Playing No LImit Poker

Getting crippled with top pair

2008-12-04T08:44:00.001-06:00

From a hand history discussed on rgp.

After this hand I was questioned about it. I have put in my thoughts in
from when I was playing the hand. Help me understand where I can improve.
Bet preflop? can you fold to the flop bet?

Grant (Morphy?) and Fell both jumped on me about it

> PokerStars Game #22603082268: Tournament #124719100, $5.00+$0.50 Hold'em No
Limit - Level III > (25/50) - 2008/12/03 22:37:10 ET
> Table '124719100 1' 9-max Seat #6 is the button
> Seat 1: jimpic79 (3390 in chips)
> Seat 2: charrison100 (4145 in chips)
> Seat 3: bgadams (2250 in chips)
> Seat 4: brewcam (1405 in chips)
> Seat 5: Grant1525 (1690 in chips)
> Seat 6: jpawloski (1530 in chips)
> Seat 7: k1d_qu1ck (960 in chips)
> Seat 8: Porsche_Dan (2855 in chips)
> Seat 9: aakringle (2775 in chips)
> k1d_qu1ck: posts small blind 25
> Porsche_Dan: posts big blind 50
> *** HOLE CARDS ***
> Dealt to charrison100 [Kh Qs]
> aakringle: folds
> jimpic79: folds
> charrison100: calls 50

MP limp to see if I hit

> bgadams: folds
> brewcam: folds
> Grant1525: calls 50
> jpawloski: calls 50
> k1d_qu1ck: calls 25
> Porsche_Dan: checks
> *** FLOP *** [Qd 9d 8s]

pot 250
TP 2K

> k1d_qu1ck: bets 910 and is all-in

Against 3 players I saw this as a steal. I called with my hand given it
was 1/3 my stack and a chance to knock him out. I was thinking A9 A8 two
diamonds or gut shot. No bet preflop from him in the blind made me
discount any pair or A face.

> Porsche_Dan: folds
> charrison100: calls 910

Thought the bet and the call was enough to isolate and that Grant and
Jason would fold.

> Grant1525: raises 730 to 1640 and is all-in

Ummm
Flush draw or straight draw or top pair

> jpawloski: calls 1480 and is all-in

Damn it
Flush draw or straight draw or top pair
One of these 2 has me beat.

> charrison100: calls 730

There was too much in the pot to not call and I was still going to have
1/2 my stack if I lost and that was a chance for a triple elimination.

> *** TURN *** [Qd 9d 8s] [Ad]
> *** RIVER *** [Qd 9d 8s Ad] [7d]

Made his flush. Grant and Jason both having the straight was a shock I
figured one had it and the other had AdXd but like I said with the pot
size and the amount of a call I felt it was justified.

> *** SHOW DOWN ***
> charrison100: shows [Kh Qs] (a pair of Queens)
> Grant1525: shows [Jh Th] (a straight, Eight to Queen)
> Grant1525 collected 320 from side pot-2
> jpawloski: shows [Ts Jc] (a straight, Eight to Queen)
> Grant1525 collected 855 from side pot-1
> jpawloski collected 855 from side pot-1
> k1d_qu1ck: shows [8d 6d] (a flush, Ace high)
> k1d_qu1ck collected 3890 from main pot
> *** SUMMARY ***
> Total pot 5920 Main pot 3890. Side pot-1 1710. Side pot-2 320. | Rake 0
> Board [Qd 9d 8s Ad 7d]
> Seat 1: jimpic79 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
> Seat 2: charrison100 showed [Kh Qs] and lost with a pair of Queens
> Seat 3: bgadams folded before Flop (didn't bet)
> Seat 4: brewcam folded before Flop (didn't bet)
> Seat 5: Grant1525 showed [Jh Th] and won (1175) with a straight, Eight to
Queen
> Seat 6: jpawloski (button) showed [Ts Jc] and won (855) with a straight,
Eight to Queen
> Seat 7: k1d_qu1ck (small blind) showed [8d 6d] and won (3890) with a flush,
Ace high
> Seat 8: Porsche_Dan (big blind) folded on the Flop
> Seat 9: aakringle folded before Flop (didn't bet)

>

From above

> Made his flush. Grant and Jason both having the straight was a shock I
> figured one had it and the other had AdXd but like I said with the pot
> size and the amount of a call I felt it was justified.

Do you understand what you just said?

You thought you were drawing dead but called because the pot was big?

Do you know what zero times a big number is?

You need to pay more attention to position and think of third to act in a nine handed game as third to act in a nine handed game rather than as middle position.

Given the situation (position and stack sizes) a KQo should probably have never been played in the first place.

Top pair with that coordinated flop is not what is meant by "hitting the flop"

So I guess that's three pretty big mistakes.

Picking on Brother Ed, part CVIII

2008-09-16T16:33:00.003-05:00

Okay, I'll admit it, I don't really like Ed Miller. The reason is that he's just a bad neighbor. An unfriendly member of the poker blog community.

To me that just makes him a jerk.

He has a policy of simply not recognizing that he's a member of a community. He never links to other blogs and never gives any sign of recognition when other's link to him. That makes him a bad neighbor, makes him a jerk.

