One of my hands in particular was the subject of quite a bit of controversy. The table discussed it at length immediately after it ended, but I was told later on that the players continued to talk about it behind my back even after I had left for the night. Most of the table hated my play, one or two people thought it was borderline acceptable, and nobody (but me, of course) seemed to think I did the right thing. The word on the street is that after I had gone home a few of the players went so far as to call me a huge idiot.

Obviously I disagree.

But because it will keep me from falling asleep tonight I figure I will throw out the details here and see if any of you guys have an opinion. I did a brief topic search on a few different poker strategy forums but came up empty. That means that either a) this situation almost never comes up, or b) when it does the player involved is never dumb enough to do what I did.

So here is the setup:

I had been playing for about two hours and had a very strong feel for the table. I had pretty much figured out everybody’s game and had become the captain of the table through aggressive, solid play. The table was playing very tight passive (the players were folding most of their hands, and the ones they did play were usually limped) and I was working to counter that by raising a lot, and not necessarily with good (or even decent) cards. During the past two hours I had run up a good profit and then given it all back after running into a few really gross spots. At the time this hand took place I was sitting on $220, down eighty dollars on the night.

The lady to my right, a regular in the higher stakes $3-$5 NL game, kept nagging me to straddle her blinds. She realized that I was the only other player at the table who seemed willing to gamble and the two of us had basically assumed the task of loosening up the table. I obliged her request and put out a $4 straddle.

After the deal the player two to my left opened the pot by making a raise to $29, a huge raise by pretty much any standard (7x+ the straddle, 14.5x the big blind). Everyone else folded around to me in the straddle and I looked down and was legitimately upset to find Ace-King offsuit. The man who had raised me was a tight, solid regular who I had played with quite a lot and he seemed to almost always show up with a hand when he bet. The man was sitting on about $500 at the time, though it didn’t really matter because our effective stacks were limited to the $220 in front of me.

I hemmed and hawed aloud for about twenty seconds, actually admitting to the table, “I honestly don’t know what I’m supposed to do here.” Then I told the table, “I am embarrassed to tell you guys what I have, but it probably doesn’t matter because even if I did… nobody would believe me.”

And then I folded.

The table quickly began to speculate over what hand I could have folded there and after about a minute of listening to their theories I admitted that I had folded Ace-King. At that point the general consensus turned to me being a total liar.

Although most of the table remained highly skeptical about what hand I had actually tossed, there was a very long discussion about the correct play with AK there. I make it a point to never attempt to educate the other players at my table, but for the sake of my sanity and a good night’s sleep here is my thinking on the situation. And while this is a post-game analysis I promise you that my thought process in the moment followed this exact same logic… whether it is correct or not.

Analysis

I have three choices when the action came back to me. I will list them in what I consider to be the order from Worst to Best.

Calling
The most common thing that I have heard about my play tonight is, “You have to at least call! Just see what the flop brings.” My brother is in this camp. I wholeheartedly disagree.

This is the very definition of Reverse Implied Odds. Specifically it is to say that I am running a negative free-roll by flat-calling the $25 raise heads-up and out of position (I am first to act on every street for the rest of the hand). To see what I mean try to imagine the various hands that my opponent could have, the various flops that could come, and what would happen in each situation.

Let’s pretend that I actually flop an ace or a king. If my opponent has Aces, Kings or another pocket-pair that flops a set I am definitely going to lose all of my money: an additional $200. If my opponent has a lower pocket pair he can easily escape the hand and I will definitely win $29 plus the blinds, but almost never win more. If my opponent somehow has a dominated Ace or King (AQ or KQ) I will probably double through him… but maybe not, he is a good player.

Most of the time I won’t flop anything. If my opponent has a better hand (any pair) he will win the pot with a continuation bet. If my opponent has a worse hand he will win with a bet too.

The only way for me to make ANY money on the hand is to both hit my hand AND have my opponent hit his hand… and have mine be better. Far more likely is that his position and established aggression will simply win the pot when I miss. Further, even if I do hit my hand, I might still be drawing almost dead against his. My brother and others have said that I should call and “take a coin flip for $30,” but AK is not a coin-flip when I don’t get to see the turn and river. By simply calling the raise I give my opponent the best chance to win the most money with the best hand and lose the least money with the worst hand.

Again, I refer you to the definition of reverse implied odds.

Reverse implied pot odds, or simply reverse implied odds, apply to situations where a player will win the minimum if he has the best hand but lose the maximum if he does not have the best hand.

That said, I understand why this was the most popular option among the other players. I consider it to be a massive mistake that just about everyone playing $1-$2 makes. The concept of reverse implied odds is somehow completely beyond the grasp of nearly all low stakes players and is a big reason that I feel like I have a good edge playing those games. And even though he doesn’t read this blog it is the reason that I continue to yell at my brother when I see him calling raises with K-10 and stacking off when the board brings him a pair.

Raising

Okay, if calling is the worst choice of the three then what about raising? Well, in this spot I guess it is ok if you feel like a pure gamble for $200+. Raising is probably the correct action most of the time given this general scenario, but in my mind there were a couple of massive factors pushing me in the opposite direction.

1. I know the player. He doesn’t mess around much at all. Yeah, he might be screwing around here… but I doubt it. That said I completely discount all random garbage hands. The worst he could have in this spot is A-J suited or a small pocket pair. I never, ever, ever expect to find this guy making a 14x raise with total air.

2. His raise size. This was the biggest problem for me… and I told him as much before I folded. “If I had less money this would be an easy decision. If I had more money this would be an easy decision.” See, because his raise was so overly huge it would then force my re-raise to be similarly gigantic. In order to make a fair raise in that spot I would have to push out at least $85. With only $220 to start with I would have then committed more than a third of my stack. If he re-re-raised I would be obligated to call off my last $140 and pray that he might roll over Queens instead of Aces. There is no in-between raise that I could make and still be able to fold to a four-bet.

3. My table dominance. Up to this point, despite behind down a little bit I had solid control of the entire table. I didn’t see the point in coin-flipping (at best) for stacks when I could just move on to the next hand and chip away relatively risk-free. I am not of the mind set that I should play a hand simply because I am dealt it. I prefer to play situations rather than cards, and this situation was awkward from the jump. Why not pass and wait for a better one?

