I flopped the nuts!

I’m getting less squeamish about Party ring games.

I finally got an actual Party account opened, and deposited to get that initial deposit bonus.  I had about a hundred hands to play to clear the bonus, and I was up about $30 already.  In that last hundred hands, though, I couldn’t catch cards at all, and the prospect of a free $35 was making me a little impatient.  I called an all-in with AJo (I was outkicked, but had flush outs that, technically, made it a correct call), and then not half and hour later tried some silly, silly move against an opponent who I’d decided was playing too loose.  So I lost $40 to scoop the $35 bonus.

And I was already down overall, since I’d been playing the Party $10+1s, which are still coinflip city.  Ah well. 

Again, I have flopped low set (22, with a 237 rainbow flop), gone all-in, and top pair (ooh, sevens, with a J kicker) calls me.  He turns two pair (but I’m not afraid of jacks and sevens), and then rivers the 7: that gives me a full house, but completes a higher full house for him.

How often can this happen?  Because it’s three times in a week, and therefore probably more likely than it seems.  It’s starting to tick me off.

If you take poker seriously and you haven’t read The Theory of Poker yet, you have a strange definition of the word "seriously".  It’s important.  Anyway, the theory applied to Hold ‘Em is basically that you are trying to make the move you would make if you could see everyone’s pocket cards.  Do that, and you win long term.  The flip side is that you should be trying to get your opponents to make a decision that they wouldn’t otherwise make if they knew what your cards were.  It seems simple, but it’s very tough to put into practice. 

I think of it because people here have been reading my previous entry about limpers, and I’ve come across another solution to that problem which I hadn’t considered.  At a cash table, someone with a pile of money in front of him started talking about not having raises respected, and how bad play was winning out recently.  His theory was a sort of wrestling-with-a-pig concept: "you can’t possibly raise enough to make dumb players not chase their straights and flushes, so just make your normal bet with top pairs or overcards and hope for the best.  They’re bad players, and you’ll take their money eventually."

This was really appealing to me for a while, until I realized that his "normal bet" was a minimum bet, or maybe twice that, no matter what the pot was at the time.  Now, by the principles of avoiding frustrating beats, this is absolutely correct: risking almost nothing at a weak table might chase away a poor player with a flush draw, and if it doesn’t, you’ve made up your mind that you couldn’t have chased him away anyway, and you only risked a tiny bet to do it.  But when you factor the theory into it, it’s clear this is an awful move.

Giving your dumb microlimit player an almost free card is actually long-term suicide, because you’re actually giving him appropriate odds to call.  That’s the awesome thing about no-limit: you can set the odds for your opponent, and you can exploit the theory all day long.  Let’s pretend you’re past the turn with a nice top pair, and your opponent is drawing to a flush with one card to come.  If he has to call a $1 bet to see the next card, and the pot is $10, he should take this bet every time.  His odds are 4 to 1, and while you might like to chase him away with a bet like that, a smart player will happily call you there.  You’ll survive the next card about 80% of the time, but you aren’t getting paid enough to play through the bad beats.  That’s your money in the middle, and you let it get away with a weak bet.

But, if you bet $10 at the $10 pot, your opponent is only getting 2 to 1 odds to see that next card, and while the result might be exactly the same (remember, if he’s so dumb, you can’t chase him away, right?), you’ll win enough when you win to make it worthwhile. 

I’m playing like this a lot lately: manipulating the odds of the pot so it’s wrong for an opponent to call with what I think he has.  It’s expensive when you’re wrong, but overall, it’s been a huge help to my game.  On the other hand, it makes limit Hold ‘Em look like Candyland. 

Yesterday I failed to hit money in four PokerStars Sit N’ Gos.  That’s not typically worth mention, but my average for July, going into yesterday, was 12 for 16.  That’s 75%!

But twice yesterday, I went all-in with a full house, only to get called by a weaker hand (two pair or a set), only to have the weaker hand draw to a bigger full house.  That’s just spectacularly bad luck.

And the other one had a maniac who was raising every hand pre-flop, and then reraising post flop to steal pots.  He hit a few, too: he slowed down a little bit when he had to show down 63s and doubled up some short stacks, but when he started up again, I thought I’d trapped him with KK.  After getting his standard preflop raise, I let him bring me all-in, and he turns over AA.  How did I not see that coming?

July is still turning out to be a very good month, playing solid poker against some of the goofiest players.  I think I’m up about a hundred over the past two weeks.  And now there’s a deposit bonus!  All right!

This one’s not even about me.  Our subject ends up all-in with kings, but loses to a river flush.  (Read the hand history, and then comb through again for my comments.)  Let’s see how he can avoid this happening in the future.

