Cash vs. Tournaments

November 18th, 2009 by thepokergrafter

There’s no doubt that these days I’m a tournament player who dabbles in cash games. So what do I notice when I dip my toe back into this other world that I have largely ignored in recent years? Well for one thing, being a decent tournament player won’t in itself give you an edge. It’s all still Hold’em but the structures are so contrasting that they place different demands on the competitors.

So what are the main differences and how do they dictate strategy? Well firstly, all players do not necessarily begin equal. Of course this is always the case in terms of ability and experience but tournament players always begin with equal chip stacks and at the same time. NL cash games typically have a minimum and maximum buy-in level and within those parameters individuals can choose. Some players want to begin with the most chips so that they can bully opponents from the outset. They know that that they can also maximise their profits when a ‘double-up’ opportunity arises. But equally these deep stackers inevitably have the most to lose as well. Sometimes a chastened player who lost £500 quickly by putting it all on the felt from the outset will only return with £100 the following time to avoid a catastrophic repeat. There will be other players buying for the minimum amount simply because it’s all they can afford to lose.

My second point was that tournaments start at a set time. An 8:30 event will see most players trooping into the room at 8.29. Admittedly there will always be a few late arrivals but there stacks will still dwindle accordingly. When you join a cash game some of your opponents may have been sat there for six hours already. This can mean just about anything and it’s your job to find out what it is. Is the guy two seats to my left exhausted, drunk or does he always look that dopey! Has the Italian girl playing every hand gone on tilt after a nasty run of bad luck or is she on a ‘heater’ – a great run of cards – believing she can now win every pot? You’re watching, and indeed becoming a character within a soap opera, having missed several episodes already.

In a tournament a quiet hour and a stagnating chip stack is a cause for concern. If you’re doing nothing then you’re actually going backwards. In my familiar environment the blinds are constantly rising and it’s programmed into me that I must accelerate as time goes on if I’m not going to fall off the pace and get blinded away. This is definitely not the case in cash games where the blinds never increase. Consequently if you have the same number of chips in front of you at 10pm as you did at 8pm then there is no problem. Sure, you may feel like you’ve wasted your time but strategically you remain untarnished and, hopefully, fortified by a read on your opponents that wasn’t there two hours previously. This should bode well for the next two hours. My problem is that I need to constantly remind myself of these hard facts due to my automatic tendency to move through the gears over time.

Another big difference between the formats is the hands that people are prepared to ‘go bust’ with. Now, of course all players are different but I would suggest that the finite nature of tournaments means that good players will reach a critical point when they decide that a chance must be taken. This may involve taking a double-up chance with 10-10 before the chip stack gets too low. Contrast this with a NL cash game where a solid textbook player is unlikely to risk everything with a pre-flop hand such as 10-10 unless unusual circumstances are in place. This creates a whole new way of thinking for a tournament man like himself.
On the one hand I have to be more reticent about calling all-in with K-K on a low flop in a cash game. In this spot other solid textbook players are just that much more likely to have me beat with the likes of trips if they are betting really hard. In a tournament that doesn’t have a very slow format you will just have to commit with overpairs a greater share of the time. It can obviously be frustrating and a challenge to tighten up you calling range all of a sudden in cash games but the good news comes when we flip this situation around. If other players have tighter calling ranges as well then the potential for big bluffs becomes much greater. This weekend I had a hand that illustrates the point nicely.

I was in a lively NL cash game where four or five players were routinely seeing flops to a raise. I was on the button and decided because of strong position to see some action with the meagre holding of Q-2. The flop came with a staggeringly unhelpful J-6-6. When the play checked to me I decided to have a value bluff bet at the pot with nothing. Everybody folded apart from a tight player in the blinds who called. Given the size of my bet and his table image I was pretty sure he had to have a six in his hand, so I would be check-folding whatever happened next. However, what I hadn’t bargained on was another Jack coming on the turn. This changed everything. If he did have a six then this was a nightmare card for him to see. Furthermore my bet on the flop very easily represented a jack in my hand. Spotting an opportunity here I bet about three quarters of the pot on the turn. My opponent called again before the irrelevance of the river was dealt and he quickly checked into me again. I was now about 90% sure that he had a six and was hating the two jacks that could scupper him. I now had the choice of giving up the ghost by checking out for certain defeat or making one more massive move.

I asked how much he had left and knew I had him covered. One more bet around the size of the pot would put him all-in. It would only work if he had a six, not a jack, believed I had a jack and could fold his six accordingly. It was a very tense moment but I reckoned I could make him fold his full house so I went for it. After some consideration that felt like an eternity but actually wasn’t that long…he folded. And showed his six in the process. It was a great moment for me where the risk of looking a fool was immense! I most definitely didn’t show what I had been up to. As crazy as this play may seem though it was constructed having logically working through the hand. I realise that the NL cash game gave me a chance to make this play where it would have been just too high-risk in most tournaments. In a fast structure a guy with a six might well think ‘he could have a jack, but I should call with my full house anyway.’ Thankfully my cash opponent didn’t feel this way.

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Only Human

November 9th, 2009 by thepokergrafter

Only Human

When the man widely regarded as the world’s greatest poker player suddenly makes an elementary mistake in the biggest tournament on the poker calendar it’s bound to raise a few eyebrows. Unlikely as this may seem this was exactly what was witnessed by an astonished international TV audience last week when superstar Phil Ivey inadvertently mucked the winning hand during the latter stages of the WSOP main event.