4. You can do a simple hand analysis here too if you want (I obviously didn’t at the table, but I had a general sense of the result). Assume that any raise commits me to the hand (because it does) and therefore let’s just say that instead of making a smaller raise I simply move all-in. This guy is not a moron and he will fold 100% of the hands that I have beat 100% of the time. So, if he has a worse hand I win his $29. Now let’s say that he will call me with about 50% of the hands that beat me – he will call with pocket 9′s or better and fold pocket 8′s or worse (not an unreasonable estimate).

This means that I will:
a) NEVER get the money in when I am ahead.
b) sometimes get the money in as a small underdog
c) sometimes get the money in as a massive underdog (vs AA or KK).

To summarize, about 50% of the time I win $29 by forcing a fold, about 15% of the time I win $220 by having the worst hand and sucking out, and about 35% of the time I lose $220 when I don’t suck out.

So… (.5)(29) + (.15)(220) + (.35)(-220) = 2.9 + 33 – 77 = -41.1

Those percentages are approximations but the purely mathematical result of raising all-in is that over the long run I can expect the decision to LOSE more than $40 on average. I would expect that my approximations there are actually a bit generous to me too, meaning that the true net loss would be even greater.

Conclusion: I should FOLD

Following my train of thought, both now and in the heat of the moment, it seems pretty clear that by either calling or raising I am giving my opponent a fairly massive freeroll for my entire stack. At the very best I am giving him the ability to make a perfect decision against me. Alternatively, by folding I merely surrender the $4 straddle and move onto the next hand. Honestly, the fold seems pretty straight-forward to me… but then again, I can’t seem to find anyone else who agrees with me.

What am I missing here?

(In case you are curious my opponent eventually admitted that he had raised with pocket 4′s, and means that the correct play would have been to re-raise him. However, that hand is clearly at the very bottom of his range, and knowing the result doesn’t make my analysis any different.)

I have been out of town for the past few weeks, but now I am back and (arguably) better than ever. There are a few fairly important and new/exciting/deluxe things that I want to talk about with you all, but they are going to be rolled into my next post. Hopefully that will be written up sometime very soon.

Not to leave you guys feeling cheated, though, I am making my triumphant return to the blogosphere (yes, that’s a term that I hate) by offering up the second installment of my much celebrated audioblog!!

.: and there was much rejoicing :.

Be warned however: This episode is ENTIRELY about poker. If you don’t want to hear about my casino exploits don’t even bother with the download.

I am going to make this easy on you guys by embedding a flash player into this post, but as always you can download this file directly (right click and save me) or simply subscribe to my podcast feed. I would prefer that you guys either save the file or subscribe to the feed for the sake of my bandwidth, but whatever…

If you have any comments on the audioblog please leave them here. Also, I am looking for a co-host for my next episode so if any of you are interested just let me know. The only requirements are that you:

1) own a microphone
2) are more interesting than me

That should be pretty easy on both counts.

The only reason that I even played in the tournament is because everyone who shows up is guaranteed $100 (hence the “freeroll”). Saturday’s tournament consisted of 4 heats of 500 players each. Each heat played down to 125 people and then the remaining 500 players returned on Sunday for the “Finals.” Everyone who made it to Sunday’s tournament was guaranteed $200, and first place was worth $70,000. Everyone who returned on Sunday started the final round with an equal number of chips, so whether you finished Saturday with 1 chip or 20,000 chips you enter the next day even with everyone else (think of Saturday as basically a Super Satellite). However, the top 5 chip leaders from each qualifying heat on Saturday split $10,000.

Alright, hopefully that makes sense. Basically. the shitty structure of the tournament combined with the bizarre payout schedule led me to craft a strategy that involved being hyper-hyper-aggressive very early on. Whether I lose in the first 5 minutes or go out in 126th place, I am guaranteed the same amount of money. I decided that I would try to either accumulate a lot of chips and make a run at my share of the $10,000 or get knocked out very early. I had no interest in hanging around and just trying to survive my way through a tournament just to make an extra $100 on Sunday.

Saturday
My tournament started pretty rough, though perhaps that is what I should have expected when I raised with 9-high three hands in a row. I managed to win a pot towards the end of the first level though and that brought me back to my original stack of 700 chips.

The second level was limit Omaha, a game which maybe one other person at my table even understood. Normally this would be a good thing for me (having a very significant skill advantage at the game), but that wasn’t really the case in this tournament because of the absurdly short levels and constant game changes. The typical approach of an inexperienced Omaha player is to play every hand they get dealt, at least up to the flop. I could theoretically then exploit the table by playing much tighter than everyone else. However, that plan was basically worthless in the face of this tournament’s structure. There would be no chance for me to “lay in wait” as we would be changing games after only about ten deals. My strategy in Omaha was to fold every single non-premium hand in hopes of avoiding the kamikaze chip-dusting of the noobs at my table. In fact, other than my blinds I only played one hand, the very last of the level.

Under the gun I was dealt A-K-10-9 double-suited in spades and hearts. Unlike my relentless aggression in the Hold Em levels, my approach during Omaha was to draw as many other opponents into a pot as possible, allowing them to incorrectly over-value their hands and (hopefully) help me to win a big pot. I limped in, and as expected four or five other people limped as well.

The flop came K – J – 8 with two spades, giving me top pair, a straight draw, and the nut flush draw. The player in the big blind led out and I quickly raised her. The rest of the table folded and the blind called. The turn paired the 8, which I hated, but the lady checked to me so I bet. She called. The river brought a small spade and the lady checked once again. In a cash game, despite making my flush, I would usually check the river in this spot. Her lead on the flop made me think that she had two pair minimum, maybe a set, and with the paired 8 she is likely to have a full house. However, the structure of the tournament is such that you can’t wait around for a better spot than the nut flush. Plus, she had checked to me twice so I bet at her on the end. The lady immediately called and I turned up my hand. The lady looked at my cards and then mucked her hand. The dealer pushed me the pot just as a floorman came over and broke our table, reassigning us to fill vacant seats scattered around the remaining tables. I was listening to my iPod so it took me a minute to notice the woman as she yelled at the dealer. I ignored the situation and went about picking up my chips, but before I could find my new table the woman grabbed my shoulder and with a mean look she said, “You got lucky there! I had a full house!!” I have no idea why, but the lady had accidentally mucked the winning hand.

I just shrugged my shoulders and walked away.