PokerStars Game #2116734181: Tournament #10132514, Hold’em No Limit - Level IV (50/100) - 2005/07/16 - 15:05:33 (ET)
Table ‘10132514 1′ Seat #7 is the button
Seat 2: Phalconx (630 in chips)
Seat 3: bbocholis4 (715 in chips)
Seat 4: cannotblufme (1650 in chips)
Seat 5: wterrill (2340 in chips)
Seat 7: dnord520 (3475 in chips)
Seat 8: rntaz (3775 in chips)
Seat 9: Jerry4545 (915 in chips)
rntaz: posts small blind 50
Jerry4545: posts big blind 100
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to dnord520 [2h Qh]
Phalconx: folds
bbocholis4: raises 300 to 400

4 BB’s: a perfectly acceptable raise from UTG+1, but he’s put in almost half his chips now, and since he plans on putting them all in anyway, an all-in that takes the blinds isn’t a bad result. 

cannotblufme: folds
wterrill: folds
dnord520: folds

Yeah, I like having a large stack, a suited queen and everything, but I’ve seen a raise, and I’m not participating.

rntaz: calls 350

This call with Q6s is insane.  Is he on it because he’s small blind, and has already committed 50?  I can’t say.

Jerry4545: folds
*** FLOP *** [8d 4s 5d]
rntaz: checks
bbocholis4: bets 300

I can’t think of any reason not to go all-in here.  This is effectively the same bet, unless he forgot how short his stack was before all the betting happened.

rntaz: calls 300

This call looks insane, but it’s not quite so crazy.  The inside straight draw is four outs twice, so that’s a 16% probability to occur on the turn or river.  The running flush draw is maybe a 15-1 shot, but that’s that another whole six of the 25 percent he needs (since the pot is 900 now, and the price is 300) to call it.  And he doesn’t know how much he’s behind at this point: a 4BB raise followed by a (for all purposes) all-in could be AK, AJ, 99… and in those cases, you have to add the remaining queens as outs.  I would probably avoid this call, because it’s so close, and you hate to double up the short stack so early, but I wouldn’t have been in this hand with trash to begin with, since I play tighter than that.

*** TURN *** [8d 4s 5d] [Ts]
rntaz: checks
bbocholis4: checks

Blank.

*** RIVER *** [8d 4s 5d Ts] [5s]
rntaz: bets 300
bbocholis4: calls 15 and is all-in
*** SHOW DOWN ***
rntaz: shows [6s Qs] (a flush, Queen high)
bbocholis4: shows [Kc Kd] (two pair, Kings and Fives)
rntaz collected 1530 from pot
Phalconx said, "yo dude you are a lucky ****"
Phalconx said, "lol"
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1530 | Rake 0
Board [8d 4s 5d Ts 5s]
Seat 2: Phalconx folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 3: bbocholis4 showed [Kc Kd] and lost with two pair, Kings and Fives
Seat 4: cannotblufme folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 5: wterrill folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 7: dnord520 (button) folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 8: rntaz (small blind) showed [6s Qs] and won (1530) with a flush, Queen high
Seat 9: Jerry4545 (big blind) folded before Flop

There are two possibilities: an all-in bet pre-flop could have saved the kings.  You have to consider your stack size when you make your standard 4BB raise with a nice hand like this.  If it’s more than half your stack, the leverage post-flop is going to be minimized (a drawing hand might just find calling more entertaining than not).  But that brings up the other possibility: a 2BB raise, as ugly as it is, leaves a pot-size stack in your hands should you need to raise again post-flop.  And, done from second position, it’s probably going to clear as many people as the 4BB raise would. 

But do you really want to clear people out with kings?  I guess you want ace-x to fold.  Everyone else you pretty much want along for the ride.

Since observer chat doesn’t go into my logs, I can’t relay the tirade by the cracked kings, but it went on for a few hands and was mostly filtered down by PokerStars software to "u ****ing suck".

June’s been better. I got PokerTracker at the beginning of the month, so I can’t really say what my historic totals are, but I definitely turned some corners and learned some lessons. A huge home tournament saved my month - about $100 in one night, plus the respect and fear of my coworkers. I had two or three terrible cash hands, and only one or two awful tournaments, but I feel pretty good about both. The interesting thing is that I’m doing very well in MTT play: single table sit-n-gos are a money loser for me, but two, three, and five table have all been pretty good.

I’m officially done with Empire. I moved $50 in there last week and it’s 97 cents now. Their sit-n-gos are so aggressive: 800 chips, and blinds moving from 10/15 to 15/30 to 25/50 to 75/150 with every ten hands… if you don’t see something you love in the first three rounds, you’re pretty much playing short stack against the six guys that are left playing Party-style. I may try to open a Party account, since I have heard the play is atrocious (and it is, I just can’t catch a break in their tournament format), but I’ve been smacked down trying to install it (since Empire is the same thing).