The only thing I can figure is that he learned his neighborly skills from his ultimate mentor, Mason Malmuth. He certianly didn't learn it from his wife, who is actually a pretty good internet neighbor.

Ed has partially parted ways with Mason, primarily because Mason couldn't understand why Ed couldn't (Mason doesn't understand that maybe Ed just didn't want to) control his wife. But for some reason known only to Ed it is still important to Ed that he please Mason.

Part of pleasing Mason means to not recognize other internet sites. It's kind of sad.

But none of that is why I'm making this post. I'm making this post to point out a recent example of Ed missing the point.

Ed gets a question from a loyal reader

Recently a reader of my website, John, asked about the $1-$2 blind game at his local cardroom. Here’s what he had to say about his game:

The players there are very loose and pretty terrible, and they call everything pre-flop.

For example, I’ll be under the gun with A-K, raise to $20 preflop, and I’ll get four callers consistently!

That means the pot is already at $100 when the flop comes, and I usually start the hand with only $300.

A-K is a good hand and is meant to flop top pair, best kicker (1 out of 3 times), but as we all know, flopping one pair is only a ‘good’ hand and not a ‘great’ hand. So when I do flop top pair it puts me in a sticky situation. The pot is already too big!

I have gotten to the point where I think I may do one of the following things:

1. Don’t play as deep, so when I do hit my flop I don’t have to worry about reverse implied odds. (Loose play collusion is a killer there with people hitting two pair with junk.)

or

2. Simply limp in with hands like A-K, K-Q, A-Q, and so forth, in an effort to keep the pot small if I do hit it.

Ed responds

While John has identified an interesting issue, I think he’s overestimating the frequency of bad outcomes and underestimating the frequency of good ones.

I actually agree with that. AK (even if it's not suited) is actually going to hit a good flop about half the time. It will flop top pair about a third of the time, but other flops put it in pretty good shape (JTx as an example).

But reading Ed's next paragraph leaves me unsure that he and I agree on the above as much as it might seem superficially.

He says,

First off, if you raise to $20 with A-K and a $300 stack and four people call (and it isn’t a fluke), you’re in a fantastic situation. It’s such a good situation that you could probably push all-in every time it’s checked to you on the flop and still turn a profit. If you do something smarter than that (and it’s not hard to get smarter than that) then you’ll be solidly in the black.

No, Ed, you aren't in a fantastic situation in early position with AcKh and a flop of Kd 9s8s with a $100 pot and four people behind you. In fact that's a terrible situation.

Sure, you probably have the best hand. But you aren't real likely to make any money with it. You might, however, lose a hefty slice.

Ed seems to think that the frequency various outcomes is what matters. He says,

Before I continue, I want to disagree with something John said: “Loose play collusion is a killer there with people hitting two pair with junk.” That’s an example of overestimating the frequency of bad outcomes. It’s not the mathematical reality. Even four opponents are a significant underdog to flop two pair among them. For instance, an unsuited connector such as 8-7 has a 4.8 percent chance to flop two pair or better. A pocket pair obviously has a better chance to flop a set, but on average I’d guess one of your four opponents will flop two pair or better no more than 25 percent of the time.

When in early position against a large field you're not going to be able to maximize your win in hands you're ahead in, and you're not going to be able to minimize your lose in hands you're behind in.

The solution is to never make the pot big to begin with when you're out of position. If you hit a perfect pot then fine. If you don't then just let it go.

In a really lose game save those preflop raises for late position.

Feel v. Math

2008-09-11T16:10:00.002-05:00

Feel, or instinct, is just a technique used to estimate the parameters used in math, it's part of what math is.

Pushing Small Edges

2008-09-11T03:02:00.003-05:00

One really large difference between nolimit poker and limit poker is the need to push small edges. In limit poker it's usually important to push every edge you can. Not so much in nolimit poker.

Risk control is much, much more important in no-limit than it is in limit.

Counting your outs

2008-09-09T13:32:00.003-05:00

Before the river (and the showdown) hand evaluation isn't based on the poker hand rankings of one pair, two pair, three of a kind, straight, flush, etc. Hand evaluations and rankings are based on the distribution of possible outcomes.

An out is a card that will improve your hand to a winning hand on the river based on the traditional poker hand rankings. A hand with a lot of outs before the river is often a very good hand even though it hasn't yet achieved anything in terms of the traditional hand rankings.

For example, a no-pair hand on the flop that has a flush draw, a straight draw, and two overcards is a much better hand than top pair on the flop even though one pair beats no pair. That's because that hand with all the draws is the probable winner at a showdown on the river, after two more cards have come. It's a hand with a lot of outs.

The breakeven point between a pair and a draw is 14 outs on the flop. A hand that has 14 outs on the flop is a slight favorite over a hand with one pair and no redraws on the flop.

That would mean hands like:

bottom pair and a flush draw (14 outs)
a flush draw with two overcards (15 outs)
a flush draw with a straight draw (15 outs)
a straight draw and two overcards on a rainbow flop (14 outs)

are pretty good hands to have on the flop.

Note that when I counted a straight draw I specified a rainbow flop. That's because a hand like 8c7c on a flop of 2d 5d 6s doesn't have 8 clean outs to make a straight. Two of the cards that will make it a straight will put three diamonds on the board, possibly killing the straight by giving someone else a flush. You can't really count those 8 outs as an improvement to a winning hand. I count the straight draw on a two suited flop as 6 outs, 7 outs if you have a backdoor flush draw (such as a 6c instead of 6s in the above example).

