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.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Thursday, July 19, 2007
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.
(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.
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.- 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.
Home Game Happenings
Poker this past Monday was awesome. It was a very competitive game, in which control of the table shifted many times among several solid players. As usual, there were some big bluffs and some brutal beats, some laughs and some curses, some tension and some fun. We played Texas Hold’em for four hours straight, and then played some short-handed Dealer’s Choice for another three. I needed to have a long session like that, just to restore my sense of balance. I’ve been poker-deprived for a while.
So far, I’ve spent over $400 of my own money to get this game operational and running smoothly. I waited a long time for it to happen, and to this point it’s been everything that I’d hoped it would. Already, there are some great stories circling around, with old rivalries re-awakening as well as new ones being forged. And I think our game is garnering a great reputation. My ultimate goal is to make this the best low-limit home game in town. Naturally, that’s an impossible task; even if it is the best game there’s no way for me to really know that. But having that goal keeps me motivated to constantly try and improve things where I can. But so far, I think word of mouth has generally been kind to us.
I’m also glad that we’re playing weekly now rather than bi-weekly. The waits were just killing me back then, especially since I’m not really making the rounds any more these days. I wish I could play enough at the casino that it wouldn't be an issue. But I simply cannot do that right now, for financial and temporal reasons. Eventually I’ll get back to where things were, but for the time being, home games are going to be pretty much it.
Unfortunately, we’re going to lose Dan -- one of our regulars -- in about a month as he moves on to grad school on the East Coast. I’m glad I got the chance to bluff him out of a huge pot before that happens. Hopefully our game will keep growing and will continue for a while … it’s a lot of fun and it gives me a chance to keep my skills sharp until I can fully return.
An even greater reason that I want the game to continute is that I haven’t yet recouped my $400 investment. But if I can steal a few more huge pots off Dan, and if Billy would kindly stop sucking out on me, maybe I can get there soon. :)
_ _
P.S. Still can't believe you called my all in with top pair, 8 kicker, Billy. You really give me no credit at all.
P.P.S. Though, in all fairness, I wouldn't have complained if you didn't hit the three-outer. Naturally.
So far, I’ve spent over $400 of my own money to get this game operational and running smoothly. I waited a long time for it to happen, and to this point it’s been everything that I’d hoped it would. Already, there are some great stories circling around, with old rivalries re-awakening as well as new ones being forged. And I think our game is garnering a great reputation. My ultimate goal is to make this the best low-limit home game in town. Naturally, that’s an impossible task; even if it is the best game there’s no way for me to really know that. But having that goal keeps me motivated to constantly try and improve things where I can. But so far, I think word of mouth has generally been kind to us.
I’m also glad that we’re playing weekly now rather than bi-weekly. The waits were just killing me back then, especially since I’m not really making the rounds any more these days. I wish I could play enough at the casino that it wouldn't be an issue. But I simply cannot do that right now, for financial and temporal reasons. Eventually I’ll get back to where things were, but for the time being, home games are going to be pretty much it.
Unfortunately, we’re going to lose Dan -- one of our regulars -- in about a month as he moves on to grad school on the East Coast. I’m glad I got the chance to bluff him out of a huge pot before that happens. Hopefully our game will keep growing and will continue for a while … it’s a lot of fun and it gives me a chance to keep my skills sharp until I can fully return.
An even greater reason that I want the game to continute is that I haven’t yet recouped my $400 investment. But if I can steal a few more huge pots off Dan, and if Billy would kindly stop sucking out on me, maybe I can get there soon. :)
_ _
P.S. Still can't believe you called my all in with top pair, 8 kicker, Billy. You really give me no credit at all.
P.P.S. Though, in all fairness, I wouldn't have complained if you didn't hit the three-outer. Naturally.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
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.
_ _
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
