Setting Limits: The Good & The Bad (Part II)

In my last post, I discussed a few of the positives and negatives about setting limits for how much I lose per session.

How about win limits? This is where a player decides that if they get ahead a certain amount of money, they will be happy and quit for the day. For professional grinders, this is often called "making their daily nut." The beauty of this is that you set your goal, you reach your goal, and then you can go about the rest of your day happy that you have booked a nice win. You also prevent yourself from losing it all back. On the surface, this sounds like a pretty good strategy for a winning player to have.

But it has a few problems. One of them is pretty obvious. If I set a win limit, I am literally limiting the amount that I can win. So if I am in a very profitable game, and playing really well, I'm forcibly removing myself from the ideal poker situation. If my win limit is $300, and I reach it, I never allow myself to have +$1,000 days on those days that a really awful player shows up to unload his paycheck to the poker economy. I would miss out on the really gargantuan scores that we all drool for. And since you never know in poker when you are going to go on a dry spell and have several losing sessions in a row, you want to have some major wins to counteract those rougher patches.

Another problem is when you are just short of the target, but for whatever reason the table conditions are no longer optimal. Sticking with the $300 example, say I get up to $280, then lose a pot by getting outdrawn and am down to $240. Further assume that the donkey that just doubled up off me hits and runs and the remaining players are all tough tricky players with deep stacks. Do I want to continue in the game just to get over that $300 hump? A problem with setting targets is that it can become too much of a focus and get in the way of other important aspects of the game.

I think the top professional players would say that setting win targets/limits is not the best way to go, for the reasons I have described. But there are several lower-level grinders who swear by this method. They put in their time at the table, and if they hit their target early they are free to do whatever they want with the rest of their time. Personally I agree with the top pros that it isn't the ideal thing to do, but honestly I find myself doing it sometimes. Since I don't have an enormous bankroll, it is very important for me to regularly book winning sessions. So for whatever stakes I am playing, generally if I quadruple my buy-in, I start thinking about making an exit. I may play a little longer to see if I can go even further. But if I buy in for $100 and am able to take my stack to $450, I generally will tell myself I will play on but if I get below a stack of $400 I will call it quits. Or something along those lines. However, I leave myself the flexibility to stay in the game if my opponents are playing very poorly and I am playing very well. So I avoid giving back my winnings but also have the option to win more.

Finally, there are time limits. Time limits have a lot in common with win limits. You play up until a certain point and then you stop no matter what. Up, down, doesn't matter. This way you can just focus on playing to the best of your ability, and don't worry so much about winning or losing in individual sessions. You play your career like one long poker session, and if you are a winning player, the results be there in the long run. Like punching a clock. Players do this because they are self-aware enough to realize that they generally start to play worse after a certain length of time passes. They get bored. They get tired. Whatever the reason, they only want to play for so long each time out.

The problem with this method is that it doesn't take into account the conditions of the table on a particular day. Even if I play in the same cardroom, at the same level five days in a row, I might encounter five unique sets of table conditions that may be either good for me or not so good. So instead of playing for four hours on each of those days, it might make more sense for me to play for eight hours against the worst players, and only three hours on the other days.

I am not a huge fan of time limits on poker sessions. (At least not self-imposed ones; many times you have to leave for other reasons. I get that.) I think if you have the flexibility to do so, you should be able to quit at any point and to stay for as long as the game is good and you are playing well. Like it or not, we are not always in the mode of playing our A+ game. So I think it is wise to capitalize on those times when we are.

So, that's my two cents regarding setting limits. I hope it was as good for you as it was for me, but as The Wife can attest, it probably wasn't. Nevertheless, I would sum up by saying that I think stop-losses are good, but winning targets and time limits may not be (though I am guilty of setting win targets myself). See ya next time.

Setting Limits: The Good & The Bad (Part I)

For everyone who has ever gambled in his or her life, I'm sure this will sound like a familiar scenario. You are playing your game of choice and having a good time (blackjack, poker, slots, whatever). You get really lucky, go on a great run, and find yourself up quite a bit of money. You briefly consider quitting while you are ahead, but you're having so much fun and the money is flowing so easily that you're not ready to leave just yet.

Then suddenly, things take a turn for the worse. You get really unlucky on a play, and after that it seems like you just can't catch a break. You slowly start to lose the money that you have built up, and maybe you even start making riskier wagers to get back to your former heights. "If I can just get back to where I was before," you tell yourself, "I will call it a day and be happy."

But you can never quite get back there, and eventually you lose it all. As you leave the gambling arena to move on to your next activity, you mentally beat yourself up for not leaving sooner. Even if you had only left with half your winnings, it would have been a great score. "Why did I have to get so greedy?" you silently wonder.

Ever happen to you?

It used to happen to me all the time at the poker table. Back when I was first starting out going to casinos, I hadn't quite learned to control my aggression at the poker table. This resulted in me taking my $50 buy-in and running it up to $250 in a very short period of time, only to lose it all back again with an ill-timed bluff or questionable value bet. Back then, $200 was all the money in the world to me, and even losing the $50 buy-in was often more than I could honestly afford. So the first lesson I had to learn was never to gamble with money that I needed for other things. That is one limit that I don't think any gambler should EVER cross.

But that isn't exactly what this post is about. For the purposes of this discussion, I am going to assume that I have a poker bankroll that is used strictly for poker, and if I lose all of it I will be all right financially. The question I would like to address is, within that bankroll of X # of buy-ins, does it make sense to have a per-session limit to how many buy-ins I allow myself to lose? Is a two or three buy-in stop-loss good for me as a poker player, considering I generally am playing against weaker opponents?

There are other types of limits that a player can set as well. I can set a limit on the amount that I win, and I can set a limit on the length of time I play in a given session. I would like to consider the pros and cons of each type of limit, and share those thoughts with you.

First, loss limits or stop-loss. Now, there are some players that have excellent discipline at the poker table. They are able to recognize when they are playing on tilt, when they are outmatched, or when the table conditions are otherwise unfavorable and they just get up and quit for the day.

I am not one of those players. In the games that I play now, I am often one of the most seasoned players in the game, and I typically have a large edge over my typical opponents. So whenever I get loser, I tend to think that I can still outplay my opponents so I should keep reloading until things begin to turn around. I even have a few huge comeback wins in cash games that could support that exact conclusion. However, there are some times when I really am outclassed in a game and refuse to admit it, or think that I have gotten over a bad beat when I really haven't. And I know that I do not play my best when I'm stuck (no one does), but I will continue to buy more chips over and over until I have no money left in my wallet. So I think for me, a stop-loss is a good thing. If I only take a few buy-ins with me, then I can be forced to go home, cool down, and attack the game again the next time. (But with the ATM's inside the casinos, I have to leave the ATM card at home too! Or at least in the car.)

In the next post, I will address win targets and time limits. Should be tomorrow, unless I get too lazy.

Bet-Sizing with the Nuts

Once in a while, we as poker players find ourselves in the enviable position of holding the stone cold nuts on the river. Ideally in these spots, we like our opponents to also have monster hands that are second best so that we can get paid off handsomely and drag enormous pots. Often, however, our opponents will have much weaker hands than we do, and we must determine what the optimal bet size should be, i.e., how to get them to put in as much money as possible.

Let me use an example from a recent hand that I played. The game is $1-2 No Limit. I have been playing tight on a table with several loose aggressive players. After one such LAG limps in, I raise to $10 in middle position with A-K offsuit. The LAG is my only caller. After the rake is deducted, we are contesting a pot of $18. His stack after the call is $125 and I have him covered.

The flop comes down A-K-2 all different suits. He checks, and I check it back to him. Against this loose player's range, top two pair is a little bit too strong to bet. I feel that I have to let him catch up a little, or maybe induce a bluff from him on the next street. Free card, the pot remains at $18.

The turn is another Ace. I have just made the nut full house and, even better, my opponent quickly bets out $15. Bingo! The way this is going, I rate to win a very nice pot on this hand. However, I elect to just call at this point. The reason? I feel it is STILL a little too early to tip him off to the strength of my hand. I am almost certain that he does not hold an Ace. There really are not too many hands that he could hold that would call a raise from me here. But if I flat call him, he may try and push me out of the pot on the river. I am giving him a chance to make a mistake. The pot is now up to $48.

The river comes -- an irrelevant 4. My opponent doesn't hesitate too long before firing out one more bet of $18. Small for the size of the pot, this actually looks like more a value bet than a bluff. Now I am putting him on a King rather than air. Clearly at this point, last to act on the river, I have to raise his bet. But for how much? He has another $92 behind. The pot, if I call, will stand at $84. Let's run some numbers and see what looks like the best bet. For simplicity's sake, I am only going to examine three possible plays. Min-raising to $36 (2x), value-raising to $64 (about 3.5x), and shoving for his last $92 (about 5x). I will have to make some assumptions, and of course this won't be the best way to play it for every single situation. But I'm curious ... and it is always good to practice thinking about these things after the fact.