I arrived at my new table just in time for the no-limit levels to begin. My starting stack of 700 chips had been boosted up to a staggering 1000 chips, good enough for 5 whole big blinds at 100-200. Like each of the earlier rounds I had a predetermined strategy for the no-limit levels: be crazy fucking aggressive. My first hand at the table I was dealt A-J offsuit so I went all-in. Everyone folded and now I had 1300 chips! Two hands later I was dealt the king of spades… so I went all-in without looking at the other card. Everyone folded and now I had 1600 chips! After ten hands I had gone all-in four times and was up to about 2100 chips. By the end of the next no-limit level I was over 7000 chips and had the entire table covered by a lot. It became very clear to me that as we neared the 125-player mark everyone else was content to just hang on and survive. With so many chips, though, my goal shifted from mere survival to actually making a run at the chip-lead and a share of the $10,000. Unfortunately I had no idea how many chips I would need for that. Still, I decided to take a gamble and make a play for it.

I announced to my table that from that point on I would be going all-in every single deal… without looking at my cards. My reasoning was this: nobody at my table could eliminate me, but I could eliminate each of them. The value to them of doubling up was far less than the risk to them of being eliminated. Other than the extreme short stacks the players at my table could all fold their way into Sunday’s tournament, where everyone was going to start with even chips anyways. The only person who would get value from having more chips today was me. So I offered them a simple proposition: either 1) give me your blinds or 2) risk a lot to win very little. That seemed a particularly brilliant strategy on my part, but it didn’t work out quite as I had hoped.

One hand after issuing my ultimatum the floorman arrived to break our table. It took me a little while to gather up all of my chips and move to my new table. Once there I took my seat only to discover that I had moved into the small blind and would be dealt out one hand until the button passed. After seeing that nobody at my new table could hurt me (chip-wise) I told them about my all-in intentions. Sadly, before the next hand was dealt the room erupted into a round of applause as the director announced that the day was over, we had all qualified for Sunday. It is strange, but I was actually very disappointed. My plan had been foiled, the perfect opportunity lost.

It turned out that I had the third largest chip stack in the room anyways, but it would have been nice to abuse those players… at least for a little while. Still, I had accomplished the maximum feat possible for Saturday’s tournament. I qualified for the finals, guaranteed myself $200, and earned an extra $500 for being a chip leader. All in all it was a pretty good day.

Sunday
Coming into Sunday my plan was simply to duplicate my Saturday – I mean, that seemed to work well enough. I had gone out drinking late into Saturday night, though, and I arrived at the tournament still a little bit drunk. The tournament floor had a little bar where the other players were getting coffee and water, but I grabbed myself a beer instead. I even talked a guy at my table into having a beer, too.

I put on my iPod and settled into the game, a little bit sad to be back to the starting stack of 700 chips when less than 24 hours earlier I had more than 7,000. Before play started the tournament director got on the microphone and announced my name as one of the chip leaders from Saturday and the room gave us a polite applause. Then he made an announcement which actually made me a little bit upset: today we would be playing 30-minute levels, twice as long as the levels on Saturday. Curious what else was different from the day before I looked at the structure sheet and was shocked to see that the game didn’t switch to no-limit until level 6. We would be playing strictly limit hold em for five levels, at thirty minutes per level, up through limits of 400-800. If I wasn’t so drunk I would have been very, very angry.

I hate limit poker. I despise limit poker tournaments. My advantage is in my aggression, which is best employed in a no-limit setting. In limit poker you are basically forced to make the best hand. Sunday’s tournament was going to be a card-catching contest. Ugh.

All my preconceived strategies were now blown. I had hoped to simply survive the first few limit levels and then kick it to a new level once we got to no-limit, but with the revised structure that would be impossible. My only consolation was in knowing that I had already locked up $700 and it was stupid to be upset over a rule change in a tournament where the casino was giving away free money. I killed off my beer, grabbed another one, and then turned up my music (going with my Eminem/D12 playlist).

The first level sucked. I lost half of my starting chips when I turned two pair against a guy who had a higher two pair, but thankfully I had shifted out of hyper-aggression mode and simply check-called him down. I didn’t win a single hand for the first thirty minutes so I went ahead and made a big change. I turned off Eminem and started my Linkin Park playlist – the same one that I had listened to through all of Saturday’s tournament to great (and definitely related) success.

Things turned around immediately.

I eliminated a guy when I flopped top set and brought my chip stack back up to 700. From there I steadily grinded my way through the bullshit tournament, level after hellish level of limit hold em. By level four I was the clear chipleader of my table with a whopping 2400 in chips. Our table broke and I was moved to a new table where I found a few familiar faces. I had another beer and sparked up some lively conversation as I continued to slowly increase my stack.

Then the Fates took control.

With 2600 in chips I was healthy but not comfortable playing limits of 200-400. My new table was much more aggressive than the others and the two best players at the table (not counting myself obviously) were seated directly to my right. That would be a perfect situation in a cash game, but in the tournament it was actually the nightmare scenario. With the most passive players to my left and the most aggressive players to my right I quickly found that the action was raised before it could ever get to me. The two guys on my right made sure to raise before I could, effectively neutralizing my game. With the limits so high I could not play a raised pot without committing myself, which meant I was forced to catch cards. And because the blinds were so high, I was forced to catch cards fast.

I folded my way through about two orbits, dipping my chip count down to 2200. Then, just as it was my turn to post the big blind the level changed and the limits doubled. We were now playing 400-800 with 200-400 blinds. My previously decent stack of 2200 was now critically short, plus I had to immediately post 600 in blinds. After posting and completing I was down to 1400 chips. I could not effectively survive another sweep of blinds so I would have to win one of the next eight hands. Of course the two guys on my right made sure that every pot was raised to 800 before it got to me, and not finding anything decent I was forced to fold. Instead of looking for cards my goal was to find a spot where I could open the action. The first hand that wasn’t raised in front of me would have to be my last stand. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen until I was just off of the big blind (and those two guys were physically unable to raise). I was actually happy to see a K-9 offsuit when I looked down, but I only checked my cards out of courtesy – I was going to raise that hand regardless. Action folded around most of the table but after several long seconds of thought another player re-raised me all-in for another 200. The rest of the table folded and I called. He showed pocket threes, which was awesome for me because I was about 50% to win a big pot. The flop missed my hand but brought a paired board – further good news because now his hand could very easily be counterfeited. The turn and river bricked out, though, and I was left with just 400 chips. The next hand had me under-the-gun and rather than wait to post all-in in the big blind I figured that I would be getting much better odds by just playing the pot and hoping for the best. Again I checked my cards out of courtesy and tossed in my remaining chips with queen high. Amazingly I got five limpers so I had a shot at going from 400 to 2800 if I could win the pot… but of course I didn’t.