Counting outs for straight draws can sometimes be problematic. Not only might your straight draw give someone a flush, it might give someone a higher straight. So it's best to be very conservative when counting outs on a straight draw. That's the case in both limit and nolimit forms of hold'em, but it's especially true in nolimit becazuse of the potential cost of making your hand and losing anyway.

Dawn, of I had Outs, recently described a hand she plays which serves as an example of what I'm talking about.

On the button I get 9c8c, I raise to fifteen. Now, I haven’t raised in hours, no one has seen me do anything but listen to my ipod and drink Grey Goose with pineapple. And yet, six people call me.
The flop is a lovely TcJcAs I bet out $40, I get two callers. Qh comes on the turn. I bet $50 and the guy in the one seat raises all-in. I have like $92 left.

Although she's right that a flush draw with a straight draw is a god flop for her, it's not as good a flop as she thinks it is. She effectively has something like 11 outs, not enough to make her a favorite against even bottom pair. A queen will make her a straight, but it's a very dangerous straight. Anybody with a single King will make a bigger straight with that card (which, of course, is the card the guy in seat one has).

She should have at least thought about checking that flop, keeping the pot small so that should a queen fall it probably won't cost her all her chips to draw for that flush. I'm not saying she should have checked, I'm saying should have given it some serious thought.

Protecting your bankroll with short buyins

2008-09-05T15:44:00.003-05:00

Some writers, Ed Milller in particular, advocates buying in short as a way to protect your bankroll. It's complete nonsense.

It might work to protect your bankroll if you're a losing player.

--- I have an errand to run. I'll have to finish this post later. Go ahead and share your thoughts on the subject while I'm gone.

UPDATE:
A commenter took issue with my suggestion that short buyins might help protect your bankroll if you're a losing player. He said, "most deep stacks don't know how to play against an aggressive SS".

Okay, that might be true, but that doesn't mean that you can protect your bankroll by using short buys even if you're a winning player otherwise. It's possible that a loser with deep stacks can convert himself into a winner by playing short stacks if he has opponents who don't know how to play against a short stack.

So even if playing a short stack might improve your lot, that doesn't mean you won't improve even more by just learning to play better and keeping a big stack.

If you're a winning player with a big stack then you'll give up a huge edge by reducing your stack size. Reducing your stack size is reducing the size of the game (for you). In no limit games your win is usually going to be expressable as a percentage of your stack size. If you cut your stack size by 90% your hurting your win in a big way even if cutting your stack will double your percentage win.

A $100 stack with a growth expectation of 20% is more profitable than a $20 stack with a growth expectation of 150%

----- I'm being called for supper, I"ll have to finish this later.

Attempt to define specialization

2008-09-05T13:18:00.004-05:00

I take a look at the discussion forums at 2+2 every once in a while but I'm not a regular reader. For some reason I've never actually looked at their list of forums on PL/NL hold'em.

Here's a list of forums.

High Stakes NL
Medium Stakes NL
Small Stakes NL
Micro Stakes NL
Medium-High Full Ring
Small Full Ring
Micro Full Ring
Heads Up NL

I think that's just amazing. They don't distinctions between pot limit and no limit (which are actually different games) but do distinguish based on blind size. I'm just floored by that.

High Stakes

If you don't at least play 5-10nl or higher then don't give advice in strategy threads. Without a familiarity with the games and players in question your advice is not relevant to the discussion. If you are a lower stakes poster you probably are also not thinking on a high enough level for your advice to add anything but clutter.

Medium Stakes

It is generally assumed that players in the Mid Stakes forum will have a solid understanding of the fundamentals of NL Holdem. Questions related to math (odds), fundamentals, and basic ABC play belong in Small Stakes.

Small Stakes

The SSNL forum is centered around discussion of shorthanded no-limit hold'em cash games from the $0.50/$1 blind level to $1/$2. For full ring games or other blind levels, use the forums listed below.

This is all just nonsense. They are attempting to make fine distinctions between situations (blind sizes) where no actual distinctions exist. But the one place that has real distinctions -- the difference between pot limit and no limit -- they completely ignore.

I wonder if there's anyone at all at 2+2 who has any concept of what poker is actually about?

UPDATE:
I sometimes play in a cardroom in Newkirk, OK that spreads no limit games with two different blind structures. A 1/3 blind and a 1/2 blind.

But the one with the smaller blind also has a $5 minimum bet -- it's played as a "red chip game". That makes the 1/2 game much, much bigger than the 1/3 game. It also changes player habits. There's a lot more preflop raising in the 1/3 game than in the 1/2 game.

There's a hell of a lot more to strategic theory than the size of the blinds.

UPDATE:
I tend to agree with the commenter that says he thinks 2+2'ers are arrogant, egotistical jackasses.

I think there's an explanation for that which is important to keep in mind whenever you follow any sort of intellectual pursuit.

The 2+2 publishing company touts itself as a provider of "correct information". I'm not sure that phrase actually has any real meaning, but the thought behind it is very comforting to a class of people who want desperately to be able to think of themselves as intellectuals even though they don't actually have the mental capacity to engage in true intellectual pursuits.

