Quote of the Day

Today's QOTD is brought to you by the game of Omaha:
"Pre-flop I had a good hand, but I'd only seen 4 of my 2 cards."

Ran across that on the Internet and was really reflecting on how much Omaha seems like high stakes coin flipping.

Loose Calls, Implied Odds, and Reads

This hand from tonight has been bugging me since it happened, so I figgered I'd throw 'er up on the ole' blog and see what people think about it.

The setting is Wednesday night poker. It's 6 handed late into the night, effective stacks are around 200 BB at this point. I'm in middle position, and I have 4 3 offsuit. It's limped to me, I limp along, and a few more limpers come along as well.

The flop is 4 6 Q, rainbow. Jason leads out for 6 into the 10-ish pot. There's a fold behind me, I call the 6. Marshall calls the 6. Matt, on the button, raises to 26.

Jason calls, and here's where it gets tricky for me. I'm putting Matt on at least a Q here, but I'm definitely not ruling out two pair or trips. I'm looking at bottom pair and definitely do not feel good about it, but I have 5 outs to two pair or trips. My outs are all very clean, I don't expect someone to make a better two pair or a straight if I hit one of them. Therefore, I call the additional 20, hoping Marshall will come along as well.

He obliges. The turn is a beautiful 3, giving me bottom two pair and bringing a flush draw to the board. Jason checks to me, and I check, intending to checkraise. Marsh checks. Matt puts out a very sizable bet of 60 into the 100+ pot. Unexpectedly, Jason calls!

All the sudden I feel like I'm in a tricky spot. Do I raise? My two pair's probably good here, and given my flop assessment of my outs I should feel great about it. But what's going to call me? A better two pair is definitely possible given all the junky hands we were limping with. And Matt is betting HARD here, do I really want to push into what could be a flopped set? Top pair is going to start getting freaked and will likely fold.

I ended up just calling, and Marsh called the 60 as well.

The river was a four, giving me bottom boat. Here's where it just gets embarassing for me... Jason checks, I try to think of a pay-me-off bet, and accidentally make a checking motion with my chip handlin' hand. Oooops. It checks through and I win.

So where did I go wrong here? Should I have stuck to my read and raised it on the turn? I'm completely denying myself the implied odds I thought I had on the flop if I miss a bet here. In addition, I'm letting Marsh or Jason call profitably to draw out on my fragile two pair.

I felt like I won the pot through lucky donkey plays, and did not feel good about my play at all here. What should I have done differently?

Man versus machine

John Henry versus steam power, Kasparov versus Deep Blue, and now...Phil Laak versus Polaris, a poker playing computer program. Everyone knows that you can pick off online n00bs on the Internets with bot software. But can a computer stand up against professional players like Phil Laak and Ali Eslami? The University of Alberta wanted to find out. To their credit, they set up a very fair format. There were four rounds of 500 hands per round. In each round there are two heads-up matches between a carbon player and a silicon player. The hands however are identical so Phil gets AK versus the computer's QQ on the same hand that Ali gets QQ against the computer's AK in order to factor out card rushes from the competition. The other main thing that struck me was that the game was limit Hold'em. With all due respect to Andy Beal, I think getting a robot to play limit is a much easier nut to crack than PL or NL.

Cliffs Notes version: Statistical draw first round. Polaris wins second round. Humans win final two rounds. Not sure if humans just took a little while to dial into the bot tactics. Phil Laak was up. Ali Eslami was down but not enough to offset Phil's winnings. Overall: Humans were up in cash total as well as match results.

Details of the challenge. And for those ROT'ers out there, here are the results including link to hand histories.

TNP Online Poker Challenge

Ok kids lets set some guidelines and goals. It was brought up in the other bankroll post, and I think it's an awesome idea.

Whomever is in starts a CakePoker account, deposits the same amount as everyone else, and we see what we can get it to in a given amount of time or whatever.

