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Posted by Jaxia as Poker at 11:18 PM PDT

1 Comment »

We have company coming into town tomorrow afternoon, and so I won’t be able to attend Pauly’s birthday bash.

What: WPBT Tournament
Where: Titan Poker
When: Tuesday, September 20th at 9pm ET
Buy-in: $20 + 1
Format: No Limit
Password: thehamma

I was hoping that the Second Annual WPBT Winter Classic would be during my October trip to Vegas, but no such luck.

Second Annual WPBT Winter Classic
Date: Dec 10th, 2005
Place: Imperial Palace Casino
Time: Shooting for around 10am’ish

Bill was also able to work out $29 weekday, $39 weekend rates with the hotel. I’ll expect some dial-a-shots!

Posted by Jaxia as Poker at 9:30 PM PDT

1 Comment »

Among the many tournaments hosted by Full Tilt Poker are “Guaranteed” tourneys. No matter how few people enter, they give away a guaranteed amount.

So when I logged on this morning, I discovered there were only about 45 people signed up for an 11 AM $3,500 guaranteed tourney with a $24 + $2 buy-in. The pay line started at 18th place. So, I registered for the tourney, thinking I was getting good value for such a great payout.

I should have known better. In the last 10 minutes before the tourney started, everybody and their uncle entered. By the time it started, 155 people were in, and I wished I could be out.

I wished I could unregister even more when I held Q/Q and found myself all-in against K/K. But a beautiful turn Q tripped me up and all of a sudden I was among the chip leaders.

When the moneyline approached, I was getting cold-decked. From 18 players all the way down to the final 9, I didn’t see a decent hand. But at the final table I busted the two shortstacks holding Ad/Jd and vaulted into the chip lead.

Now it was time to start thinking about the big money. With seven players left, we were all walking away with at least $139.50, but first place paid over seven times that, $1,004.40.

I almost knocked out another shortstack with pocket deuces against his Jd/6d, but the turn 2d filled his flush and I couldn’t find a boat on the river.

While the others got knocked out, a couple of advantageous hands put me over 100,000 chips, and I lorded my big stack over the rest of the table, stealing antes and blinds virtually at will. But eventually, the second-biggest stack caught on and reraised many of my steal attempts. Not wanting to get into a brawl with someone who could really hurt me holding mediocre cards, I usually gave it up. He did this enough to take the chip leadership from me.

With three players left (third place won $474.30, second won $632.40) and the blinds at 1200/2400 with 300 antes, I held 9c/9d in the big blind. The now-chip leader, in the small blind, just called me, and I raised to 8100. He called.

The flop came 5c/Ac/7d and he fired a bet of 17,100 at me. Thinking he was merely representing the ace, I raised to 35K and he called.

The turn was 6s and he went all-in. I figured he might now have the ace, but he’d been so aggressive I couldn’t guarantee it. If he held anything besides an ace (or a pocket pair bigger than my nines), I was a massive favorite. I called.

He showed Ad/2c.

Crap.

I was already saying my goodbyes and cursing my misread when the river came 8d and a huge pile of chips were shoved toward me.

What the??!?

I made a straight! Probably the luckiest suckout I’ve ever had.

I polished him off five hands later with Q/10 when I won the coin-flip against his pocket fives. This left me heads-up with the small stack and a 9-1 chip advantage, at 209,327 versus 23,173.

With that much of an advantage, I could go all-in with any two cards, and I did a couple times and lost. But sixteen hands in, still with a better than 3-1 advantage, I pushed her all in with As/4s. She called with Qs/Jh.

What happened? See for yourself . . .

Posted by Mike as Poker at 2:06 AM PDT

5 Comments »

Sound of a Suckout has a fantastic post on when (and how) to play drawing hands agressively in limit hold ‘em.

A brief sample:

Proper play with drawing hands at first seems counter-intuitive, as far as raising and capping with a drawing hand. If you’re going to play these hands, though, that’s really the only way to play them. Your overall value in hands like these comes from aggressively raising while you’re still on the draw, so you need to avoid the temptation to try to limp along and cheaply see the next card. The reason this play is +EV to begin with stems from aggressive play, even when you know you’re behind and need help, as you have to build big pots when you win to compensate for all the busted draws and hands you insta-muck when the flop doesn’t help you.

Now go read the whole thing.

Posted by Beck as Poker at 12:29 AM PDT

3 Comments »

Thanks to April, I wound up in a poker blogger ring game for the first time on Friday night and there were a few notable hands.