500 players started the day on Sunday and I was knocked out with a little bit less than 100 players remaining. It was a bitter loss because players 51-500 all earned $280, while players 11-50 earned $1000. I faded over four hundred people, but needed to hang on for fifty more. Oh well, with the specific bullshit turn of events (table changes, timing of blind increases, player positions) there was literally nothing that I could do. I don’t think that I made any real mistakes on Sunday and I of course still managed to earn the extra $500 from Saturday. I walked away with $780 for about five hours worth of work, which I can’t really complain about. Of course it is a little bit frustrating to know that first place was worth $70,000 and if it weren’t for the random structure changes I might have had a very real shot at it.

Now I don’t have a college degree in mathematics so this table and chart is far too complex for me to understand, but still… that’s a little bit impressive, eh?

This chart tracks my sit-n-go games – my online cash game stats are not included – but across a sample size of nearly 100 tournaments my ROI is over 50%. That means that for every ten dollars that I spend I can expect to get back fifteen. Looking at the chart you can see that it is a consistent win rate too; it wasn’t a lot of losses amongst one big score.

I bring this up not to brag – well, not just to brag – but even though this is indisputable empirical evidence for my poker prowess, it makes me a little bit sad.

I’m sad because:

1. Apparently I should have been playing much higher than just $10 tournaments.
2. Odds are fair that I won’t ever play online poker again.

Gah, such wasted talent. Goodbye online poker. I could have been your king.

As I have mentioned before I am fairly well known by the regular dealers. Tonight I discovered that I am also known by the floor staff. Walking into the poker room tonight the room manager called me by name and without any help on my part he correctly put both my first and last name into the computer. Then, when I was leaving for the night, the assistant floor manager waved as I passed and said, “Have a good night, Jase.”

I guess that is all fine and understandable. I mean, I make an effort to be nice to the casino staff and often take time away from my particular table to banter with the random dealers who are on break or working brush (the errand boys who run chips, pick up empty racks, etc). Furthermore I make an effort to strike up conversation with the dealers who sit into my games. Poker can be really boring when it is taken too seriously, and if the other players don’t want to talk I usually turn my attention to the person in the box instead.

Alright, so they all know me to a certain extent. Understandable. But it turns out that I am making something of an impression on the players as well. That particular revelation was unexpected.

Playing cards on Monday night I found myself at an aggressive table with a number of players that I knew to be regulars. I had played with many of them before, but there seemed to be no indication that any of them remembered me as well as I remembered them. Then, two strange things happened.

First, I check-raised a very aggressive player and somehow managed to get him to fold A-Q face up on a rainbow board of A-Q-5-10. It was a bit unfortunate because I held K-J, but his fold unsettled us both. I was upset because I didn’t think he was capable of folding a hand that good. He was upset because he didn’t know if I had put a move on him. I silently mumbled to myself about playing the hand badly. He audibly mumbled to himself about whether or not he was actually beat. His doubts were confirmed by the player sitting next to him, a pretty good young player that I had tangled with a few days earlier during a particularly brutal session (I ran very cold and struggled for several hours just to end up breaking even). He was seated on the opposite side of the table so I only caught bits of what he was saying.

“He’s a good and tough player. I had him wrapped up a bunch of times the other night, but he kept slipping away. He folds some really good hands. I kept trying to put the hammer down, but I couldn’t…”

The guy was talking about me and essentially his opinion was that I was capable of making that check-raise with any hand: something of a compliment in a game where most players can’t. Still it was a bit of a shock to learn that, even though I remembered the guy quite clearly, he remembered me as well. And he respected my game to boot. That would be expected from the players in some of my other sessions, where I light up a table and move chips. But this guy’s experience with me was restricted to a few hours where my only talent seemed to be in correctly folding huge hands. I didn’t win that night, if anything I only succeeded in not losing: an important but widely unrecognized skill.

Still, getting respect from somebody that I recently battled with is one thing. But not too much later an even more bizarre comment was made. A middle-aged man that I recognized as a regular was sitting two seats to my right and the table conversation turned, as it often does, to crazy hands that someone has played. The man began telling a story about a hand that happened, “the other night at this table,” and when I asked him for clarification about “the other night” the man gave a very unexpected response.

“Yeah, it was this same table, but back on Friday night. You were playing at the table over there (he pointed to a table along the wall), and I was playing here. The game was crazy…”

What the hell? How did he know what table I was playing at several days ago? Bizarrely he was right, too. I spent Friday night destroying the game at the table he had indicated, but the man didn’t play in that game. He never sat at my table, he never played a hand with me, but somehow he had made a point to note my table position. Weird. I suppose that can be taken as a compliment, though. Whenever I first walk into the poker room I take stock of the various games in action, paying particular attention to players that I know to be good. I can assume that this guy does the same and for one reason or another I made his list. That’s flattering in a way, right?

The unsolicited ego trip wasn’t over just yet, though.

As the game took shape I started off by digging myself into a quick hole, shipping a lot of cash with jacks against aces preflop in a very strange hand. Fortunately I then took my rebuy and ran up a large profit, quietly and efficiently taking control of the overly aggressive table. Then things got a little weird. There was one player across the table who was playing a bit wild and seemed to take special pleasure in raising me out of pots. At one point I folded middle set face up to one of his bizarre bets. The table seemed to think that I was an idiot, and wasn’t shy about telling me so (I took the abuse and silently disagreed with them). Then, one orbit later I almost stacked off on him when he tried to blow me off of a pot where I held three sevens to his pocket aces. The “idiot” comments were strangely absent that time. But as this unintentionally personal rivalry developed, the other players on my half of the table all jumped into my corner. Between hands these otherwise total strangers would literally pat me on the back and say things like, “Don’t worry. If he keeps playing like that and you’re gonna get it all, bro.”

It was so strange. There was no talk about them winning any money. The assumption was that I was going to win it all. In fact, from the way they were talking it was if these guys had all accepted that even their own money was ultimately destined to be mine. And they seemed just fine with that. I don’t know if I have ever been in that situation before. I mean, every so often I find myself at a table with somebody that I acknowledge to be a better player than me, but I never say it. Instead I make an effort to be careful with them and instead pay attention to how they play in hopes of improving my own game. But these guys… it was like they were spectators and cheerleaders rather than contenders. Weird.

