Limping With Aces

Worst Poker Article Ever

2005-10-12T14:58:00.000-07:00

Spotted this linked on twoplustwo. This is the worst article on poker ever written. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to find the fallacies and logic holes in his reasoning.

Low Content

2005-08-09T17:37:00.000-07:00

This hand post isn't to discuss strategy. Just to celebrate the largest pot I've taken down so far at 20/40. By the way, wtf was UTG thinking?

Party Poker 20/40 Hold'em (10 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is BB with 2d, 2s.
UTG raises, UTG+1 calls, 5 folds, Button calls, 1 fold, Hero calls.

Flop: (8.50 SB) 2c, Qh, 3d (4 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets, UTG+1 raises, Button folds, Hero 3-bets, UTG calls, UTG+1 calls.

Turn: (8.75 BB) 3c (3 players)
Hero bets, UTG raises, Hero 3-bets, UTG caps, Hero calls.

River: (16.75 BB) 7c (3 players)
Hero bets, UTG calls.

Final Pot: 18.75 BB

Results below:
Hero has 2d 2s (full house, twos full of threes).
UTG has Kh Qc (two pair, queens and threes).
UTG+1 has Jc Qs (two pair, queens and threes).
Outcome: Hero wins 18.75 BB.

And the boats keep coming. Here's an example of implied odds preflop.

Party Poker 20/40 Hold'em (10 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is SB with 5s, 5d.
3 folds, MP1 raises, 4 folds, Hero calls, BB 3-bets, MP1 calls, Hero calls.

Flop: (9 SB) Ad, 5c, As (3 players)
Hero checks, BB bets, MP1 folds, Hero raises, BB calls.

Turn: (6.50 BB) Tc (2 players)
Hero bets, BB calls.

River: (8.50 BB) 2h (2 players)
Hero bets, BB calls.

Final Pot: 10.50 BB

Results below:
Hero has 5s 5d (full house, fives full of aces).
BB has Th 8d (two pair, aces and tens).
Outcome: Hero wins 10.50 BB.

Last one:
Party Poker 20/40 Hold'em (10 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with Js, As. MP3 posts a blind of $20.
1 fold, Hero raises, UTG+2 calls, 3 folds, CO calls, Button calls, 2 folds.

Flop: (10.50 SB) 7s, Ks, Ts (4 players)
Hero bets, UTG+2 calls, CO raises, Button calls, Hero 3-bets, UTG+2 folds, CO caps, Button folds, Hero calls.

Turn: (10.75 BB) 8c (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets, Hero raises, CO calls.

River: (14.75 BB) 3c (2 players)
Hero bets, CO calls.

Final Pot: 16.75 BB

Results below:
Hero has Js As (flush, ace high).
CO has 3s 9s (flush, king high).
Outcome: Hero wins 16.75 BB.

Unfortunately the variance is really messy and at the moment I'm down. Steadily making it back though.

Party Poker 20/40 Hold'em (7 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with Jh, Ah.
1 fold, MP1 raises, Hero calls, CO calls, 2 folds, BB calls.

Flop: (8.50 SB) 2h, Th, 8h (4 players)
BB bets, MP1 calls, Hero raises, CO 3-bets, BB folds, MP1 folds, Hero caps, CO calls.

Turn: (9.25 BB) 9s (2 players)
Hero bets, CO calls.

River: (11.25 BB) Qs (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets, Hero raises, CO calls.

Final Pot: 15.25 BB

Results below:
Hero has Jh Ah (flush, ace high).
CO has Td Qd (two pair, queens and tens).
Outcome: Hero wins 15.25 BB.

The aggression that everyone displays is great for your powerhouse hands, but is very difficult to play against when you hold marginal hands.

Good Flop Raise?

2005-06-22T07:46:00.000-07:00

I'm right now 1-tabling $10/$20 on Empire Poker, practicing for the WSOP side games I'll be playing this weekend in Las Vegas.

Party Poker 10/20 Hold'em (10 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is Button with As, Ah. CO posts a blind of $10.
UTG calls, 1 fold, UTG+2 raises, 4 folds, Hero 3-bets, 2 folds, UTG calls, UTG+2 calls.

Flop: (11.50 SB) Td, Qh, Kh (3 players)
UTG checks, UTG+2 bets, Hero raises, UTG folds, UTG+2 calls.

The flop raise is the most interesting bit, I think. My opponent has a PFR of 13% over 60 hands. Let's say he raises pf with QT, QJ, KT, KJ, KQ, AT, AJ, AQ, AK, 99, TT, JJ, QQ, KK, AA.

QT = 3x3 = 9 / behind
QJ = 3x4 = 12 / ahead
KT = 3x3 = 9 / behind
KJ = 3x4 = 12 / ahead
KQ = 3x3 = 9 / behind
AT = 2x3 = 6 / behind
AJ = 2x4 = 8 / behind
AQ = 2x3 = 6 / ahead
AK = 2x3 = 6 / ahead
99 = 4c2 = 6 / ahead
TT = 3c2 = 3 / behind
JJ = 4c2 = 6 / ahead
QQ = 3c2 = 3 / behind
KK = 3c2 = 3 / behind
AA = 2c2 = 1 / tied

I am behind 49 hands. I am ahead of 48 hands. I am tied with one hand.

That's interesting. With the wide range of hands he might be raising here, it's almost even money that he's beat me, him with the slightest edge.

If I tighten him up to my EP opening standards for a tight aggressive game, say KQ, AJ, AQ, AK, AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT, then I am behind 26 hands and ahead of 18 hands, tied with 1. If I make him looser than the above by adding one more hand:

JT = 4x3 = 12 / ahead

Suddenly I behind 49 hands but ahead of 60. This shows how important reads are on an opponent. The more you know about your opponents, the better decisions you can make. I mean, I am completely guessing on the mix of hands he would play this way. If he raised suited connectors or some small pocket pairs, that would affect these results tremendously. Against a tight player, should I simply call here and assume I'm drawing? This is a marginal situation, confounded by the fact that I simply can't fold in a large pot.

This raise depends on a lot of factors. If he has two pair, it is likely that he will 3-bet me on this flop. Pairing the board to possibly give me a better two pair is difficult because I won't know if he's hit a full-house or what.

But getting the raise in here is important, even if it opens me up to being 3-bet. I want to protect my hand against the player behind me who could be drawing very live. There is enough chance that I am ahead here, and the pot is big enough that it makes up for those times when I am wrong.

I wonder if Ciaffone would tell me to just call here, or fold. But I think that, though close, you have to raise here on the flop. The rest of the play below is standard.

Turn: (7.75 BB) 2h (2 players)
UTG+2 checks, Hero bets, UTG+2 calls.

River: (9.75 BB) 6s (2 players)
UTG+2 checks, Hero bets, UTG+2 calls.

Final Pot: 11.75 BB

Results below:
UTG+2 has Js Jh (one pair, jacks).
Hero has As Ah (one pair, aces).
Outcome: Hero wins 11.75 BB.

Standard.

2005-06-09T14:36:00.000-07:00

The play here is standard. Do you see why?

Party Poker 3/6 Hold'em (9 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with Kh, Ad.
2 folds, MP1 calls, Hero raises, 1 fold, CO 3-bets, 3 folds, MP1 calls, Hero caps, CO calls, MP1 calls.

Flop: (13.33 SB) 8d, 9d, Ah (3 players)
MP1 checks, Hero bets, CO raises, MP1 folds, Hero 3-bets, CO calls.

Turn: (9.66 BB) Ts (2 players)
Hero bets, CO calls.

River: (11.66 BB) 3s (2 players)
Hero bets, CO calls.

Final Pot: 13.66 BB

Results below:
Hero has Kh Ad (one pair, aces).
CO has Qs As (one pair, aces).
Outcome: Hero wins 13.66 BB.

Position, Position, Position

2005-06-09T14:28:00.000-07:00

Here's a hand where I think my position won it for me. Being able to see what everyone does before you is a huge advantage.

Party Poker 3/6 Hold'em (8 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is Button with 4s, As.
2 folds, MP1 calls, MP2 calls, 1 fold, Hero calls, SB completes, BB checks.

Flop: (5 SB) 3d, 8d, Ad (5 players)
SB checks, BB checks, MP1 checks, MP2 bets, Hero raises, SB folds, BB folds, MP1 folds, MP2 calls.

Turn: (4.50 BB) Jd (2 players)
MP2 checks, Hero bets, MP2 folds.

Final Pot: 5.50 BB

Results below:
No showdown. Hero wins 5.50 BB.

One Of Those Calls

2005-06-09T14:22:00.000-07:00

This is one of those calls where the results make me look either like an idiot or a genius. But what do you do when people think you're stealing? Stop'n'go the turn? Push the flop?

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t30 (6 handed) converter

MP (t640)
CO (t2075)
Button (t1754)
SB (t1346)
Hero (t1030)
UTG (t1155)

Preflop: Hero is BB with Qs, 5d.
1 fold, MP calls t30, 3 folds, Hero checks.

Flop: (t75) Qd, 3c, 6s (2 players)
Hero bets t40, MP raises to t120, Hero calls t80.

Turn: (t315) 8c (2 players)
Hero checks, Bigchuter is all-in for t490, Hero calls t490.

River: (t805) 5h (2 players)

Final Pot: t805

Results below:
MP has 7c 6c (one pair, sixes).
Hero has Qs 5d (two pair, queens and fives).
Outcome: Hero wins t805.

Eastbay's SNG Analyzer

2005-06-07T08:44:00.000-07:00

http://sitngo-analyzer.com/

A Bit More Aggresive River Than Usual

2005-06-06T11:17:00.000-07:00

Party Poker 3/6 Hold'em (10 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is BB with Ks, As. UTG+2 posts a blind of $4.
2 folds, UTG+2 (poster) checks, 3 folds, CO raises, Button calls, 1 fold, Hero 3-bets, UTG+2 folds, CO calls, Button calls.

Flop: (10.66 SB) 7d, 5c, Ac (3 players)
Hero bets, CO calls, Button folds.

Turn: (6.33 BB) 4h (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets, Hero raises, CO calls.

River: (10.33 BB) Ah (2 players)
Hero bets, CO raises, Hero 3-bets, CO calls.

