.
This blind aggression has been refined over the last few months, and what was totally without logic but was winning me money now has a basis to it that I understand fully. “It takes a better hand to call than it does to raise”! If you understand why this is, then you will understand big bet poker. The rest is easy.
Consider this hand from two nights ago:
I am playing 4d5d from late position in a NL Hold’em game. It is limped to me by 3 players. I raise to 4xBB. I get one caller. The flop is 6,7,10 rainbow and he checks. I bet almost the pot. He calls. The turn is a 3 completing my straight. He checks and I bet again, pot sized. He re-raises me but only doubles my bet. I push all-in. He calls and shows 89 to take my stack.
What a terrible example, huh? I lost.
Well, not really. I played this hand really well. He played this hand poorly. I will win a lot of money in the long run by playing my way. He will lose a lot of money by playing his way. Understand why this is and you will understand how to win in the NL Hold’em rings.
My wife asked me afterwards how I did. I said I lost money. She gave me the look and I considered defending myself. I considered explaining logically how my losing money was just like her winning a fight. Then I thought better of it. I had lost enough hands for the night.
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
A pearl?
STRATEGY - A pearl of wisdom?
"Every time somebody min-raises, God kills a cat!"
- unknown Party Poker Player
I don't remember who the player was, but I will always remember the quote. For some sadistic reason, I found it to be about the funniest line I have ever heard on Party Poker.
Anyway...
I am playing a 100NL table last night, sitting with $115 or so, and I am dealt 10sQs in the cutoff. There is one limper, and the player in front of me raises to $2; a min-raise at a NL table... blah! I call. SB calls and the limper calls. Pot is $8.
The flop is spectacular – 9sJs8h
I have the nuts. I am drawing to a flush. I am drawing to a straight flush.
SB checks. Limper checks. Mr. Min-Raise bets $1. $1? I call hoping that SB does the sensible thing and re-raises. Unfortunately, he doesn't. SB calls and limper folds.
If ever I was to slow play a hand, this is the time. I have the nuts. I have a draw to the flush. I don't have to put any money in (to speak of) in order to slow play. I can get away from this at almost no cost if I blow it. Raising has little chance of paying off. I am going to wait for the turn and then take this hand down.
Well the turn is a great card. A Kh probably improves someone but doesn't create a bigger straight. I still have the nuts. My only concern now is the second flush draw and the chance that the board will pair. Time to take this down.
Min-Raise bets $25 into the $11 pot! Wow! This is gold. I decide that there is no way SB will call that bet, therefore I am going to try to milk Mr. Min-Raise. I raise to $50.
Well, I am wrong. Not only would SB call his raise, but he also was willing to call my re-raise. Nice.
Even better is that min-raise really likes his hand too. He re-raises all-in. Woop! That's $79 more. I have that covered. I raise all-in and SB, who has me slightly covered, thinks for a second and reluctantly calls. Wow! Gold!
I figure this is probably a split pot. But I do have my flush redraw.
Well, my flush misses. The river is a 4h but it doesn't matter, no one was on that draw. Min-Raise shows 7d10d. SB shows JhKc.
I rake in a $330 pot!!!!!!
At that point it occurs to me that if Mr. Min-Raise had raised to $4 instead of $2, there is no way I would be in this hand.
"Every time somebody min-raises, God kills a cat!"
There is a bit of truth in there somewhere.
"Every time somebody min-raises, God kills a cat!"
- unknown Party Poker Player
I don't remember who the player was, but I will always remember the quote. For some sadistic reason, I found it to be about the funniest line I have ever heard on Party Poker.
Anyway...
I am playing a 100NL table last night, sitting with $115 or so, and I am dealt 10sQs in the cutoff. There is one limper, and the player in front of me raises to $2; a min-raise at a NL table... blah! I call. SB calls and the limper calls. Pot is $8.
The flop is spectacular – 9sJs8h
I have the nuts. I am drawing to a flush. I am drawing to a straight flush.
SB checks. Limper checks. Mr. Min-Raise bets $1. $1? I call hoping that SB does the sensible thing and re-raises. Unfortunately, he doesn't. SB calls and limper folds.
If ever I was to slow play a hand, this is the time. I have the nuts. I have a draw to the flush. I don't have to put any money in (to speak of) in order to slow play. I can get away from this at almost no cost if I blow it. Raising has little chance of paying off. I am going to wait for the turn and then take this hand down.
Well the turn is a great card. A Kh probably improves someone but doesn't create a bigger straight. I still have the nuts. My only concern now is the second flush draw and the chance that the board will pair. Time to take this down.
Min-Raise bets $25 into the $11 pot! Wow! This is gold. I decide that there is no way SB will call that bet, therefore I am going to try to milk Mr. Min-Raise. I raise to $50.
Well, I am wrong. Not only would SB call his raise, but he also was willing to call my re-raise. Nice.
Even better is that min-raise really likes his hand too. He re-raises all-in. Woop! That's $79 more. I have that covered. I raise all-in and SB, who has me slightly covered, thinks for a second and reluctantly calls. Wow! Gold!
I figure this is probably a split pot. But I do have my flush redraw.
Well, my flush misses. The river is a 4h but it doesn't matter, no one was on that draw. Min-Raise shows 7d10d. SB shows JhKc.
I rake in a $330 pot!!!!!!
At that point it occurs to me that if Mr. Min-Raise had raised to $4 instead of $2, there is no way I would be in this hand.
"Every time somebody min-raises, God kills a cat!"
There is a bit of truth in there somewhere.
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