I flopped the nuts!

This may be remedial, but I swear I just bought a DVD by Howard Lederer called "Secrets of No-Limit Hold’Em" wherein he explained how there are blinds instead of antes.  Oh, and tournament chips aren’t real money.  DURRR!

I hope that I can walk you through the possible winning hands in hold’em and how I think about them.

One Pair: obviously, it’s always possible that someone has a pair.  No matter what’s on the board, a pair is always possible in someone else’s hand.  (Don’t laugh: I’ve seen A9 bet a 9-high flop like the pot was just theirs, and run into JJ.  Wait, that was me, and I rivered another 9 to win the hand.  Anyway.)  And again, almost as obviously, a single card on the board higher than your pair should cause you worry.  I figure an A is about twice as likely to have hit someone than a K, and a K will have connected with someone more often than a Q or a J.  (If you’re trying to gauge how safe you are with pocket tens, nines, or lower… I don’t know what to tell you.  Bet and find out.)  So what does that mean?  If you’re holding QQ, and the flop came AK8, and you’ve got four opponents who did more than just limp in, you’re toast.  Toast!  But TT on a Q85 flop might be safe.  Again, you’ll have to bet and find out.  If you’re not sitting on a pair, scoring top pair is great, but you’re only going to be able to bet out confidently if you’ve got that top pair and that top kicker.  (I’ll catch up to this point later.)

In Phil Gordon’s book, he says he bets out 1/4th of the pot when the flop is paired (like AA2, KJJ, or 885), and 1/2 the pot when it’s got a pair and two of one suit.  That’s whether he’s hit it or not: only five cards could have been dealt that were hit by that flop, and if you’re called, you’re beat.  Often enough, you won’t be called.  I really like this play.

Two Pair: Clearly, almost any flop can give players two pair.  Any holding can become two pair, but it’s the quality of those two pairs that make AK more valuable than QJ.  (Okay, it’s more than just that, but it’s important to remember that any two cards can make two pair.)  Two pair can give top pair headaches, but I see people get into a lot of trouble with their two pair holdings.  It’s not a lock: top pair can pair their kicker on the next card, or any of the other cards you haven’t paired, and you can end up with the worst hand in poker… three pair, no kicker.  I feel a little sick just thinking about the times my BB hand made two pair, and I stuffed a bunch of money in, ahead, and got outdrawn by better cards that just hadn’t made their second pair yet.  Ah well.

Three of a kind: I read the other day that there are actually two words for this in hold’em: if you’ve got two cards, and you catch another on the board, that’s a set.  If the pair is on the board, and you have one of the other two cards, then they call that trips.  And now you know!

Trips is obviously a more dangerous situation: Your A9 might have caught an AAJ flop, but you don’t have any idea if AK or AQ are out there, and you’re in real trouble no matter what comes if you’re outkicked.  There’s also the minor concern that JJ might have hit a dream flop, but that’s worrying perhaps a bit too much about things you can’t control. 

At times, a set has only to worry about bigger sets.  In fact, a set as low as queens (I think) can be the absolute nuts on a specific board.  (I’m trying to eliminate any straights.  Anyone know?)  I’m much more concerned about flush draws than I am straights or overpairs / bigger sets when I flop a set.  Then again, I’m trying to stuff cash into the center of the table, so my concerns get sort of drowned out.

Straight: This used to give me fits.  Once I went all-in with a set and didn’t see a real obvious straight on the board.  Oh, once I thought I’d landed the nut straight and bet into the real nut straight.  Good times.  I try to put together likely holdings (two face cards on a flop always get me thinking about straight draws), and see if a straight might be out there, but here’s a trick I figured out on my own.  While connected cards and one-gappers should get your attention, remember that a straight requires five cards, and only seven are coming.  That means two, at most, are not going to participate in the straight.  If I’m holding J8 and I see the flop of 964… sure, I’m thinking that it could straighten up in two cards.  But basically, I’m thinking, the 6 and 4 don’t participate in the J-high straight, and the 9 doesn’t participate in any straight that the 4 is part of… so even though that’s my only out, it’s a bad one, and I’m wondering how quickly I can fold.  Pairs make this even easier: my JJ on a QQT flop already contains two cards that can’t participate in any possible straights.  If I’m hoping to improve to beat flopped trips, I’m going to have to do it with my two J outs. 

