Rabbit Plays Poker

Small Blind Problem

2005-09-07T11:46:00.000-07:00

The interesting discussion of small-blind play on this week’s Lord Admiral Card Club podcast got me thinking about some recent hands I’ve played in SNGs. The small blind is indeed the trickiest position to play well. Try thinking out the following hand; it’s not a real hand but is a composite of many. The way I’d play it is written in white letters underneath the action on each street. Highlight the blank spaces to see my take. No reading ahead, and no copping out by saying “I would have played it differently on an earlier street”. Pretend your buddy played the hand up to that point and then had to run to the bathroom.

Level 1 of a $55 no-limit hold’em SNG, first hand. All players have 1000 chips. The blinds are 10/15 and you’re on the small blind. You’re dealt AdKd. A mid-position player limps and the button limps. What’s your play and why?

Answer: This decision is a lot closer than it appears. You’ll be playing out of position for the rest of the hand, and in no-limit hold’em your position is almost as important as your cards, especially when the money is deep. However, suited Big Slick is a very strong hand, and you’d be wasting an opportunity if you didn’t try to extract maximum value. I’d put in an approximately pot-sized raise. Raising here is the equivalent of doubling down with 11 against the dealer’s 10 in blackjack – a +EV but high-variance play. With a slightly weaker hand like AKo or TT, I would be more likely to simply call.

You raise to 75, the big blind folds and both limpers call. The pot is now 240. The flop comes 9d 6d 4h. What’s your action?

Answer: Bet! That’s a great flop for your hand. You have two big overcards and the nut flush draw, giving you 15 outs twice against an opponent with one pair – that’s just about even money. And by betting, you may induce incorrect folds by opponents with hands like 33 or 76, as well as correct folds by hands like QJ (you’d rather bet and have QJ correctly fold, than check and give a free card). You know how everybody says you should play tight-aggressive? Well, this is the aggressive part. You need to make a sizable bet, at least 2/3 of the pot. If you said “check and call”, you are playing weak-tight. That’s a serious leak in your game that needs to be addressed before you play SNGs above the $10 level.

You bet 160. The first limper folds and the button calls. There are now 560 chips in the pot and you both have 765 chips left. The turn card is the Jh. What’s your action?

Answer: Poker is a tough game, isn’t it? You don’t have much information about your opponent’s hand – that’s the drawback of playing out of position. I will say that you are unlikely to be way behind at this point. It would be hard for him to have two pair on such a ragged board. A set is always a possibility, but you can’t live in fear of that. So your options are essentially: check with the intention of calling a reasonable bet; bet all-in; or bet a lesser amount. Checking is the worst option. If your opponent is drawing, a check gives him a free card; if he has a pair, your check tells him that his hand is good. The second-worst option is betting all-in. An all-in is, ironically, more likely to be called than a smaller bet, because by overbetting you are clearly saying that you don’t want a call. I believe the best play is to bet about 300. That’s an effective pressure bet against an opponent with one pair: you are representing an overpair, and you have enough chips left to potentially make a large bet on the river. An opponent holding a hand like T9 or 88 will have a very tough call here. This is what Ciaffone and Reuben refer to as “knowing when to fire the second barrel”, i.e. lead out on the turn after betting the flop. It’s one of the trickiest decisions in no-limit hold’em.

You bet 300, and the button quickly calls. You each now have 465 chips and the pot is 1160. The river is the As. What’s your action?

Answer: You must check. Checking seems counterintuitive, because the river improved your hand, but with a little thought, the logic becomes obvious. If your opponent has a smaller pair, that ace will likely convince him that he’s beaten (if he wasn’t already) and he won’t call a large bet. If he was drawing to a flush, he obviously cannot call anything. If he made aces up, he will happily go all-in no matter what you do. So betting makes no sense; you can’t make a superior hand fold, and a lesser hand is unlikely to call. Check, and give him a chance to bluff at this big pot. (You might want to hesitate a little before checking, as a false tell.) Call any bet. If he made aces up, so be it. There’s no way you can release the hand at this point. Note: another option would be to make a small “milking” bet of 150 chips or so. That’s a more advanced play that deserves a post of its own. Suffice to say that in this situation I’d rather try to induce a steal.

You wait about 15 seconds and then check. The button goes all-in, and you call. He shows QdTd. He had quite a few outs, but that ace wasn’t one of them. You doubled up on the first hand! Well played!

Well, that's one way to play the game

2005-09-04T09:51:00.000-07:00

Game #814942954: Texas Hold'em No Limit (25/50) - 2005/09/04 - 12:44:15 (ET)
Table "CPC_TIME 1012910 - 39" Seat 5 is the button.
Seat 1: vinna (2575 in chips)
Seat 2: PokerRabbit (2625 in chips)
Seat 3: Rich89e88 (6395 in chips)
Seat 4: Qwackers (4275 in chips)
Seat 5: LancerYD (2995 in chips)
Seat 6: ThomasCSS (2605 in chips)
Seat 7: Vendetta (2525 in chips)
Seat 8: TheKooK (5810 in chips)
Seat 9: BRADSZ2 (1345 in chips)
Seat 10: Monachris (2775 in chips)
ThomasCSS: posts small blind 25
Vendetta: posts big blind 50
----- HOLE CARDS -----
dealt to PokerRabbit [Qc Qh]
TheKooK: calls 50
BRADSZ2: calls 50
Monachris: calls 50
vinna: calls 50
PokerRabbit: raises to 400
Rich89e88: folds
Qwackers: folds
LancerYD: folds
ThomasCSS: folds
Vendetta: folds
TheKooK: folds
BRADSZ2: raises to 1345 and is all-in
Monachris: folds
vinna: folds
PokerRabbit: calls 945
----- FLOP ----- [3h 4c 3d]
----- TURN ----- [3h 4c 3d][5c]
----- RIVER ----- [3h 4c 3d 5c][Tc]
BRADSZ2 sits out
----- SHOW DOWN -----
BRADSZ2: shows [8s Ac] (A Pair of Threes, Ace high)
PokerRabbit: shows [Qc Qh] (Two Pairs, Queens and Threes, Ten high)
PokerRabbit collected 2915 from Main pot
----- SUMMARY -----
Total pot 2915 Main pot 2915 Rake 0
Board [3h 4c 3d 5c Tc]
Seat 1: vinna folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: PokerRabbit showed [Qc Qh] and won (2915) with Two Pairs, Queens and
Threes, Ten highSeat 3: Rich89e88 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: Qwackers folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: LancerYD (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: ThomasCSS (small blind) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: Vendetta (big blind) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: TheKooK folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 10: Monachris folded before Flop (didn't bet)

Don't Fear the Reaper

2005-08-29T13:37:00.000-07:00

... but tremble before the IRS. (And I would know -- I used to work for them.)

Iggy has a good post up about taxes and gambling, and so does Taxable Talk. The news is not good, and explodes a lot of cherished myths that are so often repeated on the 2+2 boards.

First of all, just because your poker income derives from offshore sites, that doesn't mean you don't have to report it (or even that you can defer reporting it until you actually cash out). Just ask anyone who makes money from offshore investments -- poker works the same way. If the money is in an account under your name, and you are free to withdraw it, it's yours and you must pay taxes on it.

Second, you must report ALL winnings under "other income" (line 21 on the 2004 1040), which means you add up every winning session and report the total. Losses are reported later, as an itemized deduction in Schedule A. Yes, this means you are basically screwed if you don't itemize deductions. And even if you do itemize, you can only deduct losses to the extent of your winnings, and your winnings may very well put you in a higher tax bracket. Consequently, nearly all winning players, and even some losing ones, have to pay extra taxes. Intended? Probably not, but that's the law, and the IRS will take every penny they are legally entitled to.

Finally, it is essential to keep detailed records. When it comes to taxes, there is no presumption of innocence. The burden of proof is on the taxpayer. Please don't assume you won't be audited because you are "too small to bother with". The IRS is not stupid, and they understand the necessity of making an example of the small fry tax evader. If they really only went after rich people and corporations, as some believe, they would be faced with rampant tax cheating by the self-employed, waitresses, poker dealers, etc. I know of one casino whose employees were audited en masse because the floorpeople, dealers, chip runners, and cocktail waitresses were "not reporting enough tip income". Let me repeat: the IRS is not stupid, and you would be absolutely amazed at the extent to which the law is on their side.

Can the IRS see withdrawals from a Neteller account? Definitely, if you withdraw to a US bank account. If you withdraw via debit card, I'm not sure. Since Neteller is not an American bank, the IRS would have no legal means of compelling their cooperation; however, I suspect that if they really wanted to, they would be able to obtain the records. Canada is not Iran, after all. The Canadians have no interest in helping Americans conceal income or launder money.

There is one positive note. Even though online gambling is illegal in the United States, you will almost certainly not be prosecuted for reporting it on a 1040. There are legal barriers in place that prevent the IRS from freely sharing information with law enforcement agencies; and even if they could, the legal status of online gambling is so nebulous that I doubt any prosecutor would bother taking action. It is much, much harder to prosecute someone for a crime than it is to fine them for tax evasion.

I'm a star!

2005-08-29T09:05:00.000-07:00

OK, not really, but it was still pretty cool to be mentioned on the Lord Admiral podcast yesterday. They talked about my take on Columbo's One Minute Mystery. Unfortunately the discussion centered more on slowplaying in the abstract than on this particular hand, and I still am 95% sure I was right about this one :). No need to rehash it though. I laid my case out in the "One Minute Mystery" post, and folks can make up their own minds.

I do agree with the point that slowplaying/trapping is overused and often misused by many players. Like Cinci Sean, I've also been saved a lot of money by weak players deciding to slowplay against me. But like someone (I forget who) mentioned on the show, instinct plays a big role here. My instinct on this hand would definitely be to trap and try to get the money in on the flop rather than preflop. YMMV.

Thanks for taking the time to respond on air, guys, and as always, your show rocked.

When Playing Bad is Playing Good

2005-08-26T15:40:00.000-07:00

Example.

Last hand of the Bodog $109 tournament this weekend. I’m down to 525 chips at the 25/50 limit and raise to 200 under the gun with pocket tens. I’m called by one big stack and one late-position player who has about 800 chips. The flop comes 9-5-5, I push in my last 325, the big stack folds, and the short stack insta-calls me with QJo. Turn is a Q and I’m done.

So why did this annoy me? Both his preflop and postflop calls were actually correct according to the fundamental theorem! If he had magically been able to see my cards, he would have played the hand exactly the same way. (On the flop, he is a 3:1 dog and getting slightly more than 3:1 pot odds.) But given that he couldn’t see my cards, his play was absolutely terrible. His postflop call is only correct if I hold a pocket pair less than jacks. If I have AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AQ, AJ, KQ, or KJ, all of which are entirely possible and which I play the same way, he’s dominated with 3 outs or less. He’s not even quite getting the odds to call a bet from AK (since AK has a bigger redraw than a pocket pair). And it is unlikely I’d have something like JT, QT or even a pair less than 10s, given that I was short-stacked and raised over a third of my stack under the gun. His terrible call turned out to be a great one.

Another example. $200 NL cash game, 6-handed, blinds are $1-$2. This is only my third orbit and there has been little action, so I have no reads. I’m on the big blind with Kc2h. The button limps, the SB completes and I check. Flop AcKhKd. SB checks, I check (thinking nobody has anything and the only money I’ll make is from a possible steal attempt by the button). Button checks, telling me that he has nothing and there’s no need to slowplay any more. Turn is the 6c. The SB leads out with a $4 bet, which I raise to $12. The button folds, and the SB goes all-in for another $60 and change. Hmm… decision time. In the absence of any read, I decide I pretty much have to assume he has a full house or a king with a good kicker, and I fold. He shows me K4. As it happened, he played it exactly right for the hand I held, getting me out of what would almost certainly have been a split pot, but his play would have been wrong for any other possible raising hand of mine (except K3). If I have a king with a decent kicker, or a full house, I obviously call him, but I can’t call him with an ace or a flush draw… the classic definition of a bet that can only get action from a better hand. I told him what I mucked and he didn’t believe me, which pretty much proves he made the right play for the wrong reasons.

Basically, it irks me when somebody makes a terrible play that turns out to have been correct in that single circumstance. Taking bad beats doesn’t bother me, because I know the cards will even out in the long run. But it’s so damn frustrating when I take a good beat that still shouldn’t have happened if my opponent hadn’t been a total donkey! Another example of this is when one player raises all-in preflop with 99, I reraise all-in with JJ, and a third player with KQ overcalls and hits a king or queen to triple up. I can’t simply say “he made a bad call”, because in fact he made a good call, but he still shouldn’t have made it based on the ranges of hands his opponents could hold. I need to think of a name for this type of beat. How about the Blind Pig beat? (As in, even a blind pig finds an acorn every now and then.)

