"Do as I say ..." [Chapter 7]: Game Selection

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve written one of these. That's mostly because I’ve wised up a little bit and started doing the things I tell other people to do. But even I am not immune to relapses, and last night turned out to be just what I needed – a big fat hunking slice of humble pie.

Today, I’m going to talk about game selection. This is a concept I haven’t really worried too much about since I started to consistently play at Level 3 and above. I’m at the point now where I can pretty much play any style of poker. If the game is loose, I’ll be tight and aggressive – wait for the good hands and let the donkeys pay me off. If the game is fairly rocky, then I can LAG it up and make money that way. I’ve grown fairly adept at finding the correct gear in which to play in order to make the most money at a given table. So game selection hasn’t really been at the forefront of my poker mind.

My last session was an example of why game selection is a key concept of which to be mindful, even for the advanced player. I drove down to Hollywood Park (HP) after bubbling out of a Sit n Go, feeling pretty good about my game and the way I’ve been playing lately. I know that generally, HP has a reputation for housing the loosest, craziest players in town. But since I’ve mostly only played limit there, I figured the no limit game would be loose, but beatable if I played tight enough.

Once I arrived, I sat down in the $100 buy-in game and soon discovered that loose did not begin to describe this table. It was a full blown all-in festival – no exaggeration. Seven hands went by before I found anything playable, and at least one player got all his money in on each of those seven hands. I realized quickly that my only hope of winning here was playing ridiculously tight preflop and hoping that the odds held up. I strapped myself in.

My playable hand turned out to be AA in the big blind. The guy under the gun immediately pushed all in for his remaining $50. The second big stack at the table (who should have been a huge donator but was getting insanely lucky time after time) called him cold from middle position. In my head, I started doing a little victory dance. It was folded to me, and I pushed for my stack of $95. Donator called. Time to see if the bullets could work their magic.

Didn’t work out well at all. The flop was nice, but a runner-runner gave Donator the nut straight with his QJ offsuit. I rebought, steamed for another ten hands, then stacked off again when A-2 called my Queens all in preflop and spiked an Ace. At that point I realized that this wasn’t a game I could beat with my bankroll. Goodbye, Hollywood Park!

So okay, you could say that I just got severely unlucky last night. You could say that I should have made a quick $500 or $600 easily at that table. You could say it just wasn’t my night, Sklansky dollars, it wasn’t my fault what happened, whatever. You win some, you lose some, right?

I see it differently. It’s possible that I was just destined to lose my money last night, wherever I went. But still, I must take some responsibility for dropping $200 so quickly. This is supposed to be an instructional post, not just a glorified bad beat story. :-) I should have realized early on that this was not a game that I could beat, not with the big stacks at the table willing to see every hand down to the river. While I still believe that I am able to hang tough in any style of poker game by adapting my own style of play, I should have realized that this ability did not apply to the table at HP last night because we weren’t playing poker. We were simply putting all of our money in and seeing how the cards fell.

These types of games are out there, and at times can be very profitable. But this was not the type of game that I want to be playing in. Just putting it in before the flop takes away the advantages good players have over weak ones, similar to the “Kill Phil” strategies that amateurs often use in tournaments to make up for their lack of experience. Moving in preflop doesn’t allow me to bring my poker skill set to bear. I just have to hope my good hands hold up.

So as you can see, game selection is a relevant poker principle across all skill levels and poker formats. Learn to recognize when you’re in a situation or game that is not advantageous to your particular skills, and get out as early as possible. It’ll probably save you a bunch of money.

Remember, this is just advice – you can take it or leave it. But if I had taken my own advice last night, I would have saved myself a couple hundred and probably could have even made some money down the road at the Hustler.

So like always, Do as I say, not as I do …

"Folding," by Tommy Angelo

I read this article a long, long time ago, but it's only been recently that I've really applied it to my game. I think it has helped immensely. It really wasn't all that long ago that folding top pair in a short-handed game was a completely foreign concept to me. Folding an overpair? Fuhgeddaboutit! Tommy Angelo is a superb writer, and this classic article of his is definitely well worth passing on. Enjoy!