So that leaves PokerStars. I’ve had great luck with their .05/.10 NL game ($10 max), but every time I try to move to the .10/.25 ($25), I get crushed. So I’m playing two-at-a-time $10 tables, and that’s working out. I’m also going to leave the $10+$1 sit-n-gos alone for a while and see if I can’t make $5+$.50 profitable. And, with the revelation that MTT is a good game for me, I may try to carve out a couple two-hours blocks of time and play in larger tournaments. That’s where the real money is, anyway.

I’m getting a little goofy from playing so tight lately.

When you play 15-20% of your hands, it can happen that you don’t see anything for two or three orbits.  The thing to do there is to just hang tight.  It ends eventually.

It ended for me with pocket aces.  I raised 3BB from UTG+1 and got two callers.  My heart started racing, because duuuude.  Aces.  The flop was 9-9-7.  Nothing good, but nothing bad.  Check.  Check.  I make a pot sized bet.  Fold.  Fold.  That didn’t go as well as I’d hoped, but at least I didn’t get hurt.

I can’t figure out why I was so excited to see AA, though.  It just came at the end of a long folding streak, and it gave me a weird feeling.

Every Friday I’d like to paste one of my hand histories and talk about what I was thinking.  This one’s been stuck in my head since I played it, because I think I played it well, but I lost a ton of money.  (For me, on my bankroll.  It’s actually the cheapest cash game they offer.)

(And for those of you not in the know, the ring games are the exact same at Empire and Party.  I don’t mean they are similar: I mean that when you sit at table 12345, there are the same people whether you’re logged in at Empire or Party or any of the other skins.)

Let me set up the hand: I am SB, but one hand ago, I was the BB, and we went head-to-head, with him attacking me with a bunch of little raises which I just called.  He showed 72o and I scooped the pot, while remarking on his inventive play with a crap hand.  So I assume he’s mad at me.

***** Hand History for Game 2248400202 *****
$25 NL Hold’em - Wednesday, June 22, 22:10:24 EDT 2005
Table Table  37379 (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Total number of players : 8
Seat 1: nolimitguy ( $26.13 )
Seat 3: riverrafter4 ( $19.05 )
Seat 5: DumbManiac ( $15.7 )
Seat 7: HDDriver ( $28.75 )
Seat 9: Papa_Z ( $10.3 )
Seat 2: dnord520 ( $27.6 )
Seat 10: buckarue ( $30.75 )
Seat 6: Leon768 ( $24.4 )
dnord520 posts small blind [$0.1].
riverrafter4 posts big blind [$0.25].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to dnord520 [  Jh Jd ]
DumbManiac calls [$0.25].
nolimitguy: nh
jeraf452 has joined the table.
Leon768 folds.
HDDriver folds.
Papa_Z folds.
buckarue folds.
nolimitguy calls [$0.25].
dnord520 calls [$0.15].
riverrafter4 checks.

So okay, so here we go again.  The table decides they’d rather watch The Blinds Scrap, except I actually have a hand.  No need to push it, though… it’s not a pair of aces, and we want to get paid if we flop a set.

** Dealing Flop ** [ Jc, 3d, 8d ]

I nailed it!  Not just the set, but top set.  I’m not worried about AA or KK at this point.  The only bad news: our flop is slightly flushy.  Let’s take care of that with a bet of three times the pot. 

dnord520 bets [$3].
riverrafter4 folds.
DumbManiac folds.
nolimitguy calls [$3].
** Dealing Turn ** [ 2s ]

Draws are mostly gone at this point.  There could still be a nut with a flush draw, so let’s fire the same bet.  (This is extremely aggressive for a Party/Empire table, I think.)

dnord520 bets [$3].
nolimitguy calls [$3].
** Dealing River ** [ 7h ]

At this point I’m almost 100% that I’m dealing with overpairs, and I beat overpairs.  I’m still beating every other set out there.  Even if I’m dealing with AKs, the flushes don’t exist anymore.  This pot is mine, and we might as well get paid by the guy tilting because he’s ticked about getting looked up on last hand’s 72o bluff. 

dnord520 bets [$5].
nolimitguy is all-In.

I check the board.  What’s he doing?  Betting $20 to buy a $20 pot, and… I have the nuts, right?  I check again.  There’s nothing on the board that beats me, so…

dnord520 calls [$14.88].
dnord520 shows [ Jh, Jd ] three of a kind, jacks.
nolimitguy shows [ 9c, Th ] a straight, seven to jack.
nolimitguy wins $50.16 from  the main pot  with a straight, seven to jack.

