Saturday 29 December 2007

circles

This is what I fear. That what I know works somewhat, but it isn't right. If it isn't right, it will not serve into the long run.

I have lots of poker knowledge in my head. But it's quite jumbled. Some is definitely sound: I know pot odds; I understand reasons for betting and raising; I know what are good hands and what bad, and I understand why (and I don't just mean I know what are good hands for tight players; I know what hands are good against which type of players); I am not so bad at analysing hands in terms of their maths. I know the outlines of a lot of other parts of knowledge.

I know some of what I lack: I am not good at reading other players (too much playing and reading at the same time--which I can fix); I am not sure which hands to play in which situations, so that I'm not certain whether I'm playing too tight for a situation or too loose; I sometimes misfire with aggression--bluffing calling stations too much and tight players not enough; I sometimes play too weakly.

I chose sitngos because they fit my skillset best and because I started winning at them. I still do but I think anyone with my level of knowledge would. I want to do better. I don't want to play a million $5 sitngos and win at 20-30%. I want to crush them and move up, and win at higher levels.

So what should I do? I can't afford a coach to set me straight. I am afraid to keep piling good knowledge onto bad knowledge. I don't know how to analyse what I do, let alone what I know. I am afraid above all that I will start to win again, and not know whether I'm playing better, learning more, or just running better.

And the worst is, it spills over into life. I have started hating the people I play against. It's desperately unfair that they play so badly and win and I play well and lose and I can't get past it. And the frustration of not progressing makes me tilt in my life. It just makes everything seem so desperate. And it all feeds back, in a vicious circle.

Sometimes I feel I should take a break for a couple of months, let my head clear and then start from scratch. Imagine I know nothing and start from that.

But what good would it do? The old knowledge would crowd back into my head and I'd be back here a couple of weeks later.

still really bad

So I get a third place in an sng where I'm far the best player but get all my cards in the big blind and have it walked.

Then I pick up QQ in the sb at t50, one limper, I raise to 200, he calls.

Flop is AAJ. He checks. With a huge sigh, I bet out 300. He raises and of course I fold. Every time I have a big pair and some idiot calls a raise, an ace comes on the flop. I'm pretty sure he had one. Yeah, maybe he had JT or a midpair but why go bust finding out? Most players in fivers are not tricky enough to play the odds like that.

Anyway, I'm tilting a bit, so I pick up JTs in the cutoff and raise it to 200. You're not calling that with a pair of eights, right? No, me either. But some guy does on the button. Flop comes ATx and I push. I'm delighted to see his hand obviously.

River 8. I am hating this so much. My ROI has plummeted. I just lose all the time. It doesn't matter what shithouse draw my opponents have. Even two outs is good enough.

You can argue that raising the JTs is a bad play, and I should fold, but even so, only one of us really made any mistakes. Not just calling preflop, which is horrible, but calling on the flop, which is worse. My most likely hands are ace-something and a pair bigger than tens. These retards just think fuck it, I have a pair, and I'm calling any bet. They don't even look at the board in my view.

Thursday 20 December 2007

and worse

ITM in an sng. I have K3.


TEXAS_HOLDEM, NO_LIMIT, T4-56395985-72
played at "New Haven" for USDTC from 2007-12-19 23:05 until 2007-12-19 23:05
Seat 1: Dr Zen ($4,915 in chips)
Seat 3: RoyzeNoBoyz ($6,795 in chips)
Seat 5: Lec12345 ($3,290 in chips)
ANTES/BLINDS
Dr Zen posts blind ($100), RoyzeNoBoyz posts blind ($200).

PRE-FLOP
Lec12345 folds, Dr Zen bets $500

Standard with a king.

RoyzeNoBoyz calls $400.

FLOP [board cards:4HTDKC ]
Dr Zen bets $900, RoyzeNoBoyz calls $900.

I have to assume I have the best hand. Three possible cases after he calls:

1/ He has a king.
2/ He hit something else.
3/ He has a draw.

In case 1, I am probably doomed to loose more chips because I'm very unlikely to fold top pair.
In case 2, if I check, he might think I was cbetting and then I can win his bet. If I just lead out again, he probably folds.
In case 3, he might semibluff. I am taking a risk if I check, but this guy has played quite aggressively.

TURN [board cards:4HTDKC5H ]
Dr Zen checks, RoyzeNoBoyz bets $5,295 and is all-in, Dr Zen calls $3,415 and is all-in.


He shows JT.

Well, that's great right? I'm miles ahead and he only has five outs.

Surely this time it will...
RIVER [board cards:4HTDKC5HJC ]

Oh no. Silly me.

It gets worse

I don't expect to win every time I play, but this is getting ridiculous. This happens EVERY FUCKING TIME I PLAY. A $5 sng this time:

TEXAS_HOLDEM, NO_LIMIT, T4-56394060-14
played at "Uppsala" for USDTC from 2007-12-19 21:14 until 2007-12-19 21:15
Seat 1: Olum0609 ($3,770 in chips)
Seat 4: 1egdums7 ($1,010 in chips)
Seat 6: MorphNosnese ($1,555 in chips)
Seat 7: Donvon1 ($925 in chips)
Seat 8: Fat-Lula ($4,115 in chips)
Seat 9: Gatti11 ($2,240 in chips)
Seat 10: Dr Zen ($1,385 in chips)

Have not played a hand.

ANTES/BLINDS
1egdums7 posts blind ($25), MorphNosnese posts blind ($50).

PRE-FLOP
Donvon1 folds, Fat-Lula folds, Gatti11 calls $50, Dr Zen bets $300,


Big bet but this table has been retarded, so get the money in.

Olum0609 folds, 1egdums7 folds, MorphNosnese calls $250, Gatti11 calls $250.

FLOP [board cards:AS3H9S ]

Bang! TPTK, we're good to go.


MorphNosnese bets $400

Don't think so, dude.

Gatti11 calls $400, Dr Zen bets $1,085 and is all-in

Come on!

MorphNosnese folds,

Didn't think so.

Gatti11 calls $685.


Here's a WTF moment.

The guy shows Ks5s.

Okay, you're an idiot who limps that preflop.

But you call a raise to 6BB with it? And then call a t400 bet on the flop? Half the pot, so not good enough odds, and I'm still to play, with my most likely hand a big ace.

Of course, he has to call the push. He's played so badly up to this point that he's actually priced in for it.

Still, I should be happy, right? Money in really good again. He's about 2 to 1 to...


TURN [board cards:AS3H9S7S ]

win.

Whenever I get allin with less than the nuts now, I expect to lose. It doesn't matter what shit they have against me, they will win every time. EVERY FUCKING TIME. I'm not kidding. I occasionally have a hand that's ahead preflop and holds up, but if someone calls me with some bullshit draw, count on their drawing out on me.

RIVER [board cards:AS3H9S7SQH ]

youch

Goddamnit! I need PokerRoom to switch off the doomswitch, because this is just sucking so much.

t150 in a $5 tourney. I have about 6K. I wake up with QQ. I raise to 500 and the only guy who covers me calls.

Note that. The only guy who covers me at the whole table calls.

The flop comes all low hearts. I have the Q of hearts. I bet out. The tard raises, and I push.

Why?

Most of the time the guy has Ahx and has paired x, or has a big ace that he thinks probably is ahead. Sometimes he has a set. Sometimes an overpair of his own. Other times he's bluffing. Only very rarely will he have the flush.

In the first of those cases, you really don't want to fold. In the second, I have the odds to call his raise, but I'm not going to like a push on the turn. In the third, I don't want to fold at all. In the fourth, I still have a redraw against most flushes. On balance, I'm going to be ahead, and I'm going to be called by the Ahx hands and probably AK/AQ too.

The guy shows KhTh. WTF? How often can players flop flushes against me? I mean, for fuck's sake, they do this all the time. He doesn't even have 5h4h or other bullshit that I can at least suck out on.

And please, spare me a discussion of overplaying overpairs. You have to overplay them in $5 tourneys on PR. The blinds go up quickly, and you just don't get enough play to play too nitty. Anyway, I think my play is fine. There are just too many hands he can have that I beat to fold that.

Friday 14 December 2007

Sucking does not hurt

So I made the final table of a $5 tourney. I had been up to 100K but I took a bad beat, but remained viable. With short stacks, no need to take too many risks but it's not my style to fold my way up the ladder. After all, I'm trying to win.

So I pick up AT.

TEXAS_HOLDEM, NO_LIMIT, T4-55942675-164
played at "Elmira" for USD TC from 2007-12-13 23:16 until 2007-12-13 23:17
Seat 2: Dr Zen ($64,376 in chips)
Seat 5: BunyipBlue ($12,520 in chips)
Seat 7: ckoilecon88 ($175,659 in chips)
Seat 8: dondimorin ($9,709 in chips)
Seat 9: ATorben ($14,002 in chips)
Seat 10: Woltas1 ($176,734 in chips)
ANTES/BLINDS
ATorben posts blind ($2,000), Woltas1 posts blind ($4,000).

PRE-FLOP
Dr Zen bets $9,000, BunyipBlue folds, ckoilecon88 folds, dondimorin folds, ATorben folds, Woltas1 calls $5,000.

I make a raise on the small side. I think this guy will call most raises though if he has what he considers viable cards.


FLOP [board cards:6S7H,TS ]

So I hit the flop, but there are tons of draws there, so I bet pot:

Woltas1 checks, Dr Zen bets $20,000, Woltas1 bets $40,000


I am never folding here. I have put in 29K of my 64K stack and I have TPTK. If he has got lucky, oh well, but I will not fold this.

And if I'm not folding, I'm pushing.

Dr Zen bets $35,376 and is all-in, Woltas1 calls $15,376.

Unbelievably, he shows Qh9h. He has the odds to call the push, but WTF was that raise? Is he really clueless enough not to realise that I won't fold anything I bet here for a minraise? My bet potcommitted me. He has seen me call a push with hands that must puzzle a level one player (because they don't understand that you must call when the odds favour you, given that what we are doing is making bets).

He doesn't even have a flush draw.

But you know what's going to happen, don't you?

TURN [board cards:6S7H,TS6D ]

Wait for it...