I had aces preflop, and 2 people call my raise - including Iggy. The Q-4-7 flop doesn’t make me too nervous, and we check around. But when the turn brings a 2, and Iggy bets out, I started sweating. I call and so does the other guy. Iggy leads out and bets $3.25 when the river brings a blank. I decided that if my aces were cracked by the hammer, then I deserved it. I min-raised, Iggy calls and miraculously, my rockets are good!

A mere 3 hands later, the rockets (Ac, Ah) again grace me with their presence. 4 people call my raise. The flop shows 5-9-K, with two clubs. Two checks to me, and I bet not wanting to risk my aces to the flush. Two fold, but much to my dismay, Iggy calls. I cringe when the third club hits on the turn. Iggy checks in front of me, but I’m not falling for that trap and I check, too. The river gives me my flush, but the Kc also pairs the board. Iggy pushes all in and I call. Oddly enough, my aces are good again! (It will be important later to note that Iggy was on the straight draw here with JT, no club)

7 hands later, I’m in the BB and the poker gods again grace me with aces. BobRespert (sorry, don’t know your URL) raises to 50 cents, Iggy calls and I min-raise to 90 cents. Bob makes it $3, Iggy folds, and I bump it up to $5.10. Bob finally decides to end the raise war, and pushes all in. I call and the flop comes A-Q-J. The turn is a blank, and then the river fell. I think I startled April with my cursing because as soon as I saw the king, I KNEW Bob had to have a ten. Poker Stars revealed the hands, and indeed - Bob had pocket tens and picked up the $30+ pot at a .05/.10 NL table.

This is the very next hand:

Hold’em No Limit ($0.05/$0.10) -
Seat 1: Guinness ($18.95 in chips)
Seat 2: Jaxia ($14.05 in chips)
Seat 3: BobRespert ($33.65 in chips)
Seat 4: GameC ($25.95 in chips)
Seat 5: jschuur ($27.30 in chips)
Seat 6: JoeSpeaker ($41.80 in chips)
Seat 7: maigrey ($17.30 in chips)
Seat 8: Joanne1111 ($5 in chips)
Seat 9: FatTabbyMama ($13.40 in chips)
Jaxia: posts small blind $0.05
BobRespert: posts big blind $0.10
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Jaxia [9h Jh]
JoeSpeaker said, “ohhhhhhh”
FatTabbyMama said, “BRUTAL”
Maudie [observer] said, “whoa”
Jaxia said, “owww”
BobRespert said, “Sweet Luck of the Junk”
jschuur: calls $0.10
BobRespert said, “Sorry about that Jaxia”
FatTabbyMama said, “lol”
maigrey: raises $0.40 to $0.50
FatTabbyMama: calls $0.50
Jaxia: calls $0.45
BobRespert: raises $1.10 to $1.60
jschuur: calls $1.50
Jaxia said, “Could I at least get a reach around?”
maigrey: calls $1.10
BobRespert said, “I’d be happy to”
Guinness said, “lol”
FatTabbyMama: folds
Jaxia: calls $1.10
*** FLOP *** [Th 6d Qh]
Jaxia: checks
BobRespert: bets $8
jschuur: folds
maigrey: folds
Jaxia: raises $4.45 to $12.45 and is all-in
BobRespert: calls $4.45
Guinness said, “nite!”
*** TURN *** [Th 6d Qh] [Td]
*** RIVER *** [Th 6d Qh Td] [5h]
Guinness said, “too much fun”
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Jaxia: shows [9h Jh] (a flush, Queen high)
BobRespert: shows [Ad Ac] (two pair, Aces and Tens)
Jaxia collected $30.25 from pot
BobRespert said, “haha”
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $31.80 | Rake $1.55
Board [Th 6d Qh Td 5h]
Seat 2: Jaxia (small blind) showed [9h Jh] and won ($30.25) with a
flush, Queen high
Seat 3: BobRespert (big blind) showed [Ad Ac] and lost with two pair,
Aces and Tens

Jaxia said, “Woo!”
BobRespert said, “I deserved that”
maigrey said, “karma”
FatTabbyMama said, “never seen it served back so quickly”
BobRespert said, “both with AA no less”

Crazy, hmm? Aces cracked, back to back! Just a few hands later, my raise with pocket queens gets no love, but I show anyway.

BobRespert said, “enough pocket pairs for you Jaxia”
maigrey said, “cripes, is she sleeping with Lee Jones?”
FatTabbyMama said, “does anyone?”