Final Pot: 16.33 BB

Results below:
Hero has Ks As (three of a kind, aces).
CO has Ad Qd (three of a kind, aces).
Outcome: Hero wins 16.33 BB.

Cap for value?

2005-06-05T20:33:00.000-07:00

Here's a fun hand where I raised preflop then got to cap every street for value.

Party Poker 3/6 Hold'em (10 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with Kc, Jc.
UTG calls, 1 fold, UTG+2 calls, Hero raises, 1 fold, MP3 calls, 1 fold, Button 3-bets, 2 folds, UTG folds, UTG+2 calls, Hero calls, MP3 calls.

Flop: (14.33 SB) Qh, Ac, Ts (4 players)
UTG+2 checks, Hero bets, MP3 calls, Button raises, UTG+2 folds, Hero 3-bets, MP3 calls, Button caps, Hero calls, MP3 calls.

Turn: (13.16 BB) 2h (3 players)
Hero bets, MP3 calls, Button raises, Hero 3-bets, MP3 calls, Button caps, Hero calls, MP3 calls.

River: (25.16 BB) 7h (3 players)

Final Pot: 25.16 BB

Results below:
Hero has Kc Jc (straight, ace high).
MP3 has 2s Ah (two pair, aces and twos).
Button has Qs Qd (three of a kind, queens).
Outcome: Hero wins 25.16 BB.

Genius or Accidental Value Bet?

2005-06-04T21:40:00.000-07:00

In limit poker, I'm fairly sure the correct move on the river is to check and call. In no-limit, I'm not exactly sure. I can't explain why I bet 300 chips, because it feels like a bet that will only get called when beaten. But at the moment, for some reason I felt like that was a fair value bet. Consider the way he called all those bets throughout the hand.

I don't know. Either it's genius or I was lucky to find someone dumb enough to call that bet.

Anyway the deck is hitting me in the face right now. I can't seem to lose a hand and I'm knocking people out left right and centre.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t30 (7 handed) converter

Hero (t1510)
MP1 (t1840)
MP2 (t700)
CO (t1150)
Button (t1375)
SB (t740)
BB (t685)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with As, Ad.
Hero raises to t90, 2 folds, CO calls t90, 3 folds.

Flop: (t225) Jc, 7d, 6h (2 players)
Hero bets t90, CO raises to t180, Hero calls t90.

Turn: (t585) 4c (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets t125, Hero raises to t250, CO calls t125.

River: (t1085) Jd (2 players)
Hero bets t300, CO calls t300.

Final Pot: t1685

Results below:
Hero has As Ad (two pair, aces and jacks).
CO has Qh Ah (one pair, jacks).
Outcome: Hero wins t1685.

Not a Bad First Hand...

2005-06-04T20:43:00.000-07:00

No real content to this, just that I'm playing in a sub-qualifier to try to get into the WSOP. This wasn't a bad first hand.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t15 (10 handed) converter

MP2 (t800)
Hero (t800)
CO (t800)
Button (t800)
SB (t800)
BB (t800)
UTG (t800)
UTG+1 (t800)
UTG+2 (t800)
MP1 (t800)

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with 9d, 9s.
1 fold, UTG+1 calls t15, UTG+2 calls t15, MP1 raises to t30, 1 fold, Hero calls t30, 3 folds, BB calls t15, UTG+1 calls t15, UTG+2 calls t15.

Flop: (t157.50) Ad, 9h, Qh (5 players)
BB checks, UTG+1 checks, UTG+2 checks, MP1 bets t50, Hero raises to t150, BB folds, UTG+1 calls t150, UTG+2 folds, MP1 calls t100.

Turn: (t607.50) 9c (3 players)
UTG+1 checks, MP1 bets t200, Hero calls t200, UTG+1 calls t200.

River: (t1207.50) Js (3 players)
UTG+1 checks, MP1 checks, Hero is all-in for t420, UTG+1 folds, UTG+1 calls all-in t420.

Final Pot: t1207.50

Results below:
UTG+1 doesn't show.
MP1 has Ks As (two pair, aces and nines).
Hero has 9d 9s (four of a kind, nines).
Outcome: Hero wins t1207.50.

Weird KK Hand

2005-06-03T10:54:00.000-07:00

This hand was kind of strange. I called on the flop in case MP3 was betting a draw vs. the pot size. I think this wasn't a reverse implied odds situation because I would easily fold on the turn if a flush card came down. I think the flop may be the most controversial street. The rest looks fine to me.

Party Poker 3/6 Hold'em (9 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is SB with Ks, Kc. UTG+1 posts a blind of $3.
UTG calls, UTG+1 (poster) checks, 2 folds, MP3 calls, CO calls, Button calls, Hero raises, 1 fold, UTG calls, UTG+1 calls, MP3 calls, CO calls, Button calls.

Flop: (13 SB) 6h, Ts, Ah (6 players)
Hero checks, UTG checks, UTG+1 checks, MP3 bets, CO calls, Button folds, Hero calls, UTG calls, UTG+1 calls.

Turn: (9 BB) 2d (5 players)
Hero checks, UTG checks, UTG+1 checks, MP3 checks, CO checks.

River: (9 BB) Jd (5 players)
Hero bets, UTG folds, UTG+1 calls, MP3 folds, CO folds.

Final Pot: 11 BB

Bad River Raise

2005-06-03T10:06:00.000-07:00

Here is an example of a terrible river raise. It's the kind that will get called by many better hands and few worse hands. Calling in this spot would have been much better. I think the hand was played fine until the river decision.

Party Poker 3/6 Hold'em (9 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is BB with 9s, 7s.
4 folds, MP3 raises, 2 folds, SB calls, Hero calls.

Flop: (6 SB) 8s, Th, 8c (3 players)
SB checks, Hero bets, MP3 calls, SB calls.

Turn: (4.50 BB) Qs (3 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, MP3 bets, SB calls, Hero calls.

River: (7.50 BB) Jh (3 players)
SB bets, Hero raises...

Limping With Aces??

2005-06-01T10:58:00.000-07:00

After going on a 30 BB or so losing streak at 3/6, I caught myself slowplaying aces. At 3/6. I can't see a bigger indicator of tilt. I closed all four PartyPoker windows immediately.

Short-stack Strategy in Action

2005-06-01T01:21:00.000-07:00

I was trying out Ed Miller's excellent short stack strategy for no-limit cash games, as presented in his fantastic book, Getting Started In Hold'em. I played about 1,000 hands over four tables, mostly at the Party $400 max games.

I have to say one thing about the strategy. Although it works, it is exceptionally boring. My VP$IP was hovering around 7%, meaning that I voluntarily put money in the pot preflop 7% of the time. That's a lot of folding. In comparison, my VP$IP for playing 3/6 limit at Party is around 15.6%.

The thing I was shocked was how often I was called by worse hands. I would sit there folding every hand for half an hour, then raise. And some people still called despite my exceptional tightness.

Here's a hand I played:

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $400 max (10 handed) converter

UTG+1 ($372)
UTG+2 ($207)
MP1 ($102)
MP2 ($370)
Hero ($44)
CO ($645.7)
Button ($450.7)
SB ($656)
BB ($234)
UTG ($193.5)

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with As, Ac.
UTG calls $4, 1 fold, UTG+2 calls $4, MP1 calls $4, 1 fold, Hero raises to $15, 2 folds, SB calls $13, 1 fold, UTG calls $11, UTG+2 calls $11, MP1 calls $11.

In hindsight, I raised too little. The pot is already $18 by the time it's my turn, and I really should raise to at least $20-$25. But since that amount commits me, I should just push all-in. With that many limpers, someone will bite.

Either way, although not played optimally, pocket rockets are actually strong enough to be "slowplayed" by raising 4x BB...

Flop: ($79) 2c, Th, 9c (5 players)
SB checks, UTG bets $4, UTG+2 calls $4, MP1 calls $4, Hero raises all-in to $29, SB calls $29, UTG folds, UTG+2 folds, MP1 folds.

No-brainer flop bet.

Turn: ($120) 9s (2 players)

River: ($120) 9h (2 players)

Final Pot: $120

Results below:
SB has Jh Kd (three of a kind, nines).
Hero has As Ac (full house, nines full of aces).
Outcome: Hero wins $120.

After a terrible pre-flop call, the flop call seems somewhat reasonable. This was a pretty example of the Fundamental Theorem of Poker in action. Against the range of hands I play here, he has 4-7 clean outs, twice. He is getting pot odds of 4.8 to 1, which looks fine for 7 outs twice. Happily, he only had four clean outs and therefore made a mistake according to the Fundamental Theorem.

SNG 10+1 hand

2005-05-26T10:47:00.000-07:00

Here's a hand that I played just now:

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t50 (8 handed) converter

Button (t435)
SB (t945)
BB (t1075)
UTG (t1960)
UTG+1 (t1190)
MP1 (t1570)
Hero (t625)
CO (t200)

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with As, 7h.
3 folds, Hero raises to t150, 3 folds, Button goes all-in for t435, folded around to Hero who...

So what do I do?

The pot size is t660, and I have to decide if I should call t285. My pot odds are 2.315 to 1.

If he has KK through 88, I need 2.5 to 1. If he has AA I need something like 13 to 1, however with me having an A, the AA is less likely. If he has 77 I need 2.33 to 1. If he has me dominated with AK-A8, I need 2.75 to 1. If I have him dominated with A6-A2, I'm a 1.6 to 1 favourite. Finally, if he has 22 through 66, I need 1.3 to 1.

I think this is a pretty borderline decision. If he went all-in for only t300, I think this is a clear call. The question is does 22-66 happen often enough to make up for the insufficient odds that I'm getting for a 2.5 to 1 or 2.75 to 1. I think not.

I should have folded.

Instead I called, he showed QQ and I took it down when I hit my A. Poker is a mean game.