So the moral of this journalistic ego trip is that I am quickly establishing myself as a known and respected player at GVR. But while it is always flattering to be noticed and given respect, I can’t say that I am entirely wild with the prospect. I think that my current situation is only a few steps above the random guy that knows everyone at the local bar. Sure, he is known. But is that a good thing? If anything it only means that he spends way too much time at the bar. So am I just the casino version of an alcoholic? Am I the guy that dealers are nice to because they know that I tip well? Am I the guy that poker players want to play with because I suck?

I doubt it.

But as much as I want to think my growing notoriety is earned, it is hard to shake the feeling that maybe, just maybe, it is a sign that I am spending too much time in the casino.

Now I am one of the most cool and calm players that you will ever find in GVR’s poker room. I put a great deal of effort in remaining emotionally detached from any particular poker hand, play, or damningly improbable outcome. I don’t yell, I don’t cheer, I don’t whine, I don’t talk shit. Because of that I am something of an anomaly to the environment; a fact that has been graciously pointed out to me by several of the casino’s dealers. (It is even more strange when you see the difference in demeanor between myself and my brother, who nearly had us both thrown out of a casino because he was picking fights with the other players. Thanks dude.) Whether I win big or lose big I try to maintain a happy and pleasant mindset, and though I routinely criticize my own mistakes it is very rare that I carry any serious emotion too far from the felt. And yet… last night I really just couldn’t let it go.

For some reason I replayed this particular hand and situation over and over… and over and over… and over and over… quite literally until dawn.

I had been playing $1-$2 no-limit for about two hours, sitting into a newly formed table where I very rapidly established my image by straddling the big blind and then immediately shoving all-in when someone raised my straddle. It was kinda stupid to do, and it cost me about $100 when his 7-7 held up against my Ah-Jh, but it served its purpose to announce my presence. And yet, even after showcasing my maniac tendencies, over the next two hours I was forced to fold good hands over and over again. In one hand I led at an A-10-3 board. Then I bet the turn. But then when the river paired the 10 I check-folded my A-Q face up to a fairly small bet. My opponent proudly turned over his 10. In another hand I flopped the nut straight and then ended up folding (face up again) on the river to an opponent who showed a flush. I made sick fold after sick fold for about two hours straight, and I am fairly certain that they were all correct. Still, even though my reads and decisions were all right on point it grew increasingly frustrating to constantly throw away my hand. I wasn’t quite on tilt yet, but the never ending sequence of tough but proper folds was certainly wearing on my mind as the following hand came up.

The player under the gun, a 25(ish) year-old guy that I had played with several times before, made a small raise to $7. A few other players called the raise before I looked down to 8s-9s on the button and called as well.

Flop: 3s -5s – Ks

The initial raiser checked, as did everyone else, so I threw out a pot-sized bet of $30. The initial raiser called and everyone else folded.

Turn: 9d

The guy checks to me and I fire out $50. The guy thinks for a moment, reaches for his chips, then hesitates before asking the dealer how much I had bet. I flick down the two stacks of my bet to make it easier for him to see and count the chips. The dealer says “50 dollars” and he says “Ok.” Then he pushes out a single stack of chips as a min-raise to $100.

I have about $160 left behind at this point and the guy has me barely covered. Seeing the chip stacks it becomes immediately clear to me that calling the bet is not an option. I am either ahead and need to re-raise or I am behind and need to fold. So I go deep into the tank. I stare alternately at the board, the pot, and this guy for a full minute as I reconstruct the hand in my mind. I am taking so long with my decision that the guy finally makes the comment to me, “If you don’t have the flush already you are behind.” Sirens go off in my head with that comment; it struck me as bizarre and important, but at the time I didn’t recognize why. Instead, I made the now-obvious mistake of telling him, “of course I already have the flush.” I even went so far as flashing him my cards. He immediately got quiet, which at the time I appreciated because it allowed me to resume my thought process. And since he now knew what I had I did the rest of my thinking out loud.

“Did you hit a set?” I rhetorically asked aloud. “You mini-raised under the gun. That would be really stupid to do with Kings or a small pair. And I know you didn’t hit a set of nines (I have the nine of spades in my hand so he couldn’t have floated my flop bet with pocket nines as he would have no redraw.) So you can only have one of a few hands. Ace-ten of spades? Jack-queen of spades? Ace-King with the ace of spades? Maybe even aces with the ace of spades?”

I think for a full minute more before someone at the table calls the clock on me. I make a comment to nobody in particular that, “I am making a career of folding huge hands tonight, but there just isn’t a whole lot that I can be beating here, huh?” Then I toss my cards into the muck.

The guy literally jumps out of his seat in exasperation and yells, “You folded that?!!” and then proudly flips over pocket kings as if to show off his triumphant bluff. He stands by his chair looking around the table as if expecting a round of applause or a shower of roses. I say out loud, though again to nobody in particular, “dude, that’s one of like two hands that I could beat… and even then you have a redraw.”

I didn’t rabbit hunt the river to see if the board had paired (to potentially relieve my distress), but that hand really got under my skin. I almost got up and went home rather than play on tilt, but I did my best to bottle the frustration and play through the pain. Not too long after the fold I managed to get my remaining chips in a three-way preflop all-in with pocket kings to triple up so it really didn’t matter too much in the end. And yet, long after I left the casino – indeed, long after I tried going to sleep – I couldn’t shake the replay in my head. It wasn’t until dawn that I finally figured out what it was that bothered me so much about the hand. I mean, I have folded the best hand before, just as I have called with the worst hand, and it usually doesn’t phase me much at all. But there was something quite different about this hand in particular and it wasn’t until I figured out what it was that I was able to fall asleep.

See… this is like an Encyclopedia Brown mystery. The clues are all here. Can you figure it out?!

The answer: the guy’s comment to me where he said, “if you don’t already have the flush you are behind.”

It is frustratingly obvious to me now, but at the time I just didn’t catch the significance. Maybe it was the three Jack and Diets or maybe it was the frustration of facing yet another big laydown, but the comment’s undertone slipped my initial grasp. Not until the light of the rising sun slipped through the cracks in my bedroom curtains did it hit me. See, I figured that the comment didn’t necessarily mean that the guy didn’t already have a flush too. That much is correct. However, the subtext of that comment should have told me that he DID NOT have the nut flush. That little piece of information is hugely important to my decision. Here is why.