RIVER [board cards:6S7H,TS6D8H ]


Yep, there it is. His play postflop is atrocious. I can forgive the call preflop. He can count on my having a hand that beats him preflop but I offered him decent odds, I suppose. That's my mistake in this hand. I needed to raise a bit more, because with a hand such as AT, I probably prefer to win the blinds.

But on the flop, he has no excuses. I have bet the pot, and this is an easy fold for him. I *could* have two spades, but even if I do, I probably have an ace or king, and I'm beating him. But he should expect me to show top pair or better, because I have betted the pot and committed myself. I am clearly going to put all my money in here. He cannot raise me off my hand, no matter what I have. I will never fold here. If I didn't like my hand enough to call a raise, I would have checked behind, or perhaps made a smaller bet. I might even have pushed a spade draw. (I say "I" but I mean "his opponent".)

This guy will lose money over his career. It's little consolation for me that that is true but I suppose that I should take some from having again put my money in really good. (We all know that hands you lose are more salient than ones you win, and I would hardly remember it had I won that one and gone on to win.) And at least I made a final table. I'm not going so badly if I make FTs.

Thursday 13 December 2007

Shitouttaluck

I am hating poker at the moment, so much so that I might give up. I cannot stand the element of chance. I know that's a weird thing to say in a game that is so influenced by chance, but I am finding it really hard to deal with, because I keep making good plays and keep on losing in ridiculous and painful ways.

Today I have played four games of poker. The first was a $5 tourney. I had about t1000 at t100 blinds and picked up JJ. Four guys limped. I pushed, hoping to fold them all out. UTG called, and showed AT.

This is atrocious, obviously. He is behind *everything* I push with if I am even close to sane. He is a flip with smaller pairs, yes, but he is crushed by AA-JJ and bigger aces.

You are thinking he flopped an ace. Nope. He rivered a flush. He didn't even have suited cards.

Well, okay, shit happens, so I fire up an sng. I run a bit cold but play okay and get it all in with KQ against QJ. That's nice, isn't it? I'm a huge favourite. But he flops JJ9.

Next up, I'm in third and push with A something. Called by K8 for a bunch of chips. He flops the K.

So next up I am on the bubble. I cover the short stack, who is in the big blind. I have A2s. I could push, but I raise instead. I figure he will fold and if he pushes, I will snapcall. My read is that he will try to push me off whatever I'm raising. I folded one earlier to another player. This is different though.

So he pushes, and I call. He has 74. The flop comes Ax4. I don't get excited though. He has five outs and that will surely be enough.

I won't even tell you about the day before yesterday (didn't play yesterday), not even the AA where two fish called a big raise with king highs and both beat me.

I would not mind so much if I was playing badly. But I am comprehensively outplaying these retards. I trap them and they hit two-outers. I snap off their bluff pushes preflop and they hit perfect flops. I flop straights and they runner-runner flush me out of it. They call my pushes with hands I dominate, and they hit their kickers.

It is sick. I wish I could be writing interesting posts about winning sngs with good play. Instead, I am just dumbfounded by how much money I lose each day.

Okay, I'll run good at some point. But just now, I need that some point to be now. When you're not feeling confident about your play, you start to think not that the play that got you knocked out was no good, but that other plays weren't. "If I had done that, then..." You start to question everything. Well, that might be good, but not when it isn't constructive.

Edit: And now I'm on tilt, so I'm playing like shit. But it doesn't help when you are dealt K5, and the flop comes K high. You call bets to the river and the other guy shows the other two Ks. WTF? I am dominated by a pair and I flop the case fucking card? Then I follow up by pushing over a limp with A6 and getting called by KJ, who proceeded to flop and turn a K. To mock me, Stars gave me an ace on the river. The guy who called was a fucking idiot, who had been mouthing off in chat, and that didn't help.

Edit 2: Even worse. I just cannot stand this. I have 1800 chips at t100. I pick up AQs and raise to 300. Some guy calls. Flop is Q93 with two diamonds. I bet 500, he puts me all in. I call obviously. He has AA.

WTF? I can stand bad beats. I can stand setup hands. But I can't stand both all the fucking time. ALL THE FUCKING TIME. Every game today. Every game bar one two days ago.

Saturday 8 December 2007

What is a level?

I'm posting this answer to a boots comment as a post, because it's sprawled a bit.

boots asked whether I do have a level, and wtf is a level anyway?

It means that there is a level of buyin at which I have an edge over the opposition.

boots, generally, you could consider yourself on a scale of pokering. Let's say I am a 45 out of 100 (this is not a realistic score, just an illustration). I might play several 10s, a few 50s, whatever, but if the average is 35, I am a favourite to win money. Not guaranteed, but I have an edge. Betting with an edge is what gambling is all about. (It doesn't matter that there are individual players better than me. What matters is my edge over the pool of players as a whole.)

However, if most players in the games I play are 50s, so that the average is, say, 50, I am over my head. I am betting with the worst of it. I may win (and I've seen players who are hopelessly outclassed but still win) but I can basically expect to lose.

The thing is, I want to know whether when I back myself with 16 dollars in a 16 turbo I am making a good bet or a bad one. The dissonance for me has come from this:

a/ before playing 16s, I felt I would be making a good bet. I had good reason to think that: I beat the 5ers, 6.50s and 10s decently; I feel comfortable discussing hands at this level on 2p2; I review others' 16s and feel I have a good handle on the play
b/ I lost heavily.

I ran badly, true. I can think of several spots where I got my money in good but was just outlucked. That's going to happen, and of course there will be days where it happens continuously. Yesterday, for instance, I was on the bubble with about 4100/15000 chips. I got it all in with shorty with AK. He had A4 and flopped a 4. Then I called a push with another AK. I'm reasonably confident it was a good call because even though I was covered by the pusher, I felt he had a fairly wide range and I was quite short, but it's conceivable that ICM would indicate a fold. Anyway, he turned over A9s and rivered a 9. So here I dominated others twice in only a few hands, got my money in good, and still ended up losing dollars. But that's poker. The problem is that losing a few buyins at the 16s has left me unsure whether I ran badly enough to account for it, played badly or went on tilt and let bad luck influence my play. I've gone over some of the games in Wiz, and it's not indicating bad pushes or calls, but I lost several games postflop.

So I don't know. My belief is that my level is the 16s, or quite possibly the 27s. I think my play is sound, on the whole. My knowledge of ICM is a bit sketchy, but on the not aggressive enough side, which shaves a few points from your ROI but doesn't necessarily make you a terrible player. There are just so many guys who clearly have no idea of pot odds, tournament equity or basic strategy. I played a 20 on PokerRoom the other night and I couldn't discern any difference in ability on the whole between the players there and in a 5er. I also once observed a 100 on PR and you know, the players there were mostly shit. You can't tell much from one game, because you might just have stumbled on a particularly fishy tourney, but at least I know that bad players do exist at that level. (The thing is, boots, that if my level is 45, I might find 30s in the 100-dollar level, but there will be enough 55-60s and better that the average will leave me with no edge.)

Anyway, I'm very busy this month, so I don't have time to devote to thinking about poker too much. So it was no problem to drop back to playing 5s and 10s, where I'm certain I do have an edge, and not worry too much about it. I can try the 16s again in the new year, once I've been able to do some more work on ICM and have a think about whether my basic strategy was at fault. Maybe I need to be a bit more nitty postflop. That would be the thing I need to look at, I think. I can post hands to 2p2 and get some help from better players. It might be that I played the hands okay, but simply ran badly enough to make it feel like I was going wrong. Or it might be that I made poor choices and can fix it. I'm not despondent about it (although I was when it happened). I am still on the way up.

Tuesday 4 December 2007

Swong

So I moved up to the 16s and I'm hating it.

A loose guy raises, I push over with AQ, he calls with Q8s and the board comes 57964. Of course. I then pick up AJ in the BB, the same guy raises in the SB, and I push again. He has AK.

I limp in on the button at level two with KJs. The flop comes jack high, twosuited, it's checked round to me and I bet. Tard raises, I call. I'll re-evaluate turn but I saw this tard bust himself out with a weak hand one tourney back. Turn jack, we get it all in. Yeah, I should have folded, but what's the point of having reads if you just ignore them? There are dozens of hands he can have that I beat, but AJ isn't one of them.

I pay the BB of 150 with Jh3h. Some guy pushes, SB calls and it gets to me for small change, and I call. I flop the flush, and when SB leads, I'm putting him on top pair or a big heart, and I push. Yes, he has a big heart. Two of them.

I have AKs and raise. Called in a couple of places. It comes twosuited, king high. I probably shouldn't get it in, but the loosetard I'm in the hand with doubtless gets it in with a range of hands. He has paired his kicker though, as well as his king.

Another time I have a suited ace, and the flop comes two of my suit. I bet, tard raises, and there is too much money in the pot to fold, so I push with the decent odds on offer. Not decent enough. I am right that I have 12 outs, but today I would need 40 outs to stand a decent chance of actually drawing out on someone.

I play ten tourneys but do not get aces or kings cracked. That's because I do not get aces or kings. I get QQ cracked twice though, just in case I was thinking that somehow that was a good hand. It does hold up once. I get JJ once, and make nothing with it. I get AQ, but it might as well be 72 when it misses the flop five times in a row.

That's poker, I guess. I'm left not sure whether to stick with it, because I don't think I'm playing badly and SNG Wiz is not saying I'm pushing in the wrong spots, or to drop down and regain confidence at a lower level. You have downswings, of course, but yeah, I'd have liked an upswing first.

Thursday 22 November 2007

News just in: bad beats happen

The ultimate aim is to laugh off bad beats, of course, and I do try, but how do you avoid tilting hard when something like this happens?

Threehanded, I have about 7000 chips in the BB. Blinds are 150/300, no ante. The other stacks are about 5000ish and 3000ish. So the small blind completes and I have A9.

We're a bit bigstacked for me to push and I have the stack because I have completely outplayed this guy after the flop in so many hands, it's a wonder he still wants to see flops with me.

The flop comes down AJ9 rainbow. He bets the minimum, I raise to 700, he reraises to 1100 or something fucked-up like that, so I push.

In his shoes, I'm folding everything but AJ or a set. I can understand calling with AK/AQ here, but I think it would be bad. I am not doing this with QT, no matter how much you try to convince yourself I am. The first raise can be a bluff, but the push isn't ever.