$50.00 (ahem play money naturally since we live in WA ahem cough) seems reasonable. I think the guidelines should be something like you can do whatever you want (SNG, micro, take shots) strategy wise, but you have to be honest and report your situations. What limits did you play? How were you playing? Hand histories?

We should set a time frame and see who can build it up the most (or not go busto at least). It would be really really interesting to see we all approach it and what works and doesn't work.

I think this would be more of a learning experience than a competition per se. I know you guys have to have more ideas involving this, so let's hear 'em!

Forward motion binding?

If any of you saw the HSP episode where Laak and asks for a ruling on whether or not Todd Brunson's forward motion is binding, here is the post on his blog about that incident.

As for WNP, if anyone pulls a stunt like Brunson and does a fake bet with forward motion of your hand but pulls it back, you are going to get a frowny face on your next report card instead of a gold star. Please don't do crap like that. Let this serve as a warning. Oh and by the way, I think the best penalty for doing that in a heads up situation would be that the other player gets to determine if the forward motion is considered a call or a fold. Thank you.

Ryan controlling pot size

I'm just going to make a blanket disclaimer for all blog posts from here on out that I can have really crappy hand recall. So if I ever screw up a hand just correct me.

Anyway, as I recall, this hand with Ryan went something like this: Shorthanded five way action at Kahlua's table last Friday. Based on the action I think I must have been in one of the blinds and Ryan was in position on me. He tells me later that he had AQ so I have to assume that he raised (probably to seven or eight) and I called with Ac3c. As Ryan knows, Ax suited is definitely within my range of hands. I'm a sucker for the nut flush, it gives me an excuse for hitting low paired boards, it is simple to calculate pot odds if I hit four to the flush, gives me a disguised two pair, and I can get away from hitting my Ace/crappy kicker. So back to the hand, the flop comes out 9TQ two clubs so I fire a pot-ish sized bet. Ryan hems and haws and makes what appears to be the most painful call of his life. Turn comes a non-Club K. Well now my hand is improved to a double nut draw because I can catch a Jack for Broadway or a club for the nut flush. I fire a second shell with my Ace high/no kicker double-nutter. Ryan makes a reluctant fold.

Immediately after the hand Ryan jumps into the confessional and divulges his hand, AQ(os?). I remarked that I found it surprising that he didn't pop my bet with top/top. He then went on to elaborate that he knew that I (being stuck at that point) was willing to gamble and if he raised that I could very well re-raise him if I had any reasonable draw, then he would have to either commit more chips or fold. At that point of the night I think Ryan had already had his stack dented in a JJ-AK race with Marsh but with still a healthy stack to worry about which I think entered into the measured response. During the play of the hand I specifically recall being perplexed by Ryan's call on the flop. It truly struck me as an odd response. I did not read it as a slow played monster hand. I did not read it as a "let me calculate odds" pause. After Ryan's explanation the whole thing made a lot more sense. The strategy was to let a blank fall on the turn and then proceed from there. Worst possible card would have been Kc but the K alone was enough for Ryan to be done with the hand. I was surprised that he took that tack because Ryan attacks pots as much as I bleed of chips on draws. Can't say that I blame him though. That flop was certainly not the most AQ friendly Q high flop ever invented and his read on my state of gamble was definitely spot on so it ended up being a reasonable exercise in not getting involved in a pot bigger than he wanted. As is he got away with only investing about 30 chips in a hand that I could easily have dumped my whole stack into. I'm actually reading a book currently that has a lot of information about controlling pot size and pot commitment so seeing Ryan base his unorthodox (for him) call on the flop made a lot of sense since it achieved his objective of trying to not invest too much until he saw the board develop more.

Found: Steamboat Timmy

Marsh burnt me a DVD with some WSOP coverage. I was watching the 7cs final table and who should be dealing to Lisandro, Negreanu, and company but my good friend Steamboat Timmy from Caesars Palace as chronicled here.