Approximate Payouts For PPM IV

2005-03-11T08:10:00.000-08:00

1 $1,300,000
2 $1,000,000
3 $700,000
4 $500,000
5 $300,000
6 $200,000
7 $150,000
8 $120,000
9 $90,000
10 $60,750
11 $54,675
12 $54,675
13 $48,600
14 $48,600
15 $48,600
16 $48,600
17 $48,600
18 $48,600
19 $38,880
20 $38,880
21 $38,880
22 $38,880
23 $38,880
24 $38,880
25 $38,880
26 $38,880
27 $38,880
28 $29,160
29 $29,160
30 $29,160
31 $29,160
32 $29,160
33 $29,160
34 $29,160
35 $29,160
36 $29,160

37-45 $19,440
46-54 $14,580
55-144 $9,720
145-180 $4,860

Mikey McD quotes

2005-02-26T11:28:00.000-08:00

The poker room at the Mirage in Vegas is the center of the poker universe. Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, Phil Helmuth--the legends--consider it their office. Every couple of days a new millionaire shows up wanting to beat a world champion. Usually they go home with nothing but a story.

Books I Own

2005-02-16T07:04:00.000-08:00

Here are all of the Poker related books I own in no particular order:

The Theory of Poker by Sklansky
Tournament Poker for Advanced Players by Sklansky
Inside THe Poker Mind by Feeney
Winning Low Limit Hold'em by Jones (1st & 2nd ed)
Middle Limit Holdem by Ciaffone and Brier
Hold'em Poker by Sklansky
Harrington on Hold'em by Harrington and Robertie
Super/System by Brunson et al.
Super/System 2 by Brunson et al.
Hold'em Poker for Advanced Players by Sklansky and Mulmuth
Poker, Gaming and Life by Sklansky
Championship No-limit & Pot-limit Hold Em by Cloutier and McEvoy
High-Low-Split Poker by Zee
Internet Texas Hold'em by Hilger
Caro's Book of Poker Tells by Caro
Omaha/8 Poker by Tenner and Krieger
The Psychology of Poker by Schoonmaker
Poker Essays by Malmuth
Poker Essays II by Malmuth
Poker Essays III by Malmuth
Winning Concepts in Draw and Lowball by Malmuth
Poker - The Real Deal by Gordon and Grotenstien
Seven Card Stud For Advanced Players by Sklansky, Malmuth and Zee

Blackjack related books:
Blackjack Attack by Schlesinger
Knock-out Blackjack by Vancura & Fuchs

Gambling related books:
Gambling Theory and Other Topics by Malmuth
Gambling for a Living by Sklansky and Malmuth

Fiction/Non-fiction:
Positively Fifth Street by McManus
Bringing Down the House by Mezrich
Poker Face by Lederer

Royal Flush

2005-02-05T22:03:00.000-08:00

This was my first two card Royal Flush:

Party Poker 5/10 Hold'em (9 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is UTG with Jd, Td.
Hero calls, UTG+1 calls, 2 folds, MP3 calls, 3 folds, BB checks.

Flop: (4.40 SB) 3s, Ad, Kd (4 players)
BB checks, Hero bets, UTG+1 calls, MP3 calls, BB folds.

Turn: (3.70 BB) Qd (3 players)
Hero checks, UTG+1 checks, MP3 bets, Hero raises, UTG+1 folds, MP3 folds.

Final Pot: 6.70 BB

Results in white below:
No showdown. Hero wins 6.70 BB.

Interesting Exchange

2005-02-02T09:04:00.000-08:00

Here was an interesting exchange on a river raise found on the forums:

bobbyi> How often we are good is irrelevent.

Evan> When you write that as the first line in a post concerning a river raise I can only think that you don't want me to read the rest. Seriously that is retarded.

sthief09> nah, he's right though. the actual % of the time you're good has little relevance. the question is "how often are we ahead against the range of hands that won't fold to a raise"

Bad Beat

2005-02-02T01:08:00.000-08:00

I normally don't post bad beats, but this one was just ridiculous.

Party Poker 5/10 Hold'em (10 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is SB with 3h, 2h.
6 folds, CO calls, 1 fold, Hero completes, BB raises, CO calls, Hero calls.

Flop: (6 SB) 2d, 2c, 7h (3 players)
Hero checks, BB bets, CO calls, Hero raises, BB 3-bets, Hero calls.

Turn: (6.50 BB) 8d (3 players)
Hero checks, BB bets, Hero raises, BB 3-bets, Hero caps, BB calls.

River: (14.50 BB) Js (3 players)
Hero bets, BB raises, Hero calls.

Final Pot: 18.50 BB

Results below:
Hero has 3h 2h (three of a kind, twos).
BB has 9h Th (straight, jack high).
CO has Qd Ad (one pair, twos).
Outcome: BB wins 18.50 BB.

So let's do some math. On the flop:

http://twodimes.net/h/?z=746046
pokenum -h 3h 2h - 9h th -- 2d 2c 7h
Holdem Hi: 990 enumerated boards containing 2c 2d 7h
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
3h 2h 923 93.23 64 6.46 3 0.30 0.934
Th 9h 64 6.46 923 93.23 3 0.30 0.066

I had 93% equity. He would win 6.6% of the time... he had to go runner, runner to beat me. Unbelievable!!

Raise or fold

2005-01-18T07:54:00.000-08:00

I haven't been playing poker for a week or so, as I've been pretty busy with school related stuff. But I'm still reading and studying. I've pretty much dropped no-limit hold'em and am just studying limit hold'em, also reading a bit of 7-stud theory.

Anyway here was an interesting hand I saw on twoplustwo. This was from mikel:

20-40 good game. i have 5d5s in cutoff. 2 loose players limp, next guy who is mediocre and loose raises, i flat call, both blinds call, all call. 6 of us for 2 bets.

the flop is T32 all diamonds. checked to me and i check.

the turn is Tc. checked to second limper who bets. he tends to have something when he bets, but it'd be hard to say how strong or weak his hand is here. preflop raiser folds, i call.

The flop needs to be bet. Checked to you, you could have the best hand, and pretty much anyone folding could potentially tremendously add to your equity here. People make some really weak fold on monotone boards, and with a pot this big it is certainly worth betting this.

Given that mike checked, he HAS to raise the turn. Hand protection, charge draws, all that good stuff. And there is even a reasonable chance that he is ahead of the turn bettor. And even if he is behind, he now has a clean 4-outer that can save him on the river.

One card Royal

2004-12-30T08:12:00.000-08:00

Here's my first Royal Flush, albeit only a one card.

Party Poker 3/6 Hold'em (10 handed)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 8d, Jd. MP3 posts a blind of $3.
3 folds, MP1 calls, 1 fold, MP3 (poster) checks, 2 folds, Hero completes, BB checks.

Flop: (4 SB) Ac, Qd, Kd (4 players)
Hero bets, BB folds, MP1 calls, MP3 folds.

Turn: (3 BB) Ad (2 players)
Hero bets, MP1 calls.

River: (5 BB) Td (2 players)
Hero bets, MP1 folds.

Final Pot: 6 BB

Results below:
Hero has 8d Jd (straight flush, ace high).
Outcome: Hero wins 6 BB.

This is really dumb

2004-12-21T15:28:00.000-08:00

Here's another one I found:

http://www.lowlimitholdem.com/StartingHands_2.htm

I'll repost the hand here:

For some reason it's 12 handed. Hero is dealt red aces. Four people limp and Hero raises. a player folds, LMP 3-bets, two callers, button caps, blinds call, everyone calls.

11 to the flop for 44 SB. Flop is Th 2h 6d.

Checked to hero who checks. LMP bets, two callers, button raises. Everyone calls, Hero 3-bets, calls, button caps, everyone calls

11 to the turn for 44 BB. Turn is Qc.

Checked to you, you bet, everybody calls.

11 to the river for 55 BB.

7d.

SB bets, two calls, three people vanish (??), hero calls, a fold, two people vanish (??), button raises. Everyone calls.

The website says that calling the first bet on the river was the mistake. Despite getting 57 to 1. And STILL having an overpair to the board. And lack of resistance on the turn. And people suddenly disappearing on the river is disconcerting too.

Unbelievable. The line they gave was perfect. I can't believe they are using this as an example to fold on the river for one bet in a huge pot.

Critique

2004-12-21T13:42:00.000-08:00

I haven't personally written anything lately, just putting up interesting posts by other people. I thought it would be interesting to write a critique of some strategy I randomly found on the internet:

http://boardgames.about.com/od/poker/a/holdem_strategy.htm

It depends in part on how many players are in the game, but a general rule is that you should seriously consider folding before the flop if you have two non-pair cards, both less than 10.

Not a bad rule to give beginners. Advice I gave to someone who was learning the rules just an hour before he was to play in his first game of Hold'em ever, I suggested that he fold hand where both cards weren't ten and higher, except for pocket pairs.

A more conservative player might fold if just one of the cards is less than 10;

This is actually extremely loose advice. A conservative player would fold A7 or A9 in a heart beat, and would only play AT if the conditions were perfect.

a more aggressive player might stay in with, for example, an 8 and 9 of the same suit (because those cards give you decent possibilities for a straight or a flush).

I contend with the word aggressive player here. A loose player might come in with a suited connector more often than a passive player, but that has no bearing on how aggressively they play. (I guess an aggressive player might try to raise a suited connector, but this doesn't seem to be the point they are making.)

If the big blind (a forced bet designed to ensure that every hand has a pot) is low enough, it may be worthwhile to pay in so that you can see the flop even if you don't have particularly strong cards in your hand.

This advice is somewhat correct but doesn't give you enough detail and could get you into trouble. The absolute value of the big blind is irrelevant. All that is relevant is the size of the big blind relative to future bets, and in a tournament situation, how large they are compared to the number of total chips in the tournament.

In Las Vegas, they have 4/8 games where the blinds preflop are 1/2, although a raise brings it to 6 total. In those games, you can come in with a lot of crap since the implied odds are very high, since the betting size effectively doubles on the flop. But at the same time, the raise is by so much that in an aggressive game preflop, you still have to be positionally aware, or you'll end up being forced to fold your limps too often to the raises. And I still wouldn't come in with offsuit crap in these games, but I think you can play nearly any two suited in position with a lot of limpers, and suited stuff with at least one high card in early position.

In a tournament, you actually should play extremely tight when the blinds are small, and much looser then the blinds are large. That is because you come in with very little overlay for those times you don't have the best hand. If you play hands like KTo that easily can make a second best or dominated hand, you will have some hard decisions when people start to overbet the tiny pots.

With seven players at a table, two pair or better will generally be the winning hand.

