Why Do People Play This Way?

Sometimes I really don’t understand why some people play the way that they do. I’m willing to accept that their play conforms to some standard of logic that I’m just not aware of. But then again, sometimes I just have to wonder.

I was at a $2/$5 no-limit table and was the chip leader after playing really tight and beating the table up with good hands. I was in the small blind with A§5©; not a great hand but good enough for a call. The cutoff called the big blind; I completed; and with the big blind the three of us went to the flop.

The flop hit Q§Qª7©. A complete miss for my hand. I lost interest in it and checked; but then the other two players checked behind me.

The flop put out the 7§. I doubted at this point that either player had either a Queen or a Seven, so I decided to bluff with the (likely) best hand; my Ace kicker, that is. I put out a tiny min-bet of $5. The big blind folded, but the cutoff called.

Here’s where things got funky. The river was the Q¨, putting a Full House – Queens full of Sevens – on the board. So unless I (or my opponent) had either a Queen or a pocket pair of Sevens or higher, we were obviously going to split the pot. At least, I thought it was obvious.

Just to be goofy, I put out a tiny $10 bet. My opponent insta-folded so fast it blew me away. I raked in the $25 pot, completely unable to figure out why he wouldn’t call my post-oak bluff. I guess I should just be happy that there are some players like that out there!

Sort of in spite of myself, I’ve been watching this TV show on the G4 network called “2M2MM” or “Two Months/Two Million”, about a foursome of 20-something poker pals who rent a house in Vegas and try to make $2 Million in two months’ time. Overall, the guys are pretty dorky and nerdy, but it’s fun seeing them goof around while winning (or losing) six figure sums each week.

Back To Detroit

Move over Rancho Mirage; I think Greektown has become my new favorite casino.

I played in the tournament with a $75 buy-in. By Detroit standards, that would be a high-roller tournament. In fact, only 26 players showed up to play, counting me. I played a grand total of three hands over a two-and-a-half-hour period, and finished in ninth place. They only paid the top three. The structure was dreadful, with several levels that doubled the previous level (i.e. 50/100 went straight to 100/200). This makes it more of a luck-fest than a poker game.

My first hand came in the third level. By that point, three people had already gone out, one during the first level. That’s just incomprehensible to me. Regardless, I took Ace/King to showdown and beat my opponents Ace/Four to double-up (the board had two Aces on it, so my kicker played).

My second hand was a Jack/Ten. I flopped top pair, bet, and took the pot.

My final hand was pocket sevens. By this point we’d all combined to one table. I went all-in preflop (the first into the pot) and was called in two spots, by a King high and by a Jack high. A King and a Jack both flopped, so the Kings took us both out. Even though I finished out of the money, I played spectacularly well and not at all disappointed.

I made my way over to the cash games. The $1/$2 no-limit was the only NL they were spreading, although they had a $3/$6 limit game going too. The buy-in at the $1/$2 table was $50-$200, and most people were buying in for just $50. The crowd at the Detroit casinos is so different from anyplace else. One player was complaining because they had just cut off his phone service. There were a lot of discussions about lottery tickets. One guy said, “I’d played the same numbers every week for years. The one time I didn’t play last week, they hit. I woulda won $75,000. I couldn’t even sleep that night.” Another two players got into an argument over which of the Jackson brothers was the very first lead singer of the Jackson Five – Jermaine or Michael. Being a Jackson Five fan, I already knew the answer (they both were lead singers at the start and traded lead on different songs). But I kept my mouth shut and just raked in the chips. The players were so appallingly bad. I made a decent amount of money; actually a shocking amount of money given the fact that this was only a $1/$2 table and folks were losing their stacks at only $50 at a time. The only reason I left is because the table finally broke up – too many players lost all their money and had to leave. But I am sure that I’ll be back.

Visiting Former Hometowns, Chapter Two

I was in Kansas City last week, another burg I used to call home. After wrapping up my business, I decided to check out the Harrah’s out that way. I don’t recall having ever been there before (as in Detroit, the casinos were all built after I moved away) but I probably have been. I know I’d never played poker there, though.