At the time of my actual decision I put my opponent on a very specific range of hands that I could put into two groups:

Group 1: As-Ax, As-Kx, K-K, As-Qx
Group 2: As-Qs, As-Js, As-10s, Qs-Js, Qs-10s, Js-10s

Group 1 contains hands that I am ahead of, but have a redraw against me. Group 2 contains hands that I am already dead to. So the situation I faced was simple: I was either an 80% favorite or completely dead. (Based on his under the gun raise I completely ruled out all smaller flushes so no possible scenario had him dead.) Now look at that range of hands again. Against six hands I am 0% and against four hands I am 80%. I counted up all the money in the hand, including my inevitable re-raise and his inevitable call, and saw that it would cost me $170 to potentially win a pot of about $500 which is a little bit less than 3-1. With his range of hands I figured that I was much worse than a 3-1 dog so I made the fold, painful though it was.

But that was probably a mistake, and one that I should have realized from his comment. See, from his stupid comment I know that he doesn’t have the nut flush already, which eliminates half of the hands in Group 2. So now there are four hands that I beat and only three hands that I lose to, which should dramatically swing the odds closer to my favor. Getting 3-1 on the pot I think that mathematically I should have made the call. Whether my hand would have actually held up to his set is irrelevant. The math might have dictated my play there.

Unfortunately I made the stupid mistake of ignoring the information that the idiot tried to give me.

In the end I find myself far more upset with my own mistakes in the hand than the fold itself. Like I said before I eventually tripled the chips I saved, so the result is not the issue. Instead I think that I am coming down on myself so hard here because I really blew the read in a situation where it should have been so much more obvious to decipher. Although, and this is the last point I will make here, I am finding that the better I get at the actual play of the cards the slightly worse I am getting at my ability to read opponents’ hands. When I first moved out here I was fairly adept as calling the exact holdings of other players. But as my own game becomes more nuanced I can’t help but automatically and incorrectly assume that my opponents’ game is more nuanced as well. In this hand, for example, I was thrown off by his minimum check-raise because it is quite simply a COMPLETELY IDIOTIC move to make with pocket kings. In my less-than-humble opinion the guy made massive fundamental mistakes every step of the way. His micro-raise with kings is stupid. His check on the flop is stupid. His call on the flop is actually ok. But his check raise on the turn is insane. Of all his possible moves in that situation, that one was easily the worst. And yet I still almost sniffed out what he did, though it was considerably more difficult. See, in my mind I had made it very, very obvious that I had flopped the flush. I didn’t play my hand cagily at all. I made emphasized protection bets that clearly defined my hand. It just so happened that this particular opponent was either too stupid or too caught up in the glory of top set to realize it. His comment about, “if you don’t already have the flush…” is clear evidence of that. At the time his comment was irritating to me because I felt my own holding was obvious to the world, which is why I testily replied, “of course I have a flush.” I even showed him my cards because – again, in my own mind – it was something that everybody already knew. It was sick to later realize that his check-raise was actually done for VALUE, as he somehow thought that he was way ahead in the hand. Even after the hand was over the guy continued to talk about how awesome he was, wholly oblivious to the horridness of his play. It just so happened to work out for him this time, though, so I guess that makes him a superstar.

So the lesson to be learned here is twofold. First, never underestimate the stupidity of your opponent. And second, pay attention to every detail, no matter how irritating or insignificant it may initially seem. Moreover, the bonus to be taken from this particular scenario, though it potentially cost me a big pot and a lot of sleep, is that the next time some self-professed badass makes the comment, “if you don’t already have the flush…” I will be there and ready to pounce. And who knows, maybe next time there will be much more at stake.

I thought to write this post last night, and the night before that, and the one before that… but instead of just writing about cards I have constantly found myself playing cards. A lot. I have been averaging somewhere around 7 hours per day this week, with some sessions running as long as 12 hours straight. I don’t know why, but I just have that particular compulsion right now. I went for a stretch where I didn’t set foot into a card room for at least three months. Now I can’t seem to go two days without it. It is a bizarre addiction, but at the moment I don’t see a reason to resist it.

Anyways, my time on the felt for the past two weeks has been spent developing a new approach to my no-limit game. In particular I have been explicitly trying to play a far more loose-aggressive game that centers around big pots. There are a great many situations where I would normally check or call where I am now making it a point to bet or raise. I am employing a much higher rate of continuation bets and second-barrel bluffs. I raise out of my blinds and straddles a lot more and (try to) worry less about getting all the money into the pot with the worst hand. Essentially, compared to my previous style, I want to play more hands and I want the pots I play to be much larger.

The consequence to this style is that the variance in my wins and losses has gone way up. In the past week I have had two of my largest single-session wins ever, but I have also had one of my largest single-session losses as well. The hope of course is that the wins are larger than the losses, and so far that is true. Despite what I consider to be some very bad luck lately I have been able to employ my new style to a net profit. Had my luck fallen even just a little bit toward the good I would almost surely have posted a one-week net of around $2k. I am not sure if that is a realistic number to maintain, but it is encouraging to look back on the hands and situations and clearly see the horrible short-term luck that I weathered while still posting a win.

I was going to run through a few hands here, but the sheer number of hours that I have logged lately makes that difficult and a little bit pointless. No single hand had too much of an effect on my results one way or the other. Still, there is one hand that I played last night that is interesting only in that it involves probably the stupidest move that I have made in a very, very long time. It is particularly interesting, though, in that it is a pretty good example of my new no-limit approach.

Necessary back-story leading up to this hand
I had been playing loose and aggressive, though not particularly so. The rest of the table was playing very passively: limping into a lot of pots with only the occasional pre-flop raise. I made it a point to the rest of the table that they were playing way too slowly, announcing that “we need to get this game going.” The very next hand I straddled the big blind for four dollars and as expected about six people limped into the pot. I checked my hole cards – a 2-4 offsuit – and instantly raised another 15 dollars. Three people called me and the flop came Queen-high (the actual board is unimportant except to say that I had no pair and no draw). I fired out $20 and one person called me. The turn was a King and I fired out $60. The other player folded and I of course showed the table my four-high. One orbit later the following hand took place…

Actual Hand
I straddle the big blind once again for $4, and despite what happened just ten hands earlier at least five or six people limp into the straddle. When it is my turn I look down and check only one of my cards – a four of hearts – before raising to $19. This time I am called by three of the limpers.