Let's start with the min-raise. I will call his raise and add another $18, which will offer him about 5.6-1 pot odds. I estimate that with his range of a king, a pocket pair above 4, or nothing, he will call the min-raise about 40% of the time. So making him put in another $18 40% of the time shows an EV of $7.20.

How about the medium-sized raise? If I make him put in an additional $46 he will be getting about 2.8-1 pot odds. I estimate with that same range, he calls this bet about 20% of the time. So he is putting in an additional $46 20% of the time ... the EV on this raise gets up to $9.20.

And the shove? Now he is looking at 1.9-1 pot odds. I am guessing he only calls this maybe 12% of the time. $92 12% of the time looks like $11.04. Also with pushing all in, since his call frequency is going to be lower, you don't have to show down your cards as often which I like.

However, you can play with the numbers a lot, and get them to fit any bet you like if you manipulate how often you think the opponent will call. There is no way to prove any estimate one way or another. But that isn't the point. The point is to use your best guess, and to always consider all the options available to you. If a player will only call a value-raise slightly more frequently than he will call an all in shove, maybe we should be pushing all in on the river more often. Players sometimes fall into the habit of 3x-ing everything ... and they forget that the beauty of no limit is that you can gun for your opponent's entire stack at any time!

A Game to Improve my Memory (Seven-Card Stud)

A year-and-a-half ago, I was primarily a Seven-Card Stud player. This was after experiencing mind-bottling swings back and forth in my bankroll playing online, and pretty much losing all confidence in my ability to be a consistent winner at no limit Texas hold’em.

But there was no way I was quitting poker entirely. I just needed a new game to learn. My first trips to casinos started me out with limit hold’em, so I was fairly familiar with that game. I had read books on it, played a lot of it, but was weary of it after 9-4 offsuit rivering a third 4 to crack my overpair too many times. No thanks on going back to that.

There was also Omaha 8, a game that’s spread in a lot of the casinos here in Southern California. The fish that frequent the cardrooms seem to enjoy it, as they feel fully justified in playing lots of starting hands and chasing a lot. It satisfies their desire to gamble in ways that limit hold’em can only begin to approach. I’d been told by a few savvy players that Omaha was the game to play, because so few people played it well and there was so much action. Still, I didn’t relish the thought of putting significant portions of my bankroll in jeopardy learning a game that was brand new to me. Furthermore, there wasn’t a preponderance of literature on the subject at the time, so I decided that Omaha wasn’t yet the game for me.

How about Stud? All I really knew about it was the basic format, and that the tables seemed to be mostly filled with old timers and young donkeys that were running bad at hold’em. (I’m trying my best not to think about how well that second category fit me at the time.) But I had a copy of Supersystem, and thus I decided to read Chip Reese’s section on Seven-Card Stud. The strategy that Mr. Reese outlined seemed fairly straightforward, and so I committed it to memory and soon tried my hand at the $4-8 Stud games at the Commerce Casino.

I enjoyed early successes. The more experienced players at the tables rarely gave me credit for having anything. I played aggressively, and I generally got paid off. Their lack of respect for my abilities ensured that I could expect to leave each session ahead a few hundred dollars on average. However, as a few months passed, and I was playing with the same players regularly, they began go to get a handle on my game. I found that I was getting trapped more often, and that my big hands were getting paid off less. I went back to the text of Supersystem, and tried to plug the holes in my game as best I could. I also tried finding articles online, but for the most part they were written for a pretty basic level of play. A skill level that would get eaten alive in the games I played in. I was missing something, but I didn’t really know what it was. I was completely baffled on how I could be a winner at Stud. Just like no limit hold’em, it seemed that I couldn’t beat the game any more.

Eventually, I just gave up poker entirely.

It started out as just a break. But with Billy out of the country, I didn’t really have anyone to get my competitive fire going. Didn’t have anyone in my ear yapping about bad beats, or blogging about improving their game. I lost interest in it. My girlfriend was happier when I wasn’t playing poker. My family was happy to hear that I was off it. I was focused on work and the classes I was taking at night. Poker was no longer a part of my life.

Well, eventually all that changed, and when I came back to the game, it was playing no limit hold’em. I came back to find out that the live games were as juicy as ever, and I saw some of the biggest cashouts of my life in early 2007. Since then, my game has steadily improved (though I can’t say the same for my bankroll), including a sharp increase in poker acumen over the past month or so. I feel like my skills at no limit hold’em have never been better.

Recently, Billy and I were jokingly brainstorming on ways he could improve his memory of his hole cards in hold’em. He has a history of forgetting exactly which two cards he’s holding, and for some reason, he still hasn’t taught himself to consistently double-check. We always get a good laugh when he quickly mucks a hand based upon what he convinced himself he was holding rather than what he actually had.

And even though I give Billy a hard time for failing to remember cards he had just seen, the discussion caused me to realize an area in which my Stud game could use a lot of improvement. As they say, Seven-Card Stud is “a game of live cards.” This means that it is crucial to always be aware of how live your hand is at all times. That is, you have to have a very good idea of how many outs you and your opponents have to make their hands.

As you play Stud, the reasons that memory is important become obvious. Say you have an open-ended straight draw on 5th Street, and need either a King or an 8 to make your hand. However, a player to your right who had been inactive until this point just caught a King, and leads out with a bet, representing that the King helped him. In order to know how many outs you have left, you have to think back to the earlier streets and the cards people folded. Did anyone fold a King or an 8? Do I have the full seven outs, or is it fewer? You cannot determine if you are being offered the right pot odds if you cannot recall how live your hand is.

Assume for a second that again, a King is leading out on 5th Street, but this time you have two Queens in the hole. Now, it’s pretty clear that if he has the pair of Kings that he is representing, you will want to know if any Queens have been folded already. Chances are, you’ve been paying careful attention to the cards out there, and you will immediately know if a Queen or any of your kickers has been folded somewhere. You’ll be looking out for that. But you should remember all the cards that come out. Have two people folded Kings already? If so, then it’s unlikely that your opponent actually has the case King. But if you only focus on the cards that help you, you likely would have missed whether or not anyone had folded a King.

At least, I would have. Everyone can remember what they have seen. Some simply have a better sense than others, and I’m definitely among the ‘others.’ I recognized that I had been probably sacrificing a ton of profit by not having a better handle on what my outs and my opponent’s outs were. Either by calling bets when I didn’t have live cards, or not extracting the maximum when my cards were the best. But like with Omaha 8, I didn’t want to lose a lot of money just practicing improving my memory at the tables.

So I came up with a game that would help me remember what cards have been folded in Seven-Card Stud. It is set up like an eight-handed Stud game, except there are no hole cards. Eight door cards are dealt out. The low card stays in, and then the three players to act after the low card all fold. The folded cards go into a discard pile.

On 4th Street, I act as if the high hand leads with a bet (though no chips are necessary). The two players left of the high both fold and their cards are placed into a second discard pile.

On 5th Street, there are three “players” remaining. Once again, the high hand stays in, and the hand immediately to the left discards into a third pile.

On 6th Street, it is heads up and the low hand discards into a fourth pile, and the game is over.

Next, I create a chart of the hands that I can remember being folded, as follows:

I give myself 1 point for every card I can remember from 6th Street. 5th Street cards are worth 2 points each. 4th Street cards are worth 4 points each and 3rd street are worth 8 point apiece. If I did my math correctly, that should work out to a total of 50 points possible.

As I get better and better at identifying how many of each card rank have been folded, I’ll start upping the ante by attempting to remember the specific suits. Once I’ve played this game enough times and remembering what’s been folded becomes second nature, then I can go back to the tables and focus more on watching my opponents instead of watching the cards. Who knows? Maybe one day I’ll be able to perform the Rounders scene in real life, and read all my opponents’ hands blind.

Acting Strong when you’re Strong (Follow-Up)

So last night was the big home game, and I had a couple of opportunities to practice what I just preached in the last post. I flopped some huge hands early in the session, and each time I was faced with the question of how best to get paid off. (FYI: Our home game is a no limit hold’em cash game, with $0.10 and $0.25 blinds.)

Hand A
I picked up the 7s-6c in the cutoff seat, and decided to limp in after several people limped in front of me. The button folded, and the small and big blind called and checked, respectively. The flop was nice – Qh-7c-7h. Ben, a loose-aggressive player, bet out $1.25 into the pot of $1.50 from the small blind. It was folded around to me, and I was pretty sure that Ben was holding a Queen only. Since he is an aggressive player, I figured a call would probably get him to bet out again on the turn. A raise here would probably scare him off. So I just called -- standard play.

