Archive for January, 2009

The Unknown Quantity

Monday, January 26th, 2009

When you don’t know a thing about your opponent I think it is always best to assume a reasonable level of competence on their part. Better to wait for mistakes to undermine that status rather than under-estimating an unknown quantity. It’s the best way to keep your own play up to scratch. Assuming everybody else is rubbish seems to me a fast track to losing money and the sort of wishful thinking that could find yourself disregarded by others. ‘I put you on ace-king,’ is the sort of fanciful statement that fish come out with to justify calling off all their chips with bottom pair on a low flop. Don’t get me wrong; there are times when I too ‘put a player on ace-king’ having watched them play for a while, but why would I do so on the first significant play of theirs I have ever seen? The simple answer is wishful thinking. A bad player who hates to fold any flop that they have connected with in some way tries to find a hand that their opponent could hold to justify a dubious call of their own. Ace-king often fits the bill.

The other side of the coin is that I will sometimes fold the best hand having given my opponent credit where it is not due. This is a wretched feeling and of course feels like a mistake but it won’t necessarily be so. Sometimes you can only justify making a call against the loosest, wildest player at the table. But you have to know that he is that first! Furthermore, if you are involved in a hand against two unknown quantities you have to proceed with even more caution. It’s dangerous to assume that one player is a loose cannon, let alone two. That’s just irrational. That said, a hand unfolded the other day that infuriated me because sound logic led to me folding the best hand after the river and I would have tripled up. If only I had put everybody on A-K and hoped for the best…

To set the scene, I was playing in a multi-table freezeout tournament when after a lull of activity I woke up with A-A under-the-gun, meaning I was first to act pre-flop. I raised the pot to four times the big blind and given my recent inactivity and my position this should have looked strong to any keen observers. To explain this further, a raise from early position will generally represent strength because it is a high-risk play to try and bluff everybody with a whole table left to act. Who knows what you could run into. Somebody raising to steal the blinds is therefore much more likely to do so from middle-to-late position. There was no reason to assume that my raise wasn’t bonafide and therefore one might assume that most players would only call me with strong holdings of their own. But ‘most players’ aren’t ‘all players’ and herein lay the start of my problems. Two players called me in middle positions and I had never seen either one of them play a significant hand before.

My next complication was to be the board after the flop came K-Q-3 and I bet strongly and both players called quickly. Experience has led me to be very wary in this scenario. Let’s just say that I wasn’t chuckling to myself about how much money I was about to win with my overpair. Instead, I was already concerned that one or both players had K-Q or a set. Then a jack turn card made my heart sink still further. Let me explain my rationale at this point. I was now losing if either player held K-Q, K-J, Q-J, K-K, Q-Q, J-J, 3-3 or A-10. Admittedly, a couple of these hands seemed unlikely but there were just so many, and what else could they be calling with? Any lower pairs would surely have been folded on the flop and the list of realistic hands where I was still winning with A-A seemed short and unlikely. Maybe they could both have A-K or A-Q? Wishful thinking surely.

The river card brought a five that didn’t seem too threatening but since I assumed the damage was already done this offered scant consolation. I checked my hand and desperately hoped my two opponents would do likewise or at least bet light. No such luck. An all-in bet from one was swiftly followed by an all-in call from player two. The pot was now massive but I just couldn’t see how I could call with my own tournament life at stake. Had I believed that I would win here even 1 in 3 times I might well have called, given the value and size of the pot. Of course I folded and what I saw was somewhat sole-destroying.

Opponent 1 had J-10, or third pair with an average kicker. He had called the pre-flop raise quite loosely, then unsurprisingly followed his straight draw on the flop. He picked up a pair on the turn giving him more outs before effectively bluffing all-in at the end having seen my weakness. I would say this move was still optimistic considering the third party in the hand. And so it proved as opponent 2 claimed the glory with K-9. In other words my solitary overpair would have triumphed over both. But could I realistically have assumed that this guy was taking on my big pre-flop under-the-gun raise with K-9? He was certainly never folding once he hit top pair and kicker concerns clearly never entered his mind.