Mystery Solved

2005-08-23T07:39:00.000-07:00

Since James already got the right answer, I’ll go ahead and post the solution to yesterday’s puzzle.

Scenario: There are two tables left in the tournament, and you have 26,000 in chips – an average stack. The blinds are 600/1200 and you’re dealt Q7o on the big blind. An extremely tough and tricky player open-limps in the cutoff, and the button (another tough player) also calls. The cutoff has about 19,000 chips and the button has you both covered. The small blind folds, and you check. The flop comes Q73 rainbow – you’ve flopped top two pair. You decide to play it straightforwardly, and lead out with a 3,000 bet. The first opponent raises to 10,000 and the second player calls. How do you maximize your expected value on this hand?

Answer: Fold. (Did the line about maximizing value throw you off? The way to maximize value on a losing hand is to muck it!) What can you put these opponents on? Remember the preflop action. Neither one of them would have limped in late position with a hand like AQ or KQ – they would certainly have raised. Their limping indicates they either have a monster hand, or a speculative one such as a suited connector or a small pocket pair. On the flop, the raise to 10K from the first opponent obviously indicates strength, and in this context probably means an overpair that he slowplayed before the flop. That would be fine, of course; but what about the button’s call? A flat call of such a large bet would always look suspicious, but in this case it’s doubly suspicious because there are no draws on board, and no reasonable hand could have made a lesser two pair than yours. He could also have an overpair, but what are the chances of both players deciding to slowplay aces or kings preflop? Conclusion: the button has a set. There’s almost literally nothing else he can be calling with, unless he is a complete idiot, which we know he is not.

And that’s exactly what happened. I used my entire time bank before agonizedly mucking my top two pair. The CO went all-in for his last 8K on the turn, and the button quickly called. They showed down AA and 77 respectively. The button eliminated a tough opponent in a huge pot, and I dodged a bullet!

One Minute Mystery

2005-08-22T17:05:00.000-07:00

I was listening to yesterday's Lord Admiral Radio podcast this morning and they included a listener submission: the One Minute Mystery. It’s a quick poker scenario involving a difficult tournament hand and some discussion thereof. It was submitted by Columbo of PokerWannabe. Let me start off by saying that while I love both the podcast and the blog, in this case I completely disagree with everyone’s analysis of the hand.

Scenario: Round 2 of an online low buy-in tournament with 2000 entrants. Blinds are 10/20 and hero has 800 chips of a starting stack of 1000. Hero is dealt QQ under the gun and raises to 75. A mid-position player reraises to 130, the button flat calls, and the blinds fold. Both opponents have the hero covered. What’s the best play here?

The Lord Admiral crew was split, with all of them voicing concerns that an opponent might hold AA or KK. Cincinnati Sean felt that the best course was to call and then abandon ship unless you hit a queen on the flop; Mark and Jake advocated reraising. In the prerecorded answer segment, Columbo stated that jamming was the best option, because the probable low skill level of your opponents means they may call you with Ax-type hands that you lead by 2:1 or more.

I do agree with Columbo’s premise that your opponents are not very strong, and I don’t think you need to worry too much about AA or KK here. The mid-position player only raised the minimum, which might be suspicious from a strong player, but in this low-buy-in tournament it smells like weakness. And if the button had aces or kings, he would almost certainly have reraised; with two raises in front of him, he wouldn’t see the need to slowplay. He is probably just chasing because he thinks this will be a big pot. I agree that the most likely hands for both these opponents are AK, Ax or perhaps medium pocket pair. So you probably have the best hand, and given your stack size, you have a decent expectation of getting called for all your chips.

But why reraise before the flop? What nobody on the show seemed to recognize is that this is a premium trapping spot! By making your move preflop, you’re depriving yourself of too much information, and depriving your opponents of the opportunity to bet for you. My line in this hand would be to flat call the preflop raise, closing the action. Now you have 670 chips and the pot is 420. On the flop, no matter what falls, you check. I guarantee that someone will bet, because they will see your check as a sign of timidity and that pot is too tempting to pass up. If an A or K is on board, release your hand. But if no overcard flops, and the board is not too scary (such as three of a suit you don’t have), you spring your trap and check-raise all-in. At least one of your opponents will be committed and forced to call, and if all they hold is a smaller pair or an overcard, they are now a huge underdog to your queens – much more so than they were before the flop. On the other hand, if you are outdrawn on the flop, it will usually be obvious and you will save your remaining 670 chips, definitely a playable stack for this stage of the tournament. Compared to simply jamming preflop, you’ve increased your chance of doubling up and dramatically lowered your chance of busting out.

Trapping is a huge part of no-limit, and in order to trap you must occasionally surrender the initiative even when you’re pretty sure you have the best hand. It can be counterintuitive for limit players, or players who adhere to the “raw aggression” school of play (those players shouldn’t try to trap anyway, because they have no problem getting action). But Columbo didn't strike me as that type of player, and if there was ever a good spot to lay a trap, this hand is it.

I wrote up a little one-minute mystery of my own, based on a hand I was involved in this weekend.

Scenario: There are two tables left in the tournament, and you have 26,000 in chips – an average stack. The blinds are 600/1200 and you’re dealt Q7o on the big blind. An extremely tough and tricky player open-limps in the cutoff position, and the button (another tough player) also calls. The cutoff has about 19,000 chips and the button has you both covered. The small blind folds, and you check. The flop comes Q73 rainbow – you’ve flopped top two pair. You decide to play it straightforwardly, and lead out with a 3,000 bet. The first opponent raises to 10,000 and the second player calls. How do you maximize your expected value on this hand? Answer to be posted later this week.

Hi, my name is Poker Rabbit, and I'm a bonus whore

2005-08-08T10:25:00.000-07:00

The weekend was pretty dismal and I finished stuck about $550 for poker (being on the losing end of set-over-set in three key pots will do that). Luckily, though, I hit a royal flush on video poker while casino whoring and won a little over $1000. That made up for my poker losses and paid for some repairs on my car. If you’re not doing any casino whoring, you really should be – check out this article on Sound of a Suckout for the basics, and the Bonus Whores forums for up-to-date information. The general idea is that although casino games are not beatable, some sites offer enough bonus money to make it +EV to sign up, clear the bonus and leave. Unfortunately, if you are new to the world of whoredom, the glory days are past – the casinos have taken big financial losses from armies of bonus abusers and have tightened their requirements. (Most of the abusers are from Denmark, Israel, Poland, and especially China, where bonus whoring has become a cottage industry and is even indirectly supported by the government, in the form of how-to pamphlets and the like. The Terms and Conditions of online casinos often specifically exclude citizens of those countries, which used to make me wonder what kind of strange bigot had it in for Jews, Danes, Poles, and Chinese.)

Speaking of EV and promotions, I’ve seen a few bloggers mention the Noble Poker $1 million challenge. Noble is offering a million bucks to anyone who can win seven SNGs in a row. If you are a great player employing a highly aggressive bubble strategy and you have a 15% chance of winning any given SNG, in order to have a 50% chance of winning 7 in a row you would need to play about 477,000 SNGs. (The math on this is a bit complicated but the formula can be found here.) That would not be a bad gamble, actually, since you would be investing $477,000 in juice (at the $10 level) for $500,000 in expected value… the only problem is that no one can play that many SNGs in their lifetime. Basically, I don’t think it’s worthwhile to invest time and money in the SNG Challenge. With the astronomical variance, a vast majority of the time you’d be better off taking a simple 25% rakeback deal. Also, the promotion is highly skill-dependent. If you’re an exactly average player with a 10% chance of winning each SNG, you’d have to play over seven million games to have an even chance of hitting the jackpot. And then there’s the chance of someone else hitting it before you, which would (presumably) cause them to call a halt to the whole thing.

I did think of a way to let the promotion work to your short-term advantage, though. Sit down at a table and excitedly tell all the other players that you’ve just won 6 in a row, and if they let you win this one you’ll give them each $10,000. Kidding. I’m not dishonest enough to do this. But it would be funny as hell if it worked.

Props to Pacific

2005-08-08T10:23:00.000-07:00

After a few emails to Pacific’s customer service, they once again proved themselves a class act by agreeing to refund me the $110 buy-in from last week’s Weekly Whopper (software problems forced me out of the tournament – see Tournament Play-by-Play). I reinstalled their software, rejiggered some of my firewall settings, and this week’s tournament went off without a hitch. Other than donking off my stack bluffing into the nut straight, of course, but that wasn’t their fault...

Shootout

2005-08-06T10:41:00.000-07:00

The Party shootouts -- more action than a rabbit can stand

So Party has launched yet another novelty tournament format -- the Shootout Tournament. They aren't a standard shootout, but use a structure Party invented where the top 3 players from each table advance to the next one. Not only that, but each time you advance, you receive a payout of a small amount of the prize pool (Party has a calculator on their site, but unfortunately they're down right now and I can't link to it).

I played one this morning, and all I can say is "ugh". The juice is at least a fair deal for the players, unlike the highway robbery of the STEPS tournaments, but Shootouts have a major, major flaw. Every time your table finishes play, you must wait for EVERY OTHER TABLE to be done before advancing to the next round. THEN you must wait another 5 minutes while the tournament takes a 5-minute break, ludicrously unnecessary for anyone but the last table to finish playing (and why do THEY deserve one?). There are few things more depressing than finishing an SNG and receiving the message "We are waiting for 41 tables to finish the play". On Party Poker. Shoot me now. Can you fire up another SNG while you wait? Sure. But it's hard to estimate how long it will be before the next round starts, and I don't want to be stuck playing more SNGs than I can comfortably handle.

How did I do? Well, I took third place at my first table for a payout of $12.38, first place at my second table for $37.17, and placed 9th at my third table after taking a horrendous beat from the biggest idiot there. So I made a small profit of $49.55 over nearly three hours, perhaps one and a half of which were actually spent playing. I'd say that will be my last foray into the Shootouts.

Random Thoughts

2005-08-04T16:11:00.000-07:00

Playing medium pocket pairs when overcards flop – this is one of the most common and simplest situations in no-limit hold’em, and yet I see it misplayed all the time. Let’s say you hold 88 in middle position and the stacks are all deep. There is one limper, you raise to 3x the big blind, and all fold except the limper, who calls. The flop comes J76 rainbow and he checks. Now what? There is only one correct play here, absent some kind of laser-sharp read on the opponent: you must bet somewhere between a third and a half of the pot. That way, if your opponent has overcards or a smaller pair, he is not getting the odds to call, but if he has you beat, you will lose the minimum amount of money on a hand where you are drawing nearly dead. Period. End of discussion. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen players make a huge overbet of the pot in that situation, or (almost as bad) check behind. I’d like to talk to one of them and ask about their reasoning, because it would have to be entertaining.

**********

I was recently asked what is the best way to deal with running bad. My advice is to be the kind of person who can deal with running bad. If you’re not that kind of person, don’t even think about playing poker as more than an occasional hobby for low stakes. If you really want to play serious poker but you don’t have the emotional control to handle bad beats and bad streaks, pull an Andy Black and spend 5 years in a monastery. Then give it a shot. All the pop-psych emotional props and daily affirmations in the world aren’t going to help you, if you are not fundamentally able to look past your short term results and play your best game this hand.

**********

The object of poker isn’t to collect the money. Collecting the money takes care of itself (or doesn’t – see the above paragraph). The object of poker is to outplay the enemy, which means doing two things:

1) Passively benefiting from their mistakes.
2) Actively inducing them to make mistakes.

A mistake, in poker, is either refusing a good bet or taking a bad one.

I listed the objectives in that order because #1 is the beginner’s level and #2 is the expert’s. As your poker game evolves, you will see more and more opportunities to deceive opponents into making mistakes (by either inducing action when you are strong or inducing surrender when you are weak). You can’t rely on #1 to get you very far if your opponents have any chops at all. #2, however, is a bottomless opportunity to improve your game. Look for situations where a player was forced into a bad position, and think about how to set up those situations. The chips won’t always just come to you. You will have to learn to go out and get them.