Such people tend to be quick to support ideas that simplistic and rigid. Being correct takes on some sort of meaning with bears no resemblance at all to being accurate. Complicated situations make them very uncomfortable. So they are quick to just assume away situational complications.

Playing from the small blind

2008-09-04T21:26:00.002-05:00

It's often tempting to simply complete the small blind and see the flop with rage. Resist that temptation.

If there's been a couple of limpers you'll be getting good odds to call from the small blind. But the good pot odds are very deceptive. You'll be out of position in every subsequent betting round and your implied odds for most hands on future betting rounds are negative.

Tournaments

2008-09-04T16:34:00.002-05:00

I haven't looked at the book yet, but based on Hammer's comments on it I think I should read Arnold Snyder's book The Poker Tournament Formula

Maybe somebody will buy me a copy.

Value Bets

2008-09-01T17:10:00.002-05:00

Random Shuffle takes Brother Ed to task again. This time for screwing up an important point about value betting.

Today's installment is entitled, "Why do so many of Ed's examples suck so bad?"

The crime scene (emphasis mine):

Someone open raises and a player in the blinds calls. The flop comes J85. The blind checks, the raiser c-bets 3/4 pot, and the blind calls. The turn is a 2. The blind checks, and the raiser checks. The river is a K. The blind checks, and the raiser checks. The blind shows A8, and the raiser wins with QJ.

This is from a post on value betting the river.

Random Shuffle then goes on to point out that in Ed's example the hero missed a more important bet on the turn. Go ahead and read the whole post.

I just wanted to take this opportunity to point out that turn bets are often very important bets.

Look at the board

2008-08-31T23:12:00.002-05:00

I was playing a 3-handed game the other night, we were playing 1/2 blinds with a $10 straddle on the button. I had about $450 in chips and the other two players each had a little more than that.

I had gotten stuck about $300 in the game before we got shorthanded and had recovered by just chipping away, mostly one of the two opponents. Both of them were pretty good players and the game wouldn't have been playable if one of them didn't have a clear tell. Whenever she really liked her hand her body got erect, shoulders back, head high. It was very obvious.

I had a J7 on the button and both the other's limped. I checked.

I thought the flop was 8 9 10 rainbow. It turns out I misread the flop, but I thought I'd flopped a straight. The woman with the tell bet $10. I could tell she liked her hand. I was unsure about whether my straight was good, but I made it $40 and she got deflated. So I was no longer worried about her having a better straight, I thought maybe a set, more likely top two pair, maybe even a T J.

The turn was a K. She sat up straight. She really liked that card. Liked it a lot. I could tell from her body language. She bet $40. I'm thinking she likely had KK. That's the only hand I could think of that would explain her first liking her hand, then not liking it so much after I raised on the flop, then liking it again when the K hit. She could have limped with KK preflop. She'd done that before.

I raised $120. She called but she clearly still liked her hand. The river was a 7, giving us the same hand if she had something like TJ or KJ. She checked. I bet $150. She raised, I had about $75 left. Now I didn't know what the hell she had, but I thought the same jack high straight I had was the most likely. Of course I called.

She had a K T. That would have been great if I'd have paying less attention to her posture and taken the trouble to look back at the board at sometime during the play of the hand. The original flop hadn't been 8 9 T. It had been 8 T T. I didn't have a straight. I had a pair of 7's against her tens full of kings.

I'm an idiot.

Position, position, position

2008-08-31T16:45:00.003-05:00

Most players (and most writers) tend to think of position in terms of your distance (and direction) from the button.

Particularly in no-limit games, there's a lot more to it than where the button is.

Position 1.
The button matters. Having the button is having a large weapon. Being last is good. The more active hands the more valuable late position is.

Position 2.
Aggressive opponents also matter. It's usually better to be to the left of aggressive opponents, so that you know whether or not they've raised before you have to act. But hyper-aggressive opponents are usually better placed on your left - since you don't have to wait for them to act to know that they'll likely raise/bet. Acting ahead of them lets you check hands into them and trap other players between the two of you.

Position 3.
Stack size matters. You want to be to the left of big stack sizes (if you have a big or moderate stack size).

When thinking about position think in terms of the button, aggressive opponents, and big stacks.

Loose no-limit hold-em games

2008-08-30T18:45:00.003-05:00

There's a short thread on rgp about playing in loose no-limit hold'em games.

Like many of such threads, some of the advice is really bad, some is pretty good.

Here's the original question in its entirety.

What is the best way to play a loose no-limit table, a
lot of limping, frequent raises with mediocre hands?

Here's the non-responsive response from one of the resident experts.

The big question is what do you mean by loose? Loose preflop, loose
passive, loose aggressive? Loose the whole way down? Do you get people
who will raise any 2, or people who call any 2? Saying "loose NLHE game"
isn't very descriptive.

If that's all the original question would have said then he's right. But that's not all he said. First of all it's very clear the question is just about pre-flop hand selection. That's a fairly easy question to answer without having to worry much about post-flop behaviors.

He's talking about a field that plays a lot of hands and does a lot of pre-flop raising and a lot of calling those pre-flop raises.