The incident actually occurred in July but due to ESPN scheduling it was only recently aired in preparation for the November Nine who are now set to play down the final table until a winner emerges and a precious bracelet is received. Ivey is still there, lying 7th out of the remaining 9 in his first WSOP main event final table but his cause wasn’t helped by a moment of madness.

Raising under the gun with 8s-8d with 24 competitors remaining, Ivey found himself re-raised in late position by Jordan Smith with Ad-9c. He called to see a flop that came 5s-Qh-10s. Both players checked, and they would do so once again after the turn card Qs. Then when the river card fell as the ace of spades Ivey, who had led all the way, was assured victory after Smith checked to him one final time. At this point the 7-time WSOP bracelet winner only had to turn his cards over to take down the 2.1million pot. Astonishingly, despite checking out he then proceeded to muck the winning hand after Smith turned over his ace. Ivey had seemingly missed that he had a spade in his hand and thought that the river card had defeated him. Consequently the chips went in the opposite direction and the TV commentators – never slow to excite – went delirious. The remarkable hand can be seen here at the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvSw72TWel4

Curiously enough a very similar incident occurred in a cash game I was in recently when the same mistake was made by a poor chap who simply didn’t know the rules and mucked the winning hand unwittingly. That’s the funny thing, Ivey made the sort of rookie mistake only ever likely to afflict a novice or a highly exhausted or unfocused professional. I think it’s safe to say that Phil probably has a decent grasp of the rules, what with his $12million in tournament winnings and the greatest final table record in World Poker Tour history so sleep must have been the only thing he was lacking. But if ever there was a salutary lesson for the rest of us mortal poker players then this is it. If Ivey can muck the best hand in the WSOP main event final stages then I can certainly do it just about any time if I get sloppy or over-tired and the online misclick seems even more likely to be hazardous.

But rather than just having a pop at the world’s finest I think it’s only fair to point you in the direction of another Ivey video clip that shows the master doing what he does best.

Ivey vs. Jackson Bluff

In this footage we see the art of bluffing taken to remarkable extremes. In this example we see two top players going toe to toe with essentially no cards behind them. Ivey’s Qh-8h looks as pitiful as Paul ‘Actionjack’ Jackson’s 6s-5d after the flop of 7c-Jc-Jh that clearly misses them both emphatically. An almighty battle of wills transpires with neither man believing the re-raises of the other. It’s hard not to think that ‘Actionjack’ has played it to perfection before Ivey fires the sucker punch against all the odds. Once he moves all-in then the 1.5million pot is secure because 6-5 simply can’t call whatever he’s up against! Paul Jackson later commented that Ivey stared him down for a full seven minutes during the hand but this was edited out of the TV coverage.

These are the class moments that make the so-called Tiger Woods of Poker the special player that he is. And not even the odd ‘air shot’ in the WSOP will change that. Besides, with the November Nine now all set to get underway not many people are confidently backing against Ivey to storm through the field and claim the biggest bracelet of all this month anyway. I’m pretty sure he won’t be mucking the best hand ever again.

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Poker Misconceptions

October 28th, 2009 by thepokergrafter

I’m all-in pre-flop with QQ against AK; an ace hits the flop but I spike a queen on the river to win. ‘So lucky’ moans my opponent. ‘Not really,’ I mutter knowing that I was a 57-43% favourite at the moment that counts – when the chips went in. Two popular misconceptions are caught up in one grievance here. Firstly, the big one. An astonishing number of poker players classify QQ vs. AK as the classic coin flip, a race where both players have an equal chance of success. This is almost true, but crucially in the long-term QQ will win 6/10 times more often than 5/10. AK will consequently prosper 4/10 more often than the perceived half the time. In a one-off event this advantage is very slight but over thousands of ‘races’ this differential will really add up.

The second daft element of the grumble would be that AK was a 95% favourite before the 2-outer queen reversed fortunes on the river. Therefore I am supposedly a ‘fluky donk’ for winning such a long shot. The implication is that I would have willingly risked all my chips after the turn (when 19:1 against) in the outrageous pursuit of a queen, out of choice. Clearly the manner of the outcome is irrelevant once all the betting occurs pre-flop. It is simply more galling to lose like that, not more unlucky. The latter misconception is taught at the school of sour grapes but the former misnomer is merely down to ignorance. There are many other similar examples and I’ll give you my thoughts on a few of them.
Another favourite misconception would be that bluffing is bad play. This one still boggles the mind. I’ve discussed before that there seems to be a bizarre school of thought out there that bluffing is somehow grubby and rotten. I swear some players view the exposure of bluffing as tantamount to uncovering a paedophile ring. Apparently if you can’t win playing the cards you’re dealt in the textbook manner then you ought to lose pitifully in the same ‘dignified’ manner as the feeble and unadventurous have to.