It was an interesting example of how hazardous it can be to be confronted by two dubious aggressive players in one hand. Had Player 1 checked at the end with J-10, given that he had some showdown value, it may well have been a different story. Player 2 with K-9 might well have checked out as well, thus handing me victory. Equally, had I only been confronted by one all-in it would have much more conceivable to call. I console myself with the conviction that 9 times out of 10 it would have been a good fold given the information I had to work with. It’s not good to become a guy who can never lay down aces anyway. That said, I could have done with all those chips.

Simon Ballou writes for Oddschecker Poker

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Stop And Go

Monday, January 19th, 2009

There often comes a time in a tournament when your chip stack is dwindling and you start looking for an opportunity to move all-in pre-flop with any half decent start cards. There is however an alternative approach which can be effective at the right moment called the stop-and-go play. This is the act of calling a pre-flop raise, often from the big blind seat, with the intention of betting out first – and you must be first to act – on almost any flop. This bet will often be an all-in manoeuvre and is arguable most effective as such. For the play to be effective there is an element of luck involved but not nearly so much as you might expect. The timing of the stop-and-go should be based on a number of factors that can increase the likelihood of success.

So why is the stop-and-go a good idea in general terms? One simple reason would be that many flops won’t really hit anybody and consequently the first person to bet will often triumph. To some extent this is the same reason why the continuation bet from a pre-flop raiser is frequently effective. It’s good to be the aggressor. Of course it’s more likely that the flop helps nobody when fewer players are involved meaning that the stop-and-go is best utilised in a head-to-head scenario.

Another positive is if the stop-and-go bet forces a fold then a decent pot has been won without a showdown. Too many showdowns with all your chips in the middle will soon see you eliminated even if you are often the favourite. Winning pots uncontested is a good thing. So crucially, how likely is the opponent to fold to this bet? Well not very is the answer, if your chip stack is tiny. This play requires you to have enough chips to make your opponent consider the limited merits of calling with very little or nothing. Assuming your stack gives you this ‘fold equity’ then your rival should be reluctant to call simply because he has only the turn and river cards remaining to improve his hand.

Compare this with the alternative where you push quite a short-stack all-in pre-flop. Let’s say that you hold A-10o in the big blind when the blinds are 200-400 and you have 3000 chips remaining. The big stack bully has raised you from late position for the umpteenth time. You need 1000 chips to call but think you’re probably ahead so you move all-in. The big stack has outstanding value to call with pretty well any 2 cards in this scenario with the pot odds on offer, and a showdown is inevitable. Let’s say he has 9-7suited and therefore a 40% chance of success against your A-10 in a pre-flop clash. Now let’s take the alternative option of the stop-and-go ploy. If the flop arrives J-3-5 (none of his suit) and misses you both then your all-in bet gives the big stack much more to think about. He may still only have 2000 chips to call to make it a pot of 7000 but nothing after the flop is considerably worse than nothing before it, especially without a high start card. His hopes of success are now worse than 26% against you’re A-10 and vitally he has to accept the possibility that you are a much stronger favourite even that that. Were you to hold a Jack then his chances of winning may be as low as 6%. In other words he has to fold.

Cynics may suggest that in this example a pre-flop all-in would have also won, and for a larger pot, as a further 2000 chips would have gone in to ensure the showdown. It is indeed true that the pot would have been larger but with that would come the additional risk of the turn and river cards being revealed. A nine or a seven on either of those and it’s a very different story. But the stop-and-go also has the further golden potential to allow you to win with the worst hand. Imagine this time that you hold A-Q and your opponent has 5-5. If your all-in bet comes after a flop of 8-9-10 how can your rival call? There are so many hands that beat him and even if he does ‘work out’ that he is ahead then you still have about a 40% chance of improving your hand to win.

The notions of your opponent calling for value, or simply because he’s a guy who can’t fold are important. The stop-and-go play is normally a semi-bluff and can be a total bluff in which case it’s best employed against an opponent who is able to lay down a hand. That said, some calls from dubious opponents maybe mathematical errors as suggested by the A-10 example above and could work in your favour anyway.