In such a game you should pay more attention to position. Play tighter in front, but play more hands from in back. Be willing to call multiway raises from the back. With a large stack be more willing to play for implied odds (play more hands). Especially if another large stack is playing from early position. If you have a large stack on your left be more careful if you have a large stack. (that's part of what it means to play position)

UPDATE:
As the rgp thread progressed it became clear that I probably misunderstood the original poster's question. I had interpreted his "a lot of limping, frequent raises with mediocre hands" as a description of table conditions. It's more likely he meant that as a proposed answer to his own question of how to play at a loose table.

If that's correct then he's describing a passive table (you can't do a lot of limping if it's not a passive table).

My answer of "pay attention to position" still isn't far off, but it's not as critical as it would be at a more aggresive table.

Making a mistake in judgement

2008-06-22T16:52:00.002-05:00

One thing you can count on doing a lot of is making a mistake in judging a situation. You'll mis-read a player, you'll make a bad estimate of an opponents stack size, you'll miscount a pot size, you'll misread a board, even misread your own hand at times. It's something that's going to happen.

I'm not even talking about making a mistake in picking the right strategy for a given situation, I'm talking about just getting the fundamental situation wrong.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make is failure to realize that you're confused about a situation. Thinking you know what's going on when in fact you don't know is a far bigger mistake than just not knowing what's going on.

Here's an example of what I mean by confusion.

Situation: 6 handed NLHE cash game, blinds $2/$3. You are on the BB with
a $190 stack. UTG is new to the table but you've played him before. He's
a standard straight forward TAG player. He's quiet enough that he doesn't
draw attention to himself, almost always shows down strong hands, typical
big hand big pot, let the pots that don't matter go without a fight, etc.
He has or is affiliated with cardrunners.com in some way or another based
on google searches if that matters at all. All of this information is
known from previous play and research. He has $320ish and has been at the
table for a few orbits.

Player just sat down. Player has been at the table for a few orbits. That's confused thinking. That's a sign of strong uncertianty about the situation.

There's nothing inherently wrong with such uncertainty. But there's something terrible wrong with thinking that noticing the inconsistency in thought is just nit-picking and doesn't matter. The original poster just reacted badly overall. An example of his reaction is in the subsequent discussion thread is

> Do you want to try to explain why it's not bad poker to fold AK to a
> single raise in a high stakes 6 handed game?

No, because if I happen to use the wrong word or use a word in the wrong
way you won't understand it and will spend the next 20 posts complaining
about it. Instead I'll just ignore it and hope you go away.

The ">" item is from a post I'd made in the thread.

You have to not just recognize your mistakes but you have to allow for them. As I said in that thread

-

> On Jun 21 2008 11:11 AM, garycarson wrote:

> > On Jun 21 2008 11:03 AM, chandler wrote:

> > > On Jun 21 2008 1:10 AM, Travel A wrote:

> > > > If UTG raised and it folded around to me in the BB, creating a heads-up
> > > > a situation, I'd call. UTG, by raising, has already given the
> > > > information needed. The problem with reraising is that you're out of
> > > > position and there's no additional benefit of getting information.

> > > The thing is the raise preflop UTG doesn't really tell you much about his
> > > hand... which the OP adds later. And if you reraise preflop it does in
> > > fact get you some information. If he doesn't come over the top of your
> > > reraise you can probably eliminate AA/KK from his range.

> > If you're suidical.

> > If I'm him and I have AA I'm going to call your re-raise. I'm right where
> > I want to be -- with the best hand with position against a player who
> > thinks he knows what's going on but doesn't and deep money.

> > The only thing Re-raising gets you is having him fold exactly those hands
> > you want to play against -- like AJ or KQ.

> > > If he comes over
> > > the top, I can get away from the hand.

> > Which is why he should just call if he has AA.

> I'm not suicidal, just not very good.

It really kind of depends on what the OP meant by "straight-forward".
Many responders seem to think it meant predicible. But that doesn't
really make much sense as a definition since some of the most predicable
players have heavy doses of FPS.

I defined the term in both my books, basically just as a player who tended
to bet when he had a hand and checked when he didn't.

That wouild not preclude a straight-forward player from raising with AA
than just calling when re-raised, particularly when the money is deep.

I think you were just using a different operational definition of
striaght-forward than I was.

> There is a difference in the intent
> if not the result. In my defense, most of my current opponents would be
> happy to relieved to come over the top of me with AA/KK after that preflop
> reraise... And they are not necessarily wrong because they get calls from
> inferior hands with some frequency. Calling AA there makes sense. I have
> smooth called my AA to a single raiser when playing out of the BB, but
> never just called a reraise.

That's why I had orignially asked the OP what the Evil One thought of him.
He didn't answer.

Has our hero shown a willingness to re-raise then fold to a huge playback?
We don't know. If so then I'm leaving open the possibility that the Evil
One has AA or KK. If he has then there's still some chance of AA or KK
although the chances are reduced.

Generally in no-limit it's a mistake to put your opponent on a specific
hand or to eliminate a specific hand from possibility. You can do that in
limit becuase the cost of being wrong is controlled, but that's not the
case in no-limit and you need to always let your mind consider even
unlikely possibilities -- unless one of you gets real short-stacked, in
that case you can eliminate AA from possibility if he only calls the
re-raise.