I started out at the cash games ($1/$2 no limit), but between felting the other players and them just up and leaving, I soon found myself with only three opponents. I’d rather play Bridge than Poker when it gets that short-handed (and I don’t even know how to play Bridge), so the table just broke up.

Serendipitously, a $30 buy-in tournament was starting to get underway, so I bought into that and decided to play some tournament poker for a while. Fifty-three other rounders had the same idea.

Long story short – I finished in second place, which put me in a terrific mood. It was good for $294, so not a bad payday for four hours’ work.

There weren’t really any big hands that stood out; I just played pretty tight and let the cards come. I won more than my fair share of coin-flips, but my theory is you need to in order to win anyhow. There are a couple of hands I played really terrible though, so I’ll post those. Maybe I’ll even learn from them.

In the first hand, I was the table’s chip leader by a wide margin. I’d just taken out two players with AA, and I was still stacking the rewards when the next hand got dealt. A spankin’ new player had just sat down to my right, and was under the gun. He had a medium-sized stack. He glanced at his hand immediately went all-in.

I looked at my hand: JJ. For some reason, I thought about what I should do! The answer of course, is you muck immediately. But I was on a big high from just winning a huge pot and taking the chip lead. I didn’t know the player who just sat down, and couldn’t get a read on him. He was older than me (maybe in his 60’s), so if anything that should have cautioned me that he probably wasn’t a maniac. But like a fool, I decided to re-raise all-in myself, to isolate him.

Naturally, the rest of the table folded. Naturally, my opponent had AA. And naturally, he won, as he deserved to. My stack was so big at that time that it barely made a dent, but gee what a stupid way to play Jacks, when the under-the-gun player goes all in!

The second hand was against the player who was probably the best in the tournament (counting me as well). I was in the big blind; he was in early position and doubled the bet. It folded around to me; I had King Ten so I decided to play.

The flop came King Eight Deuce. I decided to go for the check-raise. I checked; my opponent bet, I raised a big amount, and he re-raised all-in. He had me covered, but just barely (we were the two big stacks at the table). I should add that this guy was playing really tight and I had a lot of respect for his game. Nevertheless, like a doofus I called his all-in, and put my tournament life at stake with top pair.

Naturally, he had flopped top two pair (Kings and Eights). Fourth street bricked, but I rivered my three-outer and handed him a terrible beat. His chip stack was crushed, and he was completely ticked off. He walked away from the table (ostensibly out of everybody’s earshot) and swore up a blue streak. I couldn’t really blame him either. As a sign of just how good a player he was, he nursed his micro-stack back up to a decent level and ended up going out third, just before I did.

Overall, the room (and the tournament) was a lot of fun. Since it was the Midwest, everybody was really friendly and nice. I had the final table in stitches with goofy jokes and silly behavior. When it got to heads up, the dealer could hardly shuffle because he was laughing so hard. By the way, the last hand (for the record) was my 44 against the Villain’s Jack-rag. A Jack flopped, and that was that.

A new poker show has made it to TV, “Face The Ace” featuring Full Tilt’s stable of champions and bracelet winners. I’ve only seen the first episode, but I thought it showed promise. The amateurs won every round, but only because they got hit with the deck each time. The host (some guy from The Sopranos) was pretty decent; Ali Nejad is also in the house but fortunately is subdued. The chatter at the table is probably the best part of it all. Erick Lindgren in particular gets an A+ in trying to keep the show interesting. Sadly, the show came in dead last in its timeslot. We’ll have to see whether it can find an audience. Here’s hoping!

Back In The Saddle: The Greektown Casino

It’s been almost two months since I played any poker. I don’t think I’ve had that long of a hiatus from poker since I started playing three or four years ago! What’s kept me from the table has been a seriously intense amount of work from my real job, at least mostly. But I finally had the chance to visit a card room and learn whether or not I could still play.