Flop: 9s – 8c – 4s

I have at least bottom pair (I have no idea what my second card is yet), but that didn’t really matter. I bet out $25. I am called by a player in late position as well as a kid from the small blind. At this point I look at my second card and find the 5 of diamonds.

Turn: 6c

The kid in the small blind looks at the card and then looks at me. He then says to me, “How about I do the betting for you this time?” and throws out a $20 bet. The cocktail waitress chooses this exact moment to deliver my gin and tonic so I make a point of ignoring the bet and focusing on the waitress while I quickly think about the situation. I tip the waitress as she puts down my drink and then I casually turn to the board, pretend to notice the kid’s bet, and tell the dealer that I am all-in.

The second player obviously folds and the action comes back to the kid who reacts as if he has just been hit with a stun gun. When he doesn’t instantly call I am obviously a bit relieved, but he doesn’t instantly fold either and that makes me a little bit nervous. He asks how much I have. I play it cool (the first four or five G&Ts helped with that) and steadily count out the rest of my chips. The kid and I are basically even, though I have him covered. It will cost him about $150 to call the bet. I don’t know what the kid has at this point, but it obviously must be better than my hand. It starts to worry me when he begins mumbling about how many outs he has. Literally a minute goes by as he thinks about what to do. Several times he picks up all of his chips and looks like he is about to call, but I just sit there and stare at the center of the table, maintaining a deliberate and slowly rhythmic tapping of my leg under the table to keep myself centered. Finally the kid turns his hand face up to show us all what he is thinking about: an offsuit 7-8 which is good for second pair and an up and down straight draw. By this point that is about the hand that I would expect but the revelation is really inconsequential. I was pretty sure that I was losing before he showed his hand, but now I just knew for sure. After another thirty seconds of intense and very pained consideration by the kid he announces, “I can’t believe I am folding this hand.” The kid makes a move to fold, but doesn’t. Instead he watches me. I don’t react. Apparently his final attempt at figuring me out has been thwarted and a few seconds later he mucks his hand.

The table begs to see my cards and I initially refuse, but I finally decide that it will be good for me to be perceived as a maniac and so I turn over my cards. The man to my left says, “Holy Shit!” and another man a few seats down says “Oh my God!” Another player comments that I am clearly insane. A few other players actually chastise the kid for folding, though bizarrely they actually criticize him for not folding sooner. I happen to agree with them. Based on the kid’s hand in that spot there is basically no decision to make. It is a very clear fold. If I am capable of making that move then you are essentially forced to give the pot to me. Calling in that spot with second pair is going to be suicide 9 times out of 10.

I can’t really explain why I made the move that I did there. The turn gave me a gutshot straight draw, which perhaps emboldened me just a little bit. More to the point though, and something that I half-heartedly tried to explain to the shaken up kid, is that I simply felt that unless the kid had a straight there was simply no hand that he could call me with. I didn’t think that I was winning, but I didn’t think that anyone would be able to call. Furthermore, I took it a little bit personal when the kid tried to take control of the pot… of my pot. “How about I do the betting for you this time?” he said. Well, how about not? Maybe it was an ego issue, but I was just not willing to give up on the hand, particularly by someone who was calling me out by leading into me. If the kid actually had a good hand he would not normally bet into me. I had very clearly demonstrated my eagerness to move chips (both in this hand and many, many others) so the correct play for him was to check a strong hand and allow me to build his pot. By leading into me he was essentially announcing that he had a draw. A bad, completely unsophisticated player will bet a made hand in that spot, but I gave the kid a lot more credit than that. He was one of the better players at the table and therefore presumably understood the situation enough that through his actions I could call his exact hand. And it seemed to me that regardless of my own hand there was no way that he could call with his.

The move was a bit insane and one that I would never have considered making just two weeks ago, but it does well to demonstrate a shift in my approach to the game. I want to play big pots and am willing to play them with very mediocre cards. I can’t say that this is the best approach to $1-$2 no-limit, but it seems to be working so far. I have a strong suspicion that it will serve much better in the $3-$5 no-limit game as well. After I get a chance to refine the strategy a bit more I have every intention of taking another shot at the next level, if only out of curiosity. I don’t have any intention of playing cards for a living, but so long as I am living in Vegas and playing poker I might as well make the effort to play it well.

Anyways, anyone interested in this sort of thing should listen to Barry Greenstein’s audio blog from last week where he talks about the Poker Players Alliance trip to Washington D.C. This is probably the first piece of good news on the issue in quite a while. And although Greenstein’s timeframe estimates are probably a bit optimistic it’s nice to know that the wheels are turning here… even if they are turning very, very slowly.

The most interesting tidbit to me was when Barry mentioned that the European Union is now threatening hundreds of millions of dollars in sanctions against the US for violating international fair trade agreements. I hadn’t really thought about it before but I guess it does make sense. The UIGEA is severely restricting the access of American citizens to foreign websites and businesses. It’s hard to think of this as anything but a no-brainer (-100s of millions of dollars in sanctions vs +1 BILLION dollars in tax revenue… oh, not to mention the millions of Americans who currently hate their government just a little bit more). It is bizarrely hopeful to think that while Congress refuses to listen to the opinions of their citizens, they will be forced to listen to the opinions of foreign business interests.

I don’t like recap posts and do my best to avoid that sort of thing. But still, it’s been a while, and so here you go.

Two weeks ago I was in Chicago for ten days.
This past weekend my brother was in Las Vegas.
This upcoming Friday I will fly to Baltimore for eight days.

Done and done.

Moderately entertaining and discussion-worthy happenings took place in Chicago, but enough time has passed that I don’t really feel like talking about it. Moreover, and I know that I’ve said this a few dozen times, because of the makeup of my humble readership I feel awkward to the point of silence when it comes to certain topics. Who knows though, that may change.

My brother’s stay was somewhat entertaining, highlighted by an uneventful and slightly depressing 25th birthday. Truth be told it was the day before my birthday that was most fun. My brother and my roommate spent about ten hours playing poker with me this past Saturday. That is hardly an abnormal session for me, but because of my company the games took on entirely new flavors. I won’t bore anyone with hand recaps or the like, but I should mention for those who are interested one funny anecdote.