So he calls, and turns over AT. Dude, how am I not beating that? And how the fuck do you not raise it preflop? It's not that strong a hand that you want to play it OOP against a player who is dancing rings round you postflop.

So it's not the worst suckout ever. He has 6 outs, and rivers the T.

Again, it's not the bad beat! It's that I played well and he played badly. Yes, I know that's what I want. The three out of four times I bust him -- taking all his equity that he gambled that I was bluffing with -- I am delighted. But the other one sucks.

Actually, maybe I'm probably giving him too much credit in suggesting that he thought he might be beating a bluff. He doubtless didn't think at all. He had TOP PAIR. Everyone knows that top pair is the nuts.

Anyway, I still have a couple of thousand chips, right? Right. And I pick up AKs next BB. The button, a timid, awful player, limps, and I push over him. He has a bit over 3500 chips and I still have about 2000, so I should have quite a bit of fold equity. He's in desperate straits if I beat him.

If you play STTs, think about what range you would conceivably limp and call a push with here. Let's say that you've for whatever reason decided I'm going to check most of my range, and you can play it cheaply. So you limp a fair range, okay. I can go that far with you.

But you are not calling the push with 98 off.

Well, you're not, he is, and he flops a 9. I played a fantastic game in this STT, probably as well as I've ever played. But the records say I finished third.

And I know everyone has bad beats. I'm not boring anyone with this shit but myself, because no one reads this. Just blowing off steam.

And if anyone is, I'm going to make up for it by posting some theory.

Push, push or pussy?

So I feel like I'm playing pretty well, and my results are okay, and I know I think much better about poker than I did a year ago, say. (I cringed with embarrassment when reading an old thread in which I argued fiercely for a play I wouldn't go near today.)

But I'm not feeling confident. The problem is, I feel I'm playing the bubble all wrong. When I'm shortstacked, I'm pretty aggressive. Probably not as aggressive as I should be, but still putting in my chips fairly often. However, when I have a bigger stack, a/ I'm not choosing my spots well and b/ I don't feel like I'm aggressive enough.*

These seem like contradictions but I think they are both true. The first is truer when I have 10-15 BB; the second truer when I have bigger stacks than that. Can that be right though?

STTs are not the same now as they were before UIGEA. The tight early, get aggro later strategy still works, but now there seem to be slightly more players with something approaching a clue. Well, not so much, but they are clueless in ways that it's harder for me to pick up if I'm not paying attention. Here's an example. I am holding K6 in the big blind and some guy much shorter than me pushes. I am being offered a bit shy of 2 to 1 to call, so I call, obv. This is routine and folding here is rubbish. I catch a king and bust the guy. He had ace-rag. He starts berating me in chat -- in German, to make it worse -- about how I'm such a donkey calling with K6. Unfortunately, his avatar had disappeared so I couldn't make a note about this, because this is a guy I want to push into with ATC on the bubble, he'll be calling so tight. But I only realise he's this clueless after the play. In case anyone reading this -- if anyone reads this -- doesn't get why I think the guy's clueless, it's because he clearly has no concept of pot odds, and/or no ability to realise that a shortstacked pusher is not going to be better than 2 to 1 to beat K6, and/or no ability if he does get that to understand that I can bear the risk because I am still chipleader or close to it even if he wins. All he sees is that I called with a weak hand.

But that's the thing. A lot of these guys are completely level one. They only look at their own hands. On the bubble, they do not understand that calling an allin from a guy who covers or nearly covers you is a disaster and that they should fold *everything*. They see KJ and think, that's a big hand, I call. When I'm pushing with AK, that's okay (until they flop a J), but when I'm pushing with T7o, it's not so good.

The players being a bit better means that they are not always willing to stack off too lightly. Yes, they'll call pushes with top pair early, and any pair late, and many think that a bare flush draw is worth risking all your chips on, but they select their hands quite carefully, and tend not to go too far with weaker draws and small pairs. The default player on PokerRoom is not a clueless donkey who will play any two, although they do exist. He plays reasonably tight (I don't have stats on PR but I'd guess the average is about 25/5, something like that, tightening up on the bubble), cannot resist slowplaying a decent hand (turnraiseaholics, every last man of them), often willing to bluff quite transparently (it really hurts to have to fold to minbets on flops that you feel definitely didn't hit your rival, but you have to, because a/ sometimes you get it wrong and throw away your whole tourney to some guy who called PF with K4 and will call a push with bottom pair and b/ sometimes they'll call with overs and you're fucked). Some will call a lot with any pair, so you can't bluff them, regardless how many chips you throw at them (because they are only looking at the hand they hold, not their position in the tourney/stack size/anything else that you or I might think about), and others will pride themselves on big laydowns on scary boards. You need to have played them to figure out which of those they are! The latter tend to think like this: I would call with a pair or decent draw on that flop; the board paired/draw came in... so he must have it when he bets. Which would be fine if I *never* floated you with crap draws and the intention to steal it from you down the track. There are other types: LAGtards who can do damage with a bigger stack, ultrapassive players who will not bet the nuts, let alone anything short of it, rocks who make it to the bubble often but are too tight to win much, and a few players who clearly know the score.

Anyway, the point is that when shorter I need to take more care thinking about what range they are calling with, and I definitely need to stop assuming they will be able to figure out that they're going to make the money if they simply fold their QJo to my push and let the shortstack get busted. But I need to be more aggro with a big stack and highish blinds because the extra chips increase your cushion when you *do* get called and lose, and if you push often enough, you can get enough chips that others are simply scared of tangling with you. The benefits are clear: they walk your blind more; they give up on the flop more; they consider you already in the money and don't think it's worth trying to knock you out. This last is, I think, why the two ideas are not contradictory. They'll call me when I have 12BB and they have 13BB because they knock me out when they win. When I have 25BB, they are the only guy whose tourney is at risk, so they have to tighten up a bit.

Before I started thinking much about STTs, I was pretty good on the bubble, but probably only a slightly more aggro version of the rocks, although I played more loosely early than I do now. I just pushed when I felt it was a good spot, and I was often right. Now I might be overthinking it without doing the legwork. So what I need is push/fold tables to give me the basic idea, while I do the hard work of Wizzing hands and looking at charts to work out what exactly is +$EV and what isn't. There are some in Collin Moshman's book, but I really doubt they're as good for the PokerRoom game of now as they were for the Party game of five years ago.

*I mustn't be too hard on myself, because I've had quite a streak of losing allins with my money in good. It's going to feel like a mistake when that happens, even if your play was okay.

Thursday 15 November 2007

Next station, busto

Play lowlimit sngs and nothing should surprise you. But still the extreme bad play of my opponents does surprise me.

I'm playing a $10 turbo on Party. It's t400 and the bubble. One guy has less than a big blind and will be in the BB next hand.

I'm in the small blind and pick up 44. Not a great hand but when it's folded to me, it's an easy push. I have the big blind covered, and can push here with any two. He must fold unless he has aces.

Calling is the worst play ever. He is risking all his tournament equity, more than 20 bucks, and will gain less than that if he wins.

Think about it. If I have 72 and he has a pair of jacks, he must fold. He'd be an enormous favourite, but the equity he loses is too much to risk. He should just fold, because the difference in equity his blind represents is tiny. I have him covered, so a loss means he's busted, and hands ALL HIS EQUITY to the shorty.

But of course my opponents are idiots and don't think like that. They are completely level one. So they'll call in this spot with AK, AQ and big pairs. But those hands are rare, and of course, I'm ahead of AK, so if he does call, he's still behind.

He calls. Things move very fast on Party so I know I'm beaten at about the same time I know that he called. I am just gobsmacked. Needing only to fold to just about assure himself of a cash, the guy gambled with ATo.

He didn't push with it, you'll note. He didn't get it in with me *and* shorty, which would be bad but at least he needs both of us to beat him not to cash.

He flopped an ace. He doubtless feels he made a good play. After all, he won, didn't he? That's how these players think: level one and results oriented. If you asked him, he'd say he was "playing for first". You couldn't explain to someone like that that the best way to play for first is not to lay odds for all your equity.

Of course, my problem is I don't play enough games. I'll get used to very bad players making very bad plays when I've seen many more of them. I think though that a small part of me will always hate the sheer injustice of the guy flopping his ace when I played well and he played so so badly.

Maybe next time I'll just fold. It's the wrong play, but relying on my opponents to be even close to sanity has cost me yet again. Yeah, next time I fold and let the shorty get knocked out. I know it's very wrong, but right hurts when it goes wrong.

No amount of outs too few for you

I hate poker.

I'm playing the plus 500, PokerRoom's premier donkfest, and I haven't been picking up many hands. So I limp in with 88, and the flop comes T86. I bet and we end up with three allin. I treble up.

Now I am happy.

Then I pick up AA, UTG+1. I limp, which is very unlike me. But the table has been fairly aggro, so I hope to get raised behind. No luck with that, we go six to the flop. It comes fairly dry J high rainbow. A good flop for me, and I lead out nearly potsized. Some tard pops it up a ton. I figure he likely has AJ/KJ rather than a set, because there isn't a donk alive who will raise a set when he can slooooowplay it in the most retarded way.

So I push and donkey calls. He has JT.

WTF? There is no way I don't have JT beaten. How can he think I don't? The board is so dry that I cannot realistically be trying to get him off his monster with a draw. The worst hand I have is AJ, and given the action he can expect to see a set.

But of course he's at level one, so all he sees is TOP PAIR. Woo hoo. Stick it in with that, dude, who cares what everyone else has?

So I'm happy anyway. I've got his stack, right? Wrong. It wouldn't be the JokerRoom we know and love if he didn't river a J.

This is the thing that puts me on tilt. Less and less the more I play, but it still makes me seethe. The idiot puts all his money in with a hand that is beaten EVERY TIME but the poker gods bless him with one of his five outs.

Anyway, that cripples me, but I get a free ride in the BB with KJ and the flop comes KJx, two diamonds. Not bad, because I know that I will likely have a customer for my whole stack. But I can only bet so much on the flop and one guy calls.

The turn is an A.

He could have called on the flop with a range of hands, but let's face it, when the A comes, the only hand that he can have is QT. Because otherwise, I would not have a hard-luck story.