The turn brought the 7d, giving me four of a kind. Ben, as expected, bet out again – this time for $1.50. Now, how to get him to pay off my quads with his full house? Instead of smooth-calling his little bet, I decided I was going to come in for a raise. However, I didn’t want to completely announce that I was holding the case 7. I decided to “Hollywood” him a little bit, and represent that I also held a Queen.

“I think we’re probably chopping here [i.e., splitting the pot with a tied hand],” I said to him casually, “but I’m going to raise just in case you don’t have a Queen.” I made it $4.50 to go, and he nodded his head dutifully and called.

The river was a King, which wasn’t the greatest card for me because now he might fear a bigger boat. Ben checked to me, and I considered making a small bet that he would have to call. But it occurred to me that he would probably have to call all in, since the turn bet had knocked his stack down to about $5 and the pot was $13. I put him all in, and he called. He didn’t seem all that surprised to see my quads, which, considering my little speech, I guess I can’t blame him for.

Maybe acting isn’t my strong suit?

Hand B
A little later, I was in the in big blind with As-Kc. Nice. I love picking up big hands in the big blind, because I get to see what everyone else does before I decide how strong I want to play them. Especially when it's the Ace of spades. Just a beautiful card.

Anyway, there was an early position limper, and then Sean raised it up to $1 in middle position. Sean is a tight-aggressive player, which normally would be considered a good thing. But unfortunately, he has two major holes in his game: inability to extract the maximum from his opponents and inability to get away from second best hands. Another thing that isn’t necessarily a hole but hurts him is a huge fear of being bluffed. Not the best combination of liabilities for a no limit hold’em player.

It was folded around to me, and I re-raised to $3.25. The limper folded, and Sean thought for a moment before calling. The flop was almost too good: Ac-Ad-4s. A monster for me, but normally trip Aces don’t get paid off all that well. So I had to ask myself, How do I make sure I get something out of this for once? I don’t want to scare Sean out of the pot. But if I check, I’ll have two options if he bets. I can either check-call or check-raise him. Either of these moves looks scary to most hands he could have that don't contain an Ace.

What I want to do is make it look like I’m trying to steal the pot from him. With a board like A-A-x, most players just won’t put you on the Ace until your actions say that you have it. Furthermore, just about no one is expecting you to bet a flop like that if you’re holding an Ace. If I bet here, I can really use Sean’s fear of being bluffed against him. I decided to make a smallish bet relative to the pot size ($3.75 into $6.85) and hope to the poker gods that he was holding a pocket pair. A bigger bet might look even more like a steal, but there's a chance Sean will fold to it anyway just because it's so large.

After I bet, I thought I would try and augment my deceptive play with a little more acting. Sean is an experienced enough player to recognize that typically weak means strong and strong means weak when it comes to physical tells. Initially, I considered acting strong in hopes that he would read me as weak. Still, that wouldn’t be convincing enough. Even better would be if I could act like I was acting strong. That is, I wanted to appear that I was weak and trying to appear strong. Do all the things players do when they're afraid but are trying their hardest not to show it. I pulled my hat down low so that he couldn’t see my eyes. I balled my hands into fists and used them to cover my mouth. I sat there like a statue, waiting for him to act, hoping he would take the bait.

He thought for a while, and called.

The turn was a bit of a scare card for me – the Jack of clubs. I was still pretty sure I had him beat, but immediately I started getting nervous. I had put him on a high-ish pair, and if he’d had pocket Jacks, he had just made a full house on me. Similarly, if he had smooth-called on the flop trying to trap me with A-J, he had just made an even better full house. I wasn’t all that happy to see it.

Still, this is poker, not tiddly-winks. If my charade was going to work, I had to keep looking like I was bluffing him. I bet out $5.75, throwing the chips out aggressively and in his direction. I was acting like I wanted him out of the pot, and I have to admit, the wee bit of nervousness I felt from seeing the Jack come out probably helped me to appear afraid of a call.

Sean thought a little longer this time, and the longer he thought the more convinced I became that he was holding either pocket Queens or pocket 10’s. He would have re-raised me preflop with Kings, and he would not have thought this long with any Ace or with pocket Jacks. He definitely would have folded a pair smaller than 10’s to my re-raise before the flop. Eventually Sean decided to push all in. I called and showed him the bad news. He groaned and showed me pocket Queens.**

I felt for him, he was in a rough spot there. But I was also kinda satisfied with myself. See, Sean is a full-time actor, and probably sees bad performances all the time. So maybe my acting ability isn’t quite as terrible as I’d thought; I had just managed to act my way into $30 worth of his chips. :-P


**As a side note, I think him losing that pot ended up costing him even more money later on. He got bluffed out of a very large pot while holding pocket Queens when there was a King on the board. He bet and called a raise on the flop, then checked and thought forever before folding to a big bet on the turn. I can’t be sure, but something tells me that losing the pot to me with Queens earlier was bouncing around in his head when he made the laydown later in the evening. Ouch.

Acting Strong when you’re Strong

It’s heads up on the turn, and you’re out of position against a solid player. You’re holding the Js-9c when the flop came Qh-Tc-6s. The turn is the 8s, giving you the nut straight. You check, because your opponent showed some strength on the flop and now that you have the nuts, you hope that she will bet again. Sure enough, she does bet half the pot. You pretend to think a while, trying to decide what to do, and decide to just call hoping that she will put you on some kind of draw. That way, if the draw misses, you may be able to get some kind of action out of her on the river.

The river is the 2h. Bingo! The board did not pair, did not complete a flush and did not complete a bigger straight. So we still have the nuts. Now, how do we get paid off?

Out of position, there are three options**. You can check again, hoping that she will bet out and you can get in a check-raise. You can make a value bet, hoping that she will call or raise you. Or you can move all-in and hope that she calls. Let see how each of these courses of action plays out.

1) Checking
This is the play that a lot of players would make. Since our opponent has bet on the flop and the turn, chances are she has at least a Queen (unless she’s totally bluffing). Even better would be if she has something as strong as two pair or trips, or 7-9 for a smaller straight. These are hands she would probably bet for value since the river was a blank. So it seems like checking in hopes of check-raising might be a good way to get our big hand paid off.

The problem with a check here is if she isn’t all that strong. How many times have you checked the river to trap only to kick yourself when the opponent checks as well? If she only has a Queen (one pair) or if she was totally bluffing, then there is a good chance that our opponent will check right behind us. Remember, that we’re up against a solid player. She will recognize that we have checked and called on two streets, and she isn’t likely to fire a third bullet without a huge hand. If she senses weakness, she might try and make a big bet to push us out, but few players have the fortitude to fire the third bullet on the river when they have been called down to that point. So there is a real danger that checking the river will not induce a third bet from our opponent.

2) Betting for Value
Another play that I see a lot is the value bet on the river. We want to avoid the pitfall of checking the river and having our solid opponent check as well. So we make a smallish suck-bet (perhaps 30-40% of the pot) in hopes that we will be called. It looks suspicious, since the 2h likely didn’t help us any. So we may get called by hands like A-Q, and we may even get raised by other hands. Since our opponent appears strong, let’s see if she’ll pay us off.

This option also has its issues. One big problem with a value bet is that, to a solid player, it looks like a value bet. Solid players will begin to consider the possibilities of what you could be betting for value, and will make the appropriate response. A bluffer will surely fold, and single pairs might do the same. Hands that are two pair or better might still reluctantly call, but then they might not depending on how good our opponent is.

3) Moving All-In
Most players shy away from this move when they have the nuts. They want to be sure they get paid off, and they feel that moving all-in will scare off hands that they want calling. The obvious benefit to moving all-in is that if you’re called, you’re guaranteed to have extracted the maximum from your opponent. If you check and they check (i.e., call your bet of $0) then you definitely haven’t gotten the maximum. Likewise, if you bet for value and they call, you’re always unsure if you could have gotten just a little bit more from them.

Despite this benefit, very few players would put in all their chips on the river with such a strong hand. They want to make a bet that would get called. But let’s look a little closer at the hands our solid opponent could have, and how she would respond to a push on the river.

A bad player that had been bluffing all along might bet into us if we check to her, but a solid player is less likely to do so. So a solid player that has been bluffing to this point will probably surrender if checked to, and certainly won’t call a value bet with rags.

Hands like A-Q or K-Q might have checked the river if we checked to them, giving up trying to take it down by betting and just hoping to show down the best hand. They also might fold if we bet for value, depending on the pot odds and their read on us. So we’re probably not going to get much from single pairs by either checking the river or betting it for value.

