Archive for August, 2009

In My Shell

Monday, August 17th, 2009

‘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

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

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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