What I hate is that he never did a thing right in the hand. He limped QT, which is bad. He didn't raise his straight draw on the flop but called at bad odds. All he did was call pf, call flop, call turn and he is still in the tourney.

Caps off the day for me, because after struggling up to step 4 in the APPT steps on Stars, I got sucked out on when a tard raised, I pushed over and he called with J8s. I am not kidding. The concept of having fold equity is in the shitter against players like that. We are talking about a guy who raised to 1200 at t400, then called a push for 3000 more.

I won't even talk about what then happened at step 3. It's gruesome.

For all that, I'm actually winning more than I'm losing, and to celebrate I'm going to write some posts about sngs, which obviously no one will read, but you never know, someone searching for sng strategy might stumble across it and find it useful.

Friday 12 October 2007

Callings

I hate these fishtards. They hate folding way too much.

PokerStars $5.00+$0.50 Hold'em No Limit - Level VIII (200/400)
Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: Fishtard (5575 in chips)
Seat 6: Zen (4310 in chips)
Seat 9: Loose and Useless (3615 in chips)
Fishtard: posts the ante 25
Zen: posts the ante 25
Loose and Useless: posts the ante 25
Loose and Useless: posts small blind 200
Fishtard: posts big blind 400
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Zen [6c 7s]
Zen: raises 800 to 1200

So I raise with trash but he doesn't know that. I have played very tightly, never raised postflop, rarely made a move preflop, only shown down huge hands. It's been that kind of game.

Loose and Useless: folds
Fishtard said, "thats ok"
Fishtard: calls 800

He's played fairly tightly himself, so I expect him to have something at least decent, but not a big hand, because he'd push.

*** FLOP *** [Kc Tc 6s]
Fishtard: checks

"I have nothing."

Zen: bets 2000

"I have a king."

Of course, I don't. I only have a pair of sixes, but I figure that if he hit that, he would bet, as he has every single time he's hit the flop. If he calls with a draw, I at least have the pair to beat him with.

Fishtard: calls 2000

"I don't care."

See, I didn't continuation bet. I made a big bet. That says, I hit the flop very hard. He hasn't seen me bet a draw, so he can probably count out QJ or a flush draw hoping to get lucky. Besides, it's way too big a bet for that. But he didn't raise, so no king for him. I'm thinking he has the flush draw.

Unless you have a king here yourself, this is an easy fold for a reasonable player. I am clearly potcommitted and I'm backing myself in this hand. You don't have the odds to call with a draw. With a big combo draw, you should push, because you are now potcommitted anyway.

It looks an obvious call when you know what I have, but put yourself in his shoes. I raised PF, and I haven't done that much, and now I've bet the flop big.

*** TURN *** [Kc Tc 6s] [Jh]
Fishtard: checks
Zen: bets 1085 and is all-in

"I really do have it."

Fishtard: calls 1085

"I really don't care."

So I'm thinking, he will definitely show me a badly played king or a flush draw.

But no.

*** RIVER *** [Kc Tc 6s Jh] [2h]
Zen said, "sigh"
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Fishtard: shows [Ts Qd] (a pair of Tens)

What teh fuck?!

Zen: shows [6c 7s] (a pair of Sixes)
Fishtard collected 8845 from pot

Okay, stupid me. I know better than to run big bluffs at this level. It will all too often be this hand that they've decided that fuck it, they will make a stand with any piece of the board. That's all the guy's done. He thinks he's beaten but says fuck it, if it's a bluff, I win the tourney.


So I'm playing another game. We're at the bubble. The bigstack is UTG when I'm BB, and three, four times he minraises, and I have trash and just fold. He really does have a big enough stack that I can't hope to make him fold, especially since he got the stack by making very very loose calls.

Finally, I pick up A8 and push over his steal. He turns over QT. Sigh. You don't need to be told that he flops a ten and turns a queen, do you?

So the next tourney, I literally don't play a hand before the bubble. I'm not kidding. I fold everything. I pick up A3 in the big blind and some tard limps. The flop comes K53 with two of my ace's suit. I check, he bets weakish and I checkraise allin.

One of four things can happen. He has a weak king and folds because I'm saying I have hit that hard; he has no king and folds because his steal has just gone bung; he has no king and calls but is behind my pair and if he hits the ace he's drawing to he still loses; he has a weak king and calls, and I have six and a bit outs to get lucky.

Well, maybe next time I'll be against the stealer or someone who can lay down a king. Of course, I don't think this guy made a bad play. Nor me. When short, you've got to do that kind of thing. The combination of what it's likely the other guy has (nothing), the chance that he'll lay down hands that beat you (small but not none) and the chance that you'll improve even if he is beating you (about 33%, so not negligible) make it a decent play when the alternative is to fold, and try to make headway with 6BB.

I have no excuse for tilt though. I pick up KJs in the BB and check after two limpers. It's not really worth trying the push with the stacks we have. The flop comes K53 and the small blind leads out. I don't believe he has much here, so I call, but the other limper minraises. This says "crap king" to me, so I call that too, and push the turn when it bricks.

I know, I know. I should just have folded the flop, if not the first time round, then to the minraise. Or pushed, if I really did feel I was ahead. Or even pushed preflop and not worried about the awkward stack sizes.

Unbelievably, the fishtard turned up K5. Not even suited. Now obviously he's going to lose a lot of money at poker over his playing lifetime. But not today. Today he won mine.

Friday 28 September 2007

TGIF

Bad week until today. Woot.

Wednesday 19 September 2007

Antiwoot

Final three of a two-dollar tourney on Stars. I am chip leader and I'm playing really well. Payouts are about 600, 300, 200.

I pick up JT and complete in the small blind. Three to the flop.

It flops Q98. I check, BB bets, button, who has been extremely lucky throughout, calls, I raise big. Button pushes.

Finally, I have him. I call quickly. He shows me AQ.

Turn Q, river 9.

You could not fucking make that up. I've been sucked out on lots of times in lots of ways, but that 20 to 1 shot cost me at least a hundred bucks. Oh well.

Tuesday 18 September 2007

On a freezer

Sometimes I just hate poker.

I am dealt T9 in the big blind. The flop comes Txx and I bet. Retard calls. Turn another T. I bet more, he calls again. River is an A. I figure he has been calling with Ace-something, so I check to induce the bluff. Sure enough, he bets fairly big. I call and he shows me AA.

So the guy let me draw out on him and then sucked out on me.

A couple of hands later, I limp on the button with 55. I probably should have raised but whatever. The flop comes 995. I bet fairly small, tard calls. He's loose enough to have just about anything here but I put him on the 9. I am hoping that I'm being put on a button robbery of the orphan pot. The turn is an 8. I bet again fairly big and he calls. The river is a 7. I bet once more, he raises all in. I am pot committed. Obviously, I hope he has the straight because it would just be too cruel for the same guy to suck out to a full house twice.

Now, I guess that you have days like that. Earlier, with QQ on a J high flop, I'd received two callers. The turn was another J. Oh well. I had too much money in to just give up, so I pushed. He had JJ. So in the next couple of games I get short and push over calls. Both times they call the push too, and have me dominated. Unreal. Then I push over a bet with TT, he calls and shows KQs. Of course he flops a Q. Then I push 88 over AK and he turns a K. Next AKs over QT, he calls, and rivers a Q. Don't ask who calls with that shit; he had a biggish stack and wanted to gambool. And just now, a shorty called a decent raise from KQ and we flop KQ9. Obviously I put him the rest of the way in. And he's delighted, because he called the raise with JT -- not even pushing, leaving himself 2BB -- and has me beaten.

So yeah, the tard has 97, of all the fucking hands. When you're cold, man, you freeze.

Tuesday 28 August 2007

Winning is the nuts

So I am enjoying poker at the moment, probably for two reasons. First, I haven't been playing all that much, and second, I'm winning what I do play. This is not a proud boast, because I've been playing very small games, just for fun.

In mid-July, I had the flu, and took a break from poker for a couple of weeks. Since then, I have been beating the $5 SNGs very nicely but have only been playing on average a couple a day. I'm confident that my stats are converging on my true win rate now. Opinions differ on how many games are enough. Some think you need to play thousands to be sure; but I read something in 2+2 magazine that suggested that, if your win rate is high enough, a few hundred games are enough. I have records for about 420 games, and I'm beating them pretty well. My plan remains to play a thousand and move up if I'm still beating them.

But at the moment, for fun I'm playing the turbo $1.50 HORSE SNGs on Stars. I've started crushing them, which is a sure sign my poker has improved, because, say six months ago, I was better than average but not running anything like as well as I am now. I'm probably running a bit hot, winning those close calls that so often crop up in turbo SNGs, but I feel I'm playing them well.

My opponents make lots of mistakes, the most painful being that they play far too many hands and then chase what are fundamentally bad draws. The way they play razz is simply hilarious. You are on fifth street, showing three babies, and they call your bet with paired kings and a baby. Now sometimes they are going to make their runner-runner low, but these guys will be drawing to an 8! Occasionally, they beat you because your much better draw doesn't come in and you can't beat an 8, but that's rare enough that they are not ever going to be winners at razz.

It's one of my better games at this level, simply because I'll play reasonably soundly and they won't. I realise, of course, that most players at the bottom do not know how to play razz, and don't care. If they mostly folded, that would probably be okay. Playing tight, in any form of poker, is usually going to be correct (at the earlier levels; some make the corresponding mistake of playing too tightly when very shorthanded).

I have an even bigger edge in holdem, and if we happen to be on holdem when fivehanded with high blinds, I like my chances. This is simply because I am good enough to beat microlimit holdem, and most of my opponents only play NL and have no idea how to adjust.

Omaha8 is tougher, because it is better for the fish, but playing for low is enough to see you through. It's difficult to play at this level because other players will have all sorts of hands, and you can't count too much out, so not having the nuts can kill you. For instance, I played a hand today in the BB, where I held 55xx. The flop came 995, giving me a full house. I'm almost certainly ahead on the flop, of course (because only 95xx and 99xx beat me, and they're pretty unlikely to be out), so I bet and get called in three places. Given that there's no low draw on the board, you just know that at least a couple of those guys have pairs and are drawing to their two outers. So, naturally, a guy turns his 7 and makes a bigger full house. Unfortunately, the 7 also made a flush, and some idiot bet that, so it cost me three bets to show down. I could and probably should have folded, but it was just about possible on that board that I'm against a low draw, a 9 and a flush, these players are so bad.