Hands that are two pair or better, however, are the hands that we might be able to get some action from by either checking or betting for value. These are stronger hands, and our opponent is looking to get value from her good hands just like we are. However, I would like to propose that the same hands that might call a value bet on the river might also call your all-in bet in the same situation.

Consider checking to a hand like a set of 6’s, hoping to trap her. She will make a value bet on the river, and you can check-raise her all-in. Will this solid opponent call your check-raise? Possibly, but from her point of view calling a check-raise is starting to seem negative EV. You have check-called her on the flop and the turn, and now you are check-raising her? It’s beginning to look like you’ve been trapping her instead of the other way around, and if she’s good enough there’s a chance that she might just talk herself into laying down her small set.

If you bet for value into her set, she will similarly slow down a bit. She’s probably not going to fold her set to a value bet, but she’s less likely to raise you than you might hope. After you’ve checked-called her twice, and then decide to bet into her on the river, a solid player may decide that it’s best to just call your bet with her strong (but non-nut) hand.

But what if you move all-in? This bet looks really suspicious, given the way the hand has been played thus far. You have check-called twice, representing that you are on a draw or trapping with a monster. For you to push all-in out of position looks a lot like you’re trying to buy the pot with a busted draw. If you had a monster hand, wouldn’t you just make a value bet and hope to get paid off? Furthermore, it’s less likely for you to have two pair or a set if she has two pair or a set herself, just because some of the cards you would need are accounted for. So while she still might fold hands like A-Q, she might be more inclined to call with stronger hands due to your deception. And since she might not have called your value bet with a single pair anyway, you’re not really sacrificing that many bets if she folds. The hands that she will call a value bet with are pretty much the same hands that she would call all in with. Your move on the river just looks too much like a steal. She’s more likely to call with anything decent.

One last thing before I go. Even if our opponent does correctly fold, it’s not the worst thing that could happen. Chances are we wouldn’t have won much more anyway. And furthermore, we get to pick up the pot without showing down the hand. Any time you are able to do this, it’s a bonus for your table image. Your opponent, and indeed everyone else at the table will have to ponder whether or not you were bluffing. The all-in move on the river just generally looks like a bluff. And if you occasionally do it when you have the goods, some of those times you’re going to get someone to call.

This is a realization I came to while working through Harrington on Hold’Em Vol. III, but I don’t pretend to believe my example was written as eloquently as his. Still, I hope that this analysis will help your post-flop play as much as it helped mine.


** For simplicity's sake, I have narrowed the number of options under the gun from a nearly infinite number down to three. I have essentially categorized all bets up to 100% the size of the pot as "Value Bets" and bets greater than than the size of the pot as "All-In Bets." I recognize that this is imprecise; however, I consider said imprecision to be immaterial to the argument as a whole.

A Hand from Poker After Dark

I was watching Monday night’s episode of Poker After Dark on DVR last night with Billy and my girlfriend Debbie. Debbie and I have had issues over poker in the past, but now that she’s playing in our home game, I’ve sort of taken her on as my protege. As part of her training, we were discussing the hands on the show as they were being played.

(Side note: DVR is freaking awesome! It really makes me wonder how much better TiVo is … anyone know? I was completely sold on digital recording within the first five minutes of playing around with it.)

Poker After Dark is a really great format for this kind of instruction, because they show so many hands and you get to listen to a lot of the table talk. The WSOP and WPT on TV generally only show the hands that have major impact, and the announcers often overshadow the talk of the players with their commentary. Poker After Dark and High Stakes Poker are much better in both regards, because you get to see how tight and loose the players are being, you get a better sense of what their table image is when they make certain plays, and you get to hear more of their thought processes when they’re faced with decisions. You get to see how they respond to more marginal situations than you would on other shows, instead of always just Jacks versus Ace-King all in preflop. Finally, you get to see what the players are puting each other on when they aren't in the hands, as they talk things over away from the action with Shana Hiatt.

For those unfamiliar, the format of Poker After Dark is as follows: It is an invitational Sit-n-Go with six players each buying in for $20,000 worth of chips. The winner takes everything. The blinds start low and increase fairly slowly at first, giving the players plenty of time to play a lot of deep-stack poker. After a few rounds however, the blinds increase more rapidly, and the field gets eliminated at a much faster rate.


A hand jumped out at me last night that turned out to be an excellent teaching example with Debbie, so I thought I would share it on the blog. The action went like this …

Action:

The blinds were $100 and $200, fairly early on in the tournament. Gabe Kaplan is the chip leader with about $24,000 in chips, Mike Sexton is down a bit, and everyone else is pretty much around the $20,000 that they started with. Gabe limps in with a suited King, as does Mike Sexton with a suited 9. Michael Konik folds, Phil Gordon limps on the button with a suited Ace-5. Howard Lederer also only calls with pocket 10’s in the small blind. Chad Brown, in the big blind with King-Queen of spades, starts counting out chips for a raise.

The players at the table see this, and collectively try to forestall Chad from raising it up. Other than Lederer, they all have suited rags and would like to see the flop cheaply. Phil Gordon especially whines about the imminent raise (can’t stand that guy, but I don’t have time to get into why at the moment. Maybe I’ll write a post about it some day). As a group, they pretty much give away that they aren’t all that strong, giving Chad even more incentive to pop it up on them. He makes a huge over-raise making it $1,600 to go, and watches as the table reluctantly folds back to Lederer.

Howard goes into the tank, which is understandable in his position. It’s fairly obvious that he’s not going to just lay down such a big pair, but Chad’s raise was so large that it gives Howard pause. He eventually decides to re-raise and make it $5,600 to go. Chad barely even thinks before coming back over the top all-in, and after a few moments of deliberation, Howard lays down his hand.

Analysis:

A)

Howard Lederer, a long-time professional poker player, played this hand horribly. He made a mistake (or at least a questionable move) each of the three times it was his turn to act.

The first and most obvious error was not raising initially with the 10’s. He should not have limped in that spot, not against four other players. There aren’t a lot of flops that are good for your hand with 10’s in a multi-way pot. He should raise here just to thin out the field a bit, and to get a better sense of where his opponents are at. This is just basic strategy.

(There is an argument for a more conservative approach, which would render his call acceptable. If the big blind checks and the flop is bad for you, you can get away cheaply and not face any tough decisions. You’ve kept the pot small, so it’s easier to fold and pick a better spot. I don’t like that route, but it’s one way to go. It is defensible enough that I would consider Lederer’s limp to merely be a questionable rather than an outright horrible play. But his play on the hand as a whole was unquestionably bad.)

B)

His second mistake happened after Chad’s raise, when the table folded back to him. He correctly decided to come back over the top – so I have no problem with that. But I think the size of his bet was incorrect for two key reasons.

1. 
   Lederer’s bet is so large that it pot-commits him. He has made it so that if Chad calls and they see a flop, it’s really difficult for Lederer to get away from his 10’s due to the pot size.


2. Lederer’s bet also makes it easier for the hands that he has dominated (like 9’s or 8’s) to fold. A smaller raise might get those hands to stick around, but the raise to $5,600 makes it so that only overcards or a bigger pair can stay in with him. Thus, he will likely only get action from hands that are a coinflip to win the pot, or hands that have him crushed.

C)

But ok, he makes the raise to $5,600, and Chad goes insane and decides that pushing all in with King-Queen suited is the right thing to do. Here, Howard drops the ball yet again. He made a mistake by putting in a raise that pot-committed him, but here he compounds that error by not staying committed to the pot! In order to take down a winner-take-all Sit-n-Go, you have to get in there and gamble a little bit. You can not do things like raising for a quarter of your stack without following through on it.

Howard Lederer is a legend, and he has earned his reputation by playing with some of the best poker players in the world. But even he is not immune to making significant mistakes at the table from time to time.

I guess what they say is true … there’s a little donkey in all of us.

Short-Handed and Short-Stacked

The following is an example of why playing the short stack in a No Limit Hold’em ring game is usually less than optimal for good players.
_ _

No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $0.10/$0.25 Blinds - 5 Players

SB: $16.35
BB: $38.80
UTG: $44.50
CO: $25.10
Hero (Button): $12.30

Preflop: Hero is dealt Jd 9h (5 Players)

UTG folds, CO calls $0.25, Hero calls $0.25, SB calls $0.15, BB checks.

Flop: ($1) Tc-8h-3s (4 Players)

SB bets $1, BB folds, CO calls $1, Hero calls $1.

Turn: ($4) Qc (3 Players)

SB bets $3, CO calls $3, Hero raises all-in to $11.05, SB folds, CO folds.