I found myself in Detroit last week, and decided to check out the Greektown Casino. I had only visited it one time before, right after it was built (which was right after I moved out, having called the Detroit area “home” for about seven years).

For those of us who remember the “old” Greektown – pre-casino, that is – what they’ve done with that neighborhood is a bit … jarring. I recall shopping in that little brick mall with quirky, crooked bridges connecting the different sides. Well, that mall is now the casino. Except for a handful of restaurants on the first floor (some of which are vacant), it’s entirely given over to that evil vice.

I can’t say it’s not an improvement, however. The “old” Greektown was more than a bit tattered at the edges. It was desperately trying to recapture its glorious reputation the way an over-the-hill call girl tries to deny the ravages of time by applying too much makeup. So spicing the neighborhood up with a casino has definitely been a shot in the arm.

The cardroom had two hold-em games being spread amongst the five or so tables; a $3/$6 limit game and a $1/$2 no-limit game. The no-limit game had a buy-in of between $50 and $200. Given the sad state of the Detroit economy, it shouldn’t surprise you to learn that most folks were buying in for the minimum.

The players were atrocious. Some of them made me wonder whether they’d ever played poker before. I’ve been at some easy rooms before (Harrah’s flagship in Las Vegas and Agua Caliente in Rancho Mirage come to mind), but this one beat them all. It was one of those sessions where you don’t dare bluff; just value-bet your good hands and fold everything else. I ended up doubling up during my two hours there.

I didn’t play very many hands, and only one hand actually stands out, although it played itself so posting it won’t give you any idea about whether I am a good player or not.

I was on the button. Three or four players limped in from early and mid position, which was happening quite a lot. A player two to my right bumped it up to $10. He had a short stack – but then, nearly all of them had short stacks. I looked down at A©A§ and min-raised it to $20.

The player to my left, the small-blind, was a maniac, splashing around in just about every pot and intimidating the entire table (except me, since I wasn’t in too many hands). He was also the only guy at the table who had me out-chipped. He looked at his hand, grabbed a stack of red chips and re-raised it to $100. Given his range, he could have had pretty much anything and just been trying to make a move on the pot, with all that dead money lying out there. I was thrilled about his re-raise; it made it more likely that the rest of the table would fold out, and I could go head-up with the maniac.

Indeed, the table did fold, until it got to the initial raiser. He only had around $50 left in total, so he called the re-raise and was all-in.

I had about $150 in front of me, so I re-raised all-in myself. I think he realized at this point he’d been squeezed, but facing only a $50 re-raised on a pot with around $300 in it, he pretty much had to call, so he did.

He showed the Q©Qª. The initial raiser inexplicably showed J§6§. In fact, I actually said, “I think I like your hand the best,” pointing to the suited Jack.

The maniac shouted, “Give me a Queen!” He got his wish, as a Q¨ came on the flop. But unfortunately, it was accompanied by a Aª and a 2ª.

The turn was the K§. At this point, the suited Jack actually had a better chance of winning the hand than the Queens did; the Queens had only a single out, but the other hand could river a straight with any of the four tens.

However, the river ended up being the 2¨, and my Aces full defeated the Queens full. The guy with the suited Jack left the table; the guy with the Queens was completely steaming but continued to play for a while longer. Me; I just stacked up my chips and went on to the next hand.

A Very Odd Poker Session

This post will probably be somewhat longish, as I intend to comment on an entire Poker session I had recently. It was a very unusual session; the kind of session that can only happen in no-limit hold-em. Posting this kind of stuff is very helpful to me, particularly when I go back and look at it later.

Before I get to that, I should confess that I’ve made peace with the fact that I won’t be able to get back to the World Series this year. I suppose that’s the trade-off for having a real job. And the fact that I’ve never been busier is probably a good thing, particularly in this economy.

There are two more tournaments coming up that I probably won’t make it to either. The Summer Poker Roundup in Pendleton is the weekend of 7/18; that’s definitely out for me. And there’s a tournament in Reno called the Pot Of Gold at the end of July (at the Grand Sierra). I might still make it to that one for a tournament or two, but I’m not counting on it.