The stud games I'm improving at. Hi/lo is easier because players will so obviously be drawing for half the pot that you can often get half uncontested. I'm not very sound in stud, but I can hold my own. I've learned a few concepts recently that have helped (obvious things like this: before now, I might have folded mid pairs for a raise; now I will sometimes call if they are live because playing too tight is a mistake in stud -- same with draws: I'll call sometimes so long as my draw is very live and has other possibilities).

I've also had three goes at triple draw. And frankly, I rock. I've won two out of three. I read the Negreanu chapter in SuperSystem 2, and although his advice is for slower tournaments, what I remember of it works pretty well in an SNG. In tougher games, I'd need to pay more attention to pot odds and play more accurately, but at this level, there's no need at all. This is why. Threehanded, some guy limps and I raise with 732xx. I change two and he changes four. I am not kidding. I pick up a 4. I bet, he calls. I change one and miss. He changes three. I bet, he raises, I threebet the monster draw, he calls. I change one, and pick up the 5 to make the nuts. He stands pat. I bet, he calls and shows a 9-8-7. Well, maybe I'm bluffing on the end, and he has to call, but his play just sucks throughout. This is one of the better opponents. Others draw two to 9s, call raises and then show down hands that do not feature 2s or even 3s, refuse to call on the end when the pot is huge or call with pairs or very high lows in smallish pots. One gave me a lecture for folding for one more on the end. To be fair, the pot was reasonably big, but I had made a straight. The chances that the other guy had a hand I could beat were tiny. I said, I had a straight. He said, you are a idiot. I said, well, one of us is. Maybe he thought a straight was a winning hand.

Sunday 19 August 2007

Small woot

Sometimes my progress in poker has seemed agonisingly slow, and the milestones far apart. So little things mean a lot. I've been playing $10 sngs on Party, because I was clearing a bonus and the rake is the same for a 10 as a 5, ridiculously. I've been going okay, not having much luck, and was breakeven before today (in only a handful of games). The games are ridiculously soft, so that's no big thing.

So I have been playing a few games at Party, and a couple of 5s at PokerRoom. First up, I came third in a 10, which made me just better than breakeven, which made me happy. In a five, I limped and called a raise from the BB with 99. The flop came Jxx, rainbow and raggy. The BB checked and I bet. He called. Now, only a clueless player would raise AJ at low blinds in an sng, and you'd need to be double clueless to flatcall a bet with it here. So I'm putting him on AK/AQ, maybe a pair, and when the turn is a rag, I'm willing to get the money in. Sigh. Most times, I shut it down on the turn, because even if I'm good, I don't want a big pot, but I thought I might get paid by a big ace.

Well, if I didn't make mistakes, I'd be a robot. He turned over AJ and IGH.

Next up, I was delighted to get my chips in preflop with KK. My opponent, loose and retarded throughout, had TT, which made me even more delighted. I was a lot less delighted to see a T on the flop. At the same time I was playing a turbo, and with a bit of luck, which you need in turbos I think, particularly if the other players are tightish, which they were, I got to heads up. No luck though. The blinds were huge, so it was pretty much a crapshoot. I do a lot better when there's some play, and I can use fold equity to win a lot of pots.

I had already started another five and the ten had filled, so I was playing both while finishing the turbo. So I got a nice stack in the ten, and a not so nice one in the five, but the players in the latter seemed to want to throw chips at me, so by the time we got to the money, I was in good shape, with three of us on about the same size stack. My two opponents obliged me by going all in, and I had the luxury of throwing away a decent hand -- AT, I think -- knowing that I would be guaranteed second. The guy who won that clash had played quite LAGgy throughout, having pulled a big stack early. I had let him steal a couple of pots with minraises, and now he tried that again, and I punished him several times with resteals. I soon overhauled him, and I think that demoralises bad players, so that they lose discipline. I easily won it from there, with the other guy calling a push from my top pair with nothing at all. Meanwhile, in the ten I'd played a nice game, patient early, aggressive later, and had the luxury again of watching players with decent stacks knock each other out. A huge suckout in the money, with 55 catching its set against QQ, finally paid me back some of the bad luck I'd been suffering. I then caught the same guy stealing, calling his push with K5s with 99, which held up.

So I'm heads up at both tables, and going well. I pick up KQ in the ten and get it in. The other guy calls with K9s and of course he flushes. Now 1740 chips at t600 blinds is what we call being in very bad shape. At Party, there are 20,000 chips in play, so the guy has me more than 10 to 1 in chips.

So I pick up 84 and push. I'm pushing any two every time until I am no longer blinded out. There's no option. Of course, I'd like better cards, because he has to call here.

Or not. Unbelievable! I sometimes just cannot believe how bad the players I'm against are. I'm no Phil Ivey, fair enough, but how bad do you have to be to fold in the big blind against a guy with less than three BBs! I started cursing that I was so far behind, because this guy totally deserved to lose. Next hand, he folded. What teh fuck?

Next hand I picked up Ac9c and pushed. He folded again. Next he called in the SB and I pushed with J5. He folded again. Unreal.

Now I'm in better shape, although still on the ventilator. I fold my next hand, J4, because I am sure he will have to spite-call the next push. I figure that I can wait till the next hand to go for it again. So I pick up 54s in the BB and he minraises. There is no way I'm folding, and he might, so I stick it in. He has K8s, so my cards are live, and I river a 5 to double up.

Now I know I will win. I am still way behind, nearly 2 to 1 in chips, but I know that I will win this game. He just isn't good enough to beat me.

So a small woot for me. I won a $10 sng for the first time. It doesn't sound like much, I know, in a game that sees millions bet, won and lost every day, but in my small corner of it, it's a big thing.

Wednesday 15 August 2007

Think about the future

So I'm playing a HORSE tourney, and I pick up 9d8d. Here is the hand:

PokerStars Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind t500 (7 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com



MP2 (t666)

Hero (t6444)

Button (t6758)

SB (t16859)

BB (t3545)

UTG (t6537)

MP1 (t9133)



Preflop: Hero is CO with 9d, 8d.

2 folds, MP2 raises, Hero calls, 1 fold, SB calls, BB calls.


I should note that the raise was to 660 or so.



Flop: (5.32 SB, t2664) 4c, 7d, Jd (4 players)

SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets, SB folds, BB folds.



Turn: (3.16 BB, t3164) Qc (2 players)



River: (3.16 BB, t3164) 4h (2 players)



Final Pot: 3.164 BB (t3164)


So the other players start whining in chat. A guy posts "?" and I know he means "why did you bet into the sidepot?" So I tell him it was for value. "You didn't get any," he said. (The allin guy had A7 and I didn't draw out on him.)

I realise I am having a conversation with someone who knows nothing and I should stop. I say I'm too busy to give them a lesson in poker.

And the other guy says "dude, there is no value in betting at an empty side pot with someone all in".

But there is! How clueless can you be? A bet for value hopes for a call. I wanted both guys to call me, paying me 2 to 1 on my gutshot straight flush draw. I have 12 outs to beat top pair! If one calls, with precisely top pair, I don't make the value I hoped for, but if both fold, and the allin guy has less than top pair, which is very likely, I have 18 outs (and if I'd folded out a bigger 8 or 9, and an 8 comes, my bet was a coup!). By putting money into the sidepot, I also increase my chances of getting paid another bet when I make my hand. With the dry sidepot, it's easy for these guys to fold when the flush card comes. With money in it, they might think their pair is still good and call what they take to be a bluff.

Eighteen outs make me a huge favourite. Poker is about betting when you have the best of it, not about taking results as a guide to how well you played. You don't always get value when you bet for value. Sometimes you are actually behind; sometimes you fold to a bluff. But you calculate spots where you should have some value and make the right play. The only bad outcome for me in this hand is just one caller with a pair better than 9s or better (or who has several of my outs, or both: say he holds TcTd). As it happens, I had the 18 outs, and I was unlucky. They don't grasp that.

Players don't. They see what they take to be terrible plays and cannot grasp why they weren't. That's why it's possible to win. Take the following two plays.

In an sng, I raised with some shit like A6s, A7s. The BB pushed. I called. I was being offered more than 2 to 1 by the pot, and had him covered. He had a bigger ace, but I sucked out. Cue the whining. "Only idiots get lucky like that..." he whined. He thinks I'm an idiot for calling with A6s? Dude, only an idiot would fold. The blinds were high and he can be pushing pretty wide. Against the top 20% I'm 45/55! Against the top 10%, hands that nearly everyone would push from the BB in this spot, I'm 39/61. I think the guy's looser than he is tight, but even at the tight end, I have a thin call. The guy has just looked at his cards, and looked at my cards and thought, he's called with trash. He hasn't given any thought to the pot odds on offer, or to the fact that I don't know his hand until he turns it over, and must guess what he might have.

In another game, it's the bubble. I'm UTG with KJs. I have the BB covered, but not by very much. Neither of us is very very short, but we both have about 6BB. The bigger stacks have been playing tightly, and are not enormous. I shove and he calls.

He should show me AA/KK. Anything less is an autofold.


But he has AQ. If I push as loosely as the top 20% (and I don't), he is less than 60/40 to double up. But, as I discussed, doubling your chips is not doubling your equity, and this is a bad bet to take. This player will probably never understand that. Which is why, over the long term, he will lose money at sngs, and I will win it. (In case anyone reads this who doesn't get why his call is bad, imagine you have ten occasions to make it. You win six times, and lose four. The six you win, your equity increases from, say, $20 to $30, the four you lose, your equity is of course $0. So when you win, your equity gain is 6 x 10 = $60, and when you lose, you lose 4 x 20 = 80. These aren't the correct figures, but the general idea is correct. The fall in equity when you lose is so much bigger than the rise when you win that you lose money in the long term by taking even those gambles that favour you strongly.)

AQ is a good hand. It's hard to fold it. But being able to fold is a key skill in poker.

But was my push good? Surely I have more risk? Well yes, if I know he has AQ, and furthermore, know he will call. But I don't. (Well, I could be pretty sure he would call with that because he hadn't shown any sign of having a clue.) Mostly, all fold. There are a lot more bad hands than good ones! I probably wouldn't push this hand at a table that was calling loosely, but this one had been playing tightly, as I noted. My hand will play well if I'm called. My combined chances are good enough to make a push worthwhile here.

