Tourney Report: $500k Guaranteed at Commerce

I decided to play a $220 buy-in No Limit Hold'em tournament at Commerce yesterday. First prize was going to be six figures, and I wanted a change-up to the cash games. I've been on a major downswing, and I thought my confidence might benefit from the relatively easy decisions of a tournament. I have a stellar record of cashing in low buy-in casino tournaments, so this seemed like it would be a good investment.

The tourney started at 2pm, so I arrived at 1:20 thinking I'd have plenty of time to register and relax a bit before the action. How wrong I was. They had already sold all the seats (800), and the line for alternates was over 100 players deep. The way the alternates works is, as players bust out you get called in by number. You get the full starting stack, but the blinds go up while you wait to get into the game. So if the structure is fast, you probably want to be very low on the alternate list as your stack will be too weak to really contend by the time you get in. This tournament, however, had a deep-stacked, slow structure with 40 minute levels. I decided it was worth it to play, even at #168 on the alternate list.

I get into the game after about an hour and a half wait. Once I got in, I folded a few hands until I picked up Q-10 offsuit in early position. There were a few other limpers, and we took a flop of A-K-J rainbow. I had flopped the nuts on the very first hand I'd chosen to play. Even thought I only won a modest-sized pot, I felt like it was going to be a good day.

And it was. I grinded it out pretty well for most of the day for a modest cash. Had a major blowup around 1am, and then lost a race in dramatic fashion to exit the tournament. I got it in again against a guy who had me covered with 8-8 vs his A-K offsuit. The flop of 8-4-3 with two clubs had him drawing dead to running clubs or a running 5, 2 for a wheel. But it came down club, club without pairing the board, and I was finished in 98th place out of 3,293 entries. Good for a whopping $600 in prize money, a $380 profit for my 11 hours of toil.

I am going to give it another go this Saturday in the $250,000 Guaranteed, also at Commerce.

Here is a link for the entire L.A. Poker Open series.

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!

Perfect Poker

Last night I went to the Hustler, and didn't have to wait too long to get into the $1/$2 no limit hold'em game. Once I was seated, I immediately knew that I was a little more dialed in to what was going on than I have been in several months. While I waited for the blinds/button to pass to be dealt in, I was already putting people on hands accurately, profiling my opponents well, and anticipating how they would act on their hands having been seated for only few minutes. Yes, I could feel that, barring some future meltdown or very bad luck, tonight rated to be a big night for me.

My last session had also been at the Hustler, and the results could hardly be more deceiving. I made a few hundred dollars -- (unfortunately) one of my biggest wins in a while. But by making bad reads, lazy decisions, and poorly-timed bluffs, I left a lot of money on the table. The way I was running I easily should have won another $700 Tuesday night, were it not for careless mistakes on my part. I spent Wednesday and Thursday seething at myself and longing for another chance to play the right way.

When I arrived at the game last night, I realized that this was that chance. I was feeling really focused. I was already ahead a little bit for the week so I didn't have to worry too much about losing. This was a great opportunity to prove to myself that I am capable of playing really solid poker when I make a conscious decision to do so.

So I set for myself a goal: try to play four hours of mistake-free poker.

I think I did a pretty good job. I didn't realistically expect to be able to pull it off, but I think having that mindset really helped me to avoid some bad situations. Obviously it is impossible to be completely objective about one's own play, but I turned every single decision I made at the table over and over in my mind both then and since. And I have come up with only three clearly identifiable mistakes from the session.
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#1
Early in the session. On my right I have a good player, an older gentleman who has a habit of flashing his cards when faced with a big decision. And I don't mean that he doesn't protect his cards when he looks at them, where I get to sneak a peek if I really try. It's more like he would show them to me. He would lift them up in front of his face, and since we were on the end of the table (he was the 7 seat, I was the 8), I was the only player that could see his cards. He did this even when I was in the hand! This could potentially be a HUGE advantage over the session.

My mistake? I moved one seat to my left, away from the free information. The reason was that the glare shining on the board was causing me to have to partially stand up to see what the flop, turn and river were. I was worried that standing up to see the cards would open me up to being read by my opponents. They would all be zeroing in on the exact moment that I saw the board, and I didn't want to be giving up that edge. So I moved to the 9 seat so that I could see without straining and avoid facial tells. I might have made the right decision, I don't know. Perhaps not having to strain to see the board (and potentially misreading it) was more profitable. But who knows what I could have made from seeing his cards every time?

(Side note: he ended up moving one chair to his right shortly after I moved, so it probably would have been a moot point. But one could argue that moving away was questionable AT THAT TIME.)

#2
I have A-K suited in the cutoff position, and there are two limps to me (playing six-handed). As it is shaping up to be a family pot and I don't want that, I decide to raise it to $10 (on the larger end of the raising spectrum for that game). It is folded around to the Limper One who, after some thought, calls. Limper Two seems to make a pot odds-driven insta-call.

The flop comes down 7-4-3 all different suits, and it is checked to me. I decide to make a continuation bet of $15, a little more than half the pot. Limper One quickly check-raises to $35, and Limper Two gets out of the way. I think perhaps I can move him off a weak top pair or medium overpair, or maybe he was just making a move on me, so I put him all in without much hesitation. He calls just as rapidly for his remaining $70, and shows me two Queens. Oops. But the turn and river come Ace, King and I win the pot anyway.