Now, let’s play some poker. There’s a $2/$5 table waiting for us.

The context for this session is as follows: I’d played a bit of poker lately, but not very much. And I’ve been on something of a losing streak too. Whenever that happens to me, I study my play very closely to see why: Is it just bad cards, or is it bad play? Sometimes it’s one; sometimes the other. But when I see full house over full house, or AQ (me) versus AA (villain) on a board with an Ace and a Queen, it’s a bit comforting to see that it’s more likely to be bad cards. If I can continue to just play my game and have confidence I should bring it back.

Meanwhile, as I evaluate the session I’m going to post below, I have to give myself a grade of D+ or maybe C-. Pretty pathetic, as you will see.

Hand #1 of 5: I’m under-the-gun, and see Q© 7ª. Now, as I’ve blogged about before, I have started to mix up my pre-flop play a little bit. I’m worried that I’ve become too predictable, so every sixth time I open-raise, I do so with whatever hand I manage to pick up. And this was one of those times, so I put $15 into the pot.

The key to this kind of crazy Gus Hansen style is to immediately surrender if there is any resistance, or if the flop doesn’t give you anything better than a pair. Since I’ve started this strategy, I’ve been really pleased with the results. Most of the time, my opponents will fold without a fight (there’s the benefit of a tight image). Occasionally, they will play back at me, and I’ll let it go. But overall, it has been a smallish money maker.

The problem here is that this particular hand has come on the heels of a couple of really decent starting hands for me – AA and QQ to be precise. And since everybody’s folded pre-flop, I haven’t been able to show down my tightness. So it looks like I’ve just been stealing blinds from middle/early position. Consequently, this time around, I got three callers: The cutoff, the button, and the small blind. This didn’t bother me; actually, I thought it was pretty cool to see such a nice, big pot getting built up. If I flopped anything decent, nobody would have any idea.

So with $65 in the pot, the flop came 7§ 2¨ Q§. Now, this is probably the most perfect flop imaginable for my garbage hand! I have top two pair, and doubtless a stranglehold on the pot.

The small blind checked, and since I didn’t like seeing the flush draw on the board, I put out a big bet of $50. This would be enough to chase out any draws. My only caller was the small blind, and so with $165 in my pot (I mean THE pot), we went to the turn.

A raggy 10ª came out. The small blind checked again. Still worried about the flush draw, I put out a bet of $120 into a $165 pot, and my opponent quickly called. Now the pot was over $400, and I was really starting to wonder what the other guy had.

The river was the A§, and suddenly my opponent came alive and bet about $325 into the $400 pot, enough to put me all in. I sat for a minute and thought about what hands he could have:

· A flush draw that came in: Not possible; nobody would chase the bad pot odds I was offering from the start.

· A straight draw that hit: Even less likely. It would require him to play exactly King-Jack and call all the way to the end.

· A set, or a higher two pair (such as Aces up). Possible; but if that was the case then I am supposed to lose anyway. I’ve frequently been able to fold to a set, but I wasn’t going to this time.

· A pair of Aces, a lower pair, or some other kind of garbage. I actually thought this described his hand and betting history most closely. So I called.

He turned over the 8§ 9§ for a rivered flush, and I lost my entire $500 buy-in (plus a few more chips I’d won along the way). The lesson here is that not every player is good enough to lay down draws when they’re getting too high a price to chase. I obviously should have folded on the river and saved my last $320 dollars.

While he raked in what used to be “my” pot of over $1000, I pulled out some more Franklins and bought back in. *sigh*

Hand #2 of 5: I’m in the big blind. A young, way-too-loose player two off the button limps, the rest of the table folds to me, and I check with the 5§ 10ª. There’s $12 in the pot.

The flop was sweet: 5© 5ª 3ª. I check, planning to check-raise my uber-aggressive opponent after whatever continuation bet he doubtless puts out. Much to my surprise (and mild consternation), he checks.