So, with that done, let’s see where my mistakes were:

1. Before the hand even started: I’d heard that Party / Empire tables were looser and and fishier than PokerStars.  Well, even after watching this table for a while, the VP$IP was less than 30%, and I still decided I could play rock and scoop pots occasionally.  But I really wasn’t comfortable at the .10/.25 level, where $25 buy-ins can vanish just like that.  I was playing a little nervous, which probably led to:
2. Preflop: many experts would say that, if the pot is worth entering, it’s worth raising into.  I had reasons for limping (not real proud of JJ, wanted to be able to bail on a flop with anything larger, had just picked up some chips earlier, wasn’t really thinking, etc.), but in all honesty, he probably would have laid down T9o for a minimal raise.  In the SB, you’re in the earliest position, and almost nothing good is going to happen when you’re the first to act after every card.  You don’t want to play this hand, you want to win it before the flop comes.  But I was thinking "what’s the worst that could happen?"
3. Flop: If I really want to get paid with top set, I should probably not pull out the cannon and bet three times the pot.  Pot-size raises clear the draws in almost every case: I was giving my opponents 4:3 odds, less than they’d need for any straight or flush.  It doesn’t mean they won’t call it (obviously), but it’s not smart long-term for them to do so.
4. Turn: with the pot $7, and my opponent with eight outs, a $3 bet is too small.  He’s getting 10:3 all the sudden, and while it’s still not enough to pay a 4:1 draw, he’s shown he doesn’t card about it.  Besides, I put him on a two-out draw like AA or KK, and just not having the nerve to lay it down.  So I was just sweetening the pot, I guess.
5. River: I honestly didn’t see the straight.  I need to get better at this: I looked twice.  If I had, would I have believed that he’d been holding T9o the whole time?  Probably not.  But I might have checked to him, just to show that I recognized the scare card, and he might not have gone all-in if I wasn’t guns-blazing for the fourth round in a row.

Five playing errors?  A bargain at $5 apiece. 

I’m struggling with a question: what to do with limpers.  I play on the cheapest tables around, since I’m still learning, but it seems like the level of play in that game invalidates a certain amount of advice you might rely on at a more serious table.

Late position is where you should be playing most of your hands (not that you’ll play 50% of what you’re dealt there, but that’s where you’ll be most of the time when you’re playing).  I’m getting frustrated thinking that I’ve got a great hand for raising, and then find that four people ahead of me are limping.  Again.  Their limps turn your KJs–a great blind-stealing hand–into an underdog trying to bluff half the table.

I think most advice you’ll get says: scare these guys off with a raise if you have cards or take the nearly-cheap ride if your cards are marginal.  Tight aggressive, right?  With an eye towards pot odds.  But with that kind of money already in the pot, everyone’s getting pot odds to call, so they can’t fold.  So you can’t shake them.  And four limpers holding crap will beat you, no matter what you have.  Most of the time, the flop will miss you, and it’s just math: with that many hands, what doesn’t help you helps them.

People say there’s no such thing as "too loose" in an opponent.  I
think sometimes there is, especially if you’re just trying to practice
your TA-A game.  If they don’t respect your aggressive play, there’s no point.  Here are the options as I see them:

1. Limp and cut if you miss.  You had the pot odds and position to call, and when you miss, you’re out one BB.  Don’t make it worse by making something happen.
2. If it keeps happening, move on (to a different table) or move up (to a higher level, where the raises are respected a little more).
3. Treat .01/.02 like .05/.10.  Throw out the advice about 2BB or 3BB raises and start raising 10BB if you’re going to play at all.  That’s something this kind of table understands: if their stupidity is sufficient to call your monster raises with poor holdings, tune the raise to get the result you want.  It’s not changing your game to suit lesser players, it’s… well, okay, it is.  Also dangerous.  But at least you have to ask yourself why you were thinking raise to begin with.
4. Never, ever bluff at this level.  You want to make something happen with that AQs in your hand, but he already made something happen with his 74o.  He knows where he stands, you don’t, you don’t have the outs, you’re throwing money away.
5. Patience.  He’ll still have your money in fifteen minutes when you actually do hit with a decent hand, and he won’t know to be scared enough to fold.

If you’re planning on writing a poker book anytime soon, please correct your habit of referring to "strong" and "weak" players.  It’s a lazy shorthand for something you could be expressing more distinctly.  Are you referring to an aggressive / passive player?  Or a tight / loose player?  A winning / losing player?  A fresh / seasoned player?

For the most part, I think most authors / writers are referring to the passive / agressive axis.  At the same time, don’t confuse a pushover with someone who simply plays too many hands.  The cards held by an extremely loose player may frequently be poor, but that doesn’t mean that he’s a better or worse player.

And, when you look across the table and see a 15% VP$IP limping in, that doesn’t mean that he won’t fold to a raise.  Whether or not he does won’t make him weak or strong, just playing a different balance (perhaps poorly chosen) of poker.