Now, I was definitely going to see the turn card. There was no way I was going to fold for $20 when the pot was $75 and I was getting some implied odds as well, not with two overcards and potentially bluffing outs if he had the type of hand that I put him on. So the mistake wasn't that I didn't release my hand at that point. But did I really need to shove? In that game, you honestly don't see too many check-raise bluffs. I really should have discounted the possibility that my hand might be good. There just wasn't all that much chance of A-K beating him. A call there would have given me a lot more flexibility.

#3
I limp in the cutoff with pocket 3's. It is a seven-handed family pot. The flop comes A-A-3 and it is checked to me. Family pot, so someone must have an ace, right? I bet out $8, the button (a very very tight player) calls me, as does a player in early position. Nice.

The turn is a Q, not the best card in the deck. But when you have 3's full, you never know when a card is going to fill your opponents up (if they don't have a full house already). Since I didn't see any shift in my two opponents that would make me think they improved, I wanted to stay aggressive. After a check, I bet out $18 and both players quickly called.

The tight player on the button seemed very agitated however. I know that agitation. It's the feeling that you HAVE TO call down because you have trips, but your kicker is not strong at all. You just hope that they will check the next street so you can save some money.

The river was an 8. The first player to act was all in by calling the turn, and the tight button player had $65 left. For some reason I can't fathom, I decide to bet out $40 rather than putting him all in. I cannot justify this bet in any way. In my opinion, it was the worst mistake I made the whole night. Sure, he called it and I won a nice pot by firing three bullets. But I knew he had trip aces, I knew he couldn't fold it, I knew he would check if I checked ... I had him covered, so that should be a pretty automatic shove. Ugh.

_ _

Overall though, the session went well. I don't know why this seems like such a novel concept to me. Don't make mistakes. Duh, right? But for some reason, I often show up to a game and just play. I may tell myself "Okay, let's play tight today" or "Let's really mix it up and keep the pressure on." But outside of tournaments, I've never really said "Let's just try to make the right play on every single street of every single hand." It's obvious, but I should force myself to play this way EVERY time. And the results should fall into place.

Cash Game Report, Part II

More hands from the $2/$5 No Limit at MGM Grand ...
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10x-9x, Stack $320
"Barney" raises to $25 UTG. I don't know why I call him that ... although with his build and blond hair there could be a Barney Rubble thing going on there. Apparently he and Greeny are from the same home casino in Canada, and play together often but are NOT friends. More like familiar acquaintances that kid each other a lot ... or so Barney informed me. Anyway, two people call including Greeny in the small blind, and I call as well in the big. The flop is 10-8-5 all different suits. Small blind checks, I check, Barney (yet another young gun LAG at this table) cbets $45. One fold, the Greeny calls, and I check-raise to $190. Barney makes an exasperated fold, and Greeny flashes a 10 and then folds. Hmm, maybe I wasn't good there, lol. Oops. Barney claims pocket 9's ... I don't show, but drag the pot. Stack up to $485 ... rolling along now.

Ad-Kd, Stack $660
Have won some nice pots without showdowns. Similar in action to this hand, sort of. On the hand immediately prior, I had raised preflop, then cbet $100 on an ace-high flop with pocket Jacks to take it down. On this hand, after Barney and Greeny both limp, I raise to $40 in the big blind. They both call. The flop is A-4-3 rainbow. I say aloud "Same bet," meaning the same continuation bet as in the previous hand of $100. But the dealer doesn't take it that way. He says "Forty dollars," and Barney immediately sets out $40 to call. When I explain that I meant $100, they call the floor over because they think Same Bet should mean the same as the previous street. Fair enough. The floorman sides with the dealer and my opponents, and they both call the $40 bet. The turn is a Jack. I bet out $150 and they both fold. They comment that had I bet $100 on the flop, they would not have called ... so the mistake earned me $80 extra. Woohoo!

9x-9x, Stack $900
By now, Fedora is long gone, and his absence has probably played a role in my chipping up so nicely. Fewer good players to contest my pots. But there has been another stack of $2,000 sitting at my table and not seeing much action. It belongs to a young local pro who has been in and out of the game (mostly out) since I sat down. He wasn't involved in the current hand so much as he was in the post mortem analysis.

There are two limpers, I raise to $40 on the button, and only one of the limpers calls -- Skinny. The flop is 10c-10s-6c. Check-check. The turn is the 4d. Check-check. The river is the 9h. Skinny bets out $45, and I pretend to tank before raising to $145. He folds instantly. The pro asked what I had, and I answer him truthfully. He frowns, and then asks why I didn't bet the flop. While it's normally not my policy to discuss strategy with my more dangerous opponents, I guess being up $500 is making me feel a little cocky. I explain to him reasoning. I don't see too many hands that call my flop bet, other than maybe a worse pocket pair or a club draw. But still, on that flop, I run the risk of getting check-raised out of the pot by a weaker hand. I have a pretty good idea of where I'm at, so why not wait to see if bad cards come, or wait until he tries to take a stab at it. If bad cards come, I can call down if my read says I still might be good. And if good cards come, I can raise his bluff and maybe make more money. It's both playing it small in case I get beat, and inducing bluffs for when my hand holds up. Do you all, my readers, agree? Discuss.