> OK, I started out with calling the AK preflop and toyed with the idea of
> the reraise, but check calling every street after you hit really has me
> intrigued.

You might not check/call every street. If he ever makes a really big bet
you need to think about giving it up. Also if the board gets real scary
and he doesn't seem worried about it then you might think about giving it
up.

> If I'm thinking I can see how attractive this is. It keeps
> inferior hands betting, keeps the pot smaller if you're beat and you can
> shift gears to value bet later if the action dictates, but everything in
> me is screaming to bet when I hit that TPTK... and I usually do. I'm
> going to have to give that tactic serious consideration.

In limit blind aggression usually gets it at least close to right. Not so
in no limit. Don't let your ego get in the way, you don't need to control
the betting every hand, and you don't need to control information flow
every hand. Particularly with deep stacks.

With deep stacks you should tread carefully.

In limit you usually want to go after every sliver of value. In no limit
you need to look more at the skew of the distributions of possible
outcomes and avoid negative skews. A negative skew is one where you'll
usually win a little but sometimes you'll get dunked. A winning
distribution of outcomes in no limit is one where you'll usually have a
small loss but sometimes have a huge win (I'm talking about per hand, not
per month).

The distribution of outcomes for winning no-limit players looks very much
like the distribution of outcomes of winning limit players who play in
wild/crazy games.

This, btw, is one aread where the poker hand history analysis software
falls down -- they have too much focus on mean and variance (first and
second moments for you physics majors) and tend to ignore the third moment
(skewness).

The point is that if you're not sure about the situation don't worry about. Just be aware that you aren't sure.

Curiosity

2008-06-03T11:51:00.002-05:00

Curiosity is a generally good trait for a student of poker to have. But it's a trait you need to indulge away from the table. Wondering What If away from the table, and thinking about it deeply, can help you garner a deeper understanding of the game. But too much wondering What Is while at the table can cause serious dents in your stack.

The best known example of a player who needs to learn to compartmentalize his curiousity is Danny Boy Negreanu. From one of his recent blog entries:

He raised me 4100 more all in. A bet that "looks" like it has to be the nuts or close to it. Bill knows I know that, and I was very curious to see this hand. It was played so strangely that I couldn't figure it out. Did he put me on a hand like JJ and think I was making a defensive bet? Did he think he could rob me if he moved in? I had no idea, so since the pot was laying me a price, I had no real choice but to call. Seems odd to say "no choice" but that's what it felt like since I had no clue what he had.

When they're raising with any damn thing

2008-03-28T09:10:00.002-05:00

I was in a game the other night with a couple of wild and crazy guys to my immediate right. The rest of the lineup consisted of four nits and two other guys of with no real distinguishing characteristics.

I did really well, two of the nits went busted, the other two made no progress, and the two wild and crazy guys went busted and left. I left shortly after.

One of the reasons I did well was that I got lucky. One of the reasons that none of the nits did well was that none of them knew how to adapt to players who raised or called raises with about half their hands (which is what the wild and crazy guys were doing).

For example, one of the nits frequently would limp in (he was in front of the wild and crazy pair) then fold to a $10 raise from wild and crazy guy. Later he told me that he was folding hands like KJo in that position.

The wild and crazy guy was making those raises with at best hands like 98o and better. That's about 44% of his hands. He may have sometimes been raising with worse hands. Against that range the KJo is a 53% favorite.

At the same time he was folding hands like KJo to a raise I was calling those raises cold with ands like K5s. With that hand I was a dog to the raising range, by 45/55, but the wild and crazy guy had a terrible bet tell (he bet small when on a draw and bet big when he flopped a hand) so it was easy to play with him after the flop.

Adapt. If they want to gamble then get in their and gamble with them.

Ed Miller plays a no-limit hold'em hand that just seems bizarre to me

2008-02-19T07:48:00.002-06:00

Brother Ed describes the first round of betting in a 50c/$1 blind online no-limit hand as

It’s a $0.50-$1 game, and the villain has $109 (and I have him covered). Everyone folds to me in the small blind, and I make it $3.50 to go with A 5 . The big blind calls.

He then tries to tell us something about the player in the big blind.

big blind plays in a way that I find fairly common in the 6-max $0.50-$1 games, so he’s not an atypical or bizarre player.

I have no idea what that means. He's not a bizarre player? He's not atypical? A lot of different things could all be fairly common. This doesn't tell me anything. Maybe it does to regular Ed readers. But it's pretty much just vague mumblings to me.

And there's no context. Is this an unusually tight game where blind v. blind confrontations happen a lot? Has Ed raised from the SB the last 3 rounds and the BB folded? Context matters. We don't have any. So we're just going to have to fly blind.

The flop is 986 with two hearts. I think I have the best hand here with the Ace high and the bad gutshot. But, Ed checks. I'm not sure why (there was some previous post where I guess he discusses that but I didn't look it up). The BB checks.

A 2 comes on the turn and Ed bets $5.50, The BB calls.

I'm not sure what this bet is all about. After checking the flop the BB is going to likely upgrade the prospects of his own hand, he's going to think of Ed's hand in terms of weakness. A duece isn't going to change that assessment any at all, no matter what Ed does on the turn.

Ed says that it's a good bet because in his experience it will yeild a fold most of the time in this situation.