Okay, a few additional pieces of information. The player in the SB is a novice player, who typically only bets with solid hands, and doesn’t chase much. The player in the cutoff is a solid player, whose play can alternate between loose and tight, who knows pot odds and implied odds.

So, analyzing the hand. I’m the Hero, and I’ve stacked off several chips but decided not to reload to the maximum of $25. I make a fairly reasonable limp preflop on the button, short-handed with my holding. I flop an open-ended straight draw on a rainbow board, and call a bet when the pot is offering me 3:1 odds. Nothing out of the ordinary here.

On the turn, I make the nuts and I am bet into, with a caller in between. If I call the bet, I will have a stack of $8.05 remaining to try and get in on the river. So I consider just calling the bet of $3. However, the turn that gave me the nuts has also created a flush draw, putting a second club out there. A third club on the river could be disastrous to my hand. Similarly, my two opponents could be "trapping" with two pair or a set, and could make their full houses on the river. Hence, I have a very strong, but still somewhat vulnerable, hand.

I choose to protect it.

I decide to put in a raise, forcing weaker hands to pay a good amount in order to draw out on me. How much to raise? Well, my typical raise would be 3-4x the initial bet. However, since the bet was $3 and my stack is $11.05 at this point, such a raise means putting myself all in. Thus, my two options are to fold or push. I choose to push.

My two opponents thought and thought about their actions, but eventually they correctly folded. The SB’s fold was to be expected (it turned out that she was holding pocket Jacks). The CO’s fold was more of a surprise, once I saw his hole cards. He had 10-9, giving him second pair and a double belly-buster straight draw. From his point of view, he probably had a lot of outs to call with. So what caused him to fold?

This was an aware player – one familiar with the concepts of pot odds and implied odds. While he only had to call another $8.05 in order to see the river, he elected to lay down his hand. He told me later that he would have called a smaller bet, or if the SB called. But in my position, I couldn’t really make a smaller bet. Being short-stacked did not allow me to do so. If I’d had another $10 behind (starting out with $22.30 instead of $12.30), I could have made a smaller raise, to say $6 or $7. This means he would only have to call another $3-4 in order to see the river.

Alternatively, I could have still made a healthy raise (say to $9 or $10) and he would have been more likely to call me if I’d had more money behind. As a player aware of implied odds, he realized that if he called my bet of $11.05, that was the most that he could win if he hit his hand. However, if I had raised to $9 and still had another $12 for him to win on the river, he would have had an easier time calling. Make sense? When I'm all in for $11.06, he's risking his chips in order to win a certain-sized pot. However, if I bet $9, and still have another $12 after that, he can call the $9 and hope to win even more money if he hits on the river.

Given the situation, I did not make any errors. I played the hand in a straightforward manner, and I won a decent-sized pot. Nothing wrong with that.

However, I likely cost myself money by playing with a short stack. Even though I had played the hand flawlessly with my short stack, I could have put myself in a situation to win more money if I had rebought to the maximum before the flop. For a bad player, playing a short stack is not the worst strategy because you limit the amount that you can possibly lose. For a good player, on the other hand, playing the short stack often means limiting the amount that you can possibly win.

And money not won is essentially the same as money lost.

Looking to Your Left

We have all heard that position in Texas Hold’Em (indeed, in all forms of poker) is one of the most important aspects of the game. Intuitively, it just makes sense; being able to act after other the players allows you to make a more informed decision.

As a poker session progresses, the players to your left will have position on you in the majority of hands. They will have the best chances to take pots away from you with aggression, and to get out of the way when you're the one showing strength. As a result, it is generally optimal to play the hands in which you have as few players on your left between you and button as possible.

But we don’t always get to play under optimal conditions, do we? Most everyone can figure out what to do when the pot is folded to you and you’re holding A-J on the button. I don’t think many players have a problem folding 7-2 offsuit under the gun before the flop. It gets a bit tricker, however, when you’re dealt something like A-8 of spades and are second to act preflop. You don’t want to get caught in a tough situation later in the hand, which is what a holding like this will often do to you. At the same time, there’s a chance it might be the best hand at this point in the action. You don’t necessarily want to automatically throw it away, even though you’re out of position.

This is why I think it is important to get into the habit of looking to your left at the poker table. I played in a home game recently where they observed a house policy called “Karen Rules.” The way it worked was that if the pot was unraised before the flop, the small blind could ask the big blind whether or not he intended to raise before calling the big blind. The big blind was then obligated to give a truthful answer, and the small blind could then call, raise, or fold based upon that answer.

Unfortunately, in the vast majority of the poker games out there, the players after you are not going to tell you what they intend to do. At least not verbally. But quite often, players will subconsciously give off information about how strong their hands are. The tells that I’m about to list are not that deep or complicated, nor do they require a lot of practice to spot. A glance at the players to your left will often reveal some basic things about how they are planning to act. What does this do? It effectively gives you position on those players, because you know, with pretty good reliability, what their coming action will be.

Ready to Muck
One of the most common of these tells is the player that has examined his hole cards, decided not to play them, and is holding them in his hands, ready to toss them in the muck. This player is typically the impatient type, and wants to get on to the next hand. Thus, they hold their cards ready because the faster they can fold, the sooner the next hand can be dealt. It is typically safe to bet out against these players.

Reaching for Chips
Similar to the last tell, this one is another sign of an impatient player. It is generally an indicator that the player likes his cards, and plans to make a bet or raise. Oftentimes, a player will actually have the chips ready in his hand that he plans to raise with. He is just waiting for the action to get to him so he can pop it up. Typically, the correct move here is to fold, limp in or check. If you have a weak hand, you don’t want to make a raise only to get re-raised by this guy. And if you have a strong hand, you can get more value from it by acting weakly, allowing the guy to go ahead and bet, and then coming over the top for a raise.

Suddenly Paying Attention
If a player on your left has been casual most of the game, watching television or whatever, and suddenly perks up after looking at his cards, it means he likes what he saw! All of a sudden he’ll be looking around at the other players, paying attention to what the action is. If he’s been slouching, he’ll often sit upright. Suddenly he’ll be very interested in what everyone else is doing.

Remains Disinterested
This tell is the flip side of the last tell. If a player is not interested in the game, checks his cards, and then resumes his disinterest, chances are these were not cards that he’s excited about and he’s probably going to fold – or at least not raise. It is often combined with the "Ready to Muck" tell.

Best case scenario, you want to be able to get a read on everyone at the table. But this is often very difficult to do. A player’s reaction to his cards might only last a for split second – so for you to get an accurate idea of each player’s intentions, while also checking your own cards in the time before you have to make a decision can be rather difficult. But if you work on making just a quick glance to your left, you can sometimes pick up information on the players that act immediately after you. The other players will either be across from you (and thus easier to read) or to your right. And you’ll generally have position on the players to your right anyway, so you should be able to pick up tells based upon the way they bet.

Another point to remember -- few things in poker are true across the board. There are certain players out there that are aware of these reaction tells, and will do one of two things to counter them. First, there are players that are aware of these tells and will do the opposite in order to fool you. For instance, if a good player knows you’re watching, he may pretend to be ready to fold his cards in order to get you to bet out. Or he may pick up chips so that you’ll think he’s betting, in order to get you to check or bet less. The problem with their acting is, these players tend to do the opposite action consistently, and it usually becomes just as reliable as if they were giving the tell they're pretending to.

Second, there are players that don’t look at their cards until the action comes to them. This is something I actually recommend, as you can use the time before you have to act to glean information on other players’ holdings, while at the same time not giving away information about your own hand.

How will you know if your opponent is giving a tell or acting? It’s not that hard. Just remember this general rule of thumb: Bad players give true information about their hands. Good players give false information. Great players don’t give any information about their hands at all, true or false.

I hope all that makes sense to you the way it made sense in my head. And I hope that it wins you some money.

Or saves you some.

Same thing, I guess.

The preceding is an expansion on a concept from Matt Lessinger’s instructional poker book, “The Book of Bluffs.

"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 …

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.

Sharks and Fish

*I wrote this while I was in Thailand and I thought it was pretty decent. I tried to shop it to Two Plus Two but they weren't interested so here it is. In the future, I plan on going in depth on a couple of the ideas I bring up in this. *

INTRODUCTION

Shark. Fish. They are two of the more common expressions in poker. One conjures images of great hunters of the sea: savage aggression, flesh-severing teeth, and a hauntingly efficient nose for blood. The latter is shark food. They are more numerous but less dangerous and more… ordinary.

Poker players share many similarities with wild animals such as sharks and fish. To both, survival is of the utmost importance as there are always hunters and competitors lurking. However, survival alone is not enough to be successful. For this, one needs to survive AND reproduce. Good players understand that the goal isn’t merely to protect your chips. Nor is it to put your chips constantly at risk while attempting to generate more. Instead, the optimal ratio lies somewhere in between these polar strategies.