Ah-Jc, Stack $1,100
Skinny raises to $25 in the hijack. Greeny folds, and I decide I am going to try and use my rock solid tight image and make a move here. I re-raise him to $80. It is folded around to him, and he calls pretty quickly. The flop is 6-6-4. We both check. The turn is an 8. We check. River King, and we also check. He shows me A-J of spades! He smiles when he sees we are chopping, and says "I just wanted to beat you with A-J of spades like you did to me earlier." (On an earlier hand, we had gotten the money in on the flop, me having a flush draw. I hit the nut flush on the turn ... and he never showed what he had on that one.)

This hand really had me thinking, though. I couldn't figure out if Skinny somehow thought his hand was good preflop, if he really just wanted to beat me with A-J, or what. I did not consider A-J to be in my re-raising range. In fact, the only other time I had re-popped preflop was with the pocket 2's very early on in the session. He might have been remembering that hand, but I had really really tightened up since that crazy beginning where I was all in every two seconds, it seemed. Maybe he hadn't noticed that tightening up. And maybe since I had won a few pots without a showdown, he just decided to play with me. I don't know ... I just can't figure out what he thought A-J would be able to beat, out of position after the flop. To a rare three-bet. Couldn't figure out his reasoning ... he was either just a bad player (he did call down with J-10 earlier) or had a great read on me. Don't know which.
_ _

Anyway, I finished that session +$850 after about five hours of play. It was pretty sweet to swim with the sharks and not get hurt! Can't wait to go back ...

Cash Game Report, Part I

So, how did I do in the cash games??? Did I make my money back?

The answer is, most of it. I went on a +$1,600 cash game tear to start off, then backslid a bit. This was annoying, as it was such a great feeling to have covered my tournament buy-in. Oh well. But I made most of it back, to end the trip +$1,250 in the cash games. This was my biggest cash game success in Vegas ever, and definitely a solid three-day run. Paired with the +$500 or so that I made on my honeymoon (my previous Vegas record), I am starting to feel pretty confident about poker there, provided I have an adequate bankroll.

Anyway, I don't want to get into too many of the overall ups and downs. I thought I would rather just tear into some hand analyses ... I took really solid notes on the plane home. Playing at Planet Hollywood was pretty easy -- I could run over the tables there no problem. But when I decided to play the $2/$5 No Limit at MGM Grand, I wandered into Young Gun city. Hoodies and iPods everywhere, and hardly a tourist in sight. So these hands were against more aggressive players, and required more trickeration. I hope that makes them more enjoyable to read.

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9s-8s, Stack $500
I just sit down at the table, and buy-in for the max. I was on a downswing at the $1/$2 tables, and I was leaving first thing in the morning. So I moved up in stakes to take one last shot to make my money back. I don't have any reads on the table so far. There are two limps, I raise on the button to $30. The blinds fold, and one limper ("Skinny Guy") calls. Flop is K-x-x all different suits. He checks, I continuation bet $55, and he calls. The turn is a Q, making the board a badugi. We both check, and I am pretty sure he has nothing, but that his nothing has to be better than my nothing. I am planning to bluff the river as it is my only chance to win the pot, but when it comes a 9, Skinny beats me to it. He bets out $100, and I snap-call expecting my pair to be good. But he rolls over J-10 for the stone-cold nuts. I was right that he floated me out of position on the flop. But he got there. I guess I saved money by not betting the turn ... he would have called with an open-ender if he called with jack-high. I guess I could have folded the river ... but this was one of the few times in a hold'em game that I was surprised to see my opponents cards. Just wow. How could he have J-10? Oh well, down to $315.

Kd-7d, Stack $315
A few hands later, I am in the big blind. There are four limpers to me including the small blind, and I check. The flop is the 10d-7c-4d. Pair and a flush draw, I am figuring out how to get my stack in. But the small blind ("Greeny" for his green shirt) makes the decision a little easier by open-shoving for $170. I am trying to decide between calling and re-shoving. Do I want more people in to get better odds on the flush draw, or do I push them out and hope that my pair of 7s might be good against the small blind, who could be on a draw himself (5-6, 8-9, another flush draw)? I still am not sure about this, and am open to suggestions. There is a good chance the others are folding anyway, for that large a bet. Anyway, I decide to shove, but Greeny's Qx-10x holds up. Down to $145 now, and my comeback is not looking too strong right now. At this loose-aggressive of a table, $145 is nothing.

2d-2c, Stack $143
I am in the cutoff, a few hands later. A guy in a fedora raises from early-mid position to $40, and gets two calls from guys who are loose-passive preflop, then tight-aggressive post. (Fedora is a really good player, sitting on a stack of over $2,000. He is one of few players I have sat down with that I will admit is better than me at cash no limit hold'em. I've been told by another player at the table that Fedora is connected to the German mob. I didn't even know there was a German mob, but the two sleeveless goons sweating Fedora's action make me a believer real quick. Fedora seems like a pretty nice guy though [more on that in a minute].)

I am thinking this might be a decent spot for a squeeze play. I know the two cold-callers are weak. And Fedora might not want to play out of position, but even if he calls, my deuces might have a race against him with some nice dead money in the pot. I ship my stack, and it's folded back around to Fedora, who pushes over the top of me. Uh-oh. The two callers fold as predicted, and Fedora rolls over pocket Jacks. Damn it. The flop comes all diamonds however, and since Fedora doesn't have a diamond, I actually have some life. I make the flush on the turn, woohoo! But the river comes ... the trey of diamonds!! The five diamonds on the board cover my deuce of diamonds, so we chop the pot. Fedora takes it really well for a nearly $200 swing. For me, I'm a bit bummed at the way the cards fell, giving me hope, then taking it away. What a roller-coaster. But I also feel pretty lucky to have even chopped. Stack at $186.