Putting to one side the obvious merits of being unpredictable and thinking outside the box there is mathematical sense to bluffing even when there’s a reasonable chance of getting caught. Imagine that! Bluffing so shamelessly that you’re willing to put yourself at high risk of being caught and exposed to the ultimate humiliation. But thinking logically if you believe that a £20 bluff into a pot of £100 will succeed a third of the time then you should make the play even if the majority of the time you may look foolish. So you lose £20 twice and look cheeky – big deal. If on the third occasion you win £120 it’s clearly a profitable play. This is basic concept poker and yet I can guarantee that a huge number of poker players out there, many of whom will rate themselves highly, never take this chance. Crazy but true.

It’s a similar mentality and an ignorance of pot odds that can lead to another funny, yet common misconception. ‘Thou shall not defend your big blind with 2-7o under any circumstances’. Most Holdem participants quickly learn that that this is the worst start hand in poker and therefore assume it should be folded in all circumstances. Again, this is untrue. If the pot odds to call are correct then you call, it’s that simple. I’ve lost count of the number of times when an irritable, and presumably inexperienced opponent has chastised me for calling his short stacked all-in with a hand like 2-7. But let’s say the blinds are 200-400 and he puts his last 1000 chips in on the button. If the small blind folds I have 600 to call to make it a pot of 2200. Supposing he has a strong hand that dominates me such as 6-6, I still have a 27% of winning. I can therefore assume to win 1 in 4 times ( 1 in 3 times against AK) and should therefore call. The maths is simple: lose 600 three times (1800) but win 2200 once, thus making a profit of 400.

Calling with 2-7o is somehow seen as indecent even in the face of mathematical fact. I mean, it’s almost as disgusting as bluffing, or winning a pre-flop ‘race’ on the river of all things. There can’t be many other games where a good player is so easily dismissed as lucky or even as downright poor, by inferior opponents. In football I rarely see strikers criticised for scoring in off the post. Yet presumably some of these muddled poker players see a footballer putting the ball in the corner of the goal merely as proof that they ‘nearly missed‘. So lucky.

Simon Ballou writes for Oddschecker Poker

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Bring on the Glory

October 20th, 2009 by thepokergrafter

It’s like Christmas morning; if Christmas morning could arrive unexpectedly in mid-October. You hope it’ll happen and deep down you secretly assume it will happen at some point, but it does you no good to anticipate it  The moment I speak of was my first big  multi-table triumph of the year, which according to my records, came at the umpteenth time of asking. As often happens in these situations fate seemed to play a part. It was Saturday night, for me traditionally a night off from online poker, but other plans fell through and I found myself in a $30 rebuy tournament the like of which had tormented me through the summer. So there I was in a tournament I had no plans to enter and yet 7 hours later I found myself the last man standing of 248 runners with $5400 more than I started with. Good times.

Any sense of pre-ordained destiny was certainly absent when I ‘busted’ on hand 1. A pair of tens is always a hand I will play hard in a rebuy format but this policy would quickly change if I always found myself massacred in this situation, as I was here, by QQ and KK. This setback was the equivalent of a tough tackling centre half picking up a booking in the first five minutes. I would have to tread a little more carefully from then on. I like the $30 rebuy format because I will happily rebuy once or twice and always add-on for value. However, an aggressive rebuy strategy is not the same as a wild and reckless one. I am always reluctant to rebuy more than twice and thus a reload after one hand is certainly sub-optimal and sounds a note of caution. I would still play my big hands hard while remembering that the clock was slow enough to keep me competitive with a mediocre stack after one hour. A willingness to see my stack dwindle quite low before panicking would prove vital later on. I drifted under 4000 chips with an average stack of 11,000 when I pushed 7-7 and doubled up against A-Q. Winning a race was something I was unaccustomed to in the numerous MTT events I had played in the previous weeks. I won’t labour this point because everybody thinks they ‘run bad’ so I should clarify that my luck factor on SNGs had been pretty good in recent weeks I just couldn’t catch a break in the longer format. Anyhow all this was about to change when I doubled through again with J-J vs. 9-9 and then had my big moments of good fortune when K-Q toppled A-9 with a timely river Queen. I was really starting to think it was my night when my 10-10 overturned A-K after a soul-destroying K-K-Q flop. The runner-runner spades on the turn and river snagged me an unlikely flush that had me punching the air.

As lucky as all this sounds I had in reality just won a couple of flips and won a 42% shot with K-Q. If you play a lot of MTTs you should really get a run of fortune such as this quite often and I was long-overdue the roll of the dice after a relentless string of 2-outer dismissals previously. In fact only days earlier I had looked well set for a decent cash when my K-K-K got inevitable action from another big stack with 9-9-9. All the chips went in on the turn before the 1-outer 9 spiked the river. With this in mind I wasn’t about to feel embarrassed about winning a couple of races for once!

Of course when good fortune does pay a visit you must take advantage. I soon found myself as chip leader with 11 left and sought to push home my advantage. Play was six-handed, several waiting timidly for the final table and I was stealing the blinds for fun. To make life easier the good cards kept coming meaning I could stay aggressive without getting ‘out of line’ too much. I had hoped that the frequency of my raises would encourage a feisty rival to play back at me eventually when I had a genuinely reasonable hand. When a medium stack finally did re-raise me all-in I was comforted by the knowledge that my A-A fit neatly into said category of ‘genuinely reasonable.’ Sadly my swagger was to be short-lived as the rockets got outrageously turned over my K-Q. Here we go again. Just as I had felt that it was to be my night half my stack was crushed in miserable fashion. It’s pretty hard to pick yourself up off the floor after a beat like that because what future scenarios could I put myself in with any confidence? Drawing on my experience I had to tell myself that 70,000 chips was still a playable stack even if I was now 9th out of 11; I would now have had a monstrous stack, but for the outrageous. ‘Shoulda woulda coulda’, the last words of a fool, apparently. Not to mention a few aggrieved poker players.