The turn is the 2©. Since nobody else was going to bet my hand, I put $5 out. I didn’t like all the draws on the board. Without much delay, my opponent called.

The river was the Jª, so the spade flush draw had arrived. I value bet $10. My opponent raised to $45. I actually thought I had the best hand; my loose opponent was very unbelievable, and my read of his body language made me think he was uncomfortable with the situation. I called and showed my set; he tabled the 8¨ 2§ for two pair, and I snagged the $100+ pot.

I totally don’t understand limping from early position with Eight/Deuce offsuit. He was behind from the start, and drawing almost completely dead from the flop on.

Hand #3 of 5: (This hand I played SO BAD!) The same loose player from the last hand is now under-the-gun, and limps for $5. It’s folded all the way to me in the small blind. I have a gorgeous hand; the A¨ K¨. I just complete the bet, intending to outplay my opponents post-flop. The big blind checks, and with $15 in the pot we take it to the flop.

9© 8§ K©. With top pair top kicker, I make a pot-sized bet of $15. The big blind folds, and the other player calls. I got him!

The turn is the K§. I check with my trips, to let my opponent catch up. If he bets, I’m probably check-raising to protect against the flush. However, he just checks behind.

The river is the 8ª, so now I have the nut full house. I value-bet $40, almost the size of the pot. I’m hoping it looks like a bluff. My opponent raises to $155! What is up?

The only hand that beats me is if my opponent has exactly 8¨ 8©. But if he had that, wouldn’t he have bet more on the earlier streets? He filled up on the turn … and checked? It’s much more likely that he had the last king, and we were splitting the pot. Nevertheless, I was convinced that there were monsters under the bed, so rather than giving myself the chance to double up (he had me covered), I meekly call. I really think that earlier hand – Hand #1 – made me a bit gun-shy. He had J§ 10© for a missed straight draw, and I disgustedly pull in a $350-ish pot. I congratulate myself on winning the smallest amount of money possible. My opponent eventually busts out and leaves a few hands later; those chips should have been mine too.

Hand #4 of 5: Another pathetically-played hand. In middle position, I open-raise to $15 with Q©Q§. My only caller is the small blind, a player I hadn’t seen before. The two of us take the $35 pot to the flop.

9¨ Aª J¨. The small blind checks. Some players (including occasionally me) will bet out with the underpair on a board like this to see “where they’re at”. I figure in this case, I can learn the same by just checking and taking Fourth Street. That’s what I do after the small blind checks.

The turn is 2ª. The small blind bets $10. I’m pretty much certain he doesn’t have an Ace here, and that my Queens are best. But I just (inexplicably) call, rather than value-raise.

The river is the 5©. Now my opponent bets $35 into the $40+ pot. I can’t imagine how that card helped him; he’s got to have a busted draw. But again, meekly, I just call. He shows the 5¨ 5ª for a rivered set and ownership of the $120 pot; I’m so disgusted that I just muck. I played this hand so passively that I deserved to lose it.

Hand #5 of 5: In middle position, I pick up AªKª. I resolve to play this hand more aggressively than I’ve been playing up to this point. My raise to $15 yields only one caller, the button. By this point I’ve worked my stack up to almost $700; still under my two $500 buy-ins (the first of which I donked off in the first hand I have listed). My opponent has me covered with over $850 in chips.

The flop comes K§ 5¨ 6©, so I have top pair and top kicker. Having promised myself to play this hand fast, I see no reason to change my mind, so I bet $20 into the $30-ish pot. My opponent calls.

The turn is the A¨, now I have top two pair. There’s around $70 in the pot. I bet $60 (I told you I was going to play fast!) and my opponent snap-calls.

The river, oh beautiful river, A©. I have the totally nut hand, Aces full of Kings. No quads possible, and no higher full house. I pot-bet $200. My opponent min-raises me to $400. Calling would leave me with less than $200 behind, so I go ahead and put it all in. He calls and proudly shows his A§ 8§. He is stunned to learn that this $1300 pot is going to me instead.