Behavioral ecologists have found that animals also must find this balance. Only they don’t study texts and theory to determine which way is best. Instead they discover it through trial and error while risking something much more valuable than the chips that are in front of us. The ones that use the most efficient strategies are the ones that survive and reproduce. The rest, at varying rates, eventually go broke.

PREDATOR AND PREY STRATEGIES

Despite the prevalence of terms like shark and fish, and perhaps because of them, much of the wealth of information available from the natural world has been overlooked. For millions of years, predators and prey have waged an evolutionary arms race towards survival and greater reproductive success. There have been strategies and counter-strategies and counter-counter-strategies. Poker players have a chance to learn from the best of the best.

A few examples of prey strategies used for thwarting predators and of hunter counter-methods should illustrate the applicability of these tactics to poker.

Detection and anti-detection strategies are often the simplest and most intuitive methods. For example, some desert rodents such as Banner-Tailed Kangaroo Rats forage more on moonless nights than on well-lit ones (Kotler 1984; Lockard 1978). This is presumably because their avian hunters have a more difficult time spotting them when there is no moon (Kotler 1984; Lockard 1978). Similarly it would be advantageous for a relatively unskilled poker player to avoid playing when many better players are around.

Many creatures also use cryptic behavior to avoid detection; they use camouflage to blend into the background. Predators have developed a method to counter-act this and to decrease the amount of time spent looking for food. They make use of search images (Tinbergen 1960). Blue Jays do this by stressing subtle visual markers associated with their food while searching (Pietrewicz and Kamil 1979). Poker players can do the same by creating stereotypes and generalizations, then applying them to the people sitting at the table around them. This timesaving shortcut will increase the speed with which one can identify everyone at the table. It could also be used to identify the variety of fish preferred from the others in a quick and timely fashion.

Even if they are detected, prey have strategies that can deter predators from attacking. One such method is association with a protected species. For example, close proximity to wasps or ants that are particularly aggressive towards one’s predators could provide some safety (Alcock 1997). A monkey will prefer to raid someone else’s nest if it has to brave painful wasps in order to reach yours (Joyce 1993). Similarly, if one is seated near a wild, lucky player with a big stack or near a good loose and aggressive player that player could be used as a buffer or shield. It would be very difficult for a shark to target you because he is also risking a tango with the other player’s stack.

Displaying warning coloration is another attack deterrent strategy. The goal is to advertise your unpleasantness so that the predator recognizes and avoids you (Alcock 1997). Even though the predator would probably still be able to eat the prey, it won’t like it very much if it gets sick, injured, or dies from the process. Thus warning coloration spares both the predator and the prey from unpleasantness. Monarch butterflies are famous for this (Wiklund and Sillén-Tullberg 1985). Their predators become ill and vomit after digestion and quickly learn to avoid them in the future (Wiklund and Sillén-Tullberg 1985). Many good poker players also use this strategy. They utilize a tight and aggressive table image to advertise that any potential attackers would be playing from behind.

All is not lost if you aren’t a good poker player or a toxic butterfly. There is also a deceptive side to warning coloration called Batesian Mimicry after Henry Bates, the naturalist who discovered it (Alcock 1997). Non-toxic and fishy individuals both can display warning coloration to deceive predators away from what would otherwise be a tasty snack. This is because although they, themselves, are not dangerous, the predators will avoid them due to their resemblance, at a glance, to their more unpleasant brethren.

Finally Optimal Foraging Theory warrants mentioning. This states that for one to forage optimally, it should choose food that provides the most energy for the least amount of effort (Wikipedia OFT). For clam-eating crows, this means ignoring smaller clams and focusing instead on larger ones (Richardson and Verbeek 1986). Small clams do not maximize food per energy spent (Richardson and Verbeek 1986). For poker sharks, this means searching for fish with a lot of money already on the table a.k.a. ATMs. Neither the poker players or the crows will be performing as well as they could if they wasted time on small prey when they could go for the larger stacks instead.

There is also a silver lining to this for people who find that he/she is being seated at a table consisting of more talented and stronger players. By buying in for a small amount, say the minimum buy-in, one might be able to play under the radar. After all, good players will be trying to forage optimally and to them you are only small clams.

CONCLUSION

The strategies discussed are just the tip of the iceberg. They represent a simplified sampling of predator and prey strategies that could be found in most animal behavior and behavioral ecology textbooks such as Alcock’s Animal Behavior. More complex strategies and greater analysis are published in various scientific journals; many of which are available on the Internet. Finally, predator and prey strategies aren’t the only aspects of behavioral ecology relevant to poker. Others include coping strategies for unpredictable and changing environments, stimulus filtering, habitat selection, migration, and competition with like individuals.

Much can be learned from these effective stratagems, which have been evolving for millions of years. Even if some seem elementary, one should remember that often the simplest strategies are the most efficient. But they are often the most overlooked.

REFERENCES

Alcock, J. Animal Behavior, 6^th Ed. Sinauer Associates, Inc: Sunderland, Massachusetts. 1997.

Joyce, F.J. “Nesting Success of Rufous-Naped Wrens (Campylorhynchus ruifnucha) is Greater Near Wasp Nests.” Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 32: pp. 71-78. 1993.

Kotler, B.P. “Effects of Illumination on the Rate of Resource Harvesting in a Community of Desert Rodents.” American Midland Naturalist 11: pp. 383-389. 1984.

Lockard, R.B. “Seasonal Change in the Activity Pattern of Dipodomys spectabilis.” Journal of Mammalogy 59: pp. 563-568. 1978.

“Optimal Foraging Theory.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimal_foraging_theory. 2006.

Pietrewicz, A.T. and Kamil, A.C. “Search Image Formation in the Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata).” Science 204: pp. 1332-1333. 1979.

Richardson, H. and Verbeek, N.A.M. “Diet Selection and Optimization by Northwestern Crows Feeding on Japanese Littleneck Clams.” Ecology 67: pp. 1219-1226. 1986.

Tinbergen, N. The Herring Gull’s World. Doubleday: Garden City, New York. 1960.

Wiklund, C. and Sillén-Tullberg, B. “Why Distasteful Butterflies Have Aposematic Larvae and Adults, But Cryptic Pupae: Evidence from Predation Experiments on the Monarch and the European Swallowtail.” Evolution 39: pp. 1155-1158. 1985.

OverCard PreFlop Odds

The typical response to overcards versus a pocket pair is that it is a race. While sometimes this is true, often its closer to 60-40 with the pair ahead. However, I had always assumed that the more small pocket pairs in the hand, the better. There is a lot more money and you still have the same amount of outs while the pairs aren't gaining too much. Let's break it down.

Say you have $1,000 and you push all in with A-Q offsuit. Pocket tens calls you. The tens wins the hand 57% of the time. So if you play this hand 100 times, you lose $7,000. Not much of a race when you look at it that way.

Now let's add a second pocket pair to the mix. You only win now 35% of the time. However, because the pot is $3000 it's slightly better. If you play this hand 100 times, you win a total of $105,000 for a net gain of $5,000. That's better.

Let's go one step farther and add a third pocket pair. Do you think it get's better or worse for A-Q? Before I ran this exercise, I assumed it would be even better. Was I right? We'll add pocket jacks to the mix and see. Now A-Q wins a pot of $4,000 29% of the time. Now there is a gain of $16,000 over 100 hands. This is the situation I was in when I got knocked out of Bodog's Sunday Guarantee. A-Q vs Jacks vs Tens vs 4s. The 4s made a full house to take down the huge pot but I really couldn't ask for a better situation.

Or could I? What about if there are 4 or 5 or 6 pocket pairs? Does it just keep getting better for A-Q or is there a peak somewhere along the line? If you add a fourth pair, pocket sixes, you drop down to +$15,000 over 100 hands. If you add a fifth or sixth, it drops to +$8000 and then -$2000. Granted these are all unlikely scenarios but it's interesting to know just in case.

One final question, how big of a difference does having a suited A-Q make? Against three pocket pairs it makes $20,000 over 100 hands. That's $4,000 more just for having suited cards. (And people say being suited is overrated!). If there is a fourth, it drops marginally but stays around the $20,000 mark. The same can be said if there are five pocket pairs.

Concluding point: If you are going to race with overcards, its better to be suited, but no matter what the best that you can hope for is three smaller pocket pairs calling your all in. Not more and not less.