Kx-9x, Stack $130
Again in the cutoff, a couple rounds later. I have lost chips in small pots by calling small raises preflop and missing. Here, Fedora limps in early position, and it is folded to me. I raise to $20, and only Fedora calls. The flop is A-9-x. Fedora checks. I don't believe he has an ace in his hand, but with my short stack, I'm going to play this as cautiously as possible until I have more information. Then turn is an 8. Fedora bets out $35, and I go into the tank. Maybe he does have a weak ace. Can he be pushed off, if so? Is he trapping here? I don't think so ... maybe I should just go for it. Fedora sees how intently I'm studying him, and he makes it easy for me. He cuts out a stack of chips to cover my potential shove and gives me a look that says "Save your money. I am calling whatever you bet." I believe him. I muck my hand, and he flashes me pocket rockets. The nuts. Wow, he played that tricky ... no way I could have put him on that. He very likely could have had the last of my chips, but decided to let me get away from it. Not a friend of his or anything, and we may never see one another again. Like I said, really nice guy.

5x-5x, Stack $105
Good thing that guy left me with some chips. After four limps, I limp in the small blind. Big blind checks. The flop comes 8-7-7 with a heart flush draw, and shit gets crazy. I lead out for $20, then the big blind (a big time LAG) raises to $60. A middle position player admits to the table they are on a straight draw, and shoves for $140. I tank for a minute, then pray they are both on draws and put my stack in. The big blind calls, and I was right. The BB is on a heart draw and the other dude has 6-9. Sweet, I got two of his outs. The turn is a miss, but the river is a heart! I cringe for a second, until I realize that it's the 5 of hearts, giving me a full boat! I drag a pot of $330 and finally I can play poker again.

Lessons from the WSOP

This post is kind of a carry-over from the last one, but with less narrative and more big picture stuff.

First, a little generality I have found to be true about Stud players. In my experience, you can always tell the great Stud players because it seems like they are always making full houses, and it always seems like their weaker two pair hands are still good. That's because these players have really great memories and awareness of the cards that are out. They seem to show down more boats because they only draw to live hands. For instance, if they make a 'surprise' pair on 5th street, they know whether to play it aggressively or passively based on the cards other players have previously folded. They remember, and so they have a better sense than the average player of how likely they are to fill up.

The reason they win with hands like 7's and 5's is along similar lines. They can tell how likely their opponents are to have better hands than them based on the cards that are out. So not only are the great players on the lookout for cards that can help their hands, they are also evaluating how likely their opponents are to have improve their hands as well. Quite the feat.

Well, one of the super-memory guys was the new player on my left. I recognize his face from previous WSOP footage, but I have no idea what his name is. Same goes for a few other people at my table. Can't quite place them.

As I had hoped when I first considered playing this tourney, there were several players who obviously were good overall poker players, but who were not all that experienced in Stud hi-only. There were definitely some dabblers at my table. I used that to my advantage in the early going, as it became clear that these players probably wouldn't last as long, and as the tournament wore on, this dead money would become scarcer and scarcer (just like any tournament).

Like I said in a previous post, one of the things that struck me the most was being one of the better players to start. I had not expected to be in that position at all. I had expected to play tight, wait for good cards and hope that they help up in the shark tank. But when I saw one older gent who is completely clueless, one guy who is the ultimate calling station, another guy constantly drawing to dead hands ... instincts just take over. When the table is playing so passively, I can't help but to attack more often. So that's what I did.

Having said all that, you still have to run well to go far in a tournament. I learned that I am good enough to play in the game, by virtue of lasting as long as I did. I wasn't completely dead money -- were it not for a bad beat (Kings Up improving to beat my Aces Up) I would have been one of the chip leaders. I busted in the middle of the tourney, after all. But at the end of the day, I still lost my $1,500 just like the guy who busted out first. No last longer bets going. It just meant a stay of execution for me. As I walked out, I couldn't help thinking about what if I had put the money towards cash games.

I think I chose the event wisely. There were not as many experts in this game as in, say, a no limit hold'em donkament, just as I had hoped. Also, I was right about the scheduling. With the big names over in the Amazon Room playing more prestigious events, I probably had a better shot at making the money in a WSOP tourney.

There are no events left to play this year. But I will be back for sure next year. And I will make sure that next time, a single tourney isn't such a large hit to my bankroll. Mark my words.

Where you been, J?

Wow, so much to report, and I haven't gotten around to it until now. It's pretty sad really. I am a poker blogger, I decide to play in the World Series of Poker for the first time ever, and it takes me nearly a month to write about the experience! Pathetic!

Well, where to begin? The flight into McCarran was choppy as usual, but, other than that, uneventful. I played just over an hour of $1/$2 No Limit at Planet Hollywood before hopping over to the Rio to register for the tournament. +$285. I pretty much decided then and there that I wasn't going to play any satellites. I would just buy into the event, and play cash games to earn as much of my buy-in back as possible.

At about 10:30 The Wife and I took the free shuttle to the Rio. I noticed that the tokes to the shuttle driver were not as forthcoming as they had been in the 2008 WSOP. People just sailed on by. Sign of the economic times, I suppose, but I made sure to take care of them on each trip. A buck for shuttle service across the freeway isn't too unreasonable, in my book.