That's very bad analysis. The fact that your hand is best and a bet will get a worse hand to fold isn't really that important in a no-limit game where you're making large bets. What matters is whether or not a better hand will fold or a worse hand will call. If the opponent will always fold a worse hand and always call a better hand then you'd still often see him fold to a bet in this situation but it wouldn't be a good thing for you at all unless checking would tend to induce a bluff on the river that you're going to fold to.

That sure was a long sentence. I hope it made sense.

In a limit game getting a worse hand to fold is often good because you gain some equity while only risking a small bet relative to the pot size. That's not the case in a no limit game, however.

The Kh comes on the river, putting the flush card on the board. But neither of these guys is going to worry that the other guy made a flush. Ed having checked the flop is a strong indication he didn't have a flush draw, the same with the BB. They might worry about the K though. Ed wasn't worried. He bet. The other guy folded.

Ed is real proud of that river bet.

My experience in the $0.50-$1 games has consistently been that a pot-sized bet against a scary river card that’s mostly missed my opponent’s range is a big favorite not to get called. It’s easily better than the 50% fold chance it needs to be to make the bluff profitable. (To make the bluff more profitable than checking, it actually has to be substantially better than 50% because checking leaves us with at least some showdown equity.) My opponent’s range is dominated by weakish one-pair hands, and my experience is that most $0.50-$1 players are folding those hands to this river card and a pot-sized bet.

I don't know what that last sentence means.

I can't see how Ed might think it likely that he doesn't have the best hand and I don't see how a bet is going to get a worse hand to call or a better hand to fold.

Back in his discussion about the turn bet one of his arguements for the turn bet was that by betting the turn he increases his chances of getting a free showdown. But then he doesn't take a free showdown.

I think maybe this is FPS.

avoiding tough decisions

2007-12-21T03:01:00.000-06:00

I havn't read Professional No-Limit Hold 'em: Volume I (pretentious titles turn me off) but The Surly Poker Gnome has a quibble with this passage.

Many players think experts win because they make these tough decisions well. They miss the point. Good players plan ahead to avoid tough decisions, and so should you.

Here's what The Surly Poker Gnome says about it

Yes, it's true that avoiding tough decisions by planning your hands can help improve your game. But money isn't made by dodging difficult situations. Profits come from making correct decisions, whether they're simple or complicated.

They're both wrong.

You do not make money in poker by being smart. You make money by the other guy not being smart. You simply want to avoid mistakes.

The decisions you want to focus on are the ones with big potential payoffs and small risk, it doesn't matter whether they're easy ones are hard ones, it doesn't matter whether you make most decisions correctly. It matters that you make the important ones correctly.

Enticing a call

2007-12-04T10:49:00.000-06:00

I don't know why this works, but it does.

In a 1/2 game I limped UTG with KK. The limp left me with a stack of $125. Another early position player made it $15 and two players called. The raiser had another $75, the other two each had a couple hundred. I made a huge overbet, moving all in.

The initial raiser went into the tank and gave me his best imitation of a TV staredown.

Then I said the magic words. "Can you beat two jacks?"

Somewhat taken aback, he said, "Maybe".

I said, "Well, then you know what to do".

He called. One of the other two called, the other folded.

I turned my hand over, the board got dealt, they both mucked.

I don't know why causing them to focus their thoughts on a pair of jacks makes them call, but it does.

I have some thoughts about what the reason might be though.

When they mention a pair of jacks they'll tend to think about your hand as it relates to jacks, not as it relates all the other information they might have. They'll tend to think, "He might have jacks, he might have overcards to jacks, he might have a pair smaller than jacks and he might have a pair bigger than jacks. But he's thinking about jacks, so he probably doesn't have a bigger pair, he probably has TT and my KQ is a coin toss".

I don't really know though. But it works.

I learned this trick from John Mioton, I guy I used to play with in Mississippi (in Gulfport and later in Tunica). John has a lot of technical flaws in his understanding of the game but he does have very good insight into people.

Where to sit

2007-11-19T10:54:00.000-06:00

Popular wisdom is that you should sit to the left of a maniac so that you can re-raise and isolate him. That popular wisdom is an idea from limit poker, but that's not really why it's not a good idea. It's that it's based on ideas about table composition and game conditions that are seldom found any more.

If you saw the movie Rounders it has a scene that takes place in an Atlantic City cardroom with a table of 8 pros and 2 other seats that keep rotating among various tourists. Essentially the pros are taking turns bleeding chips from the tourists. In that kind of table composition the idea of isolation makes some sense becuase if you raise then the pros behind you are likely to not want to fool with it, they'll "get out of your way".

You just aren't likely to find that situation any more.

It's much better to sit on the right of that maniac so that you have as much information as possible about how the rest of the table is going to react to him before you have to make a major commitment.

How big

2007-10-18T23:08:00.000-05:00

The poker how-to blog suggests looking at the flop and asking yourself "how big do I want this pot".

That's part of what you need to think of. But more than how big you want to pot to end up you need to ask yourself the pot size trajectory you want to plan on -- how fast do you want the pot to grow?

He gives an example of what I'm talking about although he doesn't get explicit about that part of the plan.