*All values presented are approximates and will change slightly depending on the exact nature of the hands that you might be up against.*

Bodog Observations

1. I played in a 6-handed No Limit Hold’em tournament. UTG raised two-thirds to three quarters of the hands. Is there some strategy article to playing 6-handed that I’ve missed the past couple years that says to always raise UTG? I felt like I was playing with a bunch of fish that always raise on the button at a full table. I’ve heard and like the strategy for 3, 4, or 5 handed games but I think it’s a bit of a stretch to do it all the time in a 6-handed game.
2. I noticed that some players are using the auto-raise button to send out misinformation. Normally at the stakes I play and with the fish I play, when someone uses the auto-raise button, it’s because they have a big hand. Pre-flop they are often good for queens, kings, aces, and sometimes ace-king. After the flop it could indicate a set or two pair. What I’ve been noticing though is that players in late positions are using it when they have draws. Often someone will bet in an earlier position with say top pair. The person in late position auto-raises. This screams monster hand to the original better, but that person calls anyways because of the cheap price to call a minimum raise. Then the original better checks the turn if it doesn’t help. Then the raiser has the option of continuing with his monster hand bluff or checking and getting a free card to his draw. It seems to be working well for these players especially against passive opponents and is something that I might toy around with to see if it’s worth adding to my arsenal.
3. This isn’t really as much of an observation as it was a thought I’ve been toying with. The goal of poker is to make as much money as possible. There are three ways to go about this. The first is to maximize your winnings with the best hand. The second is to minimize your losses with the worst hand. The third is to force your opponent to fold the best hand. Using typical tight and aggressive poker, you are putting yourself in good situations to do these three things. However, if you are a good player, are you really maximizing your winnings? The reason I ask is that even crappy hands such as deuce-seven off-suit win a certain percent of the time. Every time you fold one of these hands because you are playing tight you are passing up on this 5% or 10% or whatever chance of winning. However if you play a controlled loose strategy, you aren’t just giving yourself a chance to win with your 60%, 70%, and 80% hands but also giving yourself a chance to win with the 10% ones or the 20% ones.

Wasting Time?

I’ve been slacking on my posts lately. Thankfully Jamin has been picking it up with his Atlantic City recap. You would think that having no real job, living at home with your parents, and sitting around 90% of the time would be a great formula for a ridiculous amount of posts. It’s not. There is so much crap out there that has the singular goal of distracting us so that we aren’t out there doing things. Ultimately, these things hurt us. I think it’s hurting my poker but I think it’s a hurting society in general. How much more time would we spend with our friends and families or our hobbies or our job if it weren’t for television and video games and movies and the internet and books? Yes even books.

Let’s take a very narrow look at this phenomenon to see how only poker distractions affect my life. My typical day is 11am to 3:30am. I probably spend an hour every day browsing poker-related websites. I spend another hour reading the articles that I’ve noted as readable. I watch Poker After Dark every night for an hour. Often I watch an hour or two of WSOP or other poker replays. I spend uncountable hours talking about poker with my friends and I normally get in somewhere between 2 and 5 hours of solid online play every night. With my copy of the Mathematics of Poker arriving tomorrow, even more of my time will be taken up by poker.

Here is the point I’m trying to make. If playing is considered my job and I do consider it a job, then I should spend the majority of my time working. On good days it’s five hours of play. On bad days I play about two hours. I’d say that averages out over time to three and a half hours every day. Yet I am easily spending an equal or greater amount of time reading, watching, and talking poker. That’s 3+ hours every day where I could be working that I am losing out on. There are merits of attacking poker from another a different angle to try to improve your game but nothing beats personal experience. At some point you have to wonder how much of the poker saturation has a minor or subconscious goal of keeping us interested in poker but away from the table. Every time a pro appears on TV or writes a book, he is doing two things: 1) Keeping us away from the felt and 2) Maintaining our interest level. How many people watch this stuff and think, I can beat these guys? I know I have thought it before. They don’t always look untouchable. Take Negreanu on Season 2 of High Stakes Poker. He was on tilt. I could have taken all his money. My dad could have taken all his money. Even some bum who’s never played before would have a chance. We are tempted to play but without the requisite experience needed and we are wasting time getting tempted that could be used to get that experience.

Now this is just poker. There’s a bigger message here. How many hours do we watch sitcoms or sports or talk shows or movies or sit alone with a book? How much of that time could be used to making our lives better? Better jobs, happier families, and more fun. There’s a place for this type of entertainment but like everything, it should be in moderation. Hopefully if you do that, you will find your life becomes better, be it poker or whatever.

Playing Against Tight Passive Bonus Whores

If you would have asked me a month ago which aspect of poker would give me the most grief in my return, I probably would have said live games; the reason being that I would not have a lot of opportunity to play in them and would be playing on a very limited bankroll. Apparently I was wrong. I’m readjusting much slower to the swings in poker than I had expected and the tight passive bonus whores at Tony G are the latest to give me fits. I’m not getting killed as I’m even despite last night’s fiasco but I’m not exactly beating the game either. Needless to say I was frustrated by my downswing. Instead of chalking it up to a bad session, I had to torture myself by going through everything to see where I made mistakes and then by looking up strategies for these types of opponents to see if I could choose a better one.

First off, the general strategic advice for playing against tight passive players is to be aggressive pre-flop and on the flop, then to slow way down if they show backbone because they probably have a great hand. This is what I started out trying to do but I got away from it for two reasons that I can surmise. 1) The majority that I’m up against seem to be experienced bonus-whores. What this mean is that despite their tight passive orientation, they aren’t bad players. They recognized that I was being aggressive and adjusted accordingly when I was in hands with them. Thus they limited the amount of damage I could do to them and made it costly to try to steal with weak hands. 2) I got in some tough hands right off the bat like over pairs vs. over pairs and such. I felt like Teddy KGB. I was struggling with my reads. They check call with pocket aces, with flush or straight draws, and with TPTK. I didn’t know what they had. Thus I got frustrated and I started playing more passively. That’s exactly what they wanted me to do.

Next, where was I making mistakes? I think the biggest mistake I was making was in starting hand selection. For a little review, there are a few main factors in choosing starting hands. The first is your relative skill vs. that of the rest of the table. The second is how tight/loose and passive/aggressive the table is playing. The third is folding equity and it is in some ways a combination of the two. Both at Bodog and in live games, I have been playing a loose aggressive style. There is a huge skill advantage separating the majority of my opponents from me. The players tend to be tight enough to not chase with nothing but loose enough to get in kicker battles or to chase without the correct odds. They play the usual strong means weak and weak means strong strategy so they are easy to read. Thus, folding equity is very small in comparison to how much can be made seeing lots of flops cheaply. I brought this strategy to Tony G and failed to adjust when the situation proved differently. The skill advantage is much reduced at Tony G. The players are much tighter and are more passive so you are much less likely to win a big pot. Thus the folding equity is much greater. There is really no reason to see lots of cheap pots because I’m not likely to get paid off when I hit.

So in order to improve I need to do two obvious things. 1) I need to tighten up. I should still play comparatively loose but not nearly as loose as I have been playing. 2) I need to go back to playing aggressively and I need to take notes about who to shut down after the flop against and who I can keep pushing at.

Basically I just need to go back to playing basic tight aggressive poker. Hopefully that will be enough to pull me off the break even line and into the land of profits.

Winning vs. Cashing, Part II

About six months ago, I submitted this post, which more or less originated from debates between Billy and myself about how to play coinflip situations in Multi-Table Tournaments (MTTs). He has consistently argued that it's better to gamble early -- to always take the statistical edge even if means the risk of busting out before hitting the money. OTOH, I have typically advocated picking your spots and occasionally folding these races. I doubt we'll ever really agree on this question.

In reading through several threads of the Two-Plus-Two forums, I was surprised to find that the successful online tournament players don't unanimously agree on this topic. I thought I would be able to gather evidence that would either prove me right or explain to me just why I was wrong. It turns out that there are two basic camps when this question is raised -- the survivalists (me) and the accumulators (Billy). The survivalists' main argument is that in order to make the money in a tournament, you have to last a certain length of time. The accumulators counter that it is impossible to survive long enough without taking some gambles early to build up your stack.

If you have any experience playing in MTTs, you can see why this is such a heated debate.

BOTH SIDES ARE CORRECT!

The theoretical hand being discussed on Two-Plus-Two was this: It's the very first hand of a large online MTT. You start out with T10,000 chips. You pick up pocket tens. Assuming you know he's holding AK suited (whether he shows, or tells you -- whatever) and his raise all-in causes the rest of the table to fold to you, would you call?

The question seems fairly straightforward. With so many known variables, you would think the hand would just about play itself. Wrong. The accumulators responded flatly that the call is correct, no matter what the stage of the tournament is. You're a 54% favorite to win the hand. You're a favorite, so you should call. Simple as that.