Table Talk in Las Vegas

I sit down at Bally’s (which, by the way, they should probably rename ‘the Aquarium, Hotel and Casino’) with $100 at the $1/2 NL game. I wait for about half an hour to pick up a playable hand, and eventually decide to just settle for Q-4 suited on the button. For some reason, I call some donkey’s raise with it, flop a flush draw, call all in on the turn and hit it on the river. Naturally, the donkey gets pretty upset by this …

Mr Donk: What the hell were you thinking, calling me with that garbage!? Didn’t you see me raise before the flop?
Me: Yes, I saw perfectly. But I happened to get lucky, what do you want me to do?
Mr Donk: Damn right, you got lucky!
Me: Look, I flopped a flush draw, and you weren’t betting it. So I bet it for you. By the time you check-raised me all-in, I was more-or-less pot-committed.
Mr Donk: Whatever the hell that means … look, kid, a flush draw is only, like seven outs. You have to learn how to lay those down.
Me: Seven outs? I’m pretty sure it’s nine …
Mr Donk: No, it’s seven, smart guy. How many clubs are in the deck?
Me: Uh, thirteen.
Mr Donk: Right, and how many on the board?
Me. Two! Plus two in my hand is four … leaving me with nine outs. Do the math!
Mr Donk: Thirteen … four … well sure, but how many people are at the table? Ten. You have to think about how many people are at the table, probably holding clubs. So fewer clubs that you can hit. Free lesson for you, son.

My jaw drops.

Me: Are you kidding me?
Mr Donk: No, I’m no kidding you at all. You really ought to learn to play better before you lose what little money you have.
Me: Whatever, man. Nicely played, sir.
Mr Donk: That’s right, you should call me ‘sir.’ I’ve earned it.
Me: Why, because you’re a man? Haha, I’d call any guy 'sir' if I felt like it, so don't feel special. I mean, congratulations – you were born with a penis!
Mr Donk: No, you little punk. Look at me. Look at my haircut. What the hell do you think I do for a living?

He’s sporting a crew cut.

Me: I guess ex-military, something like that?
Sgt Donk: Try current military. You should show a little more respect. Don’t you know what weekend this is?
Me: Memorial Day.
Sgt Donk: That’s right.
Me: What does that have to do with you? Are you dead? Were you killed in combat?
Sgt Donk: Do you know the meaning of the term 'veteran'? Memorial Day means you show respect for all military personnel that have been in combat, past and present.
Me: No it doesn’t! That’s Veteran’s Day, you twit! This is Memorial Day … as a military guy I would think you’d know the difference. Don’t talk to me any more, you don’t have the capacity to have an intelligent conversation with me. A flopped flush draw is nine outs, SIR. That’s the last free poker lesson I’m going to give you today.
Sgt Donk: Kid, what do you do for a living.
Me: I take stacks off dumbasses like yourself.
Sgt Donk: So you’re a professional, huh? What are you doing in such a low stakes game then?
Me: I’m in Vegas … I’m on vacation. I’m playing here for fun.
Sgt Donk: I see.

Some time passes, we trade a few more barbs here and there. He builds his stack back up as his hands hold up. I don’t play a hand for about an hour or so. Finally, I flop middle pair and an open-ended straight draw in middle position. I raise Sgt. Donk’s bet on the flop, bet the turn hard, and push all in when I miss the river. Sgt. Donk is pondering a call …

Sgt. Donk: So how much do I owe you if I call this?
Me: $130.
Sgt Donk: I see. Well, I don’t have much here, but I think I’m going to go ahead and pay you off … did you hit that King on the river? I hit the Ten on the turn …
Me: Damn it, no, I just had the 4 and the open-ender on the flop. Nice hand.
Sgt Donk: Wow, nice. So, young man – you got anything else to teach me about poker?

I pause for a moment, and all I can think about is backhanding that sneer right off his face.

Me: Yeah, actually, I do. Poker lesson number two … is never bluff an idiot.

Play the stack, not the cards.

Well, Billy got me again. I’m not sure when I became so bluffable, but at some point it happened and it has cost me a pot or two. But the style adjustment has probably been good for my bankroll in the long run.

It was late in last Sunday’s home game, and it was now three handed between Sean, Billy, and myself. I straddled on the dealer button, Sean and Billy both called from the blinds. I looked at my hole cards and saw pocket Jacks. Fishhooks. Beautiful hand for a straddle, especially when your straddle is the button. No one will believe you have anything.