**********

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few.” – Shunryu Suzuki

To play your best poker game, you must have the attitude of a beginner. No matter how long you have been playing and how many times you have “seen it all before”, each hand is unique. I was reminded of this recently when playing a $109 SNG. We were on the bubble and I was third in chips with 1200 on the small blind. The big blind, a fairly tight player, had 700 before posting 200. It was folded around to me and I went all-in with K4o. I didn’t even think about the play before I made it, because I would normally jam with almost any two cards in that situation. The big blind didn’t fold right away, and I immediately knew I was in trouble. He eventually called me with T8s and won the hand. He typed something gloating in chat and I realized I had indeed made a mistake. Why? Because I had stolen this guy’s blind about the last 4 or 5 times in a row. Jamming with K4o there is only a profitable play if your opponent will not call you with a mediocre hand like T8s – and if he’s mad enough at you, he will call! (Correctly – he is getting almost 2:1 odds on the bet and is much less than a 2:1 underdog.) My “expert” play was exactly wrong because I hadn’t paid attention to the game, specifically to my opponent’s probable state of mind. The possibility of folding did not occur to me. That’s not beginner’s mind, and it’s not good poker.

**********

Heads-up SNGs are a very interesting form of poker, and one of the best ways to improve your game. Playing heads-up gives you the opportunity to concentrate exclusively on one other person’s playing style and figure out ways to exploit it. He likes to look you up? Bluff less often and make large value bets. He will fold his big blind to a minimum raise? Min-raise everything but absolute garbage from the button. He likes to overbet? Trap him. He likes to underbet? Draw out on him. (Implied odds can be huge in heads-up matches, and players who like to bet small will often paradoxically call large bets on later streets, afraid that they have invited a bluff by showing weakness.) He likes to “take one off” on the flop? Bet any semi-reasonable hand or draw, and fire again on the turn. He only calls the flop with a real hand? Bet small on every flop, and if he calls, check the turn unless you hit big. Et cetera. Don’t expect to win every time, though. The cards determine the majority of heads-up outcomes. At the $50 level and above, winning 60% of your heads-up matches is very respectable. You won’t make a killing playing these matches (primarily because it’s very hard to multi-table them), but they are a great opportunity to work on your game. One common mistake to avoid at all costs is overvaluing small aces and small pairs preflop. Many times I have had players go all-in against me in the first or second level with a hand like A4o or 22. That is insane, because if you’re called, you are either dominated or (at best) a slight favorite. The only time it’s correct to go all-in with these hands is if you are going all-in with every hand, and that only makes sense if you don’t believe you can outplay your opponent – in which case, why did you sit down?

**********

One of the interesting things about playing tournaments is that in most cases (unless you’re playing SNGs or playing a whole lot of MTTs on the same site), the players will have little or no prior information on each other, and won’t be playing against each other for very long. Therefore, you don’t have to make as much of an effort to be deceptive as you would in a cash game. For example, let’s say I hold QdJd on the button and call an early-position raise. The flop comes AdTh3c and the original raiser checks to me. In a tournament, I will essentially always make a reasonable bet (1/2 – 2/3 of the pot), knowing that I am at least 75% to pick it up right there. In a cash game, I can’t be so predictable – I will have to check sometimes, so that my opponents don’t realize I am stealing most of these pots. Otherwise, they will start playing back at me with nothing, or checking the nuts into me. That’s part of the subtlety of cash games – the roshambo-style mental duels that develop when you have played hundreds of hands against someone. Tournament poker is comparatively lacking in this dimension, which is probably why most of the high-limit cash-game pros tend to disparage tournament players. That’s just fine with me, though. It makes tournaments easier to multi-table (if not necessarily easier to beat) and largely eliminates the tedium of keeping notes on players. My dirty little secret is that my player notes are limited to my general estimation of how strong someone’s game is. I don’t go into details like “this player likes to bet the flop on a flush draw and then check the turn when he gets there”. That situation with that player may never come up again. It makes more sense to me to just write “typical player, thinks he’s tricky”.

**********

A key concept in no-limit is the idea of pressure. Poker writers often say things like “you have to keep the pressure on the opponent”. What does pressure mean in no-limit? Basically, it means you don’t give him any easy decisions. For example, in a heads-up match, many players will limp on the button with literally any hand. To apply pressure to these opponents, raise more often than usual from the big blind. Calling on the button heads-up is ordinarily the obvious correct play – any two cards are good enough to see an unraised flop when you are heads-up and in position. By showing a willingness to raise from the big blind, you are making that easy decision into a hard one: should he call another half a bet with 95 offsuit, knowing that his opponent is likely to raise and force him to throw it away? And of course, he can make your decision harder by being willing to limp-reraise with big hands, thus putting more pressure on you. Pressure doesn’t necessarily mean making gigantic bets. It just means forcing the opponent into a lot of difficult decisions. Do you feel uncomfortable playing against a certain opponent? That’s pressure! Figure out what he’s doing, and either do it yourself or come up with a counter-strategy. Turn the tables. That's what pressure, and poker, is all about.

Tournament play-by-play

2005-07-31T08:54:00.000-07:00

I'm playing in three big (for me) tournaments today:

Bodog $100+9 $100k guaranteed, starts 11:00 AM Pacific Time
Pacific $100+10 $100k guaranteed, starts 1:00 PM Pacific Time
PokerStars $500+30 $700k guaranteed, starts at 1:30 PM Pacific Time

I'm going to record every hand I'm involved in as it happens. I hope. I've never tried doing this before but it can't be too hard... right?

I'm feeling good about my chances today. I'm well rested, confident, and I have already won enough this weekend to pay for all three entries and still leave me a $200 winner even if I don't cash in any of the three. So, if you feel like following along and/or criticizing my play, feel free. Updates will come at regular intervals starting at 11:00 AM west coast time.

11:00 AM Bodog $100+9 $100k guaranteed tournament begins -- 758 entrants. Five people are out within the first three hands (none at my table). News of this tournament is obviously starting to spread! I start in the small blind and don't play any hands my first orbit.

11:08 AM I pick up Ah3s in the small blind and see an unraised flop of Kh9s2s. Check/fold.

11:09 AM I get 6d5s and limp in the SB for 5 more chips. Flop 9h7c2d and I check/fold to a 40 bet. I'm at 975 chips.

11:12 AM I limp for 10 in the CO after another limper with 8h7s. The button raises to 40, the BB calls and the first limper calls. I call. Flop Qc8c5d. The first two check, I check, the button bets 80 and the BB raises to 200. I fold. Button folds.

11:15 AM Our first 3-way preflop all-in! I am not involved. The hands are JJ, 99 and AQ (the 99 and AQ are the ones who called!). Final board of KJT74 gives the AQ the straight. He was the short stack but the player with JJ is crippled and goes out on the next hand. Ouch.

11:20 AM I have Qc6c in the BB and fold when the SB makes a huge raise.

11:22 AM I pick up AdKs on the button. A player who has not yet played a hand raises to 70 from UTG and a loose player calls. I call. Flop 8c7s3h. I fold to a bet and a raise on the flop. I'm at 835 chips. This is clearly a table of folks who like to call and I will keep that in mind.

11:26 AM I get AsQs in EP and raise to 80 after UTG limps. Limper is the only one who calls. Flop Ac7s3h. He checks, I bet 90 into a 190 pot and he folds. I was sincerely hoping he had AT or AJ. I have 945 chips as we go into level 3.

11:30 AM BIG HAND! I have AhKh in the SB. EP min-raises to 60, I reraise to 200, he calls. Flop KsQs9c, with a 430 pot and he has me covered. I have 700 chips and bet 300 -- I believe I have the best hand but with this flop I could easily be up against a big draw. He raises all-in and I call. He shows me KdQh. Ugh! Luckily for me, the Ad comes on the turn and I double up. I have 1880. This is why I hate 1000 chip tournaments. There is no earthly way I can get off AK right there, and if I hadn't gotten very lucky I'd be done. I think his preflop play stunk, though. Calling a reraise of 140 more chips with KQo against a medium stack is not a winning move.

11:33 AM An extremely aggressive player moves all-in from the small blind and the BB calls him with pocket threes. Aggressive player has pocket tens. Flop KT3. Turn 3. River blank. What a game.

11:42 AM I limp with pocket sixes from MP and fold to an enormous raise from the button. Button, whose icon is Spongebob Squarepants, has a penchant for grossly overbetting the pot when he has anything at all.

11:45 AM Mr. Aggressive got lucky, going all-in with KTs and getting called by AKs. He hit a ten and doubled up.

11:46 AM I limp with 44 in the first hand of the 20/40 limits and am again forced to fold after a big raise, this time from the SB. SB is a tricky opponent whom I have played with before. He is fully capable of making a move here but I'm not going to risk my whole stack to try to pick him off.

11:49 AM I get A6o in the BB and see an unraised flop of 777. I check and call tiny bets from an MP limper on the turn and river, and we split the pot (he had A3o). No idea why he min-bet the river with that hand since the board was 77784 and he must know any ace will call him. Maybe he wanted action from a king? I'm at 1795.

11:52 AM I get a table change after Spongebob busts the guy who bet his ace on the last hand. AK vs A8, both all-in preflop. Ridiculous waste of a stack.

11:54 AM I get AsKd the second hand of my new table and raise to 160. No callers. I'm at 1855.

11:58 I pick up Kh8h in the BB. UTG raises to 100 and there are two callers. I call. Flop comes 862 rainbow. I check, UTG bets 210 into a 400 pot, both other players fold. My only option here is to call. If he has an overpair I'm in trouble, and if he has two big cards I won't get any more action. Turn is the Qh for no possible flush draws. Again I must check. If he makes a significant bet here, I fold. He checks behind. River is the Td. I can't bet because I can only be called by a better hand. I check, he checks and I take it down with a pair of eights. It strikes me that I've been playing very passively so far, but I haven't found the right opportunities for aggression. Also, it's still early. I have 2345 going into the first break.

12:11 Ac7c in an unraised big blind with 2 limpers (and the SB). Flop Kc7h3d. SB checks, I bet 120 into a 240 pot and all fold. This may look like a strange bet, but it only has to work one time in three to be profitable, and on such a ragged board I could really only be called by a king.

12:13 AcKs in MP and I raise to 180 after a single limper. The player to my right reraises to 400. I call 120 more and check/fold the flop of Jh9h3s.

12:15 Pocket 9s in EP and I raise to 180 after a single limper, who calls. Flop A45. He checks, I bet 200 into a 400 pot and he calls. Turn K. He checks, I check. River J and he bets 440. I fold. This is the sort of play that looks weak-tight but there is really no other way to play it. It's a very rare player who will call 200 chips on that flop without an ace or better. I'm at 1695 chips. Par is 1900.

12:20 We're down to half the field. 379 out of 758 registered.

12:28 I get AdTs and open-raise to 300 from MP. Two callers behind, and the BB calls! Ugh. Flop of 9h5s2d. Double ugh. I check and fold. I still have a playable stack at 1215, put I will definitely need to pick up some hands soon.

12:30 I consider raising with KTo in third position, but fold.

12:31 BIG HAND! Next hand I pick up AsJc and open-raise to 300. A loose player calls behind, and a short stack goes all-in for 255 more. I think and decide to come over the top. I think it's 50/50 whether I have the best hand against the short stack, but I would really prefer not to play against the loosey (who has me covered). I jam. Loosey folds. Short stack shows KQo, the board helps neither of us and HGHN. I am back up to 2070.

12:33 I get AJo again on the button. There's a raise to 300 and a call, and I decide to muck it. Flop comes Ah6d6s. The original raiser tries to bluff with a KT but is called down by... AJo. Heh.

12:36 I get AhKd in EP and raise to 440 (3x the big blind which is now 150). No action. I can't believe all the Ax hands I am getting in this tournament. No pairs higher than 9s yet though.

12:38 They're dropping like flies now, we are down to 275 players.

12:40 KK vs JJ, KK flops quads!

12:41 With two medium stacks in the blinds, it's folded around to my button. I have Js6s and raise to 460. The BB calls and the flop comes Ks9s6c. He bets 150, I jam, and he folds. I'm at 2755.

12:44 An EP short stack goes all-in for 1162. I have 88 in MP and ponder a call. This player might be desperate, but he is not at the do-or-die point yet and I have not seen him play a hand. The number of players yet to act is the deciding factor. I fold. There are no callers.

12:45 I'm in the BB with As6s. It's folded around to the SB who goes all-in for 1000 more. I call, largely because I don't think he'd do this with a big ace. I'm wrong and he shows AQo. I can't suck out and I double him up.

12:46 Next hand, I'm in the SB and get AcKc. A late position player open-min-raises and I come over the top. He calls and shows KQo and doubles me up.

12:47 On the button I pick up AhJh. There are two short stacks in the blinds and I decide to go all-in. The BB calls me with A9o and doesn't catch his nine. I'm up to 4400.