Anyway, the rollercoaster continued as I played my best poker and did get some hands to hold up. A fitting Hollywood ending was ensured when I found myself head-up with, who-else, but my nemesis who had cracked A-A with K-Q. He was a competent opponent and a game of cat and mouse was to go on for some 45 minutes, a long heads-up session by online MTT standards. The key moment arrived when my opponent checked a 4-6-10 flop in position. The turn brought another 4 and I decided that if he checked again he could be very strong but if he bet hard at all then a bluff was on. He did so and I re-raised hard with 5-2o, a gutshot draw, but essentially five high. It was the bluffiest of semi-bluffs but I was confident I could force a lay-down. He called the draw-heavy board. The river card seemed irrelevant and completed no draw so I bet hard again, successfully forcing the fold. It was a decisive moment with a dramatic shift in the chip stacks. A short time after I completed the job calling with A-2 when my increasingly desperate opponent shoved 6-3. It was a gratifying moment of triumph made all the sweeter by the manner in which it occurred.

The $5.4k (about £3.5k) really feels like a bonus, which was always the idea behind my approach.  I see the SNGs as the bread and butter which bring the most consistent, steady reward, even with their own pesky variance. The MTTs are the icing on the poker cake.

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Block Busters

October 12th, 2009 by thepokergrafter

Could I still pass a poker MOT? This is essentially what I try to ask myself from time to time to make sure that I don’t let standards slip or fall into bad habits. Obviously it’s important to keep looking for improvements in your game but it’s just as vital that learnt lessons stay learnt. Otherwise, before you know it you could be chasing your flush draws unprofitably or just playing at the wrong stakes for your bankroll. All the while not noticing the leak in your game because you haven’t taken a fresh look at things in a while.

When reading some poker literature recently it suddenly occurred to me that I wasn’t really ‘block betting’ as well as I should be. This is often described as an advanced Holdem move even though the basic premise of the play is quite simple. The idea is that you lead bet out of position to discourage your opponent from making a larger bet that you wouldn’t want to call. As straightforward as this sounds the artistry comes, as always, from applying the bet at the right time, in the right way. This requires a great deal more thought.

Authorities on this subject seem to suggest that block betting is often a good approach when chasing a draw. The theory would be that by betting a smallish amount you give yourself the odds to stay involved in the pot. The alternative of checking can lead to your opponent betting much harder thus making it unprofitable to chase your outs. This play therefore sounds good but my experience suggests that it doesn’t always work so well in practice. The first problem is that a weak lead out bet on what they call a ‘wet flop’ (cards that potentially suit a wide range of hands) normally represents a draw, and typically it will be made by a loose player. With that read I will normally re-raise my opponent assuming I like my own hand. Naturally a re-raise is the nemesis of the block bet if the intention was to keep the pot small.

But of course block bets don’t have to be the calling card of the loose draw chaser. It does seem to be the case about 80% of the time in shallow stacked SNGs but that’s all the more reason for good players to make the same play with genuine strength AND with draws. Imagine if you play your flopped sets in much the same way as your flopped flush draws. Suddenly you become very difficult to read and the automatic re-raise of your opponent may well be abandoned.

But it is block betting on the river that interests me most as an area for personal improvement. To give a classic example of when the play may be invaluable consider the following. I have raised pre-flop and hit top pair on the flop prompting a continuation bet. The turn is seemingly even better giving me top two pair so I gleefully bet again. Then possible disaster on the river. Suddenly there are four clubs on the table and I have none. On the turn I would have been relatively unconcerned by the three clubs as my one opponent was a lunatic calling station who chased everything and was liable to bluff given half a chance. But with four clubs surfacing the situation was suddenly much more perilous. Any one club in the lunatic’s hand would put him ahead and yet there would be still every chance I had the best hand with top two pair.

What to do? Well out of position my tendency for too long has been to check in this spot a very high percentage of the time. It would be a check with a very high likelihood of calling my rival’s bet but this is always fraught with danger. I could call a large bet and win against a total bluff or I could call a big bet and find that I have indeed been beaten by the river club. But why not a river block bet for about half the pot or even slightly less? If the lunatic has missed the flush as well he will require a lot more bottle to re-raise bluff against apparent strength than against the check that appears to give up on the hand. Furthermore, he might call and win the hand with a low club and you will be annoyed, but actually you will have made a money saving play. Coaxing your wild opponent into winning less by his calling of a bet of 500 is much better than check-calling for 1600 chips yourself.