I think this advice is dangerous as it seems to try to tell you not to showdown with less than two pair. Top pair will win more than it's share, and you should usually not fold top pair for only one bet.

If you don't have the high pair after the flop (e.g. if the flop is K-9-5, the high pair would be two Ks), and you're not in good position for a straight or a flush, you should probably get out of the hand.

I guess this is a good start for beginners, but in practice far too weak. This, like most bad poker advice, ignores the size of the pot. Play loose in large pots and tight in small pots. He should also really differentiate between a gutshot straight draw vs. an open ended straight draw, as they are wildly different creatures.

If you're first to bet after the flop, don't be afraid to check. This can work to your advantage in two ways. First, if your hand is on the weak side, you might be able to see one more card without having to put more into the pot. Second, if your hand is strong, you could convince an opponent or two that it's weaker than it really is.

Now the author decides to give some random betting advice. Unfortunately I think this advice alone will be more harmful than saying nothing. It is only one small piece of a larger betting strategy, and a newcomer to the game will think that in early position, checking is always correct. He is suggesting that you should check both your strong and weak hands.

Clearly it is not correct to bet a weak hand. A marginal or strong hand has a better argument for betting especially in small pots. In large pots a checkraise may be in order to protect it.

I disagree strongly with him mentioning the second point. If he means deception through slowplaying, then this is terrible advice to give a beginner. Slowplaying is very rarely correct in loose, small stakes games that the beginner is probably playing. If he means deception through check raising, more detail is needed on good check raising situations or the advice is completely meaningless.

After fourth street, don't stay in the pot hoping for a straight or flush, unless you can do so on a check (that is, without putting more chips into the pot). Although there will be times when you would have drawn the straight or flush, they will be outweighed by the times you wouldn't.

Terrible, terrible advice. In limit poker the flush draw is almost always drawing until the river because it is rare that you don't get the required 4 to 1 plus implied odds to draw profitably. You are certainly an underdog to make your flush, but the original author seems to have completely no grasp of equity, odds or pot size. Often, open ended straight draws will be getting the right odds to draw as well.

Is he talking about no-limit poker? Maybe this advice has a lot more merit when people are making pot sized bets to drive you out of the hand.

But as general advice (don't draw to a straight or flush until the river) is terrible in limit poker, and bad in no-limit, as there are many situations where you want to take one more off because of the odds situation.

That said, there is a point where the investment you've already made virtually dictates that you hang in there. It's useful to measure this in terms of percentage of your chips. For example, if you've already committed 40% of your chips to the pot, another 5% isn't that much. This is a gray area, so once again the best advice is to be cautious.

This seems to suggest that he was talking about no limit poker all along. If only he had stated that earlier, there would be far less confusion. His advice was far too loose preflop for NL, and gives some strange general advice.

Now he is talking about being pot-committed, but gets it horribly wrong. It is irrelevant how many chips you have invested in the pot. All that matters is how much is in the pot at the time of your decision. Now he is saying this is a grey area, when really the math makes this usually a fairly clear decision based on odds.

In conclusion, this is an example of the terrible advice on the internet for how to play poker, and why a lot of people can lose a lot of money to good players very quickly. It is clear that the writer knows very little about poker, and doesn't realize how dangerous advice like this really can be, when people will gamble real money based on it.

Yay for hand quizzes

2004-12-09T13:34:00.000-08:00

http://www.cgtv.com/games/column/042904/
http://www.cgtv.com/games/column/052604/
http://www.cgtv.com/games/column/063004/
http://www.cgtv.com/games/column/072804/
http://www.cgtv.com/games/column/082504/
http://www.cgtv.com/games/column/092104/
http://www.cgtv.com/games/column/102004/

Ed Miller on Jim Brier's CardPlayer article

2004-12-07T16:38:00.000-08:00

I had lunch with Jim today. He told me what he was referring to with the "won't bet unimproved overcards" assumption. He has logged a number of hours at a local $4-$8 game recently (since reading SSH) to play with some of the concepts. He observed that a fair number of the local Vegas regulars play an incredibly weak-tight and predictable game... and among their tendencies, they don't bet unimproved overcards.

Basically, he's right. Vegas is the world capital of weak-tight hold 'em play... and many of the regular small games players are the worst offenders.

I told Jim that a lot of this play is really limited to Vegas... that online and in LA these super weak-tight small players aren't nearly as ubiquitous.

What Jim has been saying about this stuff definitely has value. Namely, he is absolutely right that raising middle pair is no longer correct if you are almost certain your opponent is betting a better hand. All of these "raise your marginal hands" plays assume that there is SOME CHANCE YOU HAVE THE BEST HAND (or can get the one with the actual best hand to fold). Now because the bet size is small compared to the pot size, that chance need not necessarily be large to make raising correct... often 10% is plenty. But if you are playing against someone whose bet means with certainty that he has a better hand, then raising becomes no longer correct.

From Gambling Theory and Other Topics

2004-12-05T01:01:00.000-08:00

pg 33

(1) E = W * N/100

W - Winrate (BB/100h)
N - Hands
E - Expected Win (BB)

Now 99.7% of results are within 3 standard deviations from the mean. So we
can calculate a worst/best case result.

So your results will be within:

W-3*S < R < W+3*S

W - Winrate (BB/100h)
S - Standard Deviation (BB/100h)
R - Results (BB/100h)

These are the worst/base case possibilities

pg 45

The number of hands to assure a profit is:

W*N - 3*S*sqrt(N) = 0

W - Winrate (BB/100h)
S - Standard Deviation (BB/100h)
N - 100's of hands to assure a profit.

Solving for N:

N = (3*S/W)^2

Smallest bankroll so we don't go broke.

B = ((3*S)/(2*W))^2

W - Winrate (BB/100h)
S - Standard Deviation (BB/100h)
B - Smallest bankroll needed to not go broke

BruceZ on Std Deviation

2004-12-02T01:56:00.000-08:00

Here's a repost of a detailed and simple explanation of standard deviation which I posted some time ago. Mason has an essay in the essay section which shows you how to compute it when your sessions are different numbers of hours. Later, I will update this thread with detailed information on how to construct an Excel spreadsheet to compute this easily, as well as a derivation of Mason's formula, and an alternative form of the formula. There is a thread in the probability forum right now that explains EV.

The formulas in the essay section may look fearsome, but I'll give a ridiculously simple example to illustrate what is really being computed.

Suppose you play three 4 hour sessions.

In the first session you win $200.
In the second session you win $400.
In the third session you lose $300.

Your average win or EV for these sessions is ($200+$400-$300)/3 = $100/session or $25/hour.

In the first session, you won $100 more than average.
In the second session you won $300 more than average.
In the third session you won $400 less than average.

Now take the SQUARE of these 3 differences from your average (100, 300, -400) to get

100^2 = 10,000
300^2 = 90,000
(-400)^2 = 160,000.

Note that it doesn't matter whether your differences are positive or negative since we are squaring them.

Now average these numbers to get your variance per session.

session variance = (10,000+90,000+160,000)/3 = 86,667.

Take the square root of this to get your standard deviation per session denoted by the Greek letter sigma.

session sigma = sqrt(86,667) = 294

Normally people refer to their standard deviation for 1 hour. A session here is 4 hours, but you cannot divide 294 by 4 to get your standard deviation for 1 hour. You have to divide it by the square root of 4 or 2, because your standard deviation increases as the square root of the number of hours you play. So your standard deviation for 1 hour is:

sigma = 294/2 = $147 for 1 hour.

An equivalent way we could have computed the variance is to simply average the square of our actual wins, rather than the square of our differences from our average, and then subtract from this the square of our average win.

session variance = (200^2 +400^2 + 300^2)/3 - 100^2 = 8667 as before.

I glossed over an important point that is often misunderstood. Many people refer to their standard deviation in units of bb/hr. This is incorrect, and they really mean that this is their standard deviation for exactly 1 hour as we computed here. Standard deviation does not have units of bb/hr, because if it did that would imply that you could simply multiply this number by the number of hours played to get your standard deviation for any number of hours. You actually must multiply it by the square root of the number of hours, so it has units of bb/sqrt(hr) or bb/hr^.5. You don't normally see it written this way, but you can see from the above that this is correct. The variance we computed has units of dollars^2/hr, so the standard deviation, which is the square root of the variance, has units of dollars/sqrt(hr). So if our true standard deviation were $147, and if we are going to play for 100 hours, and we want to know our standard deviation for that period of time, it is sqrt(100)*147 = 10*147 = $1470. The standard deviation only increases by a factor of 10 in 100 hours, but our average win increases by a factor of 100 to 100*$25 = $2500. So our average win increases faster than our standard deviation. This is why gambling "works" when you have an edge. In the beginning, your average win will be small compared to fluctuations caused by luck. Over time, your average win will grow relative to the fluctuations, and your results will be determined primarily by your edge, and the effect of luck will be proportionately smaller. The effect of luck will still be larger in absolute dollars, but it will be a smaller proportion of your win which will also be larger in absolute dollars.

Note in this example that your average win for 100 hours is already greater than your standard deviation for 100 hours. When your average win becomes exactly equal to your standard deviation, you will be ahead more than 84% of the time. This is because your results will lie within +/- 1 standard deviation from average 68% of the time, so 32% of the time they will lie outside this +/- interval. 16% of the time they will lie more than 1 standard deviation below the average, and 16% of the time they will lie more than 1 standard deviation above average. Assuming $147 represents your true standard deviation for 1 hour, after 100 hours your average win will be $2500/$1470 = 1.7 standard deviations. From a table of the standard normal distribution, or from Excel, we can determine that you will be ahead nearly 97% of the time at the end of this period. This is not a very realistic example for most people, and with a different standard deviation this situation could be much different.

To determine how long it will take for your average win to be 1 standard deviation, divide the square of your standard deviation for 1 hour by the square of your hourly rate.

hours to break even 84% of the time = (sigma/ev)^2.

This is one way to define the "long run". To find out how long it will take for your hourly rate to equal let's say 1.6 standard deviations, this is simply

hours to break even 95% of the time = (1.6*sigma/ev)^2.

At this point you have a 95% probability of being ahead.