I decided to play the hand tricky and just checked my option. The flop game 10-7-6 rainbow. Sean checked, and Billy fired $1 into the pot of $1.50. I figured him for hitting top pair, so I raised it up to $3.25. Sean mucked, and Billy hardly even thought before re-popping to $10 even.

Naturally, this slowed me down a little bit. I had clawed my way to the big stack on my third buy-in. I was at about $125, and Billy had another $35 or so in front of him on top of the $10. Calling wasn’t really an option – if I did, Billy was for sure pushing on the turn. Any raise I made would pretty much pot-commit him. If I laid down my overpair, I ran the serious risk of folding the best hand. What to do?

I had gotten exactly the situation that I had wanted. Straddled to create more action, dealt myself a huge hand, and gotten my opponent to make a large re-raise into me. There was no way that Billy put me on the Jacks. I had deceived him, and he had put a good chunk of his money in because of it.

But at the same time, this is a situation you usually want to avoid with an overpair. I had to decide if Billy was playing top pair really aggressively, if he had happened to flop two pair, or even if he was holding the "Mike McDermott" 8-9 for the nut straight. My deception had caused the pressure of making a decision to be put on me.

A million thoughts were running through my head at this point. I thought about Billy as a player, and about his reputation for being extremely tight and aggressive. But I also thought about how he had been using that to his advantage, bluffing and semi-bluffing more lately than he had in the past. I thought that this was one of those interesting situations where I was either very far ahead or very far behind. I wondered if he would fold to a re-raise, or if I could possibly get away with just calling in order to get more information from him later. Were my Jacks good? Why had I opted to play them so tricky? Was Billy capable of making a bluff here? Was I capable of laying this overpair down?

Apparently, I was. I mucked my Jacks face up, and Billy showed me a Q-10. I’m not sure if he was trying to tilt me or make himself appear like a loose player to Sean. Didn’t really matter – because I felt completely happy with my fold. I had laid down the best hand, but I felt like it was a solid play nonetheless. In the end, it was the stack sizes that determined my action. I was not prepared to dump a third of my stack to a player of Billy’s caliber, especially so late in the evening. If we got it all in and I lost the hand, I would have very little opportunity to get it back. When I laid down my Jacks, I was well aware of the possibility that I was tossing the best hand. But the timing just wasn’t right. I was protecting my stack, and I was unwilling to mix it up with Billy’s stack holding less than the nuts or near nuts. Furthermore, my fold gives the table even more incentive to try and steal on me later -- preferably when I'm more comfortably ahead in the hand. This time I had decided to play the man, play the stack, play the situation …

… and I think I played it pretty well.

Play the man, not the cards.

It’s been a while since I’ve won at the Hustler $1/2 NL, and last night was shaping up to be a continuation of that saga. I was basically beating myself early on – pot-committing myself with Jacks after an Ace and a flush draw flopped. Putting a guy all in with a suited A-K vs. his Aces. I was well on my way to tilting and stacking off my Vegas bankroll (trip coming up soon). Third buy-in. Here we go …

The big stack was in complete command on the table. Name was Jim, youngish guy. One of those guys you can tell are solid players just by looking at them. He was three seats to my left, and sitting on a stack of about $360. I hadn’t tangled with him yet, and I didn’t want to at that point. There were enough fish there for the both of us, I figured.

A new guy showed up and sat directly to Jim’s left. I don’t know his name – let’s call him Mike for now. He won a few pots from people at the table, yadda yadda … got to be the second biggest stack. At some point, he rivered a bigger set than the one that Jim had flopped, and doubled through on him. Understandably, Jim started steaming aloud, vowing to take Mike down at some point in the night.

Immediately, the gears in my head started turning. I watched Jim carefully, wondering if he was going to tilt or if he was solid enough to keep playing good poker in spite of the sick beat he’d just taken. I didn't have to wait long to find out.

The very next hand, I picked up 7-6 offsuit on the button. A few people limped in, including Jim and Mike, and I decided to take a flop as well. The blinds didn’t raise, and the flop came Q-8-6, rainbow.