My brother had been playing $1-$2 no-limit for about an hour while Matt and I played in what was probably the most difficult $4-$8 limit game that I’d ever seen. My game selection varies with my mood and to start the day I felt like kicking back with a fixed structure game. Unfortunately for us, our game began short-handed and of the 6 of us at the table I would hazard to guess that every single one of us was at the very least a semi-professional. Normally you can count on that game having at most three strong players, but it became clear within the first few hands that this table was insane. Oh, and I should mention that in addition to playing short-handed with really good players we were also playing with a half-kill. That means that whenever the same person won two or more hands in a row the limits would jump up to $6-$12. Do you have any idea how often that happens when there are only six people at the table?

So anyways, I took a quick trio of super shitty beats and decided to try my luck at no-limit instead. I moved to the first open seat at my brother’s table and played it cool for a while. Finally I made my first real play at a hand with pocket aces and by the turn I had maneuvered myself all-in. My aces were good and I doubled up. But then the fun started because seated immediately to my right was a middle-aged asian woman who decided to make a comment about my hand. For no reason in particular my mind kicked out an unplanned retort which would impact my game for the rest of the day.

“Oooh! Pocket Aces! Nice Hand!”
“Yeah, thanks. First time ever!” (I was going for sarcasm here, but she didn’t pick up on it at all.)
“Really?!”
“Yeah, and it was even better than I thought it could be!” (Surely she would pick it up now…)
“Wow! I’ve only been playing for six months. I love this game.”
“This is my first time playing, but it sure is a lot of fun!”

That went on for a little while. Across the table I could see my brother biting his lip to not laugh too hard. The stupid little lie developed over the next few hours, masterfully nudged along by occasional comments along the lines of “I just want to go all in. It looks like so much fun on TV!” Somehow, not only did the lady not see through the ruse, but a few other people at the table began to buy into it as well. I was even lucky enough to receive a small lecture from the man in Seat 1 about how television editing makes it seem like people are all-in much more frequently than they really are. At one point the lady told my brother that he should teach me how to play since I was so apparently inexperienced. He enjoyed that comment, but for the sake of our lie I couldn’t defend myself.

Eventually the situation caught up to me, though. It came about that three other players were involved in what was developing into a rather large pot. One of the players made a big bet and the second player began asking the bettor a series of questions. The first player responded with what I felt was some really bad gamesmanship (meaning that his attempts at being deceptive made it very, very obvious what he was holding). The banter continued for at least a full minute before the third player, who was waiting behind the second’s action, told them that they weren’t allowed to talk about their hands like that. The first player objected and affirmed that he could do whatever the fuck he wanted. The dealer didn’t know what to do. So I stepped in.

The rule is pretty clear in my mind; two players are not allowed to discuss the hand while another still has action. The dealer offered the reasonable but incorrect explanation that ‘anyone with cards’ can say whatever they want. I refuted the point, but before a decision could be made I was confronted by another player.

“How would you know what the ruling is?! This is your first time playing.”

Crap.

In other news:

>> ~14 hours and ~80% finished with Metroid Prime. I need to finish the game before I leave for Baltimore. It is completely horrible to leave somewhere in the middle of a 20+ hour adventure game only to return a week later and have absolutely no idea what the hell is going on. My review of the game? It is incredible.

>> Football starts on Thursday and since my roommates are hardcore about the stupid game I figured I would try to take an interest this year. To that end I have entered their fantasy football league with plans of ignorant domination by a team of former superstars long past their prime. I still don’t really care about the game, but there’s no better way to become interested in a sport than to bet money on it. Expect to see the V-Town Naked Bootlegs in the league finals.

>> I have finished rebuilding my desktop computer. Per usual, what began as a chipset replacement has ended in the creation of an almost entirely new machine. New board, processor, memory, hard drive, power supply, and video card. Literally, with the parts that I took out of my computer I can assemble a complete second computer (technically, it would just be the first one). Rather than deal with the hassle of trying to sell my parts I might just buy a new case and put together a media center for our living room.

Then on Monday I went and played some poker with Bill and won $623 in four hours. Tonight I went out by myself and won another $140. This afternoon the two of us went to Wal-mart to buy the game Scene It (to settle once and for all a long standing personal dispute that was threatening to become violent). Turns out that since I last played the game it has evolved and multiplied upon the toy shelves. We found no less than seven different versions of the game (Nickelodeon edition, Friends edition, Disney edition, Harry Potter edition (volumes 1 and 2), ESPN Sports edition, etc…). Each game costs a ridiculous $35, and while last week I wouldn’t have bothered even buying the game, unable to make up my mind as to which version I wanted to play, we just went ahead and bought two of them. There is something to be said for the idea of Found Money.

And so with very little effort on my part I have gone from sweating the savings on my grocery bill to once again living with $1500+ in rolled up cash on my dresser at all times. I still intend to tone down the poker part of my life, but the perks of (winning at) gambling are difficult to ignore for too long. I’m not the type of person who has ever been able to write out a schedule, but maybe I need to enforce some kind of system along the lines of “for every hour of writing I am allowed one hour of poker.” I somehow doubt that it would do much good.

…

I had a somewhat bizarre encounter tonight at the casino; one likely only understood by someone who plays cards seriously; I am thinking of my grandparents here. One of the guys sitting across the table from me looked familiar, but I couldn’t place how I knew him. After about an hour the two of us tangled a bit in a hand and I came out on top. When the hand was over he walked around the table and put his hand on my shoulder and whispered into my ear so that none of the other players could hear him.

“Hey. Did you happen to play in a tournament over at Bally’s about a year and half ago?”
“Umm… yeah.”
“Final Table?”
“Yeah.”
“Right! I thought that was you! I came in eighth place in that tournament.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. I got really lucky in a hand against you. I had pocket jacks…”
(I cut him off here)
“Yep. I had pocket kings that hand. A third player in the hand had queens and the board came with a Jack and a Queen.”
“Yeah.”
“Oh cool, I thought you looked familiar but couldn’t place you. Nice to see you again.”

(we shook hands and went back to the game, discretely keeping our final table experience from the rest of the table – as a matter of mutual respect. No need to advertise to the fish.)

It was a little bizarre. Neither of us really knew one another until we played a hand together and then it all came back to us. We remembered not who each other was as a person, but rather we remembered the details of the various hands that we played against one another 18-20 months earlier. It happens a lot I suppose, but it is still a little odd every time that it does.

Anyways, enough of that.