Poker is a game where you try to maximise your pot wins with your best hands but it’s just as important to lose less when the community cards turn against you. Money saved is effectively money won in the long term. Blocker bets can be invaluable in this pursuit but just be careful not to over-use them either. Always remember that a weak lead-out bet, however small, is still capable of costing you chips instead if your opponent was in fact going to check out behind you with the best hand. Unless you induce a fold that is…

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Leopards can change their spots then

September 21st, 2009 by thepokergrafter

On my way to a minor cash in a $1million tournament last
weekend I had a couple of reminders that you should never
under-estimate your opponent’s ability to adapt and mix up
their play. Well, there was one major reminder to me that
I shouldn’t pigeon-hole my rivals and hopefully a lesson
for somebody else that I can’t be so easily read!
The first incident occurred about three hours into the
deep stack event when I was ticking along comfortably
while the play at the table was generally quite frisky. In
fact I had come to the conclusion that only one player at
the table was a real rock. Everybody else seemed keen to
play at least the odd marginal hand where as the chap to
my immediate right seemed tight and I assumed weak. He
literally didn’t play a hand for the first two hours after
joining the table. Delighted to have such a timid
character to contest the blinds with, I was confident I
could bully him on a very rare occasion when everybody
else folded to him and he elected to call the small
blind. I quickly fired a raise from the big blind with 5-
2o assuming I could quickly take down the pot with the
minimum of fuss. Somewhat surprised that he called the
raise I was confronted by a rainbow flop of A-Q-6. I
paused momentarily before firing a standard bet of about
60% of the size of the pot. My rival flat called quite
quickly at which point the game was up with 5-2o and I’d
have to shut it down.

I have been generally pushing myself to fire more often on
the turn and river because of the dangers of ‘float
callers’ I have discussed before. However, there has to
be a limit to this heightened aggression and if ever that
limit had been reached it was surely now. I mean I was
holding 5-2 against a perceived rock who had flat-called a
flop with three over cards. The situation could surely not
have appeared more forlorn! The turn and river failed to
offer even the faintest prospect of showdown value from a
small pocket pair and I resisted the temptation to fire
again on the river as I couldn’t imagine it would ever
look convincing and was thus a bluff destined to fail. I
had hoped he would bet at some stage so I could at least
muck my hand to avoid showing the trash I had made a move
with, but alas he did not and was able to see my feeble
holdings.
But what was this? He turned over J-6o! This was fairly
extraordinary. There had been nothing to suggest that he
could defend the small blind with such mediocrity pre-flop
let alone call with bottom pair when the first community
cards came as well. I immediately realised that I had been
out-thought by my adversary who was seemingly more aware
of his weak table image than anybody, and was therefore
determined to make a stand no matter what. My irritation
at being outplayed was only extended by the realisation
that a further strong bluff bet on the turn would have
almost certainly ended the pot in my favour. He had called
desperately hoping I was making a move and was indeed
floating me. But regardless of his read and his
determination to stand up for himself there’s just no way
that he could have called a further bet with fourth pair
and a re-raise all-in was quite possibly, surely, beyond
him.

But as frustrating as it was I ultimately wasn’t going to
be too hard on myself. Taking on a rock in position is
generally smart and very few people can suddenly transform
so dramatically. He just played a blinder. A little later
though I gained some redemption with a move made at the
right time that won me a lovely big pot with queen-high..
On this occasion I opened up the betting with a mid-seat
raise holding Q-9o. Incidentally, I don’t just play bad
hands, even if this is the way it seems! These were just
two isolated incidents, and everybody loves a little play
variation. Anyway, I got a call from the player on the
button only who was seeing a fair number of flops against
everybody. Despite my earlier faux pas my table image was
I felt probably pretty sound at this point as I’d stayed
in line for most of the previous two hours and shown a few
big cards. This time however I was scraping the barrel
with Q-9 on another rainbow board of 10-7-2. Again the c-
bet failed to take down the pot and the turn brought
another 7. I paused, then checked and waited to see what
my opponent did. He hesitantly bet about half the pot at
which point I suddenly spotted an opportunity. I got the
distinct impression that he didn’t like that second 7 all
that much although he could easily have had a 10. When
contemplating his range it felt quite likely that he held
something like Q-10 or K-10 and I felt he could be taken
off such a hand. The other possibilities after the flop
call included a set, that would now have become a full
house or even quads, but the speculative bet on the turn
made this seem unlikely. A monster hand like that would
surely encourage a check with the hope of encouraging me
on the river when his hand was already made. I therefore
concluded that a check-raise of 4500 chips on top of his
1500 bet was likely to get through.

Our relevant chip stacks was a crucial factor in this
decision. I had begun the hand with several thousand more
and was therefore able to risk the bluff move knowing that
if it failed I would still have a playable, though heavily
depleted stack. My rival in contrast knew that a re-raise
committed the rest of his stack and that even a flat call
was likely to see him all-in on the river. He therefore
had to be very sure I was bluffing to confidently commit
everything with a hand like K-10 or anything less. He soon
folded; as suspicious as my flop continuation bet may have
looked, the check-raise on the turn had to look much
stronger. That it came after a second 7 made a hand like
A-7 very plausible for me. The audacity of committing so
many chips to the bluff by check-raising rather than
simply firing again was what ultimately made it a good
play. Of course, I might not be looking back quite so
fondly and proudly had I got my read wrong and lost a
massive pot with queen high! But such are the fine margins
of poker where the gap between bravery and stupidity is
never too wide.