Thursday 2 August 2007

Dan don't do donkaments

You see this advice all the time.

Play tight early, steal blinds as you get shorter, become insanely aggressive when you have a very short stack.

It's the received wisdom. It's how Dan Harrington plays. But Dan Harrington doesn't play donkaments.

I play like this too. Ultratight early, gradually loosening up. Most tourneys I go fairly deep but I'm fairly short. I cash quite often but not usually for much money. I'm kind of at the mercy of my cards. If I get decent cards, I might double up early and then I'm well fixed. If I double up twice, I can usually go quite deep.

Hang on. There's a theme in there, isn't there? I do well when I double up. I don't do well when I just survive. So why am I playing just to survive? I'm all too aware that converting AA/KK into a doubleup requires a bit of luck: someone willing to gamble with you with a worse hand.

Now, doubtless in a 10K entry tourney, with two-hour blinds, playing ultratight is best. You are going to get plenty of hands and you do not have too much pressure on you. You might only get 60 hands at those blinds, or even fewer, but that's a lot more than the 10 min, 20 max that I get in a donkament. You will also be at the same table for some time. In donkaments, I am usually moved in the first hour. What's the point of having an ultratight image if you're moved before you can use it to advantage?

So I've started playing like a fish on the button. But only on the button. I'll play just about any hand for a single bet, and I'll play anything promising for a raise. The donkeys never fold, so I can't win by bluffing. I have to hit my hand. It's still possible to smallball a few pots when things go your way -- I'm not saying I have to nutpeddle. I'm just saying that with weaker starting hands, you cannot be so sure that your pair is good. But playing tight just does not give you sufficient chances to hit anything in a donkament and playing more pots gives me more chance to take the money from the useless players who are spraying chips around early.

I suppose what it boils down to is this: say I play in a 300-player tourney. I play virtually no cards and watch all the dead money rearrange itself. I get down to 1000 chips and have to pick a hand to commit to. So I'm pushing my AQ. And get called by a pair of 3s and IGH. That's half my tourneys. The other half, I chip up but get stuck behind a bigstack who is LAGging it up, never pick up anything I can challenge him with, and find myself at t200 with 2500 chips, finding myself unable to raise anything that I don't want to commit myself to going all the way with. That's the problem with the play tight, then loosen up plan. My opponents already play looser than I do, even if I loosen up. And they are not as scared of the bubble as theorists think. They'll call you with that pair of 3s if they have you covered.

Wednesday 1 August 2007

Information is power is money

Information is power. More commonly, people say that knowledge is power, but information is more readily quanitifiable. Often, if I know how much information advantage I have over you, I know how much power I have over you. I think this is a key concept for a realist such as me. Another, related, concept is that no information is hidden. This is a different thing from saying no information is obscured or even no information is unknown. It says no information is privileged. Basically, information is in principle discoverable by anybody and is never esoteric. This doesn't mean you will be able to uncover all information, because you may not have the tools to understand or use it, but it means that you could in principle acquire it without having to know magic words, do rituals or sacrifice goats.

There aren't too many discussions of ICM online, so maybe people will stumble on this and it will help. Maybe not.

Two things boots said in comments lead me to make this post:

I'm not sure what "ICM" is but I think it might be a mistake to equate any specific school of thought with capability.


and


It puzzles me how you can expect to grind out $50/hour playing poker when you seem to think it is a matter of maths and mindreading.


Knowing the answers to the two questions implicit in these comments is the key to winning SNGs, and I know both answers. If you bear with me, you will too.

I will begin with the second. In a hand of holdem, the players are given two cards that they can see and others cannot. The hands are dealt quasirandomly.

It's not important that random number generators are not truly random, so long as the distribution of outcomes from them resembles the distribution of random outcomes sufficiently closely. For the purposes of poker, it does. You might think that a computer could create more random outcomes than a human dealer, but you would be wrong. A well-shuffled deck (which is rather less shuffled than you might think) will give a truly random outcome.

Here is a key understanding that boots lacks. The distribution of outcomes in a poker game is normal and the outcomes will converge on expected values over enough trials. These are important things to know, because they underpin the mathematical understanding of poker. If you're not clear what I mean, I'll explain. Say you flip a coin with me. You probably know that your chances are 50/50. But you could flip a coin a hundred times and get 60 heads, 40 tails. This does not mean your coin is not fair. Chance converges on expected values over many trials. Flip the coin a million times and you'll be close to 50/50. I won't explain why (mostly because I have an intuitive grasp of why and can't explain the statistics adequately, but much of statistics depends on its being true).

Now it's true that in a normal distribution, not every outcome sits neatly around the mean. You do get outliers, and it's perfectly possible to see a long run of outlying values. So you can be "lucky" in this sense. But working on the assumption that values are close to their expected values will generally be correct. What does this mean? Two things. First, the distribution of cards dealt will tend to be "sane". You won't see many hands in which two guys have aces, and two guys have kings. You might see that hand. It's possible, and every possible deal has equal likelihood (an important thing to remember in considering random outcomes: in a lottery 1 2 3 4 5 6 truly is equally likely as 1 23 32 37 42 45; however, a mistake people make is to think that you are as likely to have the consecutive numbers as spread ones -- you aren't: there are far more outcomes with spread numbers, so they are much more likely). Second, outcomes on the flop, turn and river will tend to their expected values. Say you have four to the flush on the flop. Your chances of hitting by the river are a bit less than 2 to 1, on some (slightly dodgy but necessary) assumptions (we always assume that all unseen cards are equally likely, but of course ones held by your opponents are not). So you would expect to hit one in three times. But you can hit three, four, a dozen flushes in a row.

What can a player do about that? Try his luck and hope he gets the flush when he doesn't have the odds? No. He plays to maximise his value over the long run. What he tries to do is lay his distribution of actions over the distribution of outcomes, so that his profit over the long run, when outcomes converge on expected values, is at the maximum.

This is the correct way to play poker. Whatever you think, boots, however much you sneer at playing by maths, this is the best method to increase profit over a lifetime. Those three words are important. Remember, you can flip 60 heads from 100. Over 100 trials, you might or might not be maximising your profit by playing the odds. Over ten million, you can count on it.

I'll come back to the mindreading.

I'm not sure what "ICM" is but I think it might be a mistake to equate any specific school of thought with capability.


I'll explain ICM. It's a reasonably simple concept, but essential to SNGs, and yes, it does equate with capability.

Two concepts need to be understood. First, at each point in a tournament, all remaining players have a "share" in the pool of winnings. (Even if someone has been paid out, there is still a remaining pool that you share in.) This is called your equity. It's somewhat like equity in a company. It has a value that is not realisable on the spot but is quite real. If you have a stock, you have a share in a company that can go up and down. And your equity in a poker tourney goes up and down. Second, SNGs are not generally winner take all. In this discussion, they have a distribution of prizes of 50/30/20. In a $5 tourney, the winner takes $25, second place $15, third place $10.

When I begin an SNG, I have 1500 chips. So does everyone else. The prize pool is $50. My equity is $5. This is because I have 1500/15000 = 1/10 of the chips, so I have 1/10 of the prize pool. But this is because I have 1/10 of first ($2.50), 1/10 of second ($1.50) and 1/10 of third ($1).

Say I double up. I now have 3000 chips and one guy has gone. So I have $10 equity, right? Wrong. The guy has surrendered his entire chance at the prize pool, and you can only win half of it at most! You take most of his chances of winning but you cannot take all. Why? Because you cannot finish first, second and third. You can only fill one spot and it is not winner takes all. Everyone else has also improved their chance of a share in the prize pool. They retain the same chance of coming first (yours has doubled), but they improve their chance of coming second (because the extra time you win, you cannot also come second! Someone else must fill that spot, and now there are only nine players to share it, and each has an equal chance). There it is, the key to ICM. When we all had the same amount of chips, I had one chance of winning the tourney. When I double up, I have two chances. But I do not have two chances of coming second and third, because when I come first the extra time, I cannot also come second. My chances of coming second and third do improve dramatically, but they do not double, because of that one extra time I win.

Well, why does that matter? Remember what I said. A poker player tries to lay the distribution of his outcomes over the normal distribution of outcomes to make the most profit. We call this "expected value". Say I have four to the nut flush and I am facing an allin. The pot holds $300 and I must pay $100 to call. This is an easy call. Over a lifetime, I can expect to win the pot one in 2.86 times (I am 1.8 to 1). The pot pays three for my one. My expected value, or EV, is huge: 3/1.8. Whichever action has the highest EV is the one you should take. (If this isn't obvious, comment, and I will explain, but it should be.) This doesn't mean I will make money on this particular flush, or on any particular flush. It means that over my poker lifetime, given this spot, I will make that money. (This is a simplification, because of course my opponent can pair the board sometimes and beat me with his set, but let's say that our flush will always win to make it easy to understand.)

In a cash game, your equity in chips exactly equals your equity in dollars. In the example I give, $100 in chips is worth $100 in cash. So if I make the call, I make my EV in dollars.

In an SNG, my equity in chips corresponds to a dollar value, but not in the same way. At the start of the tourney, 1500=$5, but as my stack grows, the relationship between the two changes. As we discussed, if I improve my chances of winning, I cannot improve my chances of coming second by the same degree, because it is not winner takes all, and I cannot be second at the same time I am first. Every time you win, someone else comes second; every time you improve your chance of coming first, whether you double it, increased it by a third, or whatever proportion, you are not in the race for second that same proportion.

This is the ICM -- the independent chip model. It is the understanding that because if you have all the chips, you will win 60% of the prize, not all of it, there is a scale of value between 1500=$5 and 15000=$25. 10x the chips does not equal 10x the money! But we are playing to win money, not chips. I can't go to the bank with my virtual chips. My bank insists on hard cash.