12:49 BIG HAND! I pick up QQ and raise to 460 in early position. A big stack on the button flat calls me. This player is very aggressive and I know he doesn't have AA or KK. The flop is a beautiful 772 rainbow, and I check. He thinks and checks behind. River is a 6c giving a possible club flush draw. I check again, knowing he will take a shot. And what a shot! He goes all-in. I immediately call and he shows KsTs for the three-outer. He doesn't get there and I double up. After posting my blinds I'm at 8570.

12:55 Blinds are now 100-200. Two off the button I get Q2o. The blinds are medium-short stacks and this is a great stealing opportunity. I raise to 600 and take it down. I can open up my game a lot more now that I have a decent stack.

12:57 BIG HAND! I get AsKd on the BB. The player who I trapped in the QQ hand goes all-in for about 1200. The small blind thinks for 10 seconds and goes all-in for 4500. If he doesn't have AA or KK, I am getting way more than the odds to call. I don't put him on either of those hands because he thought too long before raising. I call. The original raiser shows JT, reraiser has JJ. The board blanks until the river which is a beeeeyooootiful ace! I'm up to 14k.

1:03 GRRRR! Pacific is having software problems (not for the first time either). It forced me to fold JJ on my second hand of the tournament. It seems to have settled down now...

1:05 I'm getting a few steal opportunities but am just treading water and I go into the break with 14157.50.

1:10 The good news is I can finally play on Pacific. The bad news is that if I use the "in turn" checkboxes, or if I immediately click an option when the action is on me, I get disconnected. Pacific is really annoying and I'm not sure they're even worth the overlay on their $100k. I will say though, that the one time I actually lost a tournament buy-in due to their software problems, they refunded me.

1:21 Spoke too soon. I can't do anything on Pacific. I will have to take matters up with their support team. So this little experiment will have to be abandoned. I will post outcomes/big hands later on.

2:00 I'm out of the Bodog tournament. The hand that crippled me was as follows: 400/800 blinds, I have 12k. A player with about 10k, whom I had classed as weak/tight, min-raised UTG to 1600. The action was folded to me and I called with 6c4c on the big blind. Flop AcJc8s. I checked, and he bet the minimum 800. I raised to 2400 and he immediately called. Turn was the 6h, giving me 14 outs if (as I suspected) he had an ace. I felt there was a decent chance he would fold rather than risk his tournament life on one pair, so I went all-in. He pondered, but ultimately called with AQo. The river didn't help me and I was down to about 2k, going out a few hands later on an all-in with A2o. I did perhaps play the hand too aggressively, and too "by the book" -- an experienced player would likely put me on a pair and a flush draw on the turn.

Final update. I didn't make the money in any of the three tournaments. In the Pacific one, I was crippled by ongoing software issues that forced me to miss almost half my hands. I restarted the computer twice -- missing hands in the Stars tournament along the way -- and still got blinded off. I have emailed their customer service and I shall certainly post the response. I am entitled to at least a partial refund of my buy-in. Whatever happens, I am likely done with Pacific for the time being, until they get a software fix in place.

The Stars tournament was unremarkable. The biggest hand came near the beginning, when I got all-in with KK against Js9s on a flop of Qs8s3c. His 12 outs twice made him a slight underdog, but unfortunately he caught a spade to take me down to about 1100 chips. I went up and down a little but was down to 1000 at the 50-100 level, going all-in preflop with JJ against AK. This classic hold'em confrontation didn't go my way and I was done.

All in all a very disappointing day. The only hand I felt I misplayed was the hand that crippled me on Bodog. The way I played it practically screamed "pair and a flush draw", killing my fold equity and making the turn all-in a losing play. I'm really not sure how I should have played it, though. I'd welcome suggestions :)

Small edges

2005-07-25T09:29:00.000-07:00

"I was getting the odds to call, but I folded because I didn't want to risk a lot of chips and I knew I could outplay them later on." -- anonymous 2+2er

A quick hand history from this week's Bodog $100+9 no-limit hold'em tournament, 100/200 blind level:
Button (PokerRabbit) has 4500 chips
Small blind (solid aggressive player) has 1900 chips
Big blind (very passive player) has 2500 chips

Action is folded around to PokerRabbit, who holds 8h9h and raises to 600. Small blind reraises all-in to 1900. Big blind folds. PokerRabbit calls 1300. Final board: Kh Js 8c 8d 4h. Small blind shows AcTs and PokerRabbit wins the pot.

This hand excited some comment at the table. (Somebody quoted Mike Matusow's trash talk to Raymer in the 2004 WSOP to the effect of "I got big balls, you got little balls!") Balls are part of poker, of course, but this hand was more about brains.

My raise to 600 on the button was a steal. 98s doesn't figure to be the best hand, but my opponents are very likely to fold better ones such as K2 or J8 rather than play out of position. That's Poker 101, and 98s is not the bottom end of my range of raising hands here. Now consider the small blind's reraise. He may be on a resteal play, of course, but even in a situation like this it is much more likely that he has a real hand such as an ace, two broadway cards, or a pocket pair. I'd give him a slight chance of being on a stone bluff, a very good chance of having two unpaired overcards, and a decent chance of a pair (of which approximately half will be less than 8s and half 8s or more).

My pot odds here are a little over 2:1 -- there is 2700 in the pot and I must call 1300 more. Against the SB's probable range of hands, even being very conservative (AA-66, AK-AT), I am about a 1.85:1 underdog. Many, many players will reason along the following lines: this is a marginal call; it risks a third of my stack; if I lose, I am doubling up a strong player on my left; therefore I will fold and wait for a better opportunity. That reasoning is understandable but completely wrong.

The biggest reason it's wrong is that it is mathematically incorrect. The definition of "outplaying" in poker is to cause your opponent to take a bet for which he is not getting proper odds, or to cause him to refuse a bet for which he is getting proper odds. If the opponent holds two overcards to your hand (the most likely scenario), he wants you to fold. If you fold, he has outplayed you and you have effectively lost money. The only way your opponent could want you to call is if he holds a pair of 8s or better, or a dominating hand such as A9s. Again, this is Poker 101 but some people are fuzzy on these principles.

Beyond the math, there is another reason not to fold. Anyone who's paying attention will notice that you backed down, which increases the likelihood of your opponents making tricky aggressive plays against you in the future. You don't want that. I am not a great believer in table image manipulation in online tournaments, and it cannot trump pot-odds calculations except in rare instances, but when you add it to the fact that you ARE getting odds to call, it becomes a clear mistake to release this hand.

Are there times that I would pass on a +EV gamble in a tournament? Yes, but not very many. Before I will fold in a spot where the odds dictate a call (however marginally), all of the following conditions must obtain:

1) I will be busted or crippled if I lose the hand.
2) I have a stack worth protecting in the first place. If my M is 6 or less, I am not passing on any +EV bets because the idea of "make up for it later on" has become irrelevant.
3) I believe the opponent is almost certainly not bluffing. In most heads-up situations there is at least a 10% chance that the opponent does not have anything like the hand he's representing (sometimes more depending on the player).

There are other specialized exceptions having to do with payout structure and multiple opponents being all-in, some of which I've already addressed (see the "Charity Tournament" and "Folding Aces" posts). There is a difference between chip EV and $ EV, but in the above scenario the difference is very minor.

It's telling that this play was considered "crazy" by my table mates. The works of certain influential poker authors, who shall remain nameless, have caused many players to believe that tight play equates to good play. That's a good thing for those of us who know better.

I busted out of the tournament, by the way, after convincing an opponent to put all his 6000 chips in preflop with A7 against my QQ. He thought I was making a move -- which illustrates another advantage of aggressive play. Had I won that hand I would have been in position to make the top 20 and possibly the final table. But that's poker.

Charity tournament

2005-07-21T13:15:00.000-07:00

I played in the $20 Charlie Tuttle tournament on Pokerstars this weekend, but unfortunately I had to quit halfway through it. I came back to see that I had somehow managed to finish 12th! Must have been some pretty heavy action on the last 2 tables.

On an unrelated note: I am constantly amazed at the misunderstandings experienced players have about SNGs. SNG bubble play is, literally, 90% math (the other 10% is putting people on a range of hands, and half the time the range is "any two cards"). Imagine my surprise at reading this post on 2+2 where some very highly regarded SNGers give advice that is flat wrong regarding a $55 bubble play. (Poker Nerd has explained in detail why they are wrong, if it's not obvious to you.)

No-Limit Hold'em Tournament Profiles, vol. I

2005-07-12T13:42:00.000-07:00

Novice
The novice player has read little or nothing about poker and does not have much tournament experience, or maybe he has played a lot of poker and is simply stupid. Either way, he is hopelessly inept. Pot odds and position mean little to this player, except in the rawest and most intuitive way. Implied odds and reverse implied odds are foreign concepts.

Novices do not make a conscious effort to figure out their opponents’ strategies; unless they are completely brain-dead, however, they will recognize basic table image (who plays the most hands, raises most often, shows down bluffs, etc.). For the most part, novices simply play their cards. They do sometimes make unexpected plays, because their valuations of hands may not match up with conventional wisdom, but they are not trying to be tricky. They rarely check-raise, rarely slowplay, rarely bluff, and almost never raise before the flop with anything but a strong hand.

The play of the novice in no-limit hold’em is somewhat paradoxical, because they behave as if they are afraid of action – but if they get action, they usually call. Novices play defensive poker, which is the exact wrong strategy for no-limit (this is why casinos have traditionally been reluctant to spread live no-limit games: the biggest donators, who might otherwise have lasted months or years, are liable to lose their roll within a few nights, depriving the casino of revenue).

Value betting: Novices value-bet far less often in NL than in limit, because they fear action. When a novice makes a bet on the flop, and has not previously taken the betting lead, it is very likely that he has a good to great hand. Further, he will probably not lay it down (see calling). Remember, novice players mean what they say. Even a small bet is often an indication of the novice’s willingness to go all the way with his hand. When a novice opens the betting, get out if you don’t have a hand or the odds to draw; make a big raise if you have a monster. It can be difficult to read novices on the basis of bet sizes, because they usually don’t bet much in any situation. The major exception is the desperation bet on the river (see bluffing).

Calling: Novices are considered novices primarily because they call too much. Very often, novices will have some threshold hand value that they will never lay down, regardless of the board or the action. Examples would include calling off their stack with AQ before the flop, or overcalling a large river bet when there’s a four-flush on board and the novice holds a low flush card. Novices also have little understanding of pot odds and will make unwarranted calls on the flop and turn with drawing hands. None of this should be news to anyone who has played online poker.

Bluffing: Bluffing among novices nearly always takes the following form: he raises preflop with two big cards, misses the flop but bets anyway, misses the turn but bets anyway, and misses the river but goes all-in out of desperation. I call this the grave-digging syndrome. When a novice takes the betting lead early in a hand, he is likely to continue betting no matter what, not wanting to give up his investment. Novices also occasionally bet draws as a semi-bluff, and may sometimes make pure bluffs on the river if induced (by their opponent checking the turn). Their bluffs are generally small, but so are their value bets, so that doesn’t mean much.

Trapping: Novices rarely trap or slowplay. In fact, it is infrequent for them to check-raise, and if they do, it almost always means a huge hand.

Tournament strategy: They don’t get it. Novices have only the most basic understanding of how their play should change in relation to the stacks and blinds at their table. They will often allow themselves to be blinded/anted down to less than a single big blind. Conversely, they will give far too much action in the tournament’s early rounds. If they do manage to accumulate a big stack, they will not use it to put pressure on smaller stacks. Make sure you realize this! A play that could be grandstanding from an experienced opponent is likely to be the stone-cold nuts if made by a novice.

Bluffing is most effective when: the novice checks his hand on the flop after raising preflop, or otherwise gives an unexpected indication of weakness. Keep your bluff bets small (novices don’t pay much attention to bet size), and be prepared to bet twice, since many novices will “take one off” with overcards to the flop. If you believe the novice has merely a mediocre hand, do not attempt to push him off it.

Slowplaying is most effective when: the novice is bluffing. If he has a decent hand he will usually go into his natural check-and-call mode, so trapping will not be useful. If he bets into you and you have a big hand, raise, and expect to be paid off. In general you should play your hands straightforwardly against the novice. You should only refrain from taking the lead if you believe he has nothing at all and will continue to bluff.

Pretty good weekend

2005-07-11T16:10:00.000-07:00

I've become too lazy to routinely update my results, but I had a weekend of about +$950. $600 of that was from the Pacific Poker $110 "Weekly Whopper", which I took 33rd in. $600 seems to be my benchmark for money finishes these days. It was aggravating because I actually had the chip lead with about 120 players left, but lost two big coin flips and was crippled.