Flushes: these are the donk-easiest thing to look for in Hold’Em, and I have no idea why they’re so poorly played in the games I see.  If there are two of any suit on the board, with any more cards to come, the corresponding suited holding is one card away from a flush.  The all-in calculators will tell you that you’re 2:1 to improve to a flush in this situation, but you’re only 4:1 on the turn and 4:1 on the river, so make sure you’re getting those odds to play.  If your opponents have any clue, you won’t get those odds, but… ah, who am I kidding?  You’ll probably get them anyway.  I’m not sure if people have flopped middle pair, or they’re testing the waters, but on a two-flush flop, betting half the pot is almost a necessity.  (Against a single opponent, you only have to bet 1/3 of the pot to make it a mistake to call, but again, if you think the donkey manual says "fold your flush draw against a pot sized bet", you’d be way wrong.)  And another bad play: when the turn completes the three-flush (or three of one suit have hit on the flop), you absolutely have to protect anything worth chips with another half-pot bet.  Now the situation is worse: if that fourth heart comes, pocket Aces, straights, trips, sets… they’re all worthless, because anyone with a heart just picked up a flush.  Put another way: AA just became a drawing hand (with the right A), and you don’t want to give that hand the odds to call.  When I see someone stick 50 into a pot of 500 with two spades on the board, I assume he’s on the draw himself, and wants to prevent someone else from betting first.  I’m so often wrong: they’re frequently value betting top pair, two pair, or a set! 

Full house: any board with a pair on it can be hiding an opponent’s full house.  At the same time, no board without a pair can be hiding a full house, so you can pretty much bet away with the nut flush on an unpaired board.  (I’ve seen nut flushes call instead of raise to finish hands.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.)  Full houses are the one hand that still makes my head spin a little bit.  Here’s an example.  I called a raise with A2, and got all-in with a guy after a K22 flop.  The turn was an ace, and the river was another ace.  He turned over KK.  Now he got me all-in with a full house, even though I was feeling pretty invincible with my trips 2s.  I’d already made every mistake I was going to make by this point, so there’s no sense getting mad at me when I hit one of the four cards that can save my bacon.  (I need a pair of aces, or that last 2 would also be nice.)  I’m still a 93/7 underdog, but I’ve got a full house, and so does he, but his is Kings full, and mine is Twos full.  Then the Ace comes, and while he’s improved to Kings full of Aces, I’m now Aces full of Twos, and I scoop the pot.  (Actually, the pot is shoved towards me, and while I try to sort out the happenings, a man in Amsterdam is telling me I’m the worst he’s ever played against.)  But see how crazy things can get?  If you flop a full house with K8 on a K88 flop, JJ still has two outs against you, where 77 has none.  Not defending a full house (treating it like the everlasting nuts, when other hands are certainly live) is a mistake I see plenty.

Four of a kind: I picked up this hand today (55 on a J55 flop), and I totally forgot Phil Gordon’s tip about the pair on the board.  (Actually, we had a small stack all-in, and I was really hoping that I could get action from a jack.  When the turn came a jack, I got my wish.)

There’s absolutely nothing you can do about four of a kind.  (I’m not sure if there’s different terminology for having the fourth card on a board with three, or pairs in your hand and on the board, but maybe it’s so rare they don’t have to specify.)  Obviously, be on the lookout for pairs, but it really doesn’t matter if they’re high or low cards, since you’ll see your donkey opponents fold 55 about as frequently as AA pre-flop.  I wouldn’t go all-in with KK on an AAA flop, but maybe that’s because I’m a weak, timid coward.  I’d certainly give it some action after the turn and river had given my awestruck opponents a chance to make poorer full houses (see above).

Straight flushes: not much to do about these, either.  I’ve never seen it happen that the nut flush was beaten by a straight flush, but I’ve landed one or two, and I have seen the "ignorant end" of a straight flush beaten by the top side of it.  If I’m holding the AK of spades, and the board comes up T98, all spades, I’m not at all concerned about the Q, J, 7, or 6 coming up and completing a straight flush for someone else: I’m doubling up or going broke, and I don’t care how it happens.

I deposited $100 with Paradise, and took advantage of their "referral bonus" to put $50 in my bonus account, and $50 in my uncle’s.

Paradise gives you one point for paying a dollar towards a tournament fee, or one point for every raked hand (raked meaning raked more than .25, so a pot of more than $5 in NL, which happens fairly frequently at the $25 table with .10/.25 blinds).  After you get 100 points, you get $10 of your bonus.  Repeat.

Obviously, someone could pick up 20-40 points an hour playing cash games, and 1-2/hr in tournaments.  Cash games it was, then.