So here's the thing. Let's say I'm playing a cash game and I have QQ. My opponent shows me that he has AK and goes all in. I am last to act and no one else has called. I should call. Not calling in this spot is horrible because you are 57/43 to win. You may not win this time (43% is quite high!) but over a lifetime you will win 57% of the time. You should also call this early in a tournament, when the value of chips and the value of money are closely correlated. This is often called a "coinflip" in poker, but it should be clear that this is not a coinflip at all. QQ is heavily favoured. The numbers look close but think about this. If I offer you a series of a million coinflips at $1 a pop, you will win 500,000 and lose 500,000 and net nothing. If I offered you 57/43 odds on heads, you can pick heads every time and win 570,000 and lose 430,000. $140,000 is a lot of money! Make the right choice on a "coinflip" in poker a million times and you will make a ton of money.

But let's say I'm playing in an SNG and we're at the bubble. The bubble is the point at which you get paid. So it's when four players remain. Whoever comes fourth gets nothing. So let's say the guy has you covered, shows you he has AJ and goes all in. You have 66. You are 55/45. So you call, right? Wrong. In a cash game, you call. In an SNG, you fold. Call the value of my hand $10. If I call and lose, the value of my hand becomes $0. You get nothing for coming fourth. If I call and win, I double up in chips, but my equity does not double, as we discussed. Nothing like it. How much it increases depends on how many chips everyone else has. But because one guy loses a ton of his equity (all of mine if I lose, most of his if he does), everyone else gains some (because their chances of coming first remain the same, but their chance of coming third has just shot through the roof! If I am knocked out, they are certain of at least third).

If I folded this hand, my equity will not change. I will have the same number of chips and the same chances of winning, placing second and placing third. If I win, my chances will improve to the value that double my chips has. But the risk I should be willing to take should not exceed new cash value of chips/old cash value of chips. In a cash game, it's simple: the cash value of my chips is their face value. But in an SNG, I need to know the ICM to know what the cash value of my chips is.

Knowing ICM is crucial to making money in SNGs. If I make calls that decrease my cash equity in the prize pool, I am losing money. It's on paper, if you like, because no one has been paid yet, but it's like having a share: 100 shares at $5 are worth $500, and if they fall to $3, you really have lost $200. Imagine that you held those shares but had to cash them out on 31 December. Whatever they're worth then, that's what you get. That fall of $200 is money that you've really lost. You are going to need to gain it back before the cashout, or your wallet takes a hit. An SNG's cashout date is the point at which you bust out! Whenever I gamble in an SNG, I'm gambling my equity. Sometimes, of course, I will bust out and my investment will be worth nothing. On a 55/45, that will happen 45% of the time. So I must ensure that the 55% of the times I get paid compensate for all those times I win nothing. In a cash game, they will (keep thinking of the coinflips if you struggle to understand why: this flip you lose your dollar, next you win: 45% of the time you lose the dollar, so out of a million, you lose 450,000 times and $450,000 dollars, but you win the dollar 550,000 times to make up for it). In an SNG, they won't.

Where does the mindreading come into it? Well, players do not show you their hands. It's tragic that they don't, but that's the cross you've got to bear. Remember what I said. Information is power. In poker, knowing what someone has is very powerful information.

Say I'm playing cash. I have 66. Some guy pushes all in. If I knew he had AJ, I have an easy call, as we've seen. But I can't know that. And as I also noted, information is not hidden. It's not unknowable that he has AJ. He knows! There's no secret to it either. If he turned his cards face up, they would be revealed as AJ. They don't magically become AJ in the act of being turned over. The information was always there. It was not created de novo.

But I do not know that the guy has AJ. What I know is that I've seen him play a few hands and he's pushed a few times. Because the cards are received at random, they have, over the long term, a predictable distribution. So you can assume that he has had that distribution. He may have had a heater, and have been dealt aces five or six times. But you cannot assume that your sample diverges from the true population of hands, even though it's perfectly possible that it does. (If they never did diverge, poker would be a lot easier!) You have to deal in models because the actual distribution of his hands is, and will remain, unknown to you. The model is an approximation and can be wrong, but it's your best guess.

So the guy has pushed a few times and you think he's doing it a bit light. He can't have been doing it that many times. So you give him a range. These are the cards you think he might have. It is not an exact science! You just do your best. The ranges you put people on get closer to what they actually have depending on how many hands they've shown down, how tricky you think they are and how much you think they balance their play (by mixing in hands that do not fit so obviously into their range -- a player might raise AA/KK/QQ UTG but also raise 76s so that he gains some value from your uncertainty over whether he does have the big pair).

You compare your 66's chances against that range. You do not know which hand he has, but you do know your chances against his range of possible hands, so far as you know them. You consider your equity vs the range your opponent has. This is how you calculate ICM. A guy pushes, you have to decide whether to call. You cannot know his cards, but you can have an idea what percentage of cards he will play here. So you calculate your chances against that percentage. He might be pushing the top end of it, and your chances are worse than you think. He might be pushing the bottom end, and they're better. But your aim, remember, is to lay all your outcomes over the distribution of outcomes, not just this one outcome. So you choose the correct action in the long run. You are not having just this one flip of the coin. There will be many many flips.

Experience helps you pick ranges that fit players. And knowledge of ICM helps you make the correct choices given those ranges. At first, you have to work it out (or use software that helps) but with training, you have a good feel for it (you might already have a good feel for it, and the training just hones your intuition).

Information is power is money in poker. If I have information about your hand (or the range of hands you might hold when you do an action), my actions will be better. I will be empowered to make the correct choices. And if I have learned ICM, I will make the choices that make me money, while you, lacking the information I have, will make the choices that lose you money. Yes, you will stumble on the right choice a lot of the time, but you will make the wrong ones sometimes, and each wrong choice will cost you just as not choosing to sell a share the day before it falls in value costs you.

Tuesday 31 July 2007

More better

This feels better though:

PokerStars Game #11229072737: Tournament #56966207, $5.00+$0.50 Hold'em No Limit - Level III (25/50) - 2007/07/31 - 00:14:11 (ET)
Table '56966207 1' 9-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 2: DrDrayne (2115 in chips)
Seat 3: Brockhunter (2100 in chips)
Seat 6: Zen (1600 in chips)
Seat 7: Taos1350 (1735 in chips)
Seat 8: MikhailTal (3315 in chips)
Seat 9: Rehmbo (2635 in chips)
Brockhunter: posts small blind 25
Zen: posts big blind 50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Zen [Jc Jd]
Taos1350: folds
MikhailTal: folds
Rehmbo: folds
DrDrayne: folds
Brockhunter: calls 25
Zen: raises 150 to 200
Brockhunter: calls 150

I thought he might call that. He's played loosely and poorly so far.


*** FLOP *** [6c 2h 8c]

A nice flop for my hand. The club draw is a worry.

Brockhunter: checks
Zen: bets 250

A nice bet. A club draw might call, but it's going to be wrong to.

Brockhunter: calls 250

*** TURN *** [6c 2h 8c] [6s]

Slightly scary, but I'm not crediting him for a 6.

Brockhunter: checks
Zen: checks

I'm taking a risk. I don't think he has a 6, but I don't want to give him the opportunity to c/r bluff me. I don't think he'll pay me here or on the river, so my plan is to check and induce a bluff. I look like I have a big ace and whiffed, so he will likely take a stab on many rivers.


*** RIVER *** [6c 2h 8c 6s] [5h]

That's a slightly scary card, but here's the thing. This player would semibluff with the straight draw on the flop, so I don't credit him for 74 or 97. I doubt either would stand a raise OOP anyway, even for a guy this loose. I already decided he doesn't have the 6. So I'm willing to call if he bets.

Brockhunter: bets 1650 and is all-in

WTF? Okay, so he's repping the straight, or, I suppose, the missed checkraise on the turn.

But what does my hand look like? It looks like a big ace. He surely puts me on AK/AQ, something of that nature. But if I have that kind of hand, I will never call a push.

Most pokerists will tell you that if you want to bluff, you have to sell a credible story. The elements of his story are: I had a straight draw or a 6 on the flop; either you gave me a free card on the turn or I missed a C/R opportunity; I made my straight or I'm betting my trip sixes for value.

But here's the problem: his bet on the river is not credible. It's not always true that an overbet on the river is a bluff, but if you do overbet, it must be conceivable that your opponent will call. Nothing in the action in this hand lets him put me on the hand I have, so he cannot have any expectation that this bet is for value. If he made his straight, he'd be betting less.

Zen: calls 1150 and is all-in

*** SHOW DOWN ***
Brockhunter: shows [Js Kd] (a pair of Sixes)

A plain bluff. He floated the flop with OCs and put me solidly on AK/AQ.

I went on to win. The player I played HU had a very exploitable strategy. He was looking to steal pots left right and centre, which is fine, but he was willing to put in lots of money in raises to do it. I played very patiently, completing the blind and letting him steal it, making small bets and letting him take them away, until I picked up 43 and checked to the flop: 652. I bet out small, he raised, I called. I bet out again on the turn, he called and he called again on the river. That put me far ahead, and chastened him so that he was easy to outplay from then on. It's tough to beat aggressive players HU, but sometimes, sitting back and playing quite passively is the best way. You are aware all through that they don't have values for their play, but if they are playing smallball, you are going to have to make thin calls and bets. But this guy was bloating the pot all the time, trying to push me round. So he got poker judo. In judo, you use the other guy's weight to throw him off balance. That's how it went with this guy. I used his aggression to bin him.

Monday 30 July 2007

Getting worse to get better

I am glad I'm taking a break and not playing much. I'd just lose more if I did.

I've reverted to a leak I used to have and managed to plug. It's become unplugged. Two leaks, actually.

Here's the kind of thing. It's a $50 tourney. I won a place with a ticket, and I've been pleased to find that the standard has not been that high. We're down to 50 out of 150 runners, and 20 get paid. I have, I think it was, 5000ish chips and I make it 700 to go UTG with AKs. The guy next to me calls. I sigh. One of the blinds calls too. I sigh double. The first guy has me covered by 1000 chips. The other guy I have covered.

So I've been waiting for a hand for some time. Here's leak one. Because I play tightly, I'll tend to refuse to give up good hands when they turn to dogs.

The flop comes Q77. Only one of my suit. I think I'm probably behind, but not by much. The guy next to me probably has a pair, although there are other hands he could have, notably big aces, and the other guy, well, he could have anything.

The blind checks and I bet out 1000. The guy next to me calls, and the blind folds.