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Always the one you least suspect

September 4th, 2009 by thepokergrafter

Limping is synonymous with passive poker and therefore often discarded as weakness. Serial limpers will often be dismissed as ’calling stations’ who play average start cards hoping to get lucky. Many of the game’s authors point out that simply calling is very often the worst of the plays one can make in many situations. The argument would be that you raise for strength and information or you fold because you’re in trouble. However, it is the weak appearance of the limp that is actually it’s greatest strength. I often try to implement what I call the ‘Columbo move’ in a heads-up scenario when the limp can really come into its own.

Columbo was of course a brilliant fictional detective who’s greatest asset was his shabby appearance and, seemingly slow-witted nature that always made him easy to under-estimate. Invariably the criminal would be lulled into a false sense of security before Columbo provided just enough rope for the perpetrator to hang himself. Cleverly limping the small blind in a heads-up poker contest, the right amount, at the right times, will often snare your victim for much the same reason.

The logic for this ploy has to be worked through from the start. Novice players will quickly discover that limping a lot in a head-up game with trash hands puts you on a hiding to nothing. Most opponents won’t stand for that if the blinds are high and they can push all-in to pick up the pots.  A beginner realises this after several hands are treated the same way and begins to fold his weaker hands instead. Before he knows it he is folding the small blind a huge amount of the time giving the big blind ‘walk after walk‘. With blinds high any stack equality is quickly lost as the aggressor seizes the initiative. Our newcomer then realises that his opponent is pushing the majority of his small blinds all-in to avoid the same fate. Consequently the aggressor is taking the new boy to the cleaners by winning the vast majority of pots from both positions. The novice is then just praying for a massive hand to come along and save the day without which he is simply outplayed. Of course the most common approach is for our beginner to gain confidence and experience and fight fire with fire. Heads-up poker quickly descends into a small blind push-fest.

But your play doesn’t have to be quite so lacking in guile. When AA suddenly appears in the small blind the need for action suddenly jolts the newcomer into a tactical switch. He decides to suddenly revert to limping and wait for the big blind to push his way into trouble. Against another inexperienced player this out-of the-blue limp is indeed likely to set-up the trap successfully. However, the problem is that a wiser opponent will be put on high-alert by the sudden limp and slowdown his own play assuming he has run into a big gun. The obvious nature of the limp flags up the strength and makes a big pot win much less likely.

So what to do to trick a canny opponent? Easy. Limp a little more, with a range of hands. It’s imperative that a limp doesn’t always equate to AA, KK or QQ otherwise you won’t get pushed by the big blind. Let your opponent see that you will sometimes limp in with trash and other times with quality. Unpredictability is the key because it becomes very hard to second guess. I’d imagine a limp about once every 8-10 hands in the small blind after a combination of raises and folds will stand out and get respected, and therefore checked to see a flop. This then opens the door for winning the pot with one continuation bet with virtually anything on most flops. Your opponent may sit there smugly thinking they  are folding to your big hand when you may in fact have nothing at all.

By about the third time you’ve limped in short order your opponent will think it increasingly unlikely that you are only playing monster hands in this fashion. If he’s never played you before he’s actually liable to under-estimate you in true Columbo-style because your frequent limp strategy resembles that of the novice we discussed earlier. The difference is that you’re knowingly setting up the bait by feigning weakness! He will start to play back at you more aggressively and riskily again from the big blind. This will cost you a few small pots but it’s all part of setting up the big moment when a great hand does arrive. And often there’s no need to wait for big start cards to arrive. Success is just as likely to come through sneaking a peak at a flop with something unglamorous. That flopped 2-pair with 10-7s will be very difficult to read!

So playing heads-up poker in the seemingly clumsy manner of a 1970s detective has its merits. Next week I’ll introduce the ‘Miss Marple Stop and Go’ tactic…Well, we’ll see.

Simon Ballou writes for Oddschecker Poker

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In My Shell

August 17th, 2009 by thepokergrafter

‘Sometimes I feel like throwing my hands up in the air‘. Not just the start of a Candi Staton song but also appalling conduct at a poker table.

I believe it’s because this behaviour has to be resisted at all costs that many players take the only legitimate alternative left open to them, and go ’on tilt’. This is the practice of letting emotions and indiscipline determine your actions after a bad beat or a passage of play that seemed deeply unfair. A classic tilt play might be to re-raise a suspected thief all-in with a trash hand like 4-10o. When the rest of the table can all clearly see that you are ’steaming’ then this sort of bold high-risk manoeuvre can be kindly described as sub-optimal.

I think it’s well documented why a poker player might implode. But it doesn’t have to be caused by a dramatic moment where AA is crushed by A-4. In the hectic world of online poker an opponent is liable to hit the self-destruct button for no apparent reason. He could be a schizophrenic, but a more likely explanation is that most serious players multi-game and may therefore let an abysmal moment elsewhere suddenly affect their performance against you. Alternatively a barrage of seemingly small misfortunes may send a player over the edge. For example, constantly being dealt good hands that you want to play can become sole-destroying if you endlessly flop badly and lose all the pots.

You know that raising big hands pre-flop, such as AK, is generally the right move. Continuation betting a wide range of flops is also advisable, especially against players who you feel are calling with lesser pre-flop hands. Yet, if they keep ‘hitting’ and you keep missing the board then your generally sound strategy just seems costly and ineffective.