When you use your standard deviation for 1 hour to compute your swings for longer lengths of time as the other posters have described, the results will be more accurate than when you only use it to estimate your swings for 1 hour. The reason is that in the long term, your results will closely resemble a normal or Gaussian distribution (bell curve), but in the short term this is not exactly the case. For example, a true normal distribution has tails that go off to infinity and minus infinity. You can't actually win or lose infinity in 1 hour, or even close to infinity The result is that the extra probability that would normally be in the tails of the curve get pushed in, making the tails thicker. This means that your swings for short periods of time are likely to be a little larger than what your standard deviation would suggest. If your results were truly normal, your swings would lie within +/-1 standard deviation of your average 68% of the time, and within +/- 2 standard deviations 95% of the time. Your average swing, which I computed recently on the probability forum, will be +/- 0.8 standard deviations. Your median swing, which is the swing you exceed exactly half the time, will be +/- .67 standard deviations. These estimates can give you a rough sense of how you are doing without a lot of calculations. Just remember that results in the short term are just crude estimates, and they are less reliable for reasons that have to do partly with statistics, and partly with your particular circumstances, such as being in a particularly wild game.

Now the above calculation does not produce your true standard deviation, but rather an estimate of it. 3 sessions is obviously not enough for this estimate to be very accurate, and in reality you would compute it over many more sessions. The more sessions you use, the more accurate this estimate will become. On the other hand, it takes relatively few sessions to determine an accurate estimate for your standard deviation compared to the number of sessions required to determine an accurate estimate of your hourly rate. This is a good reason to compute this statistic. While your average win may be somewhat uncertain, there is really no good reason we cannot have an accurate estimate of our standard deviation after a relatively small number of sessions.

Notice above that when I computed the variance, I divided by the number of sessions. Sometimes you will see people divide by the number of sessions minus 1, and sometimes by the number of sessions + 1. These have to do with different types of estimates, and these different estimates have different properties. These differences need not concern you, since the difference is small after the number of sessions becomes large. The estimate used in the essay section is intended to be a "maximum likelihood" estimate of the standard deviation given the data.

Here we have assumed that all sessions are the same length. The formula in the essay section allows you to adjust for variable length sessions. You simply need to log your win and the number of hours played for each session. We have assumed constant length sessions here for the purpose of clearly illustrating what standard deviation means. Namely, it is the "square root of the average of the squares of the differences from your average", or sometimes called a "root mean square" or rms average. Perhaps you have heard of rms voltage, or rms power on stereo speaker specs, the latter of which is actually something of a misnomer. The 120 volts AC you hear about is an rms average of the voltage used in the US. It is actually the standard deviation of the voltage, which is a sine wave with peaks at +/- 170 volts.

Bisonbison on Winrates

2004-11-29T16:23:00.000-08:00

From time to time, someone will break down and post some or all of the following thoughts:

"How much counts as 'beating a game'?"
"What about crushing?"
"What about crushing Party 2/4?"
"Well, what's the best win-rate a good player can sustain at 2/4?"
"What about if that player moved to 3/6?"
"Or 30/60?"
"What if, instead of good, he was great?"
"Or excellent?"
"Superlative?"
"And if he was playing 2 tables at the same time?"
"How about 6?"
"You know, hypothetically."

We tend to invest a lot of belief in this stuff. And by we, I mean me. Games I play while driving include figuring out what I could make 8-tabling .5/1 40 hours a week, then adding in my 25 hours of 6-tabling 3/6 on top of that. There's a real satisfaction in doing the math to add up the hands per table per hour, and multiply that by this rate or that rate.

I mean, if I could just 8-table 3/6 for 4BB/100 I could make $125 an hour. I could work 5 hours a week. I could play 15 hours of poker on the first of the month, 15 hours on the second, and go on vacation for the rest of the time. I will do this anytime I am alone in my car for more than thirty minutes. This is valuable braintime I could be devoting to the war in Iraq, man's inhumanity to man, or breasts.

There are a few beliefs hiding underneath this obsession with win-rates, and they all have to do with figuring out how good we are:
1. We tend to believe that the numbers are accurate; that they capture not only how well we're doing, but how well we're playing.
2. We tend to believe that the numbers are precise; that there's a significant and meaningful difference between a win-rate of 2.5BB/100 and 2BB/100 over 1 million hands.
3. We tend to believe that the numbers are important; in the end, winning is better than losing and winning more is better than winning less, and the numbers tell us if we're winning and how much.

These beliefs endure because they are true. But they're both true and dumb. They are, in short, convenient places to stop thinking about our games, to stop self-evaluation.

When I'm driving, I rarely find myself thinking "I am unwilling to do a lot of the middle-pair/overcard-kicker/backdoor-draw hand protection that Ed insists is vital" or "I keep forgetting the precise odds I need to draw to 1-14 outs". Yet, near as I can tell, these are accurate observations about my poker game, and areas which, if addressed, could help me play better (and presumably win more Sklansky bucks) from here on out.

More importantly, these are things about my game which only I know and only I could know. I have played about 100k hands at 3/6. My most frequent opponent has been at a table with me for maybe 2% of those hands, very few of which made it showdown. What's he gonna know?

Sure, I post hands, but even though I try to avoid it, a cross-section would show more sets and flushes and straights and trips and boats and pocket aces and so on than is really representative of the times I feel uncomfortable or uncertain at the table. Yet I play dozens and dozens of top-pair-bad-kicker or middle-pair-good-kicker or overcards-with-a-backdoor-draw hands every day, and if I'm making small mistakes in those very frequent hands, they're probably costing me more than medium-sized mistakes in my rarer hands. Ed made a post about this after his book came out, but it's been a while and I've been thinking about this since MAxx's "Eagle ISO the right questions to ask himself" post (which I thought was an excellent way to get going on self-evaluating).

Everyone eventually runs into the limits of their ability to improve passively. Reading books, reading the forums, playing hands in our typical frame of mind, these are all pretty unfocused ways to learn, and they often leave our blind spots pretty much untouched. Posting and responding to posts is better, but it's still open to the same kind of problem: favoring your obvious flaws over ones that may be more fundamental or widespread.

Those questions about win-rates aren't bad in and of themselves, and questions about pokertracker stats aren't stupid, but they're often one or two or twelve steps removed from the actual work it takes to play better. Your ability to diagnose and treat the problems in your game and the ability of the forum to help depend on you comprehending how you play.

If you're a decent player and you can't or won't say "these are the things I'm good at" and "these are the areas where I'm weak", then your improvement is going to stall out. The hand-specific advice you get here just reflects the hands you pick to share, and choosing a better wallpaper for the foyer seems dumb if you don't know that your basement is flooded and the toilets are all vomiting tar.

So I'd just recommend that people stop worrying about their winrates, or other people's winrates, or whether your dog could beat the Party 15/30 game for 1.27BB/100 on a Friday night. Post about the common, everyday decisions that baffle you or make you wince or leave you feeling icky. It's those tangible things that make the winning and losing happen.

Waiting Until The Turn

2004-11-24T18:20:00.000-08:00

Cnfuzzd:

Ok. I understand now where Spiders dilemma is on reraising the flop.

First: Waiting to raise on the turn is a play that you typically make both when A) you are trying to face the field with bad enough odds to make them either fold or make a large mistake, which raising on the flop will not do, and B) there are a number of outs which can cripple your hand, and no way to push the hands that those outs fit with out on the flop due to the nature of these players. All of this is done to protect your hand from all those little draws that small stakes players like to play.

However, this simply does not apply to this hand. First, you had no choice but to bet the flop, or you would have given a free card. When you bet, the player to your right made it two to go. So, the field has already been faced with two bets, and made thier decisions. Given your relative position to the flop raiser, it is unlikely that you will be able to face the field with two cold again, and even if you did, the pot is now large enough that most draws are not making a large error in calling. Even worse, you are faced with being checkraised by a virtually unknown hand, or giving away a free card.

So, due to this, protecting your hand has gone out the window. It is now tiime to think about VALUE. You are more than likely ahead here, and its time to get money into the pot while you are. You know that most of the field likes their hand, and that you have the best hand. RAISE RAISE RAISE. As an added benefit, there is a chance you will get the SB, who likely has top pair, to cap the flop, and face the field with two cold again, which may, but is not likely to, fold some out.

So why not wait until the turn to raise? Not only does betting/raising the turn do little to protect your hand, but it gives you all the right information at the wwrong time. It is almost never correct to raise for information, because any information you gain is usually worth very little, no matter how helpfull it may be. Since it is so worthless, you want to pay as little as possible to get it. Raising for information should be done on the cheap streets, so that you can use whatever you glean to maximize your perfromance on the more expensive streets.

I know you middle pair Nay-Sayers are out there talking amongst yourselves about how half the deck can cripple your hand, and why raise when there are two chance two have this tragedy befall. Fear Not!!! By 3 betting on the flop, you are sending out very strong information about your hand. Its likely that you can use this later in the game to either force your opponents to reveal the strength of their hands, or obtain a cheap showdown, which is something these hand love to get when a scare card pops up. Waiting to raise on the flop does none of this, AND lets someone take advantage of you blindly raising the turn like a drunken cnfuzzd.

there entity, i posted more.

peace

john nickle

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
StellarWind:

There is another major objection to waiting until the turn to raise.

It usually won't work. Obviously raising the turn when SB has the best hand is not a good idea. So assume he has a small pair, flush draw, or OESD. Is he going to bet the turn for you? Not very likely. Not with a draw. Probably not with a seven after the inevitable bad card comes (they're almost all bad).

And there you are. You passed up your flop value raise for nothing.

This simple objection to the turn raise play has wide application and is often overlooked. Always ask yourself: will they bet the turn when I'm winning or just when I'm screwed?

Paying Multiple Bets Preflop

2004-11-24T16:22:00.000-08:00

Here's a forum post I made recently:

Think of it this way. if you are in a 1/2 game, and it comes 3 bets to you preflop, it's almost as if you are playing 3/6 preflop and then switch to 1/2 postflop.

What this means is that your implied odds are terrible.

When you put in money preflop, you will need to make it back postflop. If you pay 1 SB to see the flop, your postflop play in the long run needs to make back 1 SB to break even. So there will be several hands where you pay 1 SB to see a flop and fold, sometimes you hit a hand but still lose, and other times where you hit a hand and win. All of that needs to add up to > 1 SB for your 1 SB call preflop to be profitable.