We could argue about the wisdom of a cbet here, but two things to note: first, this is a decent flop for a cbet, even against two players; second, I'm going to fire again if I have to on the turn. Not that many players will call a decent bet on the turn with a small pair. They'll float the flop with it, to see whether I'll shoot again, but won't go all the way with it. After all, I raised UTG. (One mistake I made is that I forgot that I had moved tables, and had only played maybe two, three orbits at this table, so I hadn't been in many hands, but I didn't have an ultratight image, just a tightish one.)

So the turn is another Q.

I review the action. What can he have?

Well, I figured him solidly for the pair. I think AQ has to raise the flop if it's made the loose call. You have to figure I'm raising AA-JJ, AQ+ UTG. If AK cbets, it will rarely bet again on the turn. JJ will bet here but will not bet the turn. So if you call and face another bet, you are going to be beaten. Better to put in a small raise to find that out on the flop.

So that was my analysis. I know. Rubbish. He has position. He can call with AQ and see what the turn brings. If I bet, he can evaluate it in the light of what comes. If I don't, he can check behind and pick off a bluff on the river. But he shouldn't have AQ for two reasons. First, it's not beating any of my range and will need to hit a flop hard to continue. Second, calling is horrible in his spot. He gives odds to hands behind to call behind him, and if anyone has a big hand, he's going to get pushed over. I suppose he has some insurance against the push over because I have played tightly and few hands will be a good bet vs my range.

When I see the second queen, I decide to push. I am repping AQ, which I can definitely have. If I don't have that, I quite likely have the overpair. He can't call with his 99 here. With a bigger stack, yeah, he might figure that AK plays it this way, hoping to push him out, and call anyway, but if he's wrong, he's crippled.

All wrong, of course.

The problem is twofold. First of all, I made up the analysis to fit the action I had decided to take, instead of the other way round. The cbet was iffy, and once called, I need to give it up. Second, I just assume he can't be shit enough to have called with AQ, but of course these players are shit! I've just watched awful call after awful call. Just because I would fold, and I only play at $5 level, I assume that players at this level must be good enough to fold!

But the truth is, a lot of them just have more money than me, not more ability.

Anyway, a guy shit enough to call for 700 chips with a small pair is going to be shit enough to call a push with it on this board. I just lost my mind and made a terrible play.

And you know why I did it? Because I was just so fucking determined not to play weaktight and creep into the money. I could have done that quite easily, sneaked in and got a hundred bucks out of it. But good players don't do that. They try to win. They play aggressively and don't avoid edges just to cash.

It is frustrating to be where I am. I am not the worst player. I do win more than I lose. And I am improving as time goes by. Sometimes though, the lessons I learn lead me to make more mistakes rather than fewer (so I learned that in tourneys I was playing too weaktight, now I have to learn to direct the aggro a bit, because I'm far too keen to put money in in bad spots). I guess that will improve as I learn by trial and error what works, what doesn't. And some things I have to relearn, such as not overrating my opponents.

Here's another example. Today in a 4/180, I had been distracted, so I was the shortstack with 21 left. 18 are paid. I hadn't really been watching the game, so I hadn't been stealing much, and I'd been pretty card dead. A guy minraises. He has quite a big stack, so he's probably stealing. I'm in the SB with A6.

I fold this every day and twice on Sundays. I don't need to get involved. I can just creep into the money. The guy has 17000 chips to my 4600. He is never, never, never folding anything even halfway reasonable. The minraise says he's weak but he's in the hijack, not on the button.

Even if he's weak, he is not folding. If I make his range 66+, A2+, K8+, QJ, he is crushing me. Even with the Ks and QJ, he has inbetweeners, which are only 57-43 behind. He will never fold that getting 5800-3800.

So of course I push.

I have a tiny bit of fold equity because my range should likely be quite tight, and he thought about it for quite a while. (Naturally, I'd only actually fold out hands that I was ahead of!) But he had about the worst hand for me he could have, bar a monster: 66. Cheers, poker gods. When I make a mistake, they really like to punish me.

I'm not irredeemable, of course. I recognise some of my mistakes and can stop making them. I guess I'm a bit on tilt though, because of the Friday night game.

Why would I be on tilt?

Well, here are the hands that mattered to me. First of all, I'm in MP with QT. W raises in EP quite big. I put him solidly on JJ. I know his play well enough to recognise his raise for a middle pair. A bigger hand, he wants more action, and might even limp. AK he might raise the same. AQ he will probably limp because his game is all about being tricky these days. (Which is even worse than when it was all about playing values and being a bit weak after the flop.)

I thought hard about calling. If I had had KQ, I would have called, no question. So the flop comes QTx and I'm absolutely kicking myself. W put money in too, so I'd likely have done very nicely.

Then I pick up KQs. The button is sitting in front of M, a calling station, so I'm willing to limp in. But R, the laggy gf of the laggy player L, is actually the button. I didn't realise and she raised. I called, thinking I had position, and only after calling realised what was what. The flop came ATx, so that sucked a lot. With position, this is fine for me. She will give her hand away with her bet, which she did all night. OOP, I'm in the shit.

Later, I double up by pushing 77 over two limpers and getting called by AT. My hand holds up.

So I have about 12000 chips and I'm in very good shape. I pick up AK UTG. I make it 1000 to go. L, who plays quite tightly preflop, pushes for about 6000.

I have a tough decision. My first thought is "just fold". She probably has AA-JJ here. I've never seen her shove lighter than that, although to be fair, I only recall seeing her shove once. I am way behind that range and can fold. But I'm thinking, she won't have shoved AA-KK. I am not so far behind QQ-JJ, and if you add in AK/AQ... well, it's looking like a call.

In fact, I think it's an easy fold. Adding in AQ is too hopeful and I'm too far behind her range to make it a good call.

When they say QQ vs AK is a coinflip, they are wrong. It isn't. QQ is 57/43 ahead. But I haven't done enough work on hot and cold equity and I didn't have the figures to hand. I thought it was a bit closer. I do know that I always prefer to have the pair! I considered though that even if I was behind, I could do the Gigabet thing, making a slightly bad call for a great chance to win. Had I drawn out on her, I would have been by far the bigstack.

So that was a bad call, but I was still alive. However, the blinds were rising fast, and I was fairly short. I stole enough blinds to keep up, but I wasn't getting anything much to play with.

So I have about 6000 in the BB and I pick up 88. R, on the button, limps, I think. W completed and I pushed. R folded.

But W had AA. Yet again he had been willing to let himself be outflopped OOP with AA. So he can pat himself on the back that he "trapped" me. If I had a worse hand, I would have checked. One of these days, he's limping AA, I'm checking with 54 and the flop comes T54 and it's goodfuckingbye to his stack.

If he had felt that there was a good chance of my making a move, that would have been a risk worth taking. But I think I had something like 8 or 9BB, not so short that I'd be pushing all that much. And even if I hit the flop, I'm not putting money in without top pair, so he's going to need a bit of luck to catch me at all.

Oh well. So what put me on tilt was that my night was decided preflop -- I built my stack by doubling through a guy, lost more than half of it with that baddish call of L, and the rest pushing 88 into AA. I didn't get to outplay anybody, never picked up even halfway reasonable cards to do it with (and the one time I did, I passed up the chance).

Well, I'll fix it. I'm planning to learn hot and cold equities so that I have a stronger theoretical basis and do not call pushes unless I have the edge in equity. I'll be more careful postflop for the upcoming and try to read players more. It can only get better. When you know you're bad, you can only improve, right?

Saturday 28 July 2007

Horseplay

Having hit a downswing that has knocked my confidence, I'm mostly taking a break from poker. Because I'm addicted, this means not playing much, not not playing at all.

So I played a dollar HORSE tourney the other night and finished second and a threedollar HORSE last night.

I like playing HORSE on Stars, because I have an edge against the typical microlimit player. Two edges actually. The first is that I'm simply a better player than average at this level, particularly in limit holdem and razz, which most players are hilariously bad at. The other is that I'm a better judge than most of when to put the money in short. The best thing to do, I think, when you're fairly short is to get all your money in on a promising hand and hope to win. These HORSE tourneys turn into crapshoots because the blinds become very high. The following hand shows both edges in action.

I forget the stacks but the blinds were high enough that I knew I was likely to get all of mine in on this hand. The other guy had me covered, but not by enough to take too many chances.

So I pick up (A4)7 and raise the buyin. A guy with a J showing calls the raise. It's obvious enough what his hand is. He must have two low downcards. I think he has likely made a mistake here, and should fold, for two reasons. First, although I could have something like (Q4)7 or worse, and just be stealing the buyin, the most likely hand for me is three to a low. Second, I know exactly what he has and can easily play correctly against him.

So fourth street makes us
(A4)73
(xx)J8

I bet and he has an easy fold. But he does not fold. Far from it. He raises. This is terrible. The best he can have is three to an eight, and I'm showing two to a seven. My most likely hand is the one I actually have. With three cards to come, he's a mile behind. I reraise, of course, and he puts the cap in, which puts me all in.

So we turn our cards over and he has (63)J8. I am comfortably ahead. One 5 has been folded, but that leaves three 5s, four 2s, three 6s to make my hand, and 8s, 9s and Ts also make me a winner if he doesn't catch twice.

I couldn't have found a better spot. Of course, this would not be worth commenting on if I didn't get a bad beat! I caught A77 to make a full house, which is not a good hand in Razz.

My opponent made a Jack low and I was busted. There's no justification for his play. You could argue that calling the raise made some sense because I am often stealing, and you could argue that he could call a bet on fourth because he could be ahead if I was stealing, but capping it has to be wrong.

Earlier, a player with two aces in his board had got into a betting war with me when I had three nines. When he bet his aces and I raised, he had an easy fold. This was, I think, on fifth street. Even with 9s up, I'm not raising, so he is left with trip 9s and a bluff. Okay, sometimes I'm bluffing, but he will have to pay me on the next two streets to find out. When he reraised, I put him solidly on two pair. An ace had folded, so I thought three aces were very unlikely. Of course I capped. He only had three outs to beat me!

As it turned out, he only had one, and caught it on the river. Even if he didn't think he had a fold when I raised, he certainly did when I capped. So the tourney was not too lucky for me, all in all, having played my way back from near extinction. Frustratingly, I went out in 26th, and 24 were paid.