One notable hand: I was in the SB at the $1,000/$2,000 level with a stack of about $48,000 when par was about $30,000. There was one early limper (another big stack who had me covered), and I completed the bet holding pocket sixes. The BB, who had about $20,000, instantly went all-in. The limper folded. I stopped to think. I was pretty sure he was making a move. I put the chance of his having a higher pair at about 10% (it would have to be 77-JJ, since no one plays QQ or KK or AA that way). I put the chance of two overcards at about 70%, and of a lesser hand such as A2 or 44, which I would dominate, at 20%. Therefore I had a clear call, being at least a 6:5 favorite 90% of the time. I called. He showed J7o and caught a jack. C'est la vie. Most of the rest of my chips went in a few rounds later, also preflop, when I had QQ and lost to AK.

Addendum: a reader wondered why I didn't raise with the sixes. The short answer is that a big stack was already in the pot. A raise of less than all-in is clearly terrible, because on the flop I'd be playing a small pocket pair out of position against a bigger stack. If I raise, I have to jam. Assume the big stack limper will only call an all-in with a slowplayed big pair; if he has one, he is a 4:1 favorite, meaning my equity in a $98,000 pot is $19,600. Since I'm risking $47,000 that amounts to an equity loss of $26,400. If there is no call, I win $5000. So, including the negative effect of a possible (though unlikely) call from the big blind, which we will estimate at
$3,600 in equity for the sake of argument, I would have to win preflop about 6 times for every 1 time I am called. I don't like those odds. The chance of the limper holding AA-QQ is substantial in this situation, certainly better than 6:1. (I didn't do that calculation at the table, I simply followed my usual maxim of playing conservatively when a big stack is already in the pot. If the limper had had around $25,000, I might well have pushed.)

My First Time Playing No-Limit

2005-07-06T16:05:00.000-07:00

The first hand of live no-limit hold’em I ever played was in Binion’s Horseshoe in Las Vegas. I’d been recently bitten by the poker bug, and although I was doing well (read: getting lucky) in the $9-$18 limit games of San Diego, I wanted some practice playing the real man’s game of no-limit hold'em.

Apparently there were few real men in Vegas, because the only no-limit table Binion’s had going was short-handed. I don’t remember the stakes exactly but I think the blinds were $2-$5; the lineup was one grizzled, bespectacled older gentleman, a couple of young guys in backwards baseball caps nursing short stacks, and a middle-aged man in a Hawaiian shirt. (This was 1998, and it was pretty hard to find a full no-limit cash game in a casino.) I was so nervous that I almost dropped my wallet buying chips -- $500, the entire stake I’d brought to town with me and more than half my bankroll. (The books said to buy in as big as you can, it gives you an edge. I wasn’t sure exactly how it gave me an edge, but if the books said so…) I looked around at the other players. The big stack at the table was Mr. Hawaiian Shirt. Maybe he’d been catching cards. But then again, maybe he was a slumming big-money player that anyone in Vegas would recognize. His wife, a blonde in her early forties with a distracted air, was sweating him. Hmm… I resolved to stay out of his way, to play tight, careful poker and not risk too much money at one time unless I had a lock hand. I knew the poker authors said that was a bad strategy, but I didn’t really expect to win anything – I just wanted to make sure I didn’t lose too much.

Well, that resolution lasted for about two hands. Then Hawaiian Shirt, under the gun and across the table from me, raised to $20. I had the button, and I glanced at my cards – two red queens! Hmm. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that – queens are a good hand, but I recalled Ciaffone and Reuben’s advice not to get married to them before the flop. If I raised, he might reraise. Discretion seemed the better part of valor, so I just called. Everyone else passed, and the dealer spread the flop – 9h 9s 6d. No queen. Damn. Hawaiian Shirt immediately led out with a bet of $60.

Oh, no. This was exactly the kind of hand I’d been dreading. Where was I at here? I had no idea. In a limit game, of course, I would have raised with no hesitation. But if I raised this guy, he could put me all-in. Then what? Fold, and lose a big chunk of my stack? I swallowed hard. “Call,” I told the dealer, and pushed $60 to the middle. The turn was the 3h. Again, my opponent carelessly pushed a few stacks forward – a $150 bet. Ohmigod. This guy just bet a hundred and fifty dollars at me. (Understand, I had never in my life played a poker game where a single bet was more than $18, and I was working at an $8-an-hour job.) “Time,” I said, sure my voice was little more than a dry croak. I tried to think, but my mind was blank. What could he have? Pocket aces, kings, a nine… or pocket sixes or threes. But I had a big hand and I just couldn’t let go of it. “Call,” I said again, with a sinking feeling in my gut.

The dealer barely glanced at me, just burned and turned. God, I thought, I’ve never asked you for much before this (yeah right, just every river card of every hand I was ever dealt), but please, please put a queen on the river. But God doesn’t hear prayers from the casino floor. The last card was the brutal, unforgiving deuce of clubs. An ugly, ugly card that seemed to mock my helplessness and anguish.

What was happening? Hawaiian Shirt was betting. He was putting me all-in. The exact situation I had dreaded all along, thought about on the long drive to Vegas, had cold-sweat nightmares about. The books I’d read on no-limit hold’em were forgotten as if they’d never existed. All I knew was that the last of my money was now going into a pot that I had no hope of winning. I watched my hands, as if in a dream, shove my pitiful stacks of chips toward the dealer. “Call…” the word was a leaden knell of doom. Sheeplike, I waited to see what monster hand the ruthless enemy would take my hard-earned money with.

The ruthless enemy did nothing for a few seconds. “He called?” he asked the dealer. That’s right, you bastard, I called, so get ready to gloat, I thought with a dull flare of anger and frustration, sure he was slow-rolling me. The dealer affirmed that I had indeed called the bet. Hawaiian Shirt hesitated. His wife, sitting behind him, gave him a startled look. He flipped over his cards, one at a time…

The ace of spades…

And the king of clubs.

It took me a minute. I had already started making plans to drive home in disgrace and never play big-bet poker again. Then all of a sudden, it struck me that he didn’t have a pair, and there was no ace or king on board. Hawaiian Shirt had been bluffing! I had won the hand! Deliriously, triumphantly, I flipped over my pair of beautiful ladies for all the world to see. “Two pair, queens and nines – winner,” the dealer announced, and pushed me the $1000 pot.

Hawaiian Shirt slumped in his chair. All of a sudden, as if he were just coming into focus, everything became clear. His red eyes. His mussed hair. The eponymous shirt, wrinkled and sweat-stained under the arms. This guy had been sitting here for a LONG time. And his stack, which had seemed so intimidating when I sat down, was mostly $1 chips – he probably only had about $150 left after losing this pot.

He started to reach for his wallet, but was abruptly checked – by his wife, her face clenched in anger and disapproval. He didn’t meet anyone’s eyes, but slowly levered himself up from the table. He fumblingly racked his remaining chips, muttered “G’night,” and started the Long Walk back to the cage, his wife gripping his upper arm with red-lacquered nails hard enough to draw blood, talking right into his ear in an urgent, hissing whisper.

The guy was a freaking tourist. He was from Toledo, or Spokane, or Peoria, or some damn place with no gambling, and had decided to take a shot at The Big Game in Vegas. He was a nebbish – clueless and guaranteed to lose, mere fodder for the green felt sharks of Sin City.

Speaking of which – as I racked my newfound wealth, I caught the grizzled older gentleman giving me a considering look. I nodded amiably to him – everybody was my friend just then – and waited eagerly to be dealt the next hand.

The Backwards Ballcap Boys only lasted another round or so after that. They had a quiet conversation between hands, racked up their chips, and left without a word to me or the older guy. I looked at him, wondering if he’d want to play heads-up (I had never played heads-up poker, much less heads-up no-limit, but the way I was feeling I would gladly have taken on Johnny Chan), but he was racking up too. And wow – there was a thick wad of $100 bills sitting behind his stacks. Someone had once told me that cash on the table could play, but I’d forgotten because everyone in limit games just used chips. He grinned at me. “Not a bad night,” he said. “I took a couple thousand from your friend before that hand with the pocket queens. You played that perfectly, by the way. You’d have lost him if you raised. I don’t recognize you – do you play at the Mirage?”

He was a pro! And he thought I was a pro! My terrified, weak-kneed string of calls must have looked, to him, like a devious trap laid by a master poker player who was certain of victory, milking a hapless tourist for his chips. “Uh… I’m from California,” I told him. He nodded knowingly. “They still have a good pot-limit game at the Commerce?” “I don’t know,” I answered honestly, never having played there. He looked at me strangely for a moment, then nodded again – this time as a good-bye – and headed over to the cashier, whistling under his breath.

Well. The rest of the trip didn’t go so hot – culminating in a disastrous Mirage $40-$80 session that I prefer not to remember or relate – but that’s not the point. The moral of the story is this: don’t be afraid to change your initial read of a player. Brilliant plays can often look clueless, and vice versa. If you never change your first impression, you will never beat poker for as much as you could.

This has been an introduction to a series of articles I plan to write on player types and hand reading in no-limit hold’em. Stay tuned! – Poker Rabbit

Shortest SNG ever

2005-07-05T09:45:00.000-07:00

Bodog $50+5 heads-up SNG (I'm kicking myself because I didn't previously realize how profitable these are with the current bonus structure). Hand #1, I pick up the button against a player I have never faced before. I am dealt A2o and min-raise to 20 chips. He calls. Flop 622. He checks, I toss out a 40 bet, and he instantly pushes all-in for 980. I call after a moment's shocked hesitation, and he flips over KK. No miracle K saves him and we're done.

OK, It's probably tied for the shortest SNG ever, but I'd be willing to bet that not too many $55s end in one hand.

My results lately have been good, after a rather dismal showing in the end of June. I went up over $1200 this weekend, cashing in one major tourney (the Bodog $100+9 where I finished 26th for $600 when my TPTK ran into a set). I will post a results update later tonight when I have my spreadsheets available. Hope everyone had a good 4th of July weekend!

Hold'em puzzle solutions

2005-06-21T12:59:00.000-07:00

Highlight this text for the answers to the last 3 puzzles:

1) A: 7h2h, B: 6c5c, board: 4d4h3c3s
2) A: 2h2c, B: 3h2d, board: AcAsKcKd
3) A: Ac2h, B: AhAd, board: AsKsKcKd

Hold'em puzzles

2005-06-21T09:26:00.000-07:00

I confess a fondness for these. I think them up when I'm in the shower. Here's a couple easy ones:

Construct a board of four cards (the turn) and 2 hands A and B such that:
1) Hand A is higher, but has no outs to win the entire pot on the river
2) Hand A has one out to win the entire pot on the river, and hand B has none
3) Hand A has one out to split the pot and no outs to win.

Answers to be posted later...

Another day, another quarter

2005-06-20T11:55:00.000-07:00

Results-wise, this was a disappointing weekend. I played about 9 hours of poker and ended up winning $62. I played three MTTs (the Bodog $109, Pacific $110, and Stars $215) and cashed in none of them.

The Stars tournament was particularly ugly. The blinds were $75-$150 and I had $1600. With 6h4h, I limped after UTG opened. The cutoff raised to $450, the limper called, and I called. Flop came 5h8hQc. UTG checked, I checked, and the button bet $500. The limper called. Now this is the point where alarm bells should have been going off, because UTG was a tight aggressive player who would likely have raised with a made hand. But foolishly, I put the CO on a continuation bet and the limper on something like QJ or QT. I raised all-in and quickly discovered I was wrong on both counts, when CO went all-in over the top and UTG called. They flipped over KcKs and KhTh respectively. Ouch. They both had me covered, and although the turn 4c brought a ray of hope and a total of 8 outs, the river blanked and I was done.

The key hand in the Pacific tournament occurred at the $25-$50 limit. I picked up AJo late and limped after two limpers. The flop of Jc7s8h looked pretty good and I raised when the second limper bet; he called after a long pause (again, where was my spidey sense?) and then check-raised me when I bet the pot on the turn 3c. I released the hand, since I was looking at a definite set or two pair if not a flopped straight. There was a remote chance he had a pair and picked up a flush draw on the turn, but since the Jc flopped he couldn't have had top pair, and I doubted he'd call a big raise on the flop with a small pair and a backdoor flush draw. That hand took a big chunk of my stack and the rest went in on a futile OESD a few limits later.