From time to time you will hit a rut like this when you keep getting dealt very promising cards only to see your luck run out when it counts. When this happens to me over a prolonged period I feel like my table image is in tatters. My opponents never see my cards because my play pattern constantly seems to be raise – bet – fold. It looks like I’m on tilt so people are liable to show me down with marginal hands. This is all very well if I pick up something special but troublesome if I continue to feed off scraps. As the chip stack dwindles and time marches on the need to make a move only increases and it’s no good simply waiting for AA to come along and save me.

But rather than actually going on tilt in these circumstances I’m more liable to go into my shell. My resolution to avoid the dreaded blow-up can lead me too negatively in the other direction. I have identified this tendency as a ‘leak’ in my game that will need to be addressed from time to time. Prolonged bad luck can make you feel a sense of dread, not hope, when a promising hand is dealt. With this state of mind you almost want to fold AK as soon as you see it, to protect yourself from further pain. This is an unacceptable loss of bottle! To compromise with my fragile state of mind I will sometimes start to limp hands like AK more than usual so that I lose fewer chips when I inevitably miss the flop. But again, such weak, passive play is rarely appropriate. Suddenly I’ll find myself losing pots with AK when the board is initially in my favour. If my limp has allowed five players to see the flop then I’ll have scant grounds for complaint when I get outdrawn, having played the hand poorly.

Ah yes, the dreaded outdraw. Another characteristic I might demonstrate when in ‘shell mode’ is to bet top pair or other strong holdings too lightly. I realise the psychology behind this is that I’m assuming I’ll be outdrawn so betting less might limit my losses when the worst inevitably occurs. This is again poor strategy because betting a good hand weakly is just likely to give opponents better odds and more encouragement to call. If several players draw against you then the chances that one of them will overtake you increases. When this happens it is sometimes too easy to curse the Poker Gods and pity yourself, when the blame lies at your own feet.

Another fault I’m likely to demonstrate at tough times is a simple loss of guile. I don’t like players who never slowplay, even if it’s often unadvisable. The fact is that if I flop a set I don’t want to scare off my opponent in a heads-up scenario just because there’s a flush draw out there. But when the chips are down I can sometimes assume that my one opponent definitely has a flush draw and that he will definitely hit it, unless I bet my set very hard to discourage a call. This is clearly a distorted view of reality that is unlikely to get my big hands paid off. In contrast when playing confidently and running well I will often vary the speed of my play to great effect. If a danger card arrives I will slowdown my play, probably call instead of raise, and often win anyway.

One conclusion from all this might be to simply avoid playing when your state of mind is wrong. But a good player will need to learn to persevere through the tough times and not just walk away from them. However, tilting or retreating into your shell are unlikely ways to return to form.

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Learning from Blunders

August 4th, 2009 by thepokergrafter

The other day I crashed out of a tournament in 31st place after jeopardising my future with an all-in shove from the small blind with A9 after everybody else had folded round to me. The loose aggressive player in the big blind could have been a rock and he still would have called me with AK in the locker With the top 30 paid and plenty of opponents shorter stacked it was a bitter pill to swallow not least because I only had myself to blame. Had he folded and I’d picked up the blinds I would have given the moment very little thought thereafter. But with my elimination rightly sealed after four hours of play I forced myself to re-examine the moment and dissect how I should have played the situation.

In my defence, although I classify the move as a costly mistake, I don’t regard it as a horrific error that was made without any justification. The mitigating circumstances I would cite in my defence were as follows: I would only play A9 very hard pre-flop if first to act in a late seat or in the blinds. It was a positional play that assumed I was likely to have the best hand against an unknown big blind. This in itself is logical because A9 is a considerably better than average hand and it was reasonable to think I had a significant amount of fold equity. Furthermore, some of the hands I could legitimately expect to be called by, I would be a ‘coin flip’ to win (every pair from 8-8 downwards). In other words I would expect to double-up on some occasions even though I was most certainly not looking for a call.

It’s important to point out that I would never be angry with myself simply for playing A9 aggressively in this situation. It would be incredibly weak to fold this hand if first to act in the small blind and timid even to call. The correct play was a raise, not least because the blinds were high, valuable and important to pick up whenever possible. But what I didn’t need to do was move all-in and risky everything on such a marginal hand. So why hadn’t I simply put in a standard raise? Well, the loose aggressive nature of my opponent in the big blind and our previous confrontations led me to believe that he wouldn’t ever fold to a typical raise, suspecting everything to be a steal. He would be equally combative on the flop and liable to raise with any piece of it, or if he suspected weakness on my part. In the heat of the moment I thought I could avoid that irritating scenario by forcing his fold with my own all-out aggression. The problem was always going to be if he picked up a decent hand himself.

Of course now I appreciate, out of the heat of battle, that the irritating scenario I envisaged had I simply raised a standard amount would be far preferable to what did occur! When my exit hand began I had about 19,000 chips with the big blind worth 1000. Had I raised to 3000, been called, and then fired 5000 at the flop before folding I would have had 12,000 left and a chance to rebuild. My stack might have been diminished by about 40% with a failed small raise and c-bet but that’s better than by 100%. Furthermore this is viewing the play from a worst case perspective. Much of the time that you raise the pot pre-flop against a loose caller you will still pick up the pot with a strong flop bet. This way more chips will be accrued than by forcing the fold pre-flop anyway. It’s important not to be scared of action in delicate situations particularly if you can back your own judgement when the flop comes and there is more information available.