But the survivalists retorted that it's not that simple. On the first hand of a tournament, the blinds are probably small relative to stack sizes. So is it worth risking your entire shot at the money just for a slight statistical edge. The survivalists put the burden of proof on the accumulators. How could they prove that winning T20,000 54% of the time was better than folding and keeping T10,000 100% of the time? Naturally, the poker mind may be tempted to head in the direction of expected value for find the explanation. But one must remember, winning the first hand does not necessarily affect one's expected value for the tournament all that significantly. Losing the first hand clearly does. If the tournament has 500 entrants, are you that much better off with T20,000 and 499 players remaining than with T10,000 chips and 500 players remaining? Twice as many chips, sure. But how long will that last? I think it's pretty rare that all the early chip leaders remain in front and end up taking down the tourney.

I can see the arguments for both -- much clearer that I could before. I am less blinded than I once was about my personal opinion on the matter. But that opinion remains my opinion.

I think, for one, it's generally better to be the aggressor in pots rather than calling someone's all-in. Two, I think in most tournaments as blinds go up and opponents begin to panic, they will be more than willing to dump their stacks holding top pair against whatever superior hand I'm holding. I've done much better in tournaments where I trapped a guy into betting his stack on the flop with only overcards than in those where I happened to double or triple my stack at the first table.

HOWEVER, if I have attained a big stack relative to my table, I have to admit that I put on the accumulator hat. I will certainly call all in with 10s if I know my opponent can't knock me out or cripple me. I'll push those marginal edges as far as they'll go when my stack is big.

The poker world may not come to a concensus on this topic in the near future. But I think it's beneficial to have the discussion. In the end, a more central point of view probably works best. You can't be so timid that you blind yourself to death -- at some point you HAVE to get in there and gamble. I've never cashed in a tourney where I didn't get majorly lucky at least once. At the same time, if you're not one of the better players in the tournament then all the marginal edges in the world aren't going to save you from busting out 10 times out of 10.

Is this a leak?

Maybe you've been in this kind of situation before. You're in a pretty loose-passive live game, where pots are rarely raised preflop because raises don't seem to scare out much. The table's player quality is more or less a mixed bag -- two complete fish, a solid player maybe, two regulars and a few home-game champs looking for a good time. So it's evident early on that you're the best player at the table. You win some nice-sized pots early on by raising before the flop, getting several callers, then betting big on the flop and having everyone fold. You've quadrupled your buy-in in less than an hour by doing this.

If you're a strong player, you should be salivating at this scenario.

So eventually this hand comes along, or a few like it at your $1-2 no limit table. You're sitting on a stack of $200 (buy-in is insanely low -- capped at $50) on the button and you look down at 9-4 suited. Four players limp in before you, and a quick sidelong glance at the blinds tells you it's safe to just call. The small blind already has a single $1 chip in hand, ready to go, and the big blind is looking like he can't check fast enough.

Putting in your $2 looks very tempting. The pot is laying very nice immediate pot odds, and the implied odds if you connect solidly with the flop could be quite substantial indeed.

But what about when you miss the flop, or you flop a vulnerable pair (like if 9 is top pair on a rainbow flop or the flop is 2-3-4)? If you flop a flush or flush draw, what are the chances that you will be dominated by a bigger flush draw? What if you flop bottom two? The reverse implied odds are ugly on these scenarios. These problem hands that hit part of the flop can end up costing a lot more than they should.

So basically I'm posting this question because I'm not really sure. I've been playing these hands by ear -- since the games are so loose-passive I can afford to see the flops and turn them my way later on. I've been calling more from late position after seeing a few people limp. But is it worth all those blinds that I've paid only to see a disappointing flop? Is it worth it to take the worst of it when I connect? Granted, I usually get paid off big when I hit those boards hard. But I either lose a little here and there or a lot all at once depending on the board.

My results have been something like this (I'm guestimating, as I can't perfectly track every hand played in casinos): If I play for two hours and win 12 pots of 25BB or more, maybe 1 was won by coming from behind after limping in. The other 11 came from raising with big, paired, suited, and/or connected cards and making hands decent enough to continuation bet.

As a general rule, what do people think about making a bunch of small preflop calls when I don't expect to have much to show down? I'm still ending the sessions a winner. But am I costing myself small fortunes by carelessly throwing in a blind here and there when the pot odds are right? It pains me to think, sometimes, what those semi-donktastic calls are costing me. If I make five such calls in a row, at the $1-2 game that's $10. So say the next hand I get pocket aces and I am fortunate enough to get it all in three-handed before the flop. Also assume my rockets held up. So bleeding off that $10 cost me another $20, because I wasn't able to triple it up when I had a decent hand.

What are y'all's thoughts on this? I think I've become good enough at post flop play (at least against the marks at the Hustler) that it's good for me to see a lot of flops. But am I just giving my excuse to be loose -- which is my natural tendency? Is this a leak in my game, preventing me from soaring to the poker heights where I belong?

Feed[back] me.

Focus on Long-Term Results

I've heard this phrase so many times that it has all but lost its meaning to me. I think that sometimes its utterance is really just a more polite way of saying "I don't want to listen to your bad beat story. You probably didn't play the hand as flawlessly as you claim, anyway. So spare me." It has come to be kind of a sob-story blocker, a means of avoiding the undesirable fate of becoming the proverbial company to a good friend's misery.

So to avoid letting myself grow completely numb to this very-important principle, I decided to actually do it. I forced myself to look back at old hand histories I'd mined from my favorite online poker haunts. I went through most of the posts I had made on this very blog. I thought about all the things I had bought over the past two years with my poker money. All the casino trips -- first to Hollywood Park, then to Commerce and the Hustler, the Bicycle, Morongo, Vegas, Florida. All the bonus whoring online. Countless hours in home games where I'd gotten my poker start.

After thinking through it all, I was forced to conclude that the good far outweighed the bad. I started out playing serious poker on fire. I had no idea what bankroll management was, so I bought in for $50 on PartyPoker during the summer of 2005 and made it $2,200 in four days by running over Sit-n-Go tournaments. I have no idea how I did that. Back then, it all seemed so easy. The money just kept coming.

Somewhere along the line, I lost my way. I was a break-even player for a good 8 months -- winning big playing at Commerce. But when I couldn't make it to the casino (usually due to girlfriend pressure) and I ended up playing online, I would go on ridiculous winning tears in short periods of time only to lose it all back even faster, and more. This cycle went on and on for a while. I thought I had the potential to be great, indeed, showed flashes of that greatness. But I didn't have the self-control to stop when I wasn't playing well. I was skilled (and wild) enough that I could build a bankroll from $20 to $700 in a day, but competitive enough to lose it all back in 3 hours. I went into self-doubt, and eventually left the game for several months. It seemed to me that there was something about winning consistently at poker of which I was destined to remain eternally ignorant. So I gave it up.

But now I'm back. And for the first time in my poker career, I am realistic about my skill level. I know what I'm capable of, and what I'm not. I no longer think I am the best player in the world, but I recognize that I'm still better than the majority of the competition I'll face. I have a better understanding of what it takes to be a consistent winner (at one point in the Spring, I actually considered it sound poker advice to recognize when your luck is good and when it's not so good. I offered that as a pearl of wisdom back in March -- yikes!). The funny thing is, I don't remember a specific moment when the light-bulb clicked on. All of a sudden, I just got it. I knew how to beat the Hustler $1-2 no limit game. I knew how to get myself back off tilt relatively quickly. I found that I was able to lay down overpairs in big bet hold em, when I never remember doing that before.

It's like a new me.

But I feel more-or-less like the same player. I haven't seen any huge cataclysmic events that have changed the way I look at the game. I'm still the same aggressive, slightly loose player I've always been.

It's only when I take a moment to look back ... that I'm able to see how far I've come.

So my advice is to not make the mistake I did. Earlier in my career, I thought focusing on long term results meant basically ignoring the results of individual sessions. I think a lot of players and writers have made that assertion. I now feel (and here I must give credit where it is due -- thanks, B) that to ignoring short-term results is fallacious. It is absolutely critical to analyze individual sessions, and individual hands, in terms of their results. But the trick is to not get caught up in that. Once in a while, take a step back -- I mean, really take the time -- and just ask yourself these questions:

1) How much has my bankroll grown over the last six months? Over the past year?
2) How much has my skill-set grown over the past year?
3) What personal and poker goals do I have over the next six months? The next year?
4) How will I reach those goals?

This gets into the issue of keeping records, etc. That's a topic for another post. My main point is this: as you continue along your poker path, don't let those words of wisdom you learned early on fade into background noise.

Think of them like Beatles songs -- oldies but goodies.