In the Bodog tournament I went out on a pure donkey play, calling a LAG's raise with Js9s in the big blind and going to war with him on a jack-high flop. He showed me AJ. How I could have thought I was ahead in that hand, LAG or no, I have no idea.

Anyway, I was able to recoup my losses at SNGs and wound up slightly ahead. Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

I watched Rounders last night with my wife. I'd only seen it once before and she never had. "The movie that wiped out a thousand bankrolls" held up pretty well on a second viewing -- I especially like the theme of friendship between Mike and Worm, a friendship that is fatally flawed by Worm's self-destructive streak, but that nevertheless has a certain nobility. The one part of the movie that has never made sense to me is the very end, when Mike plays the climactic rematch against Teddy KGB. Why would Teddy agree to a heads-up match when he is essentially playing against his own money? Stupid.

Folding Aces

2005-06-15T10:05:00.000-07:00

I often hear players say things like “I would never fold aces preflop”. Nonsense. There are plenty of times you should fold aces preflop (in tournaments – obviously not in a cash game). And these cases are not as extreme as some believe. Example: three-handed at the final table, the payouts are $60k, $30k and $10k. You have $25k chips and post the big blind of $5k. The other two players have $220k each. The button moves all-in and the small blind calls. You should fold any hand here, including AA. Assume that your chance of winning the main pot with pocket aces vs. two opponents is approximately 75% (this is generous, and your actual odds depend on the opponents’ holdings, of course). Your EV breaks down like this:

EV for a fold = $30k + $60k * $20k / $465k = $32,580 (A player’s odds of winning heads-up are the same as his share of the total chip count, if both are of equal skill.)

EV for a call = $10k * 0.25 + ($30k + $60k * $75k / $465k) * 0.75 = $32,258

EV(call) is $322 less than EV(fold). A close decision to be sure, but $322 is $322. (You’re probably thinking that the opponents might split the pot. That would be bad, but it happens less than 1% of the time; and if they split by playing the board, you would probably split as well. The only really catastrophic outcome to a fold is if your opponents split a pot that you would have won, and that is unlikely enough to disregard.)

Variance is a consideration too. If your bankroll or your natural inclinations dispose you against taking chances, you will call in even fewer cases, since folding locks up second-place money, but calling gets you third place 25% (or more) of the time*. You might reasonably choose not to call even if you had $40k chips in this example, although your differential expectation for calling vs. folding would be about +$1875. I would personally have a hard time risking $20,000 for $1875 in EV, especially since winning the hand would still make me a 3:1 dog to defeat the chip leader heads-up. That’s quite a gamble.

On the other hand, winning the tournament could be worth some specified extra amount to you (either to stroke your ego, or because you expect to get additional monetary rewards such as endorsements or book sales), which could tilt the balance in favor of calling, even with a smaller stack. But in terms of tournament EV, you should muck those aces. Painful as it may be.

*Never let anybody tell you that “EV is everything and variance is nothing”. All men are mortal and have finite wealth, so variance is ALWAYS relevant. No one in their right mind would bet $100 on a 1,000,000,000,000:1 chance of winning $200,000,000,000,000, even though that gamble is strongly +EV. It’s true that many of the top players have a “damn the torpedoes” attitude toward variance; it’s also true that most players with that attitude get broke. We just see the few who end up on TV. (Most of whom have been broke a few times, and will be again.)

WSOP Dreamin'

2005-06-14T09:51:00.000-07:00

I did my share of dreaming about the $10k main event this year, but I probably should have voted for Pedro, because my wildest dreams aren’t coming true. I invested a total of $156 (one PokerStars $33 rebuy sat with add-on, one Bodog $35 sat and one Bodog $55) and 3000 player points. The closest I came to getting a seat was taking 3rd in one of the Bodog player point tournaments, out of a field of 400. A respectable finish, but of course 3rd paid the same as 400th since the only prize was the WSOP package itself. I was third in chips at the end, and the chip leader finally got sick enough of my constant blind steals that he called me with KJo. I had J9 and couldn’t catch my three-outer. It was irritating because both the other players were weak-tight and I should have been able to win, but I got careless about my image (six or seven all-ins against the BB will make even the rockiest player decide to take a chance). Once I had enough chips to stay afloat, I should have started raising small from the button and then stealing on the flop. That’s generally how I like to play against opponents who don’t have much “gamble” and who rarely trap.

I had decided that I was only going to put up money for a seat if I could find a good overlay. I broke my rule slightly by entering the Stars $33R satellite, but I’ve had good luck at the smaller rebuy tourneys, where the rebuy factor and low entry fee makes many players lose all respect for their chips. This one looked promising early on, when I tripled up in round 2 with AA against AJ and 77 (see what I mean about rebuy tournaments?). Unfortunately the cards went cold after that, and I ended up losing a coinflip with about 40 players left. Only one seat in that one, but there was about $17k total in the prize pool so they paid out 11 places I believe.

The Bodog cash tournaments were unremarkable. One of them I remember going out on a big bluff that was called by Q3o on a board of QJTxx. I need to get one of Paul Phillips’ “nice call, a**hole” chips... maybe an e-version? The other tournament I can’t even remember how I busted, but I wasn’t anywhere near the top in either one. Both of those had huge overlays, but they were also both huge gambles since only 1 spot paid. I guess you can’t expect too much when you are only willing to invest $90 to win a $12,000 prize package!

So, it looks like I’ll be watching the WSOP from the rail along with everybody else. Pauly has had great coverage so far on his blog Tao of Poker, and I have been checking in on the results of the smaller events. I was rooting for Matt of The Poker Chronicles to make the final table of the $2k limit, but this hasn’t been his year so far.

Time to start dreaming about next June... maybe I'll try a little harder to qualify next time, especially if I feel like I've made significant improvements in my game.

SNG roundup

2005-06-13T16:26:00.000-07:00

Haven't had time to post an update in a while, but of course I HAVE had time to play poker! I have been playing a mix of $55s and $109s, and my results the last couple weeks have been mediocre. I have ended up ahead $1000 or so (I will update my win count later today or tomorrow), but about half of that was bonus money. The $109s are noticeably more difficult than the $55s, and I frequently see 9 or 10 players left at the $150/$300 level, which is unheard-of in $55s. There are still enough poor players to make them profitable, but at least half of my opponents are playing approximately correct strategy, and some of them are considerably better than me. One thing about SNGs is that having even 1 or 2 superior players at the table will cut your win rate tremendously, which is not the case in cash games (live-action gives you many more possibilities to isolate weak players and avoid strong ones). I haven't calculated my ROI at the $109s, but I don't have enough data points for significance anyway.

I feel like I have been taking some pretty atrocious beats, but of course the ones you lose make more of an impression than the ones you win. I've gone out in 3rd twice in the last 3 days all-in preflop with KK against Ax, once in a $55 and once in a $109. That's about $300 deposited in the equity bank.

Buy-in: $50. Juice: $5. Player comments: Priceless.

2005-05-31T06:30:00.000-07:00

Down to 5-handed with 150-300 blinds in a $50+5 NLHE SNG, I picked up [QdQh] under the gun. I was the big stack at the table and raised to 900. The button reraised all-in for about 600 more, the blinds folded and I called. Button showed [AcJs].

Flop: [9h 6s Ah]
Turn: [4h]
River: [Kh]
PokerRabbit wins 3450 chips from the main pot with [Ah Kh Qh 9h 4h] (a flush, ace high)
Button shows [Ac Ah Kh Js 9h] (one pair, aces)
Button finished the tournament in 5th place.
PokerRabbit: gg
Button: NICE SUCKOUT

LOL. You can just see this guy’s thought process: “Well, AJ is the best hand I’m likely to see before I get blinded off, so I might as well make a stand. Hmm, somebody raised, but I was going to do that anyway so I’ll just go all-in… Yay, I flopped an ace… uh-oh… Doh! @*^!%$ runner-runner flush! Another bad beat!”

Some players never seem to figure out that when they are short-stacked, they are far better off open-pushing with any 2 cards than reraising an early raiser (who is guaranteed to call them) with a mediocre hand. In fact, the worst sin you can commit in SNG bubble play is to pay more attention to your cards than to your fold equity.

I believe in giving my opponents as many chances as possible to make mistakes. SNGs are therefore great because:

1) Most players don’t really understand how to play no-limit hold’em;
2) Most players who are familiar with no-limit don’t play proper tournament strategy;
3) Of the ones that play approximately correct tournament strategy, many don’t play short stacks correctly on the bubble (and in SNGs, especially with the Stars Turbo or Party structures, you will frequently find yourself in this position).

Also, SNGs have lower variance than ring games, which is nice. Right now I am handily beating the Bodog and Party $50+5s (and Stars Turbo $55+5s) and I’ll probably move up to the $100+9s before long. I have noticed from observing tables that there is a big skill jump between the $55 and $109 level, however, so I expect my win rate to drop a fair amount. We shall see…

I Will Gladly Play Phil Ivey Heads-Up

2005-05-29T19:27:00.000-07:00

With two conditions:

1) I get to start with more money than him

2) We play no-limit, Hollywood Rules

Hollywood Rules are: if you don’t have enough money to call the opponent’s bet, you automatically lose the pot. Bring it, Ivey!

Seriously, that is such a pet peeve of mine. Before I even started playing poker I knew how stupid all those screenwriters were. I think it comes from that apocryphal Wild West story, where one of the players puts a gun to the governor’s head and says “I raise you the entire state of New Mexico!”, forcing the others to fold. Bah. Two seconds’ thought should reveal to anyone how preposterous that is. The concept of “all-in” is indispensable to poker and is as old as the game itself.

You’d think that these days, with the popularity of poker at an all-time high, TV writers could be bothered to at least get the rules right. But no – the other day on Passions (an otherwise terrific show, by the way; it’s a sort of spoof on the soap opera concept), a poker player was unable to call a bet and was forced to take a loan from another player in order to get a showdown. Of course, the other player turned out to be a mobster, the hero lost and couldn’t pay back the loan, and pretty soon the conversation turned to one-way trips into the desert. (The other amusing thing about that show: the game was at an OUTDOOR card table. In Las Vegas. In May. Rrriiiight.)

Crazy Ed's House of Poker (formerly Bodog.com)

2005-05-29T09:21:00.000-07:00

Yes, the good folks at Bodog have clearly lost their collective mind. At the time of this writing they are offering the following bonus terms and conditions:

20% deposit/reload bonus, no max, can be repeated indefinitely
Earn 3 Bodog Points to clear each $1 in bonus
Each $1 in tournament entry fees gives 6 Bodog Points

In case your math is shaky, that means Bodog is paying players juice to enter their tournaments, rather than the other way around. $50 SNGs, for example, are only costing the player $45 to play. This adds an instant 18% to your ROI if you are used to $55s on other sites. Insanity. As if that wasn’t enough, they are spreading daily and weekly guaranteed tournaments that NEVER meet the guarantee, producing tremendous overlays. Their Sunday $100+9 buy-in, $100K guaranteed has never had more than 600 players, meaning there is $40,000 added at a minimum. And Bodog is a large, well-established casino and sports book, so there is no danger of them going broke and your money going “poof”. The icing on the cake is the quality of players on the site – the SNGs below $50 are all aquariums, and quite often the fishies even swim up to the $50s and $100s. Basically, with conditions as they are, even a mediocre player should be able to clear $1000 a week by playing SNGs and MTTs.

Why are they doing it? They must be making a massive effort to attract players away from Party, Stars and UB. So far, strangely, it doesn’t seem to be working. Bodog’s software is perfectly adequate (except for the annoying lack of Poker Tracker support), and their marketing is pretty aggressive, so I don’t know what the problem is. I keep expecting to log on there and see 50,000 other users. Well, maybe now that I have blogged about it, my legions of readers will all go sign up.

(No, I don’t have a bonus code, but I recommend signing up through ecasinodeals.com, boogster.com, or pokersourceonline.com to get an affiliate deal. If you do, please put Poker_Rabbit as the user who referred you. Costs you nothing and gets me a few comp points.)

The Answer to an Ancient Debate

2005-05-25T10:09:00.000-07:00

Stick with me to the end of this article, I promise there is a point.

$10/$20 limit hold’em: Player A, holding [Ah8h], posted the small blind. Player B posted the big blind. Action preflop was folded to the blinds. Player A raised, and B called. The flop came [As 8s 9d]. A bet, B called. Turn was the [3h]. Again A bet and B called. The river was the [4s]. Player A has the following options on the river:

1) Check with the intention of calling;
2) Check with the intention of folding;
3) Check with the intention of raising;
4) Bet with the intention of calling a raise;
5) Bet with the intention of folding to a raise.