It’s also worth remembering that other players will feel the pressure when a tournament is in its bubble phase. I’ve said before that you can’t be afraid of making big plays just because you might go home empty-handed. Unfortunately, the big play I made was ill-advised and poorly timed. But had I standard raised then it’s also just possible that the big blind would have only flat-called me with AK. It’s amazing how often even loose aggressive players can suddenly tighten up when things get intense. Had this occurred then he would have struggled to call or re-raise a flop absent of a king or ace. Suddenly I could have been winning a significant pot with A9 against AK! Of course had the flop come ace high I would have most likely busted out anyway having both hit top pair. But at least I would have then left the table feeling merely unlucky, taking solace in the thought that I had played my hand correctly. At the end of the day that is all you can do. On this occasion I had failed in my duty to get the chips in at the right time and that’s what really hurt.

Simon Ballou writes for Oddschecker Poker

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The Float

July 16th, 2009 by thepokergrafter

One of the most advanced bluff moves in poker appears to be one of the most straightforward to execute. In essence, the float move involves calling an opponent on the flop when weak with the intention of claiming the pot on the turn or river with the implication of strength. Easy then. Well no, not really, because as always timing and the right set of circumstances are required to make the move successful and to avoid looking foolish.

Much of the criteria needed for the play to be profitable should be easy to remember. Firstly, it is best to attempt the float against one opponent only. To challenge the strength of multiple opponents in this way is high risk or folly for the obvious reason that there is much greater likelihood that a genuinely strong hand is out there. Secondly, position is key. If your opponent has raised the pot pre-flop and fired a continuation bet thereafter there is every chance he has missed the board. The ‘c-bet’ is generally successful because it assumes that others will fold if they miss. The float is a direct challenge to this assumption and has the capability of destroying the potency of the ‘c-bet’. In essence we are talking about head-to-head power play each time taken to its next dimension. The pre-flop raise without great strength is merely phase one, the ‘c-bet’ on a miss is phase two and the float play (a call with nothing) introduces phase three.

As with all aspects of bluffing a good read is everything. Floating an opponent who rarely plays a non-premium hand is likely to be foolish in the extreme. However, a frequent pre-flop raiser who is aggressively pushing a wide range of cards could be ripe for the picking. Logically, somebody who plays any two high cards or any suited connectors but always fires a bet at the flop must be betting with air a high percentage of the time. It is therefore too weak to give up the ghost everything you suspect that you both missed. But for the play to succeed you need to know whether the loose aggressor will read your call as strength and give up on the turn. If he will relentlessly fire again on the turn and river with nothing then floating is not the play to challenge him with. Rest assured that these characters will instead pay you off handsomely when you finally do pick up a big hand.

But rest assured there are a huge number of players who do see the benefit of hammering the play pre-flop and on the flop but then do slowdown from then on against apparent strength. The float is therefore most likely to work against aware opponents. A maniac who is oblivious to what’s going on around him may be the wrong target for this subtle manoeuvre. Over time it should be possible to determine who is scared of an ominous flat call. Funnily enough, it will often be the better players who are aware, and therefore ‘float candidates’. But this realisation requires further caution because the best players of all maybe able to spot a float when they see one as well. Nothing is ever straight forward in this game!

So far we have viewed the float entirely as a bluff move with scant regard to the cards actually in one’s own hand. But let’s consider a partial float play that isn’t really a bluff so much as a biding of time, displaying some strength and allowing an opportunity to gain further information on the turn. Let’s consider that I have position but have only called a loose aggressive pre-flop raiser with A-Q. Firstly, why didn’t I re-raise!?! No matter. Given that I only called, how should I then react to a rainbow board of 10-7-2? The loose aggressive opponent inevitably ‘c-bets’ and so the decision passes back to me. I regret to say that on too many occasions in the past my natural inclination would have been simply to fold and wait for a better spot where I actually do connect with the board. But hang on; there must be a pretty strong chance that I’m still winning here against much of my opponent’s range. I could consider a re-raise to see if this can take the pot but in many formats this will be risking quite a high percentage of my chips with ace high. I’m not saying this isn’t an option but flat calling may be the best of all three alternatives in this spot. The most crucial aspect of my decision making here is how I perceive my play will be interpreted. Experience tells me that a re-raise will look more suspicious than a call here due to the barren nature of the flop. If I was really strong then why would I want to risk scaring off my rival with a re-raise when there appear to be so few scare cards out there? Had I flopped a set then I would almost certainly be flat calling the ‘c-bet’ so that’s what I will do now. Implied strength.

Having partially executed the float, the turn card now becomes pivotal. There is every chance that the loose aggressor will shutdown if he still hasn’t hit at this point. If he fires convincingly again then I may have to admit defeat but with the consolation that a re-raise on the flop would have cost me even more chips. But there are still two further possibilities, both of which could work in my favour. Firstly, I could spike an ace or jack either of which would be top pair and hard to read having called a flop with nothing. A further possibility is that a card comes along that I can ‘represent’. A second 7 for example could be represented by a re-raise that suggests I called the flop with second pair and then got lucky. Of course, this could be read as a bluff but with the right table image and against the right opponent it could be a great play. It just goes to show that a well timed float can open up a world of possibilities.

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