But far be it from me to suggest that the stop-and-go is some miraculous move that can’t be beaten. My biggest reservation about it is that it screams weakness. Anybody who makes this play will create suspicion in their opponents and will be seen as highly unlikely to have a great hand. Furthermore, there will be many occasions when you will run into a monster hand yourself and crash out of the tournament. But if you’re a short stack looking to push all-in pre-flop then it will all end in tears many times anyway so it’s always a gamble. But hopefully the examples above at least show that there is more than one way to scrap for survival.

Simon Ballou writes for Oddschecker Poker

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BB Special

Monday, January 12th, 2009

Nailing a flop after calling with or checking mediocre cards in the big blind is one of poker’s all-too-rare delights. It’s like finding a £10 note down the back of the sofa; an unexpected bonus made all the sweeter by the lack of expectation. Over the course of several hours playing a multi-table event you will probably be able to see a flop quite cheaply from the big blind on numerous occasions and the vast majority of the time it will come to nothing. It’s typically a frustrating time when your chip stack withers away and you feel increasingly inclined, or desperate, to make a move. But then, once in a blue moon, your seemingly pitiful 3-7o becomes the hand of your dreams when you flop two pair. The challenge then is to win the pot, and hopefully a big one at that.

It’s an old adage that you never know which two cards will win you your biggest hand of the day. The main reason for this, when it comes to textbook players who don’t tend to enter pots with a wide range of hands, is the ‘bb special’ as it is affectionately known. The big blind becomes the seat where you are most likely to get involved with ‘trash’ because you already have chips committed to the pot whether you like it or not. So if nobody raises then you see a flop for ‘nothing’ and even if there is a small raise and multiple callers then you may be priced in to call because of the pot odds on offer. Incidentally, another incentive to call with meagre holdings on the big blind is that a call from you will often end the pre-flop activity. In any other seat the decision to get involved is always complicated by concern that another player still to act could re-raise.

If we focus on 3-7o as our start cards then we still need to play a flop of say 3-7-10 correctly. It has to be seen as a great flop to be played hard but with awareness of dangers that could lie ahead. As always we need to consider how our opponents play, what range of hands they could realistically hold and how many people are in the pot. As a general rule the more players in the hand the less advisable it is to slowplay almost anything too much. If there are five others in the pot then trying to imagine all the hand ranges and pitfalls that could befall you is nigh on impossible so get on with betting the hand, and hard. In fact, given your poor position at the table from the big blind and the vulnerability of bottom two pair don’t slowplay here if there is more than one rival involved. That last sentence can be expanded on in much greater detail. Firstly, position is poor because you will act before anybody else at the table, other than the small blind. This is a disadvantage because you have no further information to act upon to assess how strong your opponents are and how many of them seem to like the flop. Furthermore, checking is dangerous because if nobody bets at all then you have allowed everybody else a free card to improve with. At best, you will still be ahead but even then you will have missed a major opportunity to build the pot up.

My reference to the ‘vulnerability of bottom two pair’ is the key to this whole play though. 3-7 is the weakest of the strong hands you can hold on this flop because there are still two cards to come. If the turn card brings an ace and there are still several players in the hand then you need to be concerned. Suddenly anybody holding A-3, A-7 or A-10 has you beat. Let’s then imagine that the river card brings a queen. The hands that can beat you now also include Q-10, K-J and A-Q not to mention the likes of Q-3 that players are less likely to be calling with pre-flop. The key point to realise is that once any five cards are down the numbers of two pair possibilities are numerous and you probably can’t beat any of them with 3-7. Now consider the possibility that the turn and river pair, 5 and 5 for example, and appreciate how this destroys the strength of your hand to the point where you may not even be able to call down with it. You must also be aware what a disaster another 10 coming down is for you. In other words, a magical flop has given you a great spot but one which is riddled with the threat of outdraw. And I haven’t even mentioned the flush and straight possibilities for once!

None of this is intended to be too pessimistic. It simply serves as a warning against slowplaying. If you run a high risk of being outdrawn then bet your hand to reduce the field. At least charge people for the privilege of chasing you down. The good news is that if bottom two pair is played fast out of the big blind then it is beautifully disguised and still pretty likely to hold-up and get you paid off nicely. Yes, I know I haven’t mentioned the threat of a flopped set at any point in this. But you just can’t afford to think like that when you flop two pair. I thought I’d take a week off from dwelling on Hold’em’s cruel set-ups for once.