Whenever I am involved in a big pot like this (and sometimes when I am not), I go back and study it carefully to see what I can learn. In this case, I am completely baffled as to why he played this hand like this. The only thing I can think of is that he must have thought I was tilting from the previous hands I’d been playing. So, he decided to push with a moderate hand. Seriously! The only Ace he beats is Ace/Seven, Ace/Four, Ace/Three, or Ace/Deuce; he either chops or loses to any other Ace. And would I have bet so fiercely without an Ace? Even a flopped set fills up and beats him. Baffling.

I didn’t stay at the table much longer, and ended up logging a $300 win for the night which, frankly, I didn’t deserve. But I’ll take it.

Defending My Blind

If you've read much of my blog, you know that I am not a fan of trying to defend the blinds, for the most part at least. If I'm in the blind with garbage, and the action folds to a late player who raises to steal with garbage of his own, I'm perfectly fine letting him have my blind. Usually. I figure that I can win it back later, either from him or from some other player, with my ordinary tight game.

But just for fun (and something different), I decided to defend with a hand lately, and it worked out pretty well.

At a $2/$5 game, action folded to the cutoff, who raised to $15. The button folded. I was in the small blind with Ace of Hearts, Jack of Clubs. Believe it or not, I will frequently fold this hand from just about any position if there's action. It's such a trouble hand. But I decided to play it this time. I called the raise; the big blind folded, and we went to the flop.

The flop came Jack of Spades, Queen of Diamonds, Seven of Spades. Based on my read of my opponent, I felt that I probably had the best hand, with middle pair. (He'd need to have a Queen or a higher pair to be safe ... or a flopped set). I checked, intending to call whatever got bet.

He put out $25, and I called.

The turn was the Ten of Clubs. There were plenty of draws out there, but I was still optimistic. I checked again; he bet $55 and I smooth-called. I could tell he was a bit nervous about the fact that I was still playing along.

The river was a brick -- the Three of Hearts -- and I sprang my trap. I bet $90, basically bluffing with the best hand. He folded quite quickly. I don't know what he had, probably nothing or close to nothing. I had about $185 in the way of a decent-sized pot. So defending my blind actually worked out here.

World Series of Poker 2009

I’m just back from the WSOP (although I’m still hoping that I can make it back there before it ends…).  I entered Event #4, the $1000 buy-in Hold-em tourney.  Over 6000 people played, which is the largest field ever for a non Main-Event WSOP tournament.  I made it through 80% of the field, which is better than my Main Event performance last year, but once again I finished just out of the money, a bit of a disappointment overall.

I don’t really have much of a structured message with this particular blog entry, so let me just share some random things that happened while I was there over this long weekend.

·         I stayed at the Rio (I’ve stayed there several times before).  They were charging $40/night which is appallingly low.  They must truly be desperate for business.

·         I rented a car, drove it to the Rio … and ended up not using it again until I drove back to the airport.  I thought for sure I would be taking a couple of trips to the Strip or downtown, but I never left the Rio the whole time.

·         Even though I didn’t make it to any other poker rooms like I expected to, I did talk to a lot of other players about what the local scene was like.  It’s pretty sad.  Apparently the only room with much activity is at the Venetian.  The Bellagio crowd has been so sparse that they’ve started to spread lower limits just to get people to come into the room.  And at Caesars, they hired a new manager late last year who has jacked the rake up to $7/pot.  Seven dollars!!  Who would ever play in a game like that?  I was particularly sad to hear about that, because I’ve always enjoyed the poker room in Caesars.

·         It was almost exactly a ½-mile walk from my hotel room to the Amazon Room, where all the poker was being played.  I walked back and forth two or three times each day.  Who knew poker could be so physically demanding!

·         I learned that “Gamma-O” is the official testosterone supplement of the WSOP.  Hmm.  If there is any group of guys less likely to suffer from testosterone deficiency than poker players, I don’t know who it would be.  (Although somebody I was talking to about this made the serious and cogent point that the WSOP didn’t have much sponsorship of any kind – where is Apple, he wondered?  What about Expedia or Travelocity?  Good question.)