The blinds checked, Jim bet $10, and it was folded around to me. I was about to muck, but something told me my implied odds were amazing here. My hand was pretty weak at this point – I had bottom pair, and a backdoor straight as a redraw. I didn’t think Jim was bluffing, but it seemed pretty clear to me that if I somehow managed to outplay or bad beat him on this hand, it would be enough to tilt him for the rest of the night and he would stack off what he had left in front of him. I called, and the blinds folded.

The turn was another 6.

Jim immediately bet out $14, and I pushed for my remaining $32. He called with a Queen, and I doubled up. He went through the roof. He tried his best to play well the rest of the night, but his best turned out not to be good enough. He won and lost some pots over the next hour, and eventually I finished him off for his last $85 when he pushed on me with a flush draw. Unfortunately, he called it a night at that point and didn't rebuy, but I didn’t have too much to complain about. Jim had single-handedly taken me from a losing to a winning night. For that, I was grateful.

Last night was yet another example of a situation where the cards didn’t really matter that much. Sure, it helped a lot that I got lucky and turned that third 6. But in that spot, it was correct for me to call with the worst hand, even though my immediate pot odds were not sufficient. Not only did I have the implied odds of doubling through the guy on this hand – I was also fairly certain that making my hand would turn the second best player at the table into one of the worst. I could probably take more money off him later, as well as eliminating one of the biggest threats to my control of the table.

It’s important to look for those situations at the poker table that will pay big dividends later on. Find them, exploit them. Make that money.

And another one ...

Jun seems to come up with the best poker insults.


yumsupsup: one guy just got jealous
and started talking shit
and i talked back and i told him
i promise i ll sent u home
haha
i busted him
with a set of aces
he call all in with mid pair
idiot
of course i said, u are dead and are going home
he said no one sends me home
rebought a couple tiems
and then went home
lol
Jamin: hahahah

Trading Tells

Last night at the Hustler was interesting for a variety of reasons – some of them “good/interesting” and some of them “bad/interesting.” Well, here at Grind or Gamble, we like to focus on the positive. At least, that’s going to be the policy for today. ;-)

The guy directly to my right was an OK player, probably in his mid-forties, and seated next to him was his fiancé. The fiancé was in her mid-thirties or so, had a huge rack, a low-cut blouse and a nice smile. This so happened to be the night I was wearing my graphic tee which reads: “Tell your boobs to stop staring at my eyes!” Needless to say, right off the bat the guy wasn’t a huge fan of mine. We weren't exactly enemies at the table, but amigos would definitely be even more of a stretch.

The night wore on, and some hands got played, whatever. But what I wanted to mention was the tell I picked up on him. On the flop, this guy would, from time to time, pause for a moment before saying smoothly, “I’ll check …?” and then giving the next person to act kind of a sidelong glance. I’ve seen players do this so many times – say that they check like it’s a question, then give you that look that says “Careful, there.” Usually it means that they didn’t like the flop, but their tone is one of caution to a player they think is likely to bet. It’s like they're pretending to be trapping you, hoping that you’ll check behind them and give them a free card.

With this guy, the complete opposite was the case. He performed the exactly same routine I’ve seen countless times before, but when he did it, it was a dead giveaway that he had hit the flop, wanted to bet it, but decided to check hoping someone else would take that as weakness and bet. Not once did I see him do that and then fold the hand to a large bet or raise. If he went through that routine, he would be more than willing to commit all of his chips.

I was pretty satisfied when that tell proved to be reliable time after time after time. It didn’t ever pay off for me, but I saw other players at the table trap themselves again and again against him. By the time I left, the guy had built his stack from $40 up to about $400 just by check-calling and check-raising people with that. I waited to exploit that tell with a monster, but the opportunity never came.

Later on in the evening, I discovered that I wasn’t the only player that was “awake” at the table. That same guy clued me in to a tell of my own, and I couldn’t have been more embarrassed. Despite my embarrassment, I was definitely happy that he let me in on it. Here was the hand that he exposed me on.

UTG had made it $4 to go ($1/2 NL game), and there were two callers (the guy and his fiancé) before the action got to me. In late position, I made it $20 to go with A-K offsuit. The original raiser, the chick, and the dude all called me. The flop came 7-6-7, two-toned, giving me the backdoor nut flush draw and not much else. It was checked to me, and I bet $30 of my remaining $62. The two others in the hand fold, and the guy starts thinking aloud.