I cleared the bonus today, so it’s time to look at stats.  I won $50 over 1,373 hands.  My $25 NL rate was 2.26BB/100, but my $10NL rate was 33.  That’s obviously not a big enough sample size to guarantee anything, but the flop percentages were attractive: you can almost always find a table over 30% at these limits, and frequently over 40.  (At Empire now I can’t get anything above 20%.  They must be folding pocket kings.)

Possibly important side note: I lost a buy-in yesterday at $25 NL, when I held AA vs. QQ, and we got all-in preflop.  The flop was KJ9, all clubs, and I held the Ace of clubs.  This is a hair’s breadth from drawing dead: one of the two remaining queens was a club that would give me the nut flush.  The turn was another Ace: a queen on the river would only give my opponent second-best set.  The river, though, was one of the three non-club Tens in the deck, completing a soul-crushing, faith-robbing straight against all odds.  Of course, once two people are all-in on Paradise, they just push all the cards out and hand the money to the winner, so it was a lot less dramatic.  But the point: if I hadn’t angered the poker gods somehow, I’d have won that $25 instead of losing it, and I’d be up $100 instead of $50. 

Which is not to say I didn’t try tournaments.  I have a philisophical problem playing $5+1s (20% rakes are for live poker in casinos), and with my bankroll, I could only play $10+1s when I was feeling extra flush with cash, but that ends up not being a huge problem: I hit second place once, and out of the money six times.  Heads-up, I went 14-12, just barely enough to eek past the rake.

I cash out, then, up twenty-five cents, if you don’t count my bonus.  The plan for now is to take the original hundred out of Paradise, return it to Stars, and go back to small SnGs.  The money that’s left at Paradise should just live on the small NL tables: they’ve been extremely loose and generous, and I hope to milk them for a long time.

Oh, I should point out that I’m undefeated in heads-up tournaments that last two or fewer hands.  2-0!

The first was a few months ago: I was holding A2s in the first hand and flopped a flush draw.  The turn card gave me my flush, and doofus picked up two pair.  I brought him all-in, and he called.  Score!

The second was yesterday: hand 1, AKo in the BB, and since it took my opponent eight years to call, I pushed him all-in.  Fold.  Next hand: 66.  From the button, I pushed all-in.  He called with QTo, and my pair held up. 

Honestly, I think an all-in push has to be done three times before you say "this guy didn’t come to play poker, and I’m not going to let him get away with this anymore".  It happened in a SnG a few weeks back: he pushed his first hand preflop (from the BB), his second hand post-flop (from SB), and then reraised me all-in pre-flop with his third hand.  I called with AQo, and he turned over… QQ.  I still think it was a good call: we’ve all seen the type, and I decided to make my stand.  Someone had to, right?

But I caught an ace on the river to survive.  He still had a chunk of change from the blinds he’d picked up, but after a lot of loud braying about only playing solid hands, and how he guaranteed he’d finish in the money, he was out a few hands later in ninth.

I despise this game.  I am fed up with it.  I don’t even have my bonuses from this month any more.  I had to lay down a hand yesterday on a pot I’d invested $10 into.  Two hands later I picked up my $10 bonus.  Great.

Online poker is obviously rigged.

Okay, just kidding about that part.  But I did lose a heads-up tournament earlier today by having QQ cracked by AJ, AT fall to A5, and the final hand: TT lost to J9.  Which is interesting, because I hadn’t seen anything like these hands yesterday.  The cards have been awful.

I still have about $150 in the system, so I should probably quit those $5 heads up tournaments cold turkey (even though I’m still up on them).  $10 SnGs need to wait until the bankroll hits $250 again.  At least.  And while $5 SnGs are probably fine, I should probably play just as many $1 / $1.50 PS SnGs.  (Those 2-table Turbos they have are really fun, and I’ve had luck there.)

But first, I have to cash out the rest of that Paradise bonus… 100 more raked hands to go.  I just have no confidence that I’ll be able to do it without dropping $100 in the process… okay, I guess I’m pretty confident that won’t happen.

I’m playing in a $50 buy-in NL tournament on Saturday - offline.  It’s modeled after the PS deep stacks tourneys, so it should be a welcome change of pace from the high-speed games we usually play.  It would be an excellent idea to set up Poker Academy for these parameters and play a couple dozen sample runs against robot opponents.  I hope I get a chance over the next few days.

I’ve been at this for about six months now. 