·         Almost nobody at any table was wearing a wedding ring.  At first glance, this seemed a bit odd.  But thinking about it further, I realized it wasn’t.  After all, what kind of woman is going to marry a poker degenerate?  One kid at the table said that his girlfriend broke up with him via text message at 2am – while he was playing poker.  Somebody asked him if he left the game to go try to fix things.  He said, “No, it was a really good game!”  We all nodded with complete understanding.

·         I bought a copy of the book Check-Raising The Devil by Mike Matusow, personally signed by the author.  He wrote “Steve: Best of Luck.  Mike Matusow.”  Cool.

·         I bumped into one of the home game regulars at the Poker House, Brandon, at a cash game.  It was pretty cool to see him there, and ironic to actually bump into him.  I learned that he had also gone to Pendleton last spring, but I didn’t see him there.

·         I tried out a fascinating new meta-game strategy with incredible success:  Go to bed at, say, 10pm.  (For an old guy like me, that’s not a challenge.)  Set your alarm for 2am.  When it goes off, wake up, don’t do anything to clean yourself up, and go down to the cash games for about four hours.  Everybody else at the table will be drunk or tired or otherwise off their game.  At 6am (or whenever the game finally breaks up), go back to bed and sleep until 10 or noon or whatever.  What a great piece of advice!  I made more in those four hours of play each day than I did in twelve hours of daytime play.

·         I folded pocket Kings preflop against pocket Aces.  Seriously!  I got dealt the Kings under the gun in a $2/$5 game, raised to $20, and got one caller.  When the action got to the cutoff seat (a guy who was really, really tight), he immediately popped it to $100.  My jaw just dropped open.  I literally turned and stared at the guy.  I sat and thought about it for maybe two minutes, which for me is an eternity.  Then I said, “Wow, I am the biggest donkey that ever played poker,” and I folded my Kings, face down.  The other player mucked immediately, and the cutoff tabled his Aces face up.  I said, “Wow, you wouldn’t believe what I just folded.”  He said, “What, Jacks?”  I said, “No, Kings.”  He said, “You’re right, I don’t believe that.”  Nobody at the table did, they just laughed like I was making a sick joke.  I was in shock for quite a while after that.

·         This last has nothing to do with poker, but it did happen during the trip.  Walking through the airport on the way back to Seattle, an announcement was made over the intercom at a decibel volume slightly higher than that of an air-raid siren:  “ATTENTION ALL PASSENGERS!!  IN CASE OF AN EMERGENCY, PLEASE DIAL NINE ONE ONE FROM ANY TELEPHONE!!  THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION!!”  Huh?  Could any piece of noise pollution possibly be less obvious?

 

Anyhow, back to reality, for the time being at least.  I am still hoping to make it back to Vegas before the end of the series.

Trying Out A New Strategy

The World Series of Poker has started … I am heading out on Friday to play the $1000 event.  Because of my work schedule, it may be the only event I play this year.  I hope that it isn’t!  That would really bum me out.  But at least I am starting to allow myself to get excited about it.  I am staying at the Rio this year, which (in addition to the tournaments) will have some really good cash games throughout the tournament.  Unlike the Pendleton tournament side games, the cash game competition during the WSOP will undoubtedly be comparatively lame, so I am thinking I will have better results playing those games than I do in Pendleton.

I have begun to introduce a new strategic idea into my pre-flop poker game, and so far it’s working out pretty well.  As it happens, I play really tight pre-flop.  Sometimes I fold fifty or sixty hands in a row, and folding seventy (or more) isn’t even all that uncommon.  It does sometimes get frustrating … folding Ace/Nine suited on the button after two limpers enter the pot, for instance.  If I didn’t enjoy poker so much, I might even call it boring.  It is, however, a lucrative and money-making strategy that has served me well.  No matter how tight I play, it always seems as though I can pick up a caller or two whenever I open-raise preflop.  Sometimes my opponents will tease me for how tight I play – while they are calling my preflop raise!  (I, on the other hand, have even folded Queens preflop when I come across a player as tight as I am who opens the pot for a raise.)