Back in May he sat down at my table and this guy was steaming bad. He was in a yelling match at a different table before coming over to my 1/3 table. Then after he sat down at my table he got into a couple of heated discussions about the rules or procedures and he insisted that the dealer was incorrect. He wasn't to the point of calling the Floor over but he just could not let the disagreement drop as he kept bitching about it for a number of hands after the infraction. The ironic thing was that after he raked in a pot he would STILL tip the dealer then added a comment to the table with words to the effect of "I'm pissed but I'm not a dick! I'm in the industry!" Well it looks like we found out his role.

Bankroll management

Since the topic of bankroll management came up last night I thought I post about Full Tilt's Chris Ferguson Challenge. Jesus started an account with zip, zilch, nada. He then played in freerolls so he didn't have to post any money and placed high enough and often enough to build up a real money bankroll that he could play either tourneys or cash games with. He had passed the $10,000 (in real money!) barrier a while ago though he has dipped below that for now.

Of course he has skill and experience but he also credits his bankroll management as a reason he was able to generate so much money from nothing. His rules were as follows:

• He never buys into a cash game or a Sit & Go with more than 5 percent of his total bankroll (there is an exception for the lowest limits: he is allowed to buy into any game with a buy-in of $2.50 or less).
• He doesn’t buy into a multi-table tournament for more than 2 percent of his total bankroll, but he’s allowed to buy into any multi-table tournament that costs $1.
• If at any time during a No-Limit or Pot-Limit cash-game session the money on the table represents more than 10 percent of his total bankroll, he must leave the game when the blinds reach him.

In his blog post about the challenge he remarks:

"Even today, people don't believe it's really me when I sit down at Full Tilt's small stakes games. They ask what I'm doing down here, and often tell me stories about how they turned $5 into $500 or $100 into $1,000. Usually, these stories end with the person telling me that they went broke. There's no surprise there. These folks tried to quickly build a bankroll by gambling. They'd play in a game that was beyond their bankroll and, if they happened to win, they'd move up to a higher limit and risk it all one more time. Inevitably, they'd lose a few big hands and go broke."

I think this is a brilliant campaign by Full Tilt and I applaud Jesus for having the patience and discipline to execute the challenge. Looks like he started in about Mach 2006 and you've got to figure over that year+ that he must have had so many times when he was down at micro-limits and shaking his head in disgust at the screen as he watched severe d0nkage. His perseverance is remarkable especially in light of the fact that he could probably whip out 10K in cash as easily as we could pull $100 out of our wallets. Congrats to Chris on his accomplishment and take from it what you will about bankroll management.

lol internet

A few internet hands for you guys to ponder.

All of them are short handed (5-6 players) with $0.25-$.50 blinds. No reads on anyone I'm playing against because I'm a multitabling superstar who doesn't have time for reads.


Hand 1

Hero's got J♦J♥ on the cut-off. MP folds, I raise to $2. Button and SB fold, BB re-raises to $6.50. (No reads on him at this point)

The flop comes 4♦9♦2♦. BB bets $8 into the $13 pot.

Hero calls, turn is a Q♦. BB pushes his last $37 into the $29 pot.

Hero...


Hand 2

Hero has 3♠3♦ on the button. Villain raises it to $1.75 from the hijack. Cutoff calls, hero calls.

Flop is 6♥8♥9♦. Villain bets $2.85 into the $6 pot. CO folds.

Hero calls. Turn is T♠. Villain bets $5.85 into the $11 pot. Hero calls.

River is A♣. Villain bets $5 into the $23 pot.

Hero raises to $25... Villain has $50 left and covers hero. Good or bad?


Hand 3

Hero has K♠K♦ in the BB. Three people limp, SB folds, and hero raises to $3. Two callers to the flop...

8♣5♦J♠. Hero bets $6 into the $9 pot. Button calls.

Turn 3♣. Hero checks, button bets $2 into the $22 pot.

Hero...



BONUS BAD BEAT HAND!!! (I'm 'tgijvs')

Stupid river. Worst street in hold'em imho.