“Well, you made it $20 to go preflop, and you bet $30 on the flop. Something’s a little fishy here. I think when you have a made hand like a pair preflop, you bet different amounts, like $12, or $15 … or you would have re-raised my lady to $24 instead of $20. When you don’t have a hand yet, or just have big cards, you bet round numbers. Multiples of ten. I think you’re bluffing, my friend. I’ll put you all in.”

The guy was dead on.

I realized that I do indeed do that. What a huge tell! Multiples of $10 when I had nothing, and other amounts when I had it. Yikes.

I wish I’d had a chance to take advantage of his tell the way he had mine. I’ll probably never see him again. But if I do … he’d better be extremely careful before he check-raises me again!

Mass debating ...

… is definitely +EV.

My blogmate/roommate and I get into some pretty intense discussions (arguments) about poker strategy. These go down probably every other day, on average, and can really put me in a bad mood at times. But their benefits are nucking futs. The big (and probably obvious) one is learning new ways to play hands. For no limit players especially, the variety of methods of achieving profit maximization is fairly large, and having discussion with other players just gives you more weapons in your poker arsenal. This is the beauty and value of things like the Two Plus Two forums.

Sometimes, Billy and I come to an agreement on the best way to play a hand given our collective knowledge of the game. Other times, however, we are unable to come to a real resolution. Chalk it up to our style differences, or maybe just to our egos. Whatever the reason, there are times when we simply cannot come to terms.

These situations still have a lot of value for me, because they allow me insight into how another poker player thinks. Even if I consider that thinking incorrect or unreasonable, it gives me a window into the way many of my opponents may be playing their hands against me. By arguing with my poker friends and turning things over verbally, I am able to get away from the expectation that the other players will be thinking and playing their hands the same way that I am. It serves as a reminder that not everyone in the poker world (or the world in general, for that matter) sees things like I do.

I’m writing this today because we had yet another of our famous mass debates. I don’t think there was much of a conclusion, but eventually I just had to stop it because of frustration. But whether or not I think Billy was right on this one, it is an absolute certainty that I will find a way to use this information against him. =P

Game Day

It has been a long time coming, but our home game has finally returned. There will be some new faces, some new reads to make and tells to pick up on, but the core group from my old home game (read: “the addicts”) will all be present. The stakes are a teeny bit higher than we used to play back in the day, but still micro enough that we aren’t all playing scared poker against each other. It should be a really fun game.

I’ve been waiting quite a while for this. I got so excited, I bought all kinds of new poker crap. Before Billy even moved back to LA, I had already bought a poker table setup, and I recently picked up new chips, racks, cards, chairs … all that good stuff. I think I’ve spent more money setting up the game than I’m likely to make from it, but at least the experience will be as much fun as possible. I’ve been aiming for the “Casino Away from the Casino” feel, and I think it’s starting to come together. I’ve played in a lot of home games in the Los Angeles area, making the rounds, and once the ball really gets rolling on this, I can say with only just a little bias that it will likely become one of the better home games in town.

But we’ll see what happens. Tonight’s inaugural session will likely feature six players, perhaps seven. Billy and I would like to see that average get up to a regular seven or eight guys. Six is a good number to start with, though. It’s a high enough number that if someone goes bust the game isn't automatically over, but low enough that everyone should get to play a decent percentage of pots.

This home game should also be good for my overall game. I was chatting with Billy the other day, and I feel pretty sure that I identified the cause of my recent poker slump. We basically agreed that I had been focusing too much on my own cards, and not using my hand-reading ability as much as I should. I was playing medium-strength hands as if they were monsters, refusing to lay down top pair, etc. Not even bothering to gauge opponents’ relative strength any more. I had just been relying on aggression and intimidation to get me paid off when I had it and to get people out when I didn’t. As you can surmise from my last post, this hasn’t been working. Tonight, I hope to change that. Since we’re adding a few players to the mix that I don’t often play with, I should get the opportunity to flex my poker muscles a bit and play more skillfully than I have been.

I couldn’t be more excited. I’m not sure if we’re going to keep stats on how well people do and all the other things Billy and I mentioned before, but a part of me doesn’t really care.

I just want to play poker.