From the betting, it is apparent that B has either a draw or a weak ace. If B was drawing to a straight and missed (for example with JhTd or 7h6h), let’s say he will attempt a bluff bet or raise 20% of the time. If he was drawing to a flush, he got there, and he will always bet or raise. If he has an ace, he will call a bet but will check along if A checks. We will assign the same probability to each of these three scenarios, meaning that A cannot put B on a hand with any degree of confidence.

A’s expectation breaks down like this (if you don’t know how to work this kind of poker problem, read The Theory of Poker):

If B was drawing to a straight and missed:
Check/call: +$100 four times and +$120 once (when B bluffs and is called)
Check/fold: +$100 four times and $0 once (when B bluffs and A folds)
Check/raise: +$100 four times and +$120 once (when B bluffs, is raised, and folds)
Bet/call: +$100 four times and +$140 once (when B unsuccessfully bluff-raises)
Bet/fold: +$100 four times and -$20 once (when B successfully bluff-raises)

If B was drawing to a flush and made his hand:
Check/call: -$20 five times
Check/fold: $0 five times
Check/raise: -$60 five times (when B reraises and A calls)
Bet/call: -$40 five times
Bet/fold: -$20 five times

If B has an ace:
Check/call: +$100 five times
Check/fold: +$100 five times
Check/raise: +$100 five times
Bet/call: +$120 five times
Bet/fold: +$120 five times

A’s expectation as a formula, with a 1/3 chance of each of B’s hands:
Check/call: ($520*0.33 - $100*0.33 + $500*0.33) / 5 = $61.33
Check/fold: ($400*0.33 + $0 + $500*0.33) / 5 = $60
Check/raise: ($520*0.33 - $300*0.33 + $500*0.33) / 5 = $49.33
Bet/call: ($540*0.33 - $200*0.33 + $600*0.33) / 5 = $62.67
Bet/fold: ($380*0.33 - $100*0.33 + $600*0.33) / 5 = $58.67

We can eliminate the check-raise (this should be intuitively obvious to most players anyway). The striking thing is how similar the other four options are. The amount at stake between the best and the worst of the remaining strategies is only 0.2 BB, and between the top two (bet/call and check/call) the difference is only 0.067 BB! Close decision, right?

Yes… but. The “but” in this case is the assignment of equal probability to all 3 of B’s possible hands (made draw, missed draw, and pair of aces). This is only true if B is playing close to optimally, meaning that he will play a draw and a pair the same way, in order to avoid giving information about his hand. Very, very few poker players approach (or even understand) optimal strategy. Most are predictable to some extent, and if A has been paying attention to B’s play, he should have some idea of B’s hand. For example, let’s say A can eliminate the possibility that B has an ace, because B is aggressive with made hands (but not draws) and would have raised on an earlier street if he had top pair. Therefore, B either made a flush or missed a straight, and the numbers become:

Check/call: ($520*0.5 - $100*0.5) / 5 = $42
Check/fold: ($400*0.5 + $0) / 5 = $40
Check/raise: ($520*0.5 - $300*0.5) / 5 = $22 (disregard this option as obviously wrong)
Bet/call: ($540*0.5 - $200*0.5) / 5 = $34
Bet/fold: ($380*0.5 - $100*0.5) / 5 = $28

And A’s best option becomes checking and calling. This should be intuitively obvious, because A knows B will not call with a missed draw, but might try to bluff with one. There is now a 0.1 BB spread between the top two options, and a 0.7 BB spread between the best and the worst. (Don’t compare these numbers to the previous set in absolute terms, just compare the relative strengths of each strategy within each scenario. Changing the parameters makes any idea of “absolute” expectation meaningless.)

How about a third scenario? If A knows that B is a very conservative player who would not have called a preflop raise with any hand that could have flopped a straight draw, A can eliminate the “missed draw” possibility altogether – B either has a made flush, or he has an ace. What does that do to the numbers?

Check/call: (-$100*0.5 + $500*0.5) / 5 = $40
Check/fold: ($0 + $500*0.5) / 5 = $50
Check/raise: (-$300*0.5 + $500*0.5) / 5 = $20 (again, we disregard this option)
Bet/call: (-$200*0.5 + $600*0.5) / 5 = $40
Bet/fold: (-$100*0.5 + $600*0.5) / 5 = $50

Now check/fold and bet/fold are tied for first place, and there is a full 0.5 BB gap between those two and the next best option. (Again, if you think about it, this is clearly correct. B cannot be bluffing, so A must fold to any sign of strength.)

I’m sure you’re getting a headache from all these numbers, and maybe the point has not yet become clear. The point is this: I have just mathematically demonstrated that math is of secondary importance in poker. If player A has no knowledge at all of B’s hand (the first case), he is forced into a close decision; so close, in fact, that it hardly matters whether he check/calls, check/folds, bet/calls, or bet/folds. Even if his grasp of the math is perfect (and how many players could calculate expectation so precisely on the spur of the moment?), deciding between these options only gains him 0.2 BB at most. But in the second and third cases, A’s choice is clear-cut and makes a tremendous difference: 0.7 BB and 0.5 BB respectively. A earns his money primarily from his ability to put B on a hand, however inexactly. (Player A must also make the correct decision based on this knowledge, of course, but 95% of poker players would be able to play correctly on the basis of the information we’ve given A.)

Back to the title of this article: What’s the ancient debate I’m alluding to? Simple. The debate is over how, exactly, winning players make money at the game. Many people believe that a winning player’s income is primarily generated by making a multitude of close mathematical decisions correctly. They’re wrong. Winning players make money by paying attention and reading hands, thereby avoiding close decisions that would “fork” a lesser player. To put it another way: poor players are faced with many close decisions; good players face very few, because they have access to information that makes decisions much less close.

A Brief Q&A About Online Poker

2005-05-24T14:25:00.000-07:00

I'm not so arrogant as to think I can write "The FAQ" about online poker, but I'm experienced and unbiased enough to honestly answer some questions new players may have, whether they are new to poker in general or online poker specifically. If you already play online, you might as well read it anyway -- you might learn something, or you might be moved to comment so I can improve this little guide.

Q: How does poker work online? How can you play poker with no cards and no chips?
A: Online poker runs on a client/server model. The server, which is maintained by the poker site, is where the game is actually run. The client software, which each individual player downloads to their home computer, displays graphics that simulate a poker table. The client receives only information about that player’s hand and the actions of the other players – exactly what the player would be able to see if he were playing at a real poker table. The player chooses an action, clicks on the appropriate button in the client software, and the client communicates that action to the server, which communicates it to the other players. It’s as if a poker game were conducted with all the players in different rooms, with a dealer who constantly runs back and forth (really, really fast).

Q: How do money transfers work online?
A: The most common way is via a service called Neteller, which is essentially an online bank. You can open a Neteller account and process transactions from your ordinary bank account to Neteller, and from there to online poker sites. When you withdraw, you withdraw to Neteller and then withdraw again back to your brick-and-mortar bank account. The money is quite real and spends just as well as money from a cash poker game. Depending on your deposit method and the site, there may be a small fee associated with transferring money. I use Neteller exclusively, so I am not very familiar with other online transaction services like FirePay. PayPal does not support gambling-related transactions.

Q: How do I know the game isn’t crooked?
A: Online poker is a billion-dollar business, and there is no more advantage for a site to run a crooked game than there is for a casino to run one. (And it would be considerably harder for an online site to get away with, because their data are publicly available.) They would risk killing the golden goose. The only real danger from the sites is that they might not be solvent, and may go bankrupt, taking players’ money with them. To my knowledge, this has only happened once – a site called Pokerspot, run by Russ “Dutch” Boyd. Stick to sites that have been around at least a year and you’ll be fine.

Q: But isn’t there a possibility of other players cheating by hacking the server?
A: In theory, yes. No online information is completely secure. However, poker sites go to incredible lengths to ensure the integrity of their servers and their shuffle. Most of them are independently audited. They also have very sophisticated algorithms in place to detect possible cheating (more on this later). Additionally, any thieves out there would obviously set their sights on the bigger games; if you are playing less than $20-$40, you can be very confident you are not being cheated.

Q: What about other possible methods of cheating, such as collusion?
A: This is a more relevant concern. Most poker players are familiar with the potential for cheating by colluding with other players at the table in order to manipulate the betting and/or share hand information. This problem is amplified online, where players may have external lines of communication and multiple accounts. You could even be playing against nine other “players” who are really all the same person! This would be impossible to overcome. However, online poker also presents unique ways to determine if collusion is occurring. To actively collude, players must overplay weak hands (this is known as “whipsawing”: trapping a third player for extra bets by having two colluders reraise each other when one of them has a strong hand and the other has nothing). Whipsawing is, in theory at least, easy to detect algorithmically. If a player is constantly giving tremendous action with garbage hands, the server will be able to notice this in a way that a dealer in a live game would not (since the dealer doesn’t know what each player holds, but the server does). And again, any cheaters are likely to focus on high-stakes games.

Q: I’m still not comfortable about online poker. My brother-in-law lost a bunch of money and swears they could see his cards, and I read a column on ESPN.com about how online poker may be rigged.
A: I have no reason to suspect I have ever been cheated. If I have been, they did a poor job, because I have made upwards of $20,000 this year playing online poker (and it’s just a 40-hour-per-month hobby for me). I can’t speak to the higher limits, but if there is rampant cheating going on at the mid-limits, I have somehow been spared. More likely, losing poker players would rather believe they have been cheated than face the unpleasant fact that they play badly. (At least 70% of poker players are long-term losers at the game.) The common complaints about bad beats on the river, etc., that were the focus of the ESPN column are just a consequence of the differences between online play and casino play. Speaking of which…

Q: What is the quality of play like online compared to casinos?
A: In a word, looser. Generally much looser (depending on the site) than a typical Vegas casino game. This does not necessarily mean it’s easier to beat, though. Online players tend to be trickier and more aggressive than the average casino player. They have a wider range of starting hands and they are more apt to semi-bluff. You may value-bet top set on the river, only to find that your opponent was raising on every round with a gutshot draw and got there. This can be a difficult adjustment if you are used to playing in more sedate games. Personally, I would rather play against a table full of tight, passive, predictable players than a table full of maniacs, but that’s my preference. Many poker players love action games, and those can be found in abundance online. And in fact, because there are so many different tables at so many different sites, you can pretty much find any type of game you want with a little patience. Good poker players, of course, should be able to adjust to whatever game they are in.

Q: Is playing online poker legal in the United States?
A: Nobody really knows. The state and federal gambling laws were written in a time when the Internet did not exist. To my knowledge, there has never been an attempted prosecution of an online poker player, although there are certain laws (the Wire Act, for instance) that may apply. There has been some tough talk from anti-gambling legislators and prosecutors, but no real action so far. It doesn’t seem to be a legislative or judicial priority at the moment.

Q: What are the advantages of playing online vs. live?
A: Many! I will list a few of the important ones in no particular order.
1) There are no tips for dealers, and the rake structures of online poker sites are generally better than casinos’ (especially if you can get rakeback – more on this later).
2) You can play many more hands per hour online. Any online poker is faster than live play, and depending on the quality of the site’s software, it can be up to twice as fast. Also, it is possible to play on more than one table at once online. Multi-tabling can multiply the win rate of a skilled player. Some people even play 12 or more tables at a time!
3) You don’t have to drive anywhere. In fact, you don’t even have to get dressed.
4) If another player annoys you, you can block their chat (on most sites) and you will never have to hear from them again.
5) You don’t have to worry about being robbed or busted by law enforcement (no one has yet been prosecuted for playing online poker).
6) Bonuses! How many casinos pay poker players just to sit down and play? Ha – it’s often an epic struggle just to squeeze a lousy meal comp out of the floorperson. Online sites, which face stiffer competition than casinos, almost all have deposit bonuses, often to the point that you are earning more in bonus money than you are paying in rake. This is great for beginning or low-stakes players, who may make more in bonus money than they win at the tables. There is no better way to build a bankroll than playing for bonuses.
7) If you are a tournament player, the quality and quantity of online tournaments is mind-boggling. On any given weekend there will be dozens of tournaments with a significant overlay (meaning money is added to the prize pool by the host site), ranging from freerolls with $500 prize pools all the way up to larger buy-in tournaments with $50,000 or more added by the house. By contrast, it is incredibly difficult to find a live poker tournament with an overlay. The juice (money taken out of entry fees by the house) is much more reasonable online as well. Finally, if you enjoy single-table tournaments, you’re in luck. The single-table mini-tournament, also known as a sit-n-go or SNG, is an extremely popular format online, and you can start playing one at any hour of the day or night.
8) If you enjoy hard-to-find poker games, such as five-card draw, pineapple, deuce-to-seven triple draw, razz, or even guts and Indian, you can find them online. The larger poker sites spread many different variants. Also, if you prefer shorthanded play, there are tables with a specified maximum number of players, such as 6-max Texas hold’em.
9) It is very easy to track your statistics online. There are several powerful statistical tools out there for online poker players, the best of which is probably Poker Tracker. These software programs enable you to analyze your play (and other players’) in depth. Maintaining a complete history of every hand you’ve ever played is not possible in a casino.
10) The dealers don’t make mistakes, players cannot act out of turn, and there are very, very few situations that call for the involvement of a floorperson or allow for “angle shooting”.