Simon Ballou writes for Oddschecker Poker

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New Beginnings

Monday, January 5th, 2009

Like most people I’m tempted to see the dawn of 2009 as a good time to take stock of different aspects of my life. The desire to shed a stone and a half in weight is now so relentlessly tedious that I can’t help but see it as a New Year’s Pipe Dream rather than some sort of resolution. However, in my personal world of poker there has been a significant development as I’ve committed myself to the promising world of a new gaming site. The standard of opposition I face will remain broadly the same but the move is important because of the often ignored factors of ‘rake’ and ‘rakeback’ that are now vital in the world of online poker.

I’m embarrassed to say that there was a time – not so long ago – when I analysed poker success purely in terms of the turn of the card. By this I mean I saw profit and loss in their most basic forms, with scant regard for the issue of rake. The ‘rake’ is essentially a fee taken by the house every time one of us enters a tournament or plays a hand in a cash game. To put things in my familiar SNG context if I enter a $55 tournament, only $50 of that contributes to the prize pool. So if there are 10 players then we all create a total prize pool of $500. The remaining $5 of my entry fee is classified as rake and claimed by the house or website simply for providing the software and forum to bring players together. Taking this 10% fee is standard practice and it isn’t hard to see how the business of hosting online poker has become so lucrative.

If we look at the consequence of this situation more closely then we’ll see that it’s not enough to be as good as your opponents to just break even. For example, what would happen at the $55 SNG level if 10 players were identically matched in terms of skill and luck? In this hypothetical scenario it would be logical to conclude that every player would have an equal opportunity of finishing in every position between 1st and 10th. We could assume that these clones would simply take turns finishing in the different spots as they can’t be distinguished by behaviour or fortune. Therefore, every player would have one 1st, one 2nd, one 3rd and the rest outside of the money positions (4th to 10th) over the course of 10 games. The money recouped would be $250 (1st), $150 (2nd) and $100 (3rd), totalling $500. But the cost of entering these 10 games with the rake is $550, resulting in an overall loss of $50 for every single person. The House is the only winner.

If we assume that in the longest possible term that all luck is equal then you would need to be significantly better than your opponents to beat the rake and start making net profit. This point can be illustrated clearly by looking at the example of a high-volume SNG player who enters 800 tournaments (all $55 entries) in the course of a month. The total cost of these entries will be $44,000 with a whopping $4000 of that as rake. In the previous example we demonstrated how if all things were equal then every player would ‘get in the money’ 30% of the time with an equal dispersion between 1st, 2nd and 3rd. This time let’s say that our player is better than average and this leads to better than average results.

Out of 800 games he finishes 1st 10% of the time, winning $20,000. (80 games x $250 = $20,000)
Out of 800 games he finishes 2nd 12% of the time, winning $14,400. (96 games x $150 = $14,400.)
Out of 800 games he finishes 3rd 12% of the time, winning $9,600. (96 games x $100 = $9,600.

So here we see that our high-volume player has achieved more profitable results by finishing 2nd and 3rd more frequently than an average player. He has ‘made the money’ a reasonable 34% of the time over 800 games. But how much has he won from that initial $44,000 investment? $20,000 + $14,400 + $9,600 = $44,000. That’s right; once the rake is accounted for he has broken even. It hardly seems fair does it? Well the good news is that almost all sites offer rakeback deals now that can make all the difference.

Rakeback deals offer you a percentage of the money back that you have spent on fees. Last year I was claiming 25% back, meaning that in the above example I would be $1000 in profit, rather than breaking even. Now I have discovered an even more enticing deal that could be in the region of 50%. In the above example that would suddenly make my profit in the region of $2000, so the importance of this issue shouldn’t be understated. It could even be the difference between winning money and losing money at poker. The irony is that even though you’re just getting a share of your own money back it feels like a hard-earned bonus!

Simon Ballou writes for Oddschecker Poker

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