Now if you are paying 3 SB preflop, you have to make up 3 SB postflop in the long run. A suited connector will have alot of trouble doing this, as you often hit weak draws that the flop aggression will force you to fold, since it was 3 bets preflop. And it will be hard in the long run to make back those 3 SB.

Hands like AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK can play for three bets or more preflop because they win so often that you more than make back your initial investment.

This explanation isn't completely correct. Sometimes you have an equity edge and are actually making money when you play for several bets preflop, but this equity edge is only useful if you see a lot of rivers. A medium suited connector will have to fold on a lot of flops giving up it's equity because you can't protifably draw for that runner runner straight or backdoor flush.

Greg Raymer Talks Pot Odds

2004-11-23T15:47:00.000-08:00

Yes. I'll say it again mid-way into a tourney POT ODDS ARE ALL BUT IRRELEVANT. Those extra chips WILL NOT double or triple your win rate here. But BUSTING WILL TAKE IT TO 0%. And too the dude who said he just cant fold AQ when he isnt on a huge stack...well plz join UB in fact ill thrown you my referall bonus just to get more dead money in these tourneys..if you cant lay AQ in a tourney then your just not gonna make many final tables imho.

And that statement about pot odds is simply dead wrong. 180 degrees wrong. As absolute a wrong as there can be.

Pot odds, including implied odds, are everything. However, there is a lot of data that has to be considered in determining the true odds of a situation. And when I say pot odds I don't simply mean chip odds, but money odds. As we know, there are times when your expectation in terms of chips doesn't correlate linearly with your expectation in terms of money, and money is all that really matters (at least to me). However, when you're not in or near the money, these two things are linear, and once you gather all the data you can, your decision comes down to the math (calculated using that data).

Players who have a great ability to read players can afford to make a few math errors, because they gather such great data. But that doesn't mean that they wouldn't be better if they did the math perfectly. Similarly, your strategy of risk avoidance may leave you as a winning player, but it doesn't mean you wouldn't be better if you made some of these risky decisions more correctly than you do now.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

Clarkmeister Hand

2004-11-18T17:47:00.000-08:00

I thought this hand might be of interest to the forum. 2-4 online.

4 limpers to me in the SB with AsKs. I raise, BB folds and everyone else calls. 4.5BBs and 4 players.

Flop: Qs 5h 6h. I bet, EP calls, MP1 folds, MP2 folds, CO raises, I call, EP calls. 7.5BBs and 3 players.

Turn: 2c. I check, EP checks, CO bets, I raise, EP folds, CO calls.

River: 5d. I check, CO checks, MHIG.

HEPFAP Loose Games vs. SSHE (Miller post)

2004-11-18T17:33:00.000-08:00

The discussion in the Loose Games section refers to a different game type than this one. In HPFAP, S&M refer to a game where your opponents play a few too many hands, but then generally play well after the flop.

In such a game, hands like AQo do not have as large a preflop edge (because your opponents, while loose, play reasonable hands). Furthermore, you gain much more after the flop against good postflop players than you do against terrible players.

I know this was their assumption for the Loose Games section... we have discussed the differences between my book and the Loose Games section many times. In David's words, "Your book is about games where people not only play way too many hands, but they also play them badly."

I wish HPFAP had been a little clearer about their assumptions for the Loose Games section. Everything they say is correct, given their assumptions. FWIW, you generally find games fitting the description of the Loose Games section games at the 30-60 and 40-80 level, not the 3-6 and 4-8 level.

As a result, you will see many differences between advice in the Loose Games section (and HPFAP in general) and my advice (in my book and in the posts). This is not a contradiction... both bodies of advice are correct given the assumed playing tendencies of your opponents.

Take off the Preflop Training Wheels by Ed Miller

2004-11-18T16:57:00.000-08:00

This is a post targetted to the posters who have been around for at least a few months. If you are brand new to poker, ignore this for now (but bookmark it and come back in two months).

How many of you still ask preflop questions like,

"How many limpers do I need to play..."
"Do I have the odds to call with..."

etc.

How many of you give preflop advice like,

"Without at least three limpers you have to muck..."
"You are getting 7-to-1 so you should..."

If you still think this way about preflop play, it's time to take the training wheels off!

Preflop play is NOT about "pot odds." It is not about how many limpers you have. Preflop play is about getting to see flops against players who will give you their money by playing poorly.

The goal of preflop play is to maximize your time spent playing after the flop against weak players and weak hands and minimize it against strong players and strong hands.

You make money in poker from your play after the flop. You've already noticed how poorly many of these players play after the flop. They put in tons of bets as huge underdogs. They don't put in enough bets as the favorite. They hemorrhage money after the flop.

When bad players limp in front of you, you should want to play with them. Say you have a hand like K4s, and two bad players limp in. You should WANT to play. Your hand has no advantage over theirs at this point. But after the flop, you will make good decisions, and they will make terrible ones. Your hand isn't good, but it is good enough.

Now you may decide not to play K4s even though you WANT to play. You might not play because you are in middle position, and the chance someone will pick up a big hand behind you is too high. You might not play because there are strong players behind you who can really interfere with your goal of playing against weak players and weak hands. But you should WANT to play. If you are on the button, then you SHOULD play because there's no one behind you to screw with your plans.

When it is raised in front of you (by a normal raiser) you should want to fold K4s. You are playing against a strong hand, and you want to minimize your exposure against strong hands.

If two strong, tricky players enter the pot in front of you, you DON'T WANT to play K4s. You want to minimize your exposure against good players.

You can play quite loose if you are sure you will only be playing against bad players and bad hands. Your superior skills after the flop can turn very marginal hands into solid winners.

Ed MIller's Fundamental Principles

2004-11-12T14:55:00.000-08:00

I believe there are two fundamental principles of winning poker:

1. Bet and raise your strong hands for value.
2. Play tightly in small pots, loosely in big ones.

It is the responsibility of any book on poker strategy... particularly any book targetted at beginners... to convey these principles. They lie at the core of every good strategy.

Unfortunately, when I read many (most) poker books, I often see these principles ignored. Some authors recommend limping preflop with very strong hands like AA, AK, and AJs. Some tell you to stop betting your top pair and overpair hands on fourth and fifth street when someone calls your flop bet on a somewhat dangerous-looking board. Some tell you to check and call with monster draws. All of these ideas run counter to the most fundamental principle of winning poker: Bet and raise your strong hands for value.

Some authors tell you to "fit or fold," regardless of the size of the pot. Some tell you to fold top pair and overpairs routinely on the turn if someone raises you, again without mention of the pot size. Some tell you to fold flush draws on paired boards and straight draws on two flush boards. All of these ideas run counter to the second-most fundamental principle of winning poker: Play tightly in small pots, loosely in big ones.

If I question one of these pieces of advice, often I will be told, "Well, the author was just trying to simplify advice for new players." My question is, "Are not the two fundamental principles of winning poker already simple? Is it impossible to forumlate simple ideas that support and reinforce the core principles rather than ignore and undermine them?"

The reason this issue hits home with me is because I see SO MANY players, many of whom think they play well, who could not articulate these two very basic principles of winning poker. They think winning poker is about making laydowns, saving bets, reading tells, wearing sunglasses, or who knows what else. And it seems so silly and frustrating to me... "How can you have played for years and still not have grasped these two extremely simple ideas?"

I think the answer lies largely in the body of available literature. The overwhelming majority of advice - books, magazine articles, internet sites, etc. - ignores and undermines these principles. It's no wonder so few ever figure it out.

So to answer your question, simplifying for beginners is fine for me. But when you simplify, you must do so ACCORDING TO THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF WINNING POKER. You are supposed to play tightly in small pots, so feel free to tell beginners to play even more tightly than "optimal." But DON'T feel free to tell beginners to limp with their strong hands or lay down overpairs in big pots. These ideas are simple, but they run contrary to the core principles.

Final note: I've said it several times before, but I wanted to reiterate it for this conversation. I think ITH is a good book filled with generally solid advice. My final test for any poker book is, "If you read and follow the advice in this book, will you become a solidly winning player?" (Not a BETTER player, a SOLIDLY WINNING one. Better sets the bar far too low.) I think the answer for ITH is definitely yes... and that is something I cannot say for most poker books.

Nevertheless, there is that one area of the book that I'm negative on.. the advice to limp preflop with strong hands like JJ and AJs. Whether it's "simplified for beginners" or not, it runs counter to basic principles, and it teaches people to think about poker the wrong way.

A pair on a paired board

2004-11-04T16:57:00.000-08:00

Here is a common situation on paired boards.

Davidross's Diary

2004-11-01T11:11:00.000-08:00

Davidross is a 2+2er who played professionally and kept a journal every week in his first year of doing so. This site has archived all of those posts:

School of Hard Knocks.

Playing Overcards

2004-10-27T14:06:00.000-07:00

Here.

Book Reviews

2004-10-25T17:26:00.000-07:00

Click here.

Pokertracker Auto-rate

2004-10-20T13:42:00.000-07:00

Bisonbison posts a very good set of rules to auto-rate players in poker tracker, here.

Ed Miller on charging flush draws

2004-10-17T20:55:00.000-07:00

StellarWind and raising the turn

2004-10-14T13:16:00.000-07:00

Great advice:

There is another major objection to waiting until the turn to raise.

It usually won't work. Obviously raising the turn when SB has the best hand is not a good idea. So assume he has a small pair, flush draw, or OESD. Is he going to bet the turn for you? Not very likely. Not with a draw. Probably not with a seven after the inevitable bad card comes (they're almost all bad).

And there you are. You passed up your flop value raise for nothing.

This simple objection to the turn raise play has wide application and is often overlooked. Always ask yourself: will they bet the turn when I'm winning or just when I'm screwed?

Ed Miller on Preflop

2004-10-05T13:29:00.000-07:00

Great preflop analysis from the great Ed Miller:

Hi,

Well, there are two basic types of preflop errors: giving too much action (calling or raising too loosely), and not giving enough action (playing too tightly or too passively).

It's relatively easy to quantify the mistake of giving too much action... or at least to narrow its cost down to a reasonable range. That's because the mistake CANNOT POSSIBLY cost more than the extra action you gave.