It turns out that you have to get a (free) Harrah's playing card before you can register for any tourney, but that actually turned out to be not bad at all. Because the buy-in was so large, it meant I got hooked up with some nice meal comps and such at Harrah's-owned establishments like Paris and Bally's. Pretty cool. Once that was done, it was on to the tournament cashier's kiosk to make the buy-in. It was anti-climactic, really. I had thought that plunking down fifteen $100 bills to gamble would feel more ominous than it did, but it was more-or-less like any other tournament I've ever played. You pay the money, you get a seat card and a meal comp, end of story. Still, as I walked away, I couldn't help feeling a little giddy. It was official, and there was no turning back now. In a few short hours, I would be playing in the one and only World Series of Poker.

As we made our way back to the strip, however, I could feel that airy giddiness turning into a major headache. The Wife and I grabbed lunch at Paris, where a smoking-hot hostess gave us a really great seat and was generally very nice to us. Of course, as a result, I had to fade all kinds of annoying accusations of checking out said hostess, which did not help my budding headache one bit. But the food was good, and I decided a nap would be a great final preparation for my first step onto the big stage.

When I woke up around 4, the headache was REALLY POUNDING. I was also ridiculously dehydrated. I popped 800mg of ibuprofen and gulped down a liter of water on my way back to the Rio. By the time I got to my seat in the Brasilia Room at 4:30, I felt fantastic. I was alert, but calm. No pain anywhere in my body, I was rarin' to go.

But it was early. I didn't even have anyone at my table to talk to yet. I decided to wander over to the Amazon Room to see what big names were playing. It turned out that Huck Seed and Todd Brunson were final tabling a mixed event, while Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu were seated close to one another and going deep into a limit hold'em event. The $5K pot limit Omaha event nearby was also chock full of big names ... a quick sweep showed me Victor Ramdin, David Pham, Humberto Brenes ... the list goes on. I happened to stand next to Michael DeMichele briefly, and I let him know that he was on my fantasy team and that I was rooting for him to do well this year. He seemed to be flattered, but I don't think my words really helped him much. After seeing him make strong showings in early events (cashing if not final tabling), he has been M.I.A. in the latter half of the WSOP. Was my speech too much pressure? Or was he just low on funds after buying into the $40K event? Quien sabe?

5 o'clock eventually rolled around, and it was a quick dash back to the Brasilia Room, Table 247. I honestly don't remember too much about specific hands, at least not in great detail. It is more or less a blur, but I do have these general impressions to share:

- The game played very much like my books describe Stud cash games. Specifically, the players were generally much tighter than I am used to seeing. Makes sense, as most of the examples in the books are $15/$30 bet limits at the minimum. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the books prepared me very well for this tournament, even more so than they had for the Stud cash games I have played in my career. For instance, certain isolation plays and bluffs that simply don't work at the $4/$8 tables at Commerce were a gold mine here;
- I was one of the two strongest players at my starting table of eight. The rest were competent, save for one total idiot. But these competent players all had very exploitable tendencies that I picked up on pretty quickly. For such a high buy-in, this was not a shark tank by any stretch of the imagination. Had it been a higher-stakes cash game, I would have made a boatload in short order;
- Much like tournament hold'em, the value in playing draws drops off significantly. You don't see nearly as many straights and flushes shown down as you might in loose cash games; there were a lot more hands that were won by a single pair or two pair;
- The one-hour levels and the deep stacks made for a lot of play, and as such there was no real need to gamble early on. It also provided a great feeling-out period for the table. I had never played in a tournament with levels so lengthy before, so I was more used to just having to play my cards because the blinds go up so quickly.

Early on, I played really aggressively and I read every situation perfectly. Nevertheless, I got dangerously short-stacked very early when my strong starting hands got drawn out on. But the structure allowed me to survive those hits and make a huge comeback to become chip leader at my table. I kept with the good reads, and had a good run of cards to be solidly above the average by the dinner break. I even had the satisfaction of knocking out a couple players. :)

After dinner, however, things did not go so well. We got two new players, who were both as aggressive as I am -- one on my left and one on my right. The new guy on my right was constantly stealing pots before I could do so (disrupting my earlier mojo). And the new guy on my left was more difficult to steal from than his predecessor had been. So it was much tougher for me to put pressure on the table like I had been doing throughout most of the tourney.

One of them was actually more aggressive than me, as hard as that may be to believe. It took me a few hands to figure it out, but he was four-betting me with nothing on several occasions. This was a shock to me, as I am not at all used to players trying to run over me ... it's typically the other way around. On one hand in particular, he four-bet me on 3rd street, four-bet me on 4th, then called every single bet on every street including the river. When he called me at the end, I shrugged a little because I thought there was no way my unimproved split kings were good. When he didn't turn his cards over, I eventually showed my single pair, and he mucked angrily. He thought it was a slowroll! We had a bit of a heated discussion after that, as I tried to calmly explain to him why I thought my hand could not possibly be good once he called down after being so aggressive early on and I was representing a pair of kings the whole way. He just kept repeating that if I shrug like that, it means I don't have anything. Argh, whatever. Ship the chips.