• I’ve played 159 $5 SnGs, and I’m 38.4% ITM, with an ROI of… -7%?  Yikes.
• I’ve played 59 $10 SnGs, and I’m 40.7% ITM, with an ROI of .6%.  (Barely profitable.)

Now, about 80 SnGs in, I was very profitable.  June and July, in particular, were insane.  But looking at these actual stats (particularly, how small the Ns are), can I draw any conclusions at all?  I’m feeling like I’m hitting a disproportional number of 4ths and 5th, but how much of that is due to eliminating my 9th, 7th, and 6th finishes?

Here’s some more raw data:

• In cash games, I’ve played 194 hours (10,000 hands), and made $89.  At .10/.25 NL (the highest stakes I can really play, no matter what my bankroll), I make about 1BB/hr. 
• In heads up tournaments, I’m 63-56.  That’s enough to beat the rake, actually.

So I’m not the worst.  (I don’t have a lot of short-handed data, but I think I’m probably less practiced there.)  I can see that there are some gaps in my game, but nothing glaring (nothing like a 100% VP$IP with KQo, or a lot of cold calling… nothing unfixable, anyway). 

On some days, the only number that matters is the bottom line of my Excel sheet.  And right now, it’s showing a $75 profit over the past two months.  All of it bonuses.  Maybe I do suck.

After withdrawing every dollar from Party, Stars, and Empire, I played against the robots of Poker Academy.  Interesting, but it’s no substitute.

So I freed $100 from the confines of my bank account and stuffed it into Stars.  Then Empire offered a bonus.  Then Party did.  Then Stars did.  That $100 had no idea where it was when it landed, but it did bring along about eighty new friends.  Good deal.

That was all about two weeks ago.  I finished off my last Stars bonus and got all itchy: it was time to try a new site.  Since I hadn’t done Paradise, and that’s where my whole family plays, I decided to give it a shot.  I’ve earned $10 of my bonus, but I’m also up about $30 on an initial deposit of $100.  It’s easier to earn a bonus on a cash table than a ton of tournaments, so I’ve been focusing on that.  Full table is a big strength for me, mostly because it’s so easy to be patient at loose tables and just wait for the right cards and a strong flop.

Then this Stars-hates-me tournament drought started.  I can’t wait until that’s over, because I really like not finishing in fourth.  I think my short-handed game kind of sucks, but I’m also referring back to the starting hands matrix (it’s way more complicated than a chart) in Harrington’s Volume 1. 

I still haven’t been to a live game since the Tournament That Shook My Faith in Poker.  (But my work friends keep holding them over thirty miles away: I love this game, but I’m not going to drive that far to get beat by some jackass on a low-end straight draw with… never mind.)

I bought two new books: I’ll post them on the sidebar as soon as I’m done.

Ugh.  Having a bad, bad stretch in tournaments.  Started seeing a bunch of last-place finishes, so I read up on Harrington again (toned down my aggressiveness), and started seeing consistent bubble finishes.  Annoying.

The worst bit about this recent stretch is that I’ve mostly seen bad beats.  Bad beats, I remind myself, are the sign of a good player: stuff your money in with the best hand and the only way you can lose is if bad cards hit.  But the bad cards have been hitting.  Like:

1. I started following Phil Gordon’s advice and playing any pocket pair, as long as there haven’t been two raises.  He’s right: the implied odds are insanely good, and there isn’t an easier hand to play in no-limit.  Either you hit the flop and you’re pushing, or you missed it and you’re cutting fairly cheap.  But when your 66 sees a K64 flop, and you bet about 2/3rds of the pot, and holy crap 53o calls, because there’s a straight draw… what can you do?  Watch the 7 hit, bet, get brought all-in… mistakes.
2. Same idea: miss the flop with 88, but the turn is an 8, and the third diamond.  Again, I am forced to call an all-in bet before I have the chance to make one, but I actually saw that draw, and called with the intent of hitting one of my ten full-house outs.  Oh well.
3. 88 vs KK on a K82 flop: always a favorite
4. QT vs AA on a QT6 flop: of course the final 6 comes on the river
5. BB calls a raise with 65o… enough said
6. These are getting fairly petty, so I’ll stop

It’s just the inventiveness and creativity behind these beats.  (I’m leaving out heads-up beats, too, because anything can basically happen there.)  But aggression is great: they can fold, or they can call with a worse hand, and that’s why we do it.  On the other hand, sometimes they call with a better hand (it happens) and sometimes they call with a worse one, and win anyway.