That is, if you are playing $2-$4 and you call with seven-deuce under the gun, that is BY DEFINITION, no worse than a $2 mistake. That is, after your initial call, you could simply resolve to fold to any subsequent bet or raise at any time, no matter what. That would be pretty dumb, but it shows that the mistake can be no worse than $2.

(Now, making that mistake might get you into a situation where you make more mistakes and lose more... but the ORIGINAL mistake costs at most $2. Remember, you can always fold.)

Furthermore, giving too much action almost never costs you the full $2. That's because you will win some percentage of the time. With seven-deuce, you will sometimes flop trips or two pair, or a straight draw that comes in, or a pair of sevens that holds up, etc. You don't win your share, but you win sometimes, and that defrays the cost of your error. So calling UTG with seven-deuce might cost somewhere between $0.75 and $1.50 instead of the full $2.

In my quiz, I had three examples of giving too much action:
1. Calling with J2s on the button after three loose limpers
2. Raising UTG with 22
3. Calling from the small blind with 72 after two loose limpers

None of these errors is particularly bad. Calling with J2s after three loose limpers is barely an error. Q5s would be break-even or slightly profitable in that spot. J5s is similarly very close to the line. J2s is not much worse than J5s. So that error is maybe a $0.10 error in a $2-$4 game.

Raising UTG with 22 is a little tougher to quantify. But remember that calling with 22 UTG is correct in many games, and when it is wrong, it isn't a big error (on the $0.05-$0.25 scale). So let's assume that calling is break-even... what is raising on top of that? Well, it is at most $2, but it's not nearly that bad because if the first bet is nearly break-even, the second bet cannot possibly drop off so quickly. So again this error is probably in the $0.10-$0.30 range.

Calling from the small blind with seven-deuce costs at most $1. It is actually probably more like $0.50. So that's probably the worst "giving too much action" error of the bunch, but it's still only a quarter of a bet.

Now examine the "not enough action" errors. Using the "it must be less than X" logic doesn't help you as much here. So the estimates will be less precise... for the purpose of this post, I'll resort to pitting against random hands for the ATs hand.

So there are five loose limpers and you have ATs on the button. Against six random hands (assume the big blind comes along), ATs wins 23.5% of the time (from gocee.com). Your "share" is 1/7 or 14.3%. Thus, ATs wins approximately 23.5 - 14.3 = 9.2% "more than its share." Raising nets you 9.2% of all the post-raise action (in this case, one bet for each player, or seven bets), so failing to raise costs you about 0.092*7 = 0.644 bets or about $1.30 in our $2-$4 game. Now that's obviously just an estimate... real poker isn't played hot and cold. But that $1.30 number is WAY bigger than the numbers we got for the other errors, so we can conclude that failing to raise ATs in that spot is almost certainly a bigger error than the others.

Folding the AQ from UTG is the hardest one to quantify. You can do it logically, but I'm going to resort to using the Pokerroom.com data. Pokerroom says that AQ UTG in a 9-handed $1-$2 game is worth $0.34. So in a $2-$4 game, it's worth $0.68. Now that's how an AVERAGE player might play it, so a good player could possibly make it worth somewhat more. And the data comes from a small enough sample that it will have some error associated with it. But from that $0.68 number, we could fairly place an upper bound at $0.90 or $1 at most.

So based on this analysis, I'd rank the errors as follows (ordered from worst to least bad):

1. Just calling with ATs
2. Folding AQ
3. Calling 72
4. Raising 22
5. Calling J2s

The last two are very close.. perhaps too close to call using this very rough estimation technique. Hopefully that helps...

Ed

And followup:

Now, I want to make something clear.

It is a bigger error to play way too many hands than to play way too passively.

But how can that be, since I just showed that playing too passively was significantly worse than all three of the "loose calls/raises"?

Frequency. The net effect an error has on your winrate depends on two things:

1. The magnitude of each individual error
2. The frequency with which you are presented with situations to make the error

The total cost of being prone to make a certain error is the product of the two... the individual cost times how many times you make it. When you play a hand you should fold, that individual error is relatively small. But you get presented with the opportunity to make that error 30 or more times per hour.

On the other hand, opportunities to raise come up much less frequently, and even the most passive players find the most profitable raises (AA-QQ).

So you are better off if your error of choice is to play too passively with big suited aces like ATs than you are if your error of choice is to play loosely and call with hands like J2s and 72. But you'd be even better off if you didn't make either error. Smile

Finally, your question about "how low do you go" with the suited aces? Well, this is, to some extent, a guess... but I generally raise limpers on the button with A8s... sometimes with A7s... and usually not with A6s or lower. A7s-A4s are relatively close in value... the wheel power of the weaker hands makes up somewhat for the lack of strength... so A7s and A5s are about equal and A6s and A4s are about equal. A3s and A2s are weaker, and A8s is definitely stronger. So that's about where I stick the line, A8s/A7s.

finally:

Wenona wrote:
I was wondering how universally you can apply this type of analysis.

For example you say the break even in your example might be around the A8s mark. A8s has a win rate of 20.3% against 6 opponents (gocee), so obviously those win rates must be discounted because the six limpers surely would average better than six random hands.

However, I see KJo has a win rate against six opponents of 20.2%.

Would you consider this a reasonable (say 0ev) hand to raise on the button with 5 limpers and the expected big blind? Or are there other factors that need to be considered that would make KJo a call or fold as compared to the A8s hand, even though their win rates against 6 opponents are nearly identical.
Well, if the hands win approximately the same amount against random hands, then you have to evaluate two more variables:

1. How does the fact that hands are non-random affect your results?
2. How will raising affect the way your hand plays post-flop?

Item 2 is the more important, generally. In this example (A8s vs. KJ), you are clearly better off raising A8s due to post-flop effects.

Effect 1 is that, even though A8s and KJ win equally often hot-and-cold, A8s will win more often IN PRACTICE because you will see the river more often with A8s. A suited hand like A8s will FLOP DRAWS more often, allowing you to continue with the hand when you would have folded an offsuit hand. A king or jack on the turn or river does you no good if the betting forced you to fold on the flop.

Effect 2 is similar, but relates to how your play DIFFERS from your opponents'. Say you were playing $1-$2 hold 'em, but you made a strange rule that everyone had to ante $100 before each hand. How much could you beat that game for?

Not very much, if anything at all. The huge pot makes it correct to go to the river with almost any two cards. And that's exactly what everyone will do. So you cannot be "skilled" at that game... you'll chase to the river, and so will everyone else. You have no edge.

The smaller the pot post-flop, the more your skilled play earns you. If the pot is $1000 already, you cannot outplay your opponents. But when it is only $10, you can.

One of the main ways you outplay your opponents is by folding when you are supposed to (and they don't). The smaller the pot, the more opportunities you get to outplay your opponents in specifically this way.

That's relatively obvious, and most people seem to understand that. What people don't know is that, therefore, you should be more willing to raise suited hands than offsuit hands. Offsuit hands miss the flop more often (because they only rarely flop flush draws), so it is correct to fold them more often. Thus, you get more chances to outplay your opponents by folding with offsuit hands than you do with suited hands. Therefore, there is a stronger incentive to keep the pot smaller with offsuits than with suiteds.

Now don't take that too far... if you have a huge preflop edge (you win far more than your share) like with AK or AQ, you raise... that incentive to keep the pot small isn't large enough to overpower the huge immediate gain you get from raising.

But if you are comparing two hands that win exactly as often (as A8s and KJ), then be more inclined to raise the suited one.

Passive/Aggressive Hand Mix

2004-09-29T16:40:00.000-07:00

Wow. This was great.

Not to be a nitpicker but the big problem with these hands arises when they are up against dominating hands (i.e. AK), not when they are played for a raise (although raises and dominating hands are often highly correlated). Its small/suited cards, which rely on implied odds, that do poorly with a raise. With the best big cards (which KJ and AT will often be) a raise doesn't really harm your hand. So the point is against limpers, be wary at a passive table (especially a super passive table) where it is likely an opponent may have limped in with a hand that dominates your KJ or AT. But in an aggressive game, be much more inclined to come in against limpers (consider raising), as those aggressive players who chose to limp would have raised with a hand that dominates KJ or AT.

Bursting The Bubble

2004-09-29T13:42:00.000-07:00

I found this great post by fnord in the forums:

I think there are two huge mistakes people make in general after the money in tournies. The first is feeling too much stack pressure, which is what happend to you. There is sense of urgency when you get a short stack, but you must refrain from yielding to it. Here you say you hope he is on a complete steal. You would have to have incredible luck to be more than a 60/40 favorite here even if he is on a naked steal. In fact one of your better case scenarios is that you are a slight dog to an underpair. You CAN come back from short stacks, but you need to pick your spots well and get lucky. You are much better off waiting until you can be first in with the raise. You will have 3BB after the blinds pass you, be patient.

The other huge mistake people make after the bubble bursts is gambling FAR FAR too much. I am amazed at how fast poeple start dropping post bubble. There is a huge collective sigh of relief and most with a short to medium stack seem to think "I need to gamble and get lucky to have a shot at the big money." Again, this impatience costs them a lot. This is the time you should be thinking "People are acting crazy, I can find some nice spots where I have a big edge and pick up some much needed chips." The bonus is that while you are waiting for your good spots, you are moving up in money faster than you are being blinded off.

Certainly, you need to find a spot soon, but if you pick up the blinds with a push, you are right back to where you were before this hand. If you double after paying the blinds, you are considerably ahead of where you started this hand.

If you are dead set on making your stand here, a stop and go is better than a push IMO, but again, folding here is far better.

Also note, I know it is not easy to be patient when you have 3BB left. I have come back from very short stacks in several tournaments, and I would still feel tremendous pressure to push here, even though I know it is not the right play. It's like a survival instinct, your back is against the wall, and you just want to fight and gain closure. You just have to resist it and find a spot where you have greater folding equity and/or greater hand equity.

Waiting Until The Turn

2004-09-28T17:40:00.000-07:00

Waiting until the turn to raise is a concept that still gives me problems. Ed Miller posted a great explanation of this.

Check out this post.

MTT Results

2004-09-27T10:37:00.000-07:00

I spend a lot of time playing multi-table tournaments this weekend, with mixed results.