The long and short of it was that I lasted my way into the sixth level, where I was sadly shown the exit. I made Aces and 8's on 4th street (how fitting), and got into a betting and raising war with the new, aggressive player on my left. He ending up making Kings full on that hand after starting with Kings up on 4th. Bad beat. That hand crippled me, and on the next I got it all in with three diamonds on 3rd street. I eventually made Jacks up, but my foe made a straight to knock me out. 209th out of 359 runners. D'oh.

More to come.

Miscalculation

I had a bit of a setback on Wednesday night. Went and played some cash stud during offpeak hours (weeknights -EV) and got killed. I was doing a pretty good job of staying even, hanging with the tough grinders there at Commerce. But then I lost a big pot. Basically an idiot with a huge beard cold-called a 3bet on 5th street with a gutshot draw, even though the three betters had all just paired their door cards. I was 3betting my trip 7s against 8's showing and 2's showing, because 8's were dead. Beardo needed a 7 for his straight and stayed in even though I was SCREAMING that I had trip 7's. On the next street, the idiot bricked, the 2's caught my fourth 7, and I caught crap. Beardo grimaced and said that he needed a 7, and then mucked on 6th street. I ended up losing a big pot to a 2's full boat. Steamboat in my case. Ugh. Uncle Tilty showed up and then it was a slow bleed to death from that point on. I should know better than to go to Commerce on a weeknight ... game selection, ai ya.

So I wasn't sure where that left me. My goal of playing Wednesday night was to get myself off the fence and give myself that final shot of confidence (and extra cash) I needed to play in the WSOP. But losing made me more confused than ever. I have been telling more and more people that I'm playing the tourney, in an attempt to shame myself into playing. "You can't back out now, J ... then you'll have to tell everyone that you wussed out." I think it is probably going to work.

Phil Ivey (my favorite poker player other than myself ... awww screw it, I got a man-crush on this brotha) won his 6th bracelet last night after going three WSOP without winning one. Rumor has it that he tipped his entire winnings (over $96k for first place) to the dealer staff, presumably because he made so much money on sidebets. I know he has a standing bet with Daniel Negreanu that they have to pay each other $200k if one of them wins a bracelet. And Phil obviously had several other specific bets with various individuals ... he won't talk about the bets other than to acknowledge their existence. So it's all speculation, but I've heard he might have made as much as $10M in bracelet prop bets. Honestly, I would not put it past him. Ballin' ...


Anyway, I'm happy for Phil, but this is pretty devastating for the fantasy league wager with Billy. I was riding high Wednesday night when I found out Max Pescatori took 4th place in the $10k Stud, good for 8.5 points. But then Ivey snags a bracelet for 20 points, bringing the tally to Billy 21, Jamin 8.5. (Forrest earned Billy a point for taking ninth in the $40k event). And Daniel is currently chip-leading the $10k Mixed Championship through Day 1. This fantasy league could be a rout in the making ...

My new tentative plan is to try and satellite into the event. If it hadn't been for recent things that had come up financially (in addition to a downswing in cash games) I would be playing the event no question. But as it stands, I have about $2,300 total to gamble/eat/party with. That is cutting it somewhat close if I drop $1,500 on the tourney ... definitely a short roll for a three-day trip. The satellites are supposed to be really soft ... I'm confident I can win the entry. But it is sort of a matter of will I have enough time. I am arriving the day of. So chances are I'll have to play perhaps two satellites, AND register for the tourney. And sometimes the satellites have waits. I have pretty much given up on the napping idea. I think I will just have to hit the ground running.

Anyway, I know this post was a bit of a ramble ... not a literary achievement by any stretch of the imag. But, I gtg. Check out the Twitter update feed on the sidebar while I"m gone ------>

Peace!

Hollywood Swingin'

Gah! What a brutal couple of days bankroll-wise. Saturday I was debating whether or not I should play the cash games after a local home tournament. I ended up doing so, and proceeded to lose about $580 playing heads up and then three-handed. Both guys I can outplay pretty easily; one is far too loose and the other too tight. But the loose guy was hitting everything. Turning an out-kicked pair into two pair. Turning a lower pair into trips. Making all of his draws while I missed mine. Outflopping me with dominated hands. And so on ...

The tight guy was hitting on me too. On one hand, I flop top pair with the nut flush draw. He flops a set, and trap-calls my lead-out bet. I make my flush on the turn, and lead out again. He raises, I shove, and he calls. But, I get Greensteined when the Ace pairs on the river. Another time, his low flopped straight holds up against my bigger open-ender plus flush draw. Ai ya!

And this morning, I had to drop about $720 on dental care ... my insurance policy (a good one!) only covered half of my crown procedure. In hindsight, I might have been better off claiming I forgot my checkbook in the car and dodging payment until after the Vegas trip. But that would have required me to screen phone calls for the next few weeks, and ignore all the "courtesy" notices that come in the mail. Well, some time ago I decided that that portion of my life would be over. So I sucked it up and shelled out the cash then and there.

Nevertheless, now I'm stuck $1,300 and I still have a week and a half before I even get on the plane to Vegas. This will put a cramp in my side action, for sure. After paying for food and drink for three days in a city that is particularly well-designed to separate tourists from their hard-earned cash, I'm down to about $600 to play games other than Event #16 ... yikes!

I think it's time to either find some investors, or to make a quick score or three before I go ...



BTW: Until fairly recently, $600 would have been plenty of bankroll for me to have a great Vegas trip with plenty of gamble. Nowadays, it feels like chump change. I can't decide if that means I've progressed a lot or just become more of a degen.