.50/1.00 NL, hero has $100 and villain has $25

Folded to hero on the cutoff whe raises to $3 with JhJd. The villain on the button, an unknown shortstack, calls.

Flop: Td 8d 7c (pot: $7.50)

Our opponent has $22 left in a $7.50 pot. With so little left to bet and so many draws out we are happy to get $22 in the pot.

He suggests betting the pot and getting raised. I'm not so sure I like that plan. It's going to be hard to count on getting raised. In his example trajectory the hero gets all the money in on the flop, which I think is fine.

But what if you bet and don't get raised? There's a lot of cards that might scare you on the turn. Do you really want to triple the size of the pot and leave yourself with an almost pot sized stack left? I don't think you do. I think you want to try real hard to avoid putting yourself into a situation where you have to make a tough decision.

If you check that flop one of two things will happen --
1. He might check, leaving the pot relatively small until you see the turn and decided then what to do. or
2. He might bet, making it fairly easy to just pick up the pot with that little extra right now.

If you check neither possibility leaves you in a real bad spot, the pot is still small enough so if he checks then you can fold the turn if things turn sour. At the same time it gives him a chance to put some more money in the pot now, allowing you to easily get it all in now.

When you think about the pot size you want don't just think about the size, think about how you might get there, and think in terms of multiple possibilities, not just one path.

Give yourself options, and avoid having to make tough decisions later.

Talking at the table

2007-10-10T19:48:00.000-05:00

It turns out that if you want someone to believe something, for example if you want to think you're a very tight player, just say so. Even if it's clearly false, other players that aren't paying complete attention to you will hear it and believe it.

Skill

2007-10-08T23:14:00.000-05:00

I dropped out of school in the 9^th grade, when I was 14. (I later went back, finished high school, got a couple of graduate degrees).

When I quit school my grandfather gave me a job. He managed Eagle Rock Ranch, outside of Wimberley, Texas. It has since become Woodcreek, a residential subdivision, but at the time it was a working ranch during much of the year and a Resort Ranch during the summer months. During the summer they employed college students as waiters, lifeguards, wranglers, etc. But during the off-season the employees were all full time cowboys and maintenance people. I was hired as part of the maintenance crew during the off-season, and part of the resort crew during the summer.

They had two separate barracks for cowboy housing -- one for Mexican cowboys and one for Anglos. (1963 Texas wasn't just a different time, it was a different place). I bunked with the Anglos. One night we went over to the Mexican bunkhouse for a crap game. I'd never played craps before but I knew the basic rules.

I also had a skill that nobody else in the game had -- I knew how to calculate the probabilities of various dice combinations and how to translate those probabilities into odds. Yes, I was a 9^th grade dropout (which was what most of those cowboys were) but boredom had actually been a big part of my school problem. My grades had been bad but I read a lot, and liked math.

There was no host for the game. Shooters had the dice and shot until they either made a point or crapped out, then the dice passed. All bets were side bets, and all bets were at negotiated odds. That's right, there were no fixed prices for various propositions. We negotiated it. That gave me a pretty good edge. I actually knew the difference between the probability of making a point of 8 and that of making a point of 4.

The point of this story is to try to point out the nonsense that the idea that poker should be regulated rather than banned because it's a game of skill.

Well, that craps game I played in Wimberley, Texas in 1963 was a game of skill also. That didn't make it any less a gambling game.

And it gets really interesting when you think about what happens when you start regulating that crap game. Once you start regulating it, having a government agency overseeing a permanent host of the game, the negotiated odds go away and any edge I might have had from my skill is gone.

Regulation takes the skill completely out of that game.

That's what too much regulation will do to poker also. Regulation and taxes increase costs which causes increases in rake which reduces the value of any skill you might have.

Starcraft and poker

2007-10-08T20:47:00.000-05:00

I ran across this passage on Reasonable Deviations, quoting from Nuclear Phynance

I used to play this game called StarCraft in the late 90s, wherein you can build up an army and advance your own technology by collecting resources. My strategy against the computer was to avoid battles and focus on defenses until I had advanced to the highest point of technology, then to Unleash the Fury and wipe the computer out in a massive but short battle of inevitable victory.

...

But when I started play online against other people, I found that sometimes relatively weak players could win battles against me by ‘rushing‘, wherein they focus all of their initial efforts on offense, ignoring the longer term goals of resource collecting and defense.

Sound familiar?

And Starcraft players even started acting like poker pros when

In other circles, some players would agree beforehand that there would be ‘no rushing‘, because they preferred the long game.

Implied odds in no limit

2007-10-05T18:26:00.001-05:00

The concept of implied odds isn't really the same in no limit as it is in limit.

In limit your concern is about getting some extra bets on future betting rounds. But in no limit it's really about winning or losing a stack.

This came up in a thread on playing AKo in a no-limit game.

I had pointed out that AKo against a very tight early position raiser (QQ+, AKs, AKo) is an equity dog and has no implied odds since it won't get a of action against QQ.

A commenter expressed a dissent because he says you have implied odds from an expected contiuation bet even if an A flops.

That's not really implied odds to me. The only flop that has any chance at all of busting QQ is a TJQ flop and even then you aren't really a huge favorite with the flopped nuts. If you get action with a flop of AKx you're in pretty bad shape, probably drawing almost dead.