My first foray into multi-table tournaments was a good one. I played the Million Dollar Guaranteed qualifier. Basically it is a super satellite where the top n players get free entry into a bigger tournament. So in a field of 440 people with a $10 + $1 entry fee, the top eight people would be guaranteed seats into the Party Poker Million Dollar Guaranteed tournament. I made it to the final table, and when everyone was guaranteed seats, they just starting messing around and going all-in since it didn't matter anymore. It was a strange contrast to the intense poker playing just seconds before the bubble burst. Still shaken to be there, I played my normal game as they knocked each other out, and I came in second. But I guess it's simply fair to say 'I made the final table' as none of the play was sensible after that.

So now I have a seat in the tournament taking place in late October valued at $650 or so. I could cash that out or just play. I'd rather play. I think I have a reasonable chance of hitting the money and winning the $650, plus the chance to win much much more if I make it even a few places up in the money. So I've been practising my multi-table tournament play as much as possible so that maybe I can get a piece of the million dollars.

In the meantime, I played a $32 Sit-n-Go qualifier for the Party Poker Million IV tournament semi-finals. Basically there's a Party Poker Million tournament every year on a cruise, and the entry fee is around $10,000 with $6,000,000 of prizes for next year. It's broadcast yearly on the World Poker Tour, and so not only do you have the chance to win big, but get on TV too! I won the qualifier which gives me the entry into the semi-finals. The semi-finals will award seats to people to go on the cruise and play in the Part Poker Million IV. So that would be cool, to be on TV. :)

Comparing Chess to Poker

2004-09-17T15:24:00.000-07:00

A chess player of FIDE master strength was asking about the conversion from Chess to Poker. Here was my response:

If you are FIDE master strength, you have no problems looking at things analytically and are probably already ready to tackle complicated situations where there are many pieces of strategic possibilities.

You're already at a head start because most of your opponents aren't thinking players. They throw their money in and hope they make a pair by the river. The fact that you are making this post puts you way ahead of most low-limit players out there.

So you are used to reading through tomes of chess books. The ability to study material and apply it to your game will be very important. Reviewing your hand histories are as important as reviewing chess games. The only way to improve is to seek out and find your mistakes in past hands you have played.

In my opinion, the major poker books are all available from Two Plus Two Publishing. Definitely learn the material from the following two books inside and out:

- The Theory of Poker by Sklansky
- Small Stakes Hold'em by Miller

Also very important, although it covers more mid/high limit games:

- Hold'em Poker For Advanced Players by Sklansky and Malmuth

Poker is very similar and very different from chess in several ways.

In chess, we often think of things in terms of imbalances that add together to form the strategy and decision of the moves we want to make. Similarly, poker has many complex pieces of information that singularly do not tell you what move you should make, but in their entirety can lead you to a correct decision.

Learning poker pre-flop strategy is much like learning chess openings. You could go the route of memorizing pre-flop hand tables, with all the creativity of memorizing say the French Defense without understanding the purposes of each move.
And pre-flop strategy will only get you so far. Some people learn how to play pre-flop and play terribly when the next three cards come down. It's almost like if you're white with 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 f6, falling out of book lines, would you be able to see 3. Nxe5 fxe5 4. Qh6+?

Now there is a lot of complexity in chess by how many possible moves you can make at any given turn, and computers face combinatorial explosion when they try to evaluate every possible path. Meanwhile Limit Hold'em has at most four choices at any given situation, check, bet, raise or fold. But the complexity comes from the fact that you do not know what your opponent holds.

The key to poker is that it is a game of incomplete information. In chess, there are no secrets, everything in the game is available for everyone to see, and to some degree a best move can be decided for a given position. In poker, since you do not know what your opponent holds, you must, based on the betting patterns of your opponent, be able to put your opponent on a reasonable range of hands and decide on the best course of action from that. This is further complicated by the fact that your choices to check, bet, raise or fold will affect your oppoents guess of your hand and also your table image, or how they will adjust their play based on what they think of you.

The biggest change from chess is that chess is results based, and limit poker is not. If you play the best chess game possible, you will win, plain and simple. If you play perfect poker without a single mistake, you will face losing streaks and have losing sessions. It is hard to determine how well you are applying the material based on the money you are making or losing. You could play terrible poker and win, you could play amazing poker and still lose. The problem is that in poker you are making a decision that will maximize your winnings IN THE LONG TERM.

In a roulette game, if people only bet on red or black, the house has a slight edge. And although for a short period of time the house may be down by a lot of money, in the long run, they are confident they will profit. When playing poker it is the same principle. You make decisions that maximize your profit in the long term, by always keeping the odds in your favor. In the long term you will be rewarded handsomely.

Anyway, I've rambled on and on, but I'd strongly recommend reading Theory of Poker and Small Stakes Hold'em as probably a good place to start. And start with the microlimits (25c/50c) so that you can learn how to play without going broke.

Chances of winning unimproved with 99

2004-09-17T13:23:00.000-07:00

So I am talking to someone on the forums who likes to tell me I am smoking crack and that raising 99 from EP is never correct. So of course, I throw the math back in his face.

and since your chances of winning with 99 unimproved are miniscule, why not raise hands like 88 or 77 too, by that logic?

Okay. Let's do some math. Let's look at 99. There are 28 unseen cards between 2 to 8. The probability of flopping an overpair is 28/50 * 27/49 * 26/48 = 0.167. So there is a 16.7% chance of flopping an overpair, and a roughly 11% chance of flopping a set.

Now let's look at 88. There are 24 unseen cards from 2-7. So our chances of making an over pair is 24/50 * 23/49 * 22/48 = 0.103 or 10.3%, with the same 11% chance of hitting a set. So the winning chances between 99 and 88 drop dramatically. 77 drops to a 5.8% chance of making an overpair, and so 77 has extremely low chances of winning unimproved, where 88 has decent but still low chances. 99 seems to be a cutoff, and against certain players and situations becomes profitable, even raising.

So winning unimproved for 99 is not miniscule. It's low compared to TT, JJ and up, but it happens enough times that raising can become profitable.

Trying to hit your set and other thoughts

2004-09-16T11:59:00.000-07:00

You want to make an average of 10-11x your preflop investment (1 BB) for the call to be correct (7.5:1 against hitting set, plus some protection for the times you hit and lose). In this case, you had 3 opponents preflop, so you needed to make an average of 7 or 8 BB more postflop. This will almost never happen against three opponents, unless one is a maniac.

That seems to be about correct.

Let's do some math. You hold a wired pair and have two outs to hit your set. With 50 unseen cards our probability of hitting it on the flop is 1-(48/50 * 47/49 * 46/48) = 11.76%. Converting it to odds 100/11.76 - 1 = 7.5. So yeah 7.5 to 1 odds to hit your set. Thus you need to be sure to make at least 7.5 bets to break even. Otherwise you are leaking money.

So how does this affect cold calling? Let's see. UTG raises, 3 cold callers, to you on the button with 22. There are 4 BB in the pot and you have to call 1 BB. You're going to have to hope that you will make 4-7 BB by the river if you hit your set, for the correct implied odds. With a multiway pot, the flop will probably hit several people, and you can expect some bets from UTG, so this is probably profitable. If there is only one cold caller between you and the preflop raiser, there is only 2 BB in the pot and you have to make up 6-9 BB, which is unlikely if it's going to be three way action with a roughly 1/3 chance to hit the flop.

I had a great run last night, where I went up around $400 playing 3/6 on Pacific Poker, and have made a profit of $550 total on Pacific so far. Obviously this isn't a sustainable win-rate, but it's nice to have won around 67 big bets to pad myself for the next downswing. Plus I am slowly working my way to playing 250 raked hands that I put money into and saw a flop. Once I hit 250 they will ship me the WPT Season 1 DVDs.... making money and getting free DVDs. This is the life!

Why we win

2004-09-15T11:22:00.000-07:00

This post gives a great explanation for why those people winning 3 BB/100 hands still might me making many mistakes...

The people that we play against are so god awful that it doesn't matter much. Even if we make 3 or 4 bad plays an hour, our opponents are making 30 or 40 bad plays.

You are doing things wrong, but you are just much less wrong that your typical opponent. That is the dirty little secret that us poker players don't want to admit. We don't win because we are so good, we win because we play against those who suck.

Trifecta

2004-09-14T13:17:00.000-07:00

This was a great hand I saw on the forums, if only for the entertainment value.

I think the correct play is to bet out on the river, but I think everyone should have a trifecta play at least once in their poker playing careers. :)

First Post!

2004-09-10T11:22:00.000-07:00

Well, this is my poker blog. I'm just going to post great strategy that I come across for quick reference for myself later. And also talk about my poker results. That way I won't be spamming my main blog.

Last night I busted out of the Google Poker Classic early getting short stacked on a coinflip (all-in steal attempt with 77 which became a coinflip) and losing with a short stacked allin push on AQo. The side game went a lot better, and I managed to come in first place.

Strategy bits.

Ed Miller's fantastic post don't fricken fold! on monster's-under-the-bed syndrome in small stakes games. Especially good is when he berates people for folding top pair for one bet in huge pots.

There was a post just this morning where someone limped in with A3s on the button after two limpers. The big blind raise behind and everyone called. The flop was AQ2, and the action went BB bet, one limper called, and it was your action. You have top frickin pair in a big (i.e. raised) pot, and it is one bet to you. The BB's bet shows no more strength than what he showed when he raised before the flop. He could easily have KQ or TT or 76s. The limper called... that means he has.. well, two cards. You are getting 11-1 on a call, and did I mention that you have top frickin pair?

Also, Clarkmeister's Flush Theorem, presented here with examples here and here.

The idea is that when you have an okay hand (top pair, two-pair, whatever) and the fourth flush card appears on the river (which you have none of) and you are out of position, bet!

The natural instinct is to check-call here for the cheapest showdown possible, not wanting to waste two bets if you bet and are raised. But the proper strategy is to bet out. You may make a better hand or a small flush fold here! Your opponent may fold a large range of hands here (a set, trips, a straight) which is clearly good, your opponent may even fold a small flush card such as a 2 or 6. If your opponent calls then the result is no different from check-calling. If your opponent raises, this is an easy fold, and you have still only lost one bet.

Very excellent play in this situation.