Cash Games at Commerce

So in the last three multi-table tournaments I’d played as of last Monday, I’d gone 2nd, busto, and 1st. A pretty good streak, I’d say. I started to think about things. How can I do so well in tournament play and so mediocre in cash games?

I decided that the reason I didn’t do as well in cash games was that in the games in which I play (i.e., the lower limits), there are many more players seeing the flop than in your average tournament. Players in tournaments are trying to survive, and you can generally assume that if you raise preflop, you will have fewer opponents with narrower hand ranges after the flop. So it becomes easier to put people on hands, and thus you can avoid being trapped or you can take down pots when they have nothing.

In my live games, by contrast, there could be six players seeing the flop after a raise of 5x the big blind and they could be holding virtually anything. Playing only big cards just doesn’t work so well against half the table because most flops are going to give you either a single pair or nothing.

This renders continuation betting virtually useless. Rarely will you be able to take down the pot, so you’d probably better have a fairly strong hand (at least two pair, often) to be betting. But if you adhere to this, your bets will scare out the other players and you won’t get paid off so well.

After reaching this conclusion, I decided to stick to tournaments and forego cash games completely until I could afford to play at higher limits.

This resolution didn’t last long. On Friday, I went back to Hollywood Park to play in the rebuy tourney. Open-ended straight draws got there three times out of three, and I was done quickly. Stupid tourneys, I told myself. I'm going back to cash.

Saturday, I was sitting around my apartment, looking for something to do. The casino was calling. I decided to drive down to Commerce, since I hadn’t been there in a while, and play some live no limit before the UCLA football game. Played pretty well, and didn’t take any major bad beats. I walked out up $340. Hey, I thought, maybe I’m not so bad at cash games after all.

Sunday, I went back, but I had some reservations about it. I was afraid that Saturday had been a fluke, and that I would merely be giving back what I had won the previous day. But again, boredom got the best of me, and I made my way over.

I played good – but not mistake-free – poker, enough to be up $200 after about an hour. Around that time, I saw a familiar face sit down at the table and I could barely believe my eyes. It was Sgt. Donk from Vegas, back when I vacationed there in May. He was visiting a friend in Los Angeles (he lives in Maine, himself), and they randomly decided to play some poker. I couldn’t fathom what the odds were on that. It’s a very small world indeed.

I continued to play well. Took a horrendous beat at one point, for a huge pot, and I completely lost my composure. I was visibly steaming, and in my mind I recognized that I was in grave danger of giving away all my winnings for the day, and maybe even more from my wallet. I could just feel it coming.

But the strangest thing happened. I’m used to seeing poker players try and take advantage of another player who is on tilt. They say things to make him angrier and to play worse, and they gun for him in every pot they can. Didn’t happen last night. Quite the opposite, in fact. The guy to my immediate left, as well as Sgt. Donk, actually went out of their way to talk me off the ledge. They deliberately engaged me in conversation about everything but poker, until I calmed down and was my normal happy-go-lucky poker self. Later on, they let me know that they didn’t want to see me blow up and lose a lot of money. I’m quite grateful to them for that – I’ve never seen that kind of class at a poker table before.

Anyway, thanks in part to them, I later took everything I’d lost back from the guy that put the beat on me, and a few hundred more on top. I ended the day up $701. Combined with Saturday, that makes a nice little two-day run.

I would like to think that my cash game play has been fine all along, and that I had just been having a run of worse than average luck at the casinos. But I know that’s not entirely true. I’ve learned a lot in the past few months, reading the Harrington on Hold’em series, as well as the recently-released Professional No Limit Hold’Em and How to Dominate $1 and $2 No Limit Hold’em. I plugged several leaks in my game with them, and I highly recommend them.

So what does this all mean? I’m up over $3,700 in the past week – by far the best run in my career. Can I keep it up? I certainly hope so.

I left the game last night a little earlier than I might have. But my stack was at a nice round $801, and the guy that had put the bad beat on me had donked his way into a stack of $400. Plus, he had been gunning for me for a while. Every time I entered a pot, he moved all in pre-flop, regardless of his hole cards. I had survived several of those in order to attain my current stack, but with the way his stack was growing, I was getting a little wary of risking my chips. I decided to call it a night.

But before I took off, Sgt. Donk spoke to me away from the table for a little bit. I found out that his real name was Adam, and he apologized profusely for mispronouncing my name in Vegas and last night. He asked for my contact information, so that we could stay in touch. He said that he really liked the way I played, and asked if I ever needed a backer or someone to stake me in the WSOP or anything. He said that in Maine and being in the military, he didn't get to play very often. But he recognized a great player on the rise, and he wanted a piece of my action if I ever made it big.

I was stunned. It was the last thing I had expected from a guy like this. I graciously gave him my information, and I told him that I would love the opportunity to have such an arrangement with him. We parted ways as friends.

I can hardly describe what it felt like to hear that from a guy. That level of respect ... just made me feel validated. All the hard work that I had put in over the past three years. Everything I had learned. All the frustration and the euphoria, the backaches and the headaches, the laughs and the cries -- it was all worth it now. I didn't really care about the $701 I'd won any more. Hearing those words of praise for my poker-playing ability was worth a hell of a lot more.

First

Wow, been forever since I’ve blogged – over a month, actually. Well, the past week has generated some huge developments in my poker career so I had to put some stuff up. My career rounded the three-year mark over the summer, and for most of that period, the growth that I experienced has been notable, but slow.