I have begun to wonder, as successful as this strategy is, am I leaving some money on the table?  I don’t really want to play any looser, and I’m not a good enough player to make the best post-flop decisions when I have marginal hands.  But … maybe I don’t have to play consistently loose … maybe I can just play loose once in a while and pick up some cheap pots?

So I’ve been trying out a new preflop strategy:  I count how many pots I open-raise.  After I have opened ten pots, the very next time I have the chance to open-raise again, I will – regardless of position; regardless of my hand.  This doesn’t mean limping (I don’t count those), nor does it count the big blind when I am in a hand already.  It doesn’t even mean calling somebody else’s preflop raise, or re-raising preflop like I would with pocket Aces or Kings.  It means open-raise.

So every eleventh preflop opening hand, I’ll come in for a raise with (generally) garbage.  In a way, the strategy is self-protecting:  If the table is really loose, I won’t be open-raising many pots, so my bluffs will be very rare.  At a tight table, however, I am more likely to play this extra garbage hand.

Once the flop comes, I go back to playing regular poker.  If it doesn’t help me, I am done with the hand.  If somehow it hits me square on, then I’ll play it.  If I am lucky enough to take a winning hand to showdown and table something like an Eight/Five from early position for a straight, I will end up confusing the heck out of my observant opponents.  They won’t know what I am up to next time I open-raise!

Since I starting this play, I find I am playing garbage no more than two times a session, so it’s still pretty rare.  Usually, I just steal the blinds, which is fine with me.  Once, my eleventh hand was pocket Jacks – but I had to let it go after I got two callers and two overcards came on the flop.  And one time, I got one caller.  We checked the hand all the way to showdown … and my high-card ten won the pot.  Sweet!

I’m even wondering whether once every eleven hands is still too infrequent … maybe I should bump it up to once every six hands?  I will play with this concept a bit more and see where it takes me.  But I think I’m on to something here.  At a minimum, it should shake up people’s evaluation of the type of player I am.

In the meantime, I played a hand recently that showed just how to misplay aces.  Whenever I have aces, I always raise pre-flop, and I’m quite happy just to take the blinds.  If I get one or two callers, that’s okay too … it just requires me to play the later streets very carefully and be prepared to lay it down if I can see that I am beat.

In a $2/$5 game, it was folded around to me in the cutoff.  I had the K¨8¨ and raised it to $15.  A little loose for me, but sometimes I will walk on the wild side.  Actually, I’d been playing rather passive all night, so I thought I would exercise just a bit with this hand.  The button and small blind folded, but the big blind min-raised $10 to $25.  Given the pot odds, my position, and a hand that can be very creative, I decided to call.

The flop was pretty much perfect: Q§10©K§.  I flopped top pair on a draw-heavy board.  My opponent bet $30 into a $50 pot, and I called with what I thought of as the best hand.

The turn made it even better:  The K©.  Now my opponent checked, and I made a huge nearly pot-sized $100 bet.  After a long pause, my opponent called.

This call surprised me and worried me.  What could he have that was better than three Kings?  A draw?  Not with that size of a turn bet.  A flopped straight?  A full house?

The river was a meaningless 6ª.  My opponent checked, and I was more than happy to check behind.  He showed me his pocket Aces, I showed my turned trips, and I won a $300 pot.

I really think my opponent misplayed this hand.  His preflop bet was too low, and let me into a pot I had no business being in.  His flop bet was okay, but still I think too small given all the possible draws out there.  I think I would have bet $40 or even $50 there, to chase folks away (or at least define their hands better).  But his turn call was a complete disaster.  How could he think his hand was still good, given the board and my strong bets?  All too often, players get married to pocket Aces (or Kings or Queens or …) and are just not able to lay them down when it’s clear they’ve been cracked.  And yes, it still happens to me too on occasion.