Q: What are the disadvantages of online play?
A: Let me list the ones I consider significant:
1) Slower cashout times. Instead of simply bringing your chips to the cage, you must submit a withdrawal request to the site and wait for it to be processed. Depending on the site, this can take anywhere from an hour to a week. Occasionally sites will also ask players to fax photo ID to prove their identity before cashing out for the first time. Let me emphasize that I have never had a site cheat me out of money, and I have made hundreds of transfers to dozens of different sites. The time lag does tie up your bankroll, however, which can be annoying.
2) Fewer tells. You don’t get to see your opponents in person, which can limit the hand-reading ability of players who like to look for tells. Of course, they can’t see you either, so you are free to scream in ecstasy when you make the nut flush on the river.
3) Online poker is not what you’d call a social experience, and this has two drawbacks. First, it makes the game less fun if you’re the type of person who enjoys conversations at the table. And second, it tends to keep the “social” players away, which is unfortunate because those players are often the worst ones!
4) Many sites do not allow deals to be made in tournaments. I’m not sure why this is, but I suspect it’s simply that they don’t want to devote customer service reps to brokering deals and dividing money. I rarely ask for or accept deals anyway, but it is certainly a disadvantage for players when they are not even an option. If I ever got lucky enough to make the final table of a big tournament, I would not want to have fifty thousand dollars riding on a coin flip.
5) It is possible to be disconnected in the middle of a hand. Initially, some sites attempted to compensate for this by including “all-in protection”, meaning that a disconnected player would be treated as all-in rather than having his hand immediately folded. Unfortunately, that system is open to abuse. (Imagine you have a bare flush draw in a no-limit hold’em game, the pot is $5,000, and an opponent bets $10,000. Would you rather have $10,000 on the table, or be all-in?) Players began cheating by deliberately disconnecting themselves when it was to their advantage to be all-in. Most sites have abandoned the all-in protection feature. So now, if you get disconnected mid-hand, your cards will usually be folded after 30 seconds or so. A possible solution to this is to have a backup Internet connection, but you still could be forced out of a pot due to a computer crash or power failure.
6) It is possible to misclick and take an action you did not want to take. For example, you might call a big bet by accident because you clicked the wrong button. Not good. This is a very rare occurrence, but it is even more rare to call “by accident” in a casino.

Q: You mentioned bonuses. How can I maximize the bonuses I get from playing online poker?
A: There are two things you should know. Never, ever sign up for a poker site without checking into both of these things first.
1) What first-time deposit bonus does the site offer? You can locate this information on their website, under “Promotions” (usually it will be very obvious, since the purpose of having a bonus is to attract players!). Be sure to read the Terms and Conditions of the bonus, which may be harder to find. No poker site is simply going to give away money for nothing, so they will have some sort of requirements to “clear” the bonus – i.e., allow it to be played with and/or cashed out. A typical deposit bonus will be something like this: 20% up to $100, with a 7x raked hand requirement. That means that your bonus will be 20% of your first deposit, capped at a $100 bonus, and in order to clear the bonus you must play seven raked hands for every dollar in bonus money. So you could deposit $100, get a $20 bonus, and cash it out after playing 140 raked hands; or you could deposit $500, get a $100 bonus, and then play 700 raked hands in order to clear it. (Or anywhere in between.) Those numbers will be different for different sites, of course, and some sites have more esoteric requirements such as the accumulation of “player points” or a specific dollar amount wagered. Some sites release bonuses in increments, and some release them in one lump sum when all requirements have been met. It can’t be repeated too many times: READ THE T&Cs! If you have any questions, email their customer service BEFORE you sign up.
2) Are there any affiliate deals available for the site? This requires a little explanation. Affiliates are third parties who essentially act as marketing reps for poker sites. They funnel players to the site, and in return, the site pays them (either a flat fee or a percentage of the rake generated by players the affiliate signs up). So what does this have to do with players? Simple – affiliates are so eager to attract players that they will pay the player a high percentage of the amount that the site pays the affiliate. In essence, it’s a kickback. Generally, affiliate sites do not pay players in cash, but they offer a variety of merchandise and gift certificates which amounts to the same thing (for instance, amazon.com gift certificates can be sold on eBay for 90+% of their face value). So as a player, you are being very foolish if you don’t take advantage of affiliate bonuses. The three biggest poker affiliates are pokersourceonline.com, boogster.com, and ecasinodeals.com. All of them have affiliate deals going with many different online poker rooms. There is considerable overlap, so shop around and see who is making the best offer at the moment. I can vouch that all three are reputable and will make good to the player. Note, however, that the affiliate will set play requirements that may exceed the requirements of the site deposit bonus (usually not, and any play on the site will count toward clearing both bonuses). Again, it is important to be perfectly clear on the terms and conditions, or you risk losing your bonus. Another thing to be wary of is this: if you click on a banner ad or other link on someone’s web site, and it links you to a poker site, you have probably been logged under some affiliate and you may become ineligible for other affiliate deals that actually benefit you. You can prevent this by clearing your cookies in Internet Explorer before signing up through an affiliate.

Q: I keep hearing about something called “rakeback”. What is rakeback and how can I get it?
A: Rakeback is an affiliate deal, but it differs from the affiliate signup bonus outlined above. In a rakeback arrangement, the player gets back a percentage of what he pays in rake each month, rather than a one-time bonus. Rakeback can be extremely lucrative if you spend most of your time on one site. The caveat to this is that any site bonuses will be subtracted from your rakeback. For example, if you receive a $100 deposit bonus from the site, pay $500 in rake, and have a 20% rakeback deal, you will get zero in rakeback payments for that month. (From the site’s point of view, they are not making enough money from you to pay the affiliate, which means the affiliate will not be paying you.) It is usually more lucrative to take a signup bonus than a rakeback arrangement if you are playing for lower stakes. However, I strongly recommend getting a rakeback deal on at least one of the Party skins. At some point you may want to move up in limits or run out of lucrative bonuses to play for, and you will want to play on the Party network, so go for some rakeback. 20% is on the low side, 25% is pretty good, and 30% is almost unheard of.

Q: What’s with all the bonuses and enticements for players? It seems too good to be true.
A: It is true, at least for now. Online poker is a very competitive industry, and it is easy for players to “vote with their feet” by simply moving to another site. This creates a very beneficial situation for the consumer. I believe that at some point the market will stabilize, with 3 or 4 big providers controlling most of the business. If that comes to pass, bonuses and affiliate deals will largely disappear. But for now, there are a lot of low-hanging fruit to grab.

Q: This online poker thing sounds great, but I have no idea how to play poker. What is the best way to learn the game?
A: Poker is like Othello – a minute to learn, a lifetime to master. I recommend beginning with limit Texas hold’em, the most popular and accessible poker game. Start out by memorizing the ranks of hands and learning the basic terminology and structure. Then read the following books: Texas Hold’Em Poker and The Theory of Poker (both by David Sklansky), and the section on limit hold’em in Super/System 2 (author credit for this book is given to Doyle Brunson, but that particular chapter was written by Jennifer Harman). Parts of Theory may seem dense, especially if you don’t have a background in probability math and game theory, but stick with it – it is probably the single best book ever written on poker fundamentals. Harman’s writing comes from a more street-smart than book-smart perspective, but Harman is the best limit hold’em ring-game player in the world, so her advice is worth taking! Once you’ve read those books, log on to a poker site and play a few hundred hands at one of their micro-limit hold’em tables. After each session, flip through the books again and think about the hands you played – figure out where you went right and where you went wrong. Get a copy of Poker Tracker and start recording your hand histories, but bear in mind that it takes tens of thousands of hands to get a handle on your true win/loss rate. Also, and equally importantly, pay attention to your emotional state while you play. Are you easily upset by taking a bad beat or being bluffed out of a pot? Do you nurse grudges against other players at the table? Do you constantly think about the money you are winning or losing, rather than the game itself? Does your mind wander during play? Any of those can be fatal flaws in a poker player, although they all can be overcome with time and discipline. After a few months of regular play and study, you should be able to beat micro-limit tables consistently, provided you are a reasonably intelligent and self-disciplined person. Expand your poker library and keep studying the game. After a few years, you may even be able to consistently beat $30-$60 and higher limits, or $5-$10 and higher blind no-limit tables.

Q: Isn’t there a quicker, easier way to learn to play poker?
A: Yes. Watch a few episodes of the World Poker Tour and buy into a $5-$10 blind no-limit game for $1000. You will either: a) Discover that you are a natural genius at the game like Stu Ungar, and go on to garner fame, riches, and beautiful members of the appropriate sex, or b) Lose $1000. The odds against the former are somewhere around ten million to one. Feel lucky? (If so, please drop me a line with where you’ll be playing and when.)

Q: I’m learning to play but I’m still losing money. Any advice?
A: Move down in limits. Play fewer starting hands. Check-raise often; slowplay rarely. In every decision, consider cards, chips, opponent(s), and position. If you have the slightest suspicion that you may be on tilt, quit for the day.

Q: What is tilt?
A: Tilt is playing less than your best game because you are angry or otherwise off-balance emotionally. Tilt is the reason that most players don’t win at poker, even though they may well be capable of winning. It can be difficult to know when you are on tilt, because tilt impairs your judgement by its very nature. If you are highly prone to tilt, don’t play poker. If you must play poker, play tournament poker, where you can only go broke once per game. Tilt to a poker player is worse than slice to a golfer. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Q: What are the best poker sites?
A: I don’t have a strong opinion about this. To me, the best site is the one where I can pick up the best bonus or rakeback at the moment. Party Poker (and skins: Empire, PokerNow, Intertops, and Eurobet as of this writing) is generally believed to have the best games. Certainly it has the widest selection, being the largest site on the net. PokerStars and UltimateBet are the next two largest sites, and both have their devotees. The most bonus-heavy site right now is Bodog, which is also spreading a lot of tournaments with great overlays, so I have been spending most of my time there lately. Look around and decide which ones you like. I will say that it is worth signing up for ALL of them that you can find affiliate deals for. If nothing else, you can grab the deposit bonus, grab the affiliate bonus, cash out, and be on your way.

Q: What is a “skin”?
A: A skin is a site that shares players and games with another site. For example, Empire Poker is a skin of Party Poker. The software looks a little different, but the games are identical; players from Party and Empire could be playing at the same table. The only difference is the multi-table tournaments, which are specific to each skin.

Q: How come you’re not a poker pro?
A: Poker is not a career. Anyone contemplating supporting themselves with poker needs to keep that in mind. It is not guaranteed income, there is no health insurance, no 401(k), and the taxes are murder. Society is not friendly to the unemployed, even if (or perhaps especially if) they can make a living by gambling. I love playing poker as a hobby and I love the fact that my hobby also helps pay the bills, but there is not a snowball’s chance in hell that I would ever quit my job to play. (Unless I made a big enough score that I never had to work again. That is a pretty remote possibility, but you never know.)

Q: How come you don’t have an affiliate deal with any sites?
A: Basically, because I don’t want to be in that business. I have a job, a family, and hobbies (including poker) that occupy my time. I don’t want to add more stress to my life, and I doubt the money would approach what I can make playing poker. I know that a lot of bloggers put up ad banners and links to poker sites, and more power to them.

Q: Since you’re not an affiliate, how can I thank you for writing this wonderful guide?
A: You can list Poker_Rabbit (with underscore) as the person who referred you at pokersourceonline.com, boogster.com, and ecasinodeals.com. I’ll get a few points, and it doesn’t cost you anything -- you still get the full affiliate bonus. Mostly I wrote this Q&A because I want to contribute to the growth of online poker and because I think I have some good advice for new online players. I don’t expect to get anything for it.

First Post

2005-05-24T09:27:00.000-07:00

Poker Rabbit's First Rule of Poker: Never fold the nut queen-high straight flush on the flop.