Over the summer, I decided to do something about it. If I was going to maintain my goal of playing in the World Series of Poker in 2010, I was going to have to crank it up and get some practice playing live tournaments. So back in August, I re-read the first two Harrington books, and then I worked through the third. After doing better than I had expected in the Workbook, I decided that I would play in one live multi-table tournament (MTT) per month for the next three years to get some practice and build up my stamina. And who knows, I thought at the time, maybe I’ll cash in one or two of ‘em.

The first one I played (back in August) went about as I'd expected. I played extremely tight for about an hour and a half, and eventually the increasing blinds forced me to push all-in with Ace-Queen offsuit. I got called by pocket Jacks, lost the race, and was out of the tournament well short of the money. $150 down the drain.

After that experience, I decided to try and find a smaller tournament for my next attempt. I was delighted to find that Hollywood Park holds a daily $20+$10 rebuy tournament at 11:30am. And since I’ve been out of work since late August, I was sure to have a few spare days to give it a shot. Job interviews and other commitments prevented me from doing so until last Monday. But as soon as I had the free time, I made my way down to Inglewood.

I played well. I was able to steadily increase my stack as the blinds went up, with only a few setbacks along the way. Thankfully, the bad beats I took were by players with smaller stacks than mine, so I was able to survive their donkery. I surprised myself by making it all the way to the final table, and as a 3:1 chip leader when it got down to heads up, I decided to make a deal with the other player. I took down a first prize of $2,625, and my confidence in my poker-playing ability had never been higher.

Among my group of friends, I had been the first to do a lot of things. I was the first among us to start playing online poker. I was the first to start playing at casinos. I had been the first to play in a live MTT. And now, I had become the first of us to cash in and to win a live MTT.

I’ve realized as my friends and I have moved on from college that they don’t share the same dreams as me. Unlike me, they don’t realistically see themselves playing poker full-time in the near future. They don’t seem to have the same goals of rounding for a living, or being top-name tournament pros some day. I guess I’m the only one who believes that, given time, I can become the best player in poker history. I freely admit how silly an aspiration that is, but I feel that since it'll be nearly impossible to accomplish, I will always have something to motivate me.

A week ago today, I took the next step down the path of my poker career. I’m very excited to discover where it will ultimately lead.

Runner-Runner, Runner-Up

I went to Vegas last weekend, and I had been feeling a little bit donkish after tilting away all my winnings for the trip in the last 10 minutes at Bally’s. I pretty much reverted back to my former self at the poker table – pushing too hard with top pair, paying off sets, putting everyone on draws. Basically the way I played when I first started playing poker in the 714.

Came back, had a productive day at work on Monday. I arrived home to find out that Billy was back on Full Tilt, playing cash games. I was immediately stricken with jealousy, and it wasn’t long before I was on it again too. I played some small games early on – a limit Sit n Go (took 3rd … damn those donkeys) and some HORSE. It was fun – it felt good to be back.

But a part of me really wanted to play in a multi-table tournament. After reading so much Dan Harrington over the past month, I was itching to put myself to the test. I signed up for a 90-player Sit n Go and it was off to the races.

In the beginning, I definitely caught more than my fair share of cards. I hit sets on probably three of my first five pocket pairs. But I played them well also, and made sure that I got paid off nicely each time. I was the tournament chip leader for at least half of the tournament’s four hours. Still, I can’t say my results were entirely due to good cards; around about the middle of the tournament, the deck just about froze on me. But since blinds were going up, and everyone wanted to cash, I was able to increase my chip lead by being aggressive and picking my spots well. I applied Harrington’s concept of “sticking and moving” in the middle rounds as best I could, and when it came to be bubble time, I was had a 2 to 1 chip advantage over the next biggest stack. I was in pretty good position to secure my second ever multi-table tournament win.

As we neared the final table, I relinquished the chip lead but continued to play well. Stayed patient, stayed alive, and didn’t get timid. The final table was ridiculous – it seemed like there were a lot of huge all-in preflop races where the overcards flopped a pair, but the pocket pair rivered the set to either double up or knock someone out. Must have happened six or seven times at least … even I was the beneficiary of one of those. (I guess it’s true that the pocket pair is the favorite in those situations, haha.)

Finally I made it to heads up play, and my top pair got cracked by a runner-runner two pair. Of course, I had my Phil Hellmuth moment, stomping and screaming around my living room. I didn’t care so much about the difference in monetary prizes. I just wanted the title. I wanted some more bragging rights for Grind or Gamble. For UCLA. For the 714. But it wasn’t to be.

Still, I learned a lot about myself. I learned that I have what it takes to do well in big tournaments. In an upcoming post, I will probably lay out my plan to play a lot of live MTT’s over the next three years, in order to stay on track to start playing WSOP events in 2010. But for now, I’ll just smile through gritted teeth for my second-place finish. I should have won. Maybe next time.

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.

Ugh.

What a downswing.

It's just not fun any more.

Every draw is getting there.

Getting outflopped or outturned all over the place.

I'm done, going back on hiatus.

I hate poker.

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.

Table Talk in Las Vegas

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

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

My jaw drops.

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

He’s sporting a crew cut.

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

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

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

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

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

Play the stack, not the cards.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

… and I think I played it pretty well.

Play the man, not the cards.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The turn was another 6.

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

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

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

Trading Tells

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The guy was dead on.

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

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