I could use some advice on one hand:

I’m dealt Ah Qs two from the BB.
Iggy calls the blind and I’m right behind him.
I raise to 50 cents.
GameC calls, and so does Iggy. Everyone else folds.
*** FLOP *** [Tc Qc 4d]
Guinness: bets $2.10
Jaxia: raises $2.90 to $5
GameC: folds
Guinness: calls $2.90

The turn is an Ace. Iggy checks to me, I bet $5 and Iggy smooth calls. The king on the river makes me cry, and Iggy bets $36 - enough to put me all in. He bluffed into me on the river with nothing earlier, but I’m still not sure what to do. I go into the tank, and eventually fold my two pair. Being the mean midget housewife that he is, Iggy never told me what he had. Did I do the right thing, or should I have called him?

Posted by Jaxia as Poker at 12:35 AM PDT

8 Comments »

On Friday, Full Tilt Poker ran a special no-limit Texas Hold’em tournament to benefit victims of Hurricane Katrina. The response was so overwhelming that they’re having a second tournament tonight, and I’m in.
The buy-in is $20 + $10, which means that $20 goes to the tournament pool and $10 is the house rake, which FTP will donate to the American Red Cross. Further, FTP will match everyone’s donation.

Friday’s tournament had 718 players, meaning $14,360 was raised. Tonight’s tourney has 1210 players, raising $24,200 more.

Among the players tonight are pros Howard Lederer, Erik Seidel, John Juanda, David Grey, Aaron Bartley, and Kristy Gazes.

I vow that if I cash, one-third of my win will go to the Red Cross. First place wins $5,324.
Updates as I march toward victory.

8:25 PM: Uh-oh. I have 10s/10h, went all-in after a flop of 9h/4d/6h, and got called by Kh/Kc. I have him covered, but it will hurt if I lose.

Turn 5s. River 5h. Ouch.

8:30 PM: Holding Qs/Jc in the big blind and called UTG’s min-raise along with three other players. Flop is 8d/7d/Jd and I’m all-in. The button calls me with As/7c. The turn Qd gives me two pair, but I still need to dodge a non-diamond A or any 7. River 10s doubles me up.
Thank God. Didn’t want this to be a really short post.
Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by Mike as Poker at 12:34 AM PDT

4 Comments »

I was surfing poker blogs completely at random when I came across a fantastic line which really shows the way great poker minds work. So I just had to share.

The situation: the writer has the second-highest possible flush with a paired board on the river.

Now i am not going to pass even if he moves all in here so decide to move in myself as i may get called by hands that he would check down like trips or a smaller flush. So i move all in

–written by Milkybarkid

The average players thought here is often, “Well, I probably have the best hand, and I’m not going to fold regardless, but if I check here, I might save some money in instances where I’m beat.” This line of reasoning has things precisely backwards; after all, the typical hand that will bet into you is more likely to have you beat than the typical hand which will call your bet.

The key here is that you have decided that you are not going to fold regardless. If folding were an option, you might approach things differently. But if you’re not folding, the EV maximizing play (Sklansky makes this observation many times, most notably in Theory of Poker) is to bet out. By betting out, you have two things in your favor. First, there are many inferior hands which will pay you off but which would have checked behind you had you not bet the hand. Second, you can potentially cause a superior hand to fold. Offsetting those two benefits are the times you are called by a superior hand which would have checked behind you. So while you still want to give due consideration to the relative strength of your hand & your opponents likely holdings & previous behavior, you still almost always want to bet out.

Oh, and the resolution of the original story (in case you’re too lazy to click the link)? He was called by a smaller flush and won a huge pot.

Posted by Beck as Poker at 11:31 PM PDT

2 Comments »

If you do a blog search on Technorati using the keyword “poker,” Steal the Blinds comes in ninth (at least for now).

Of course, some of the highest traffic poker blogs out there aren’t even in the top 20, so I’m disinclined to take Technorati’s search rankings even remotely seriously, but I still think it’s pretty cool.

Posted by Beck as Poker at 9:53 PM PDT

6 Comments »

The situation: you’re playing $1-$2 NL, and have around $250 in front of you. The UTG player happens to also be the chip leader with over $1000 in front of him, though he earned it primarily through lucky draws. He’s loose and vaguely aggressive, but over all, not a very good player (but thinks he is–you know the type). He opens from under-the-gun with a raise to $7, which could mean virtually anything. Three other players call him, and you look down on the button to see two red 6’s.

And we’re off to the races.

You call, naturally, and so do both of the blinds. Seven people see a flop of As - 9c - 6s. You have flopped bottom set. Congratulations.

The LAG player bets $15 into this nearly $50 pot. He proclaimed earlier that he only bets out with the nuts or when he’s on a draw; indeed, he has shown this to be the case on many occasions, and always opts to check-raise when he has top pair or two-pair. The next player to act, with about $110 in front of him–a seemingly decent player, though a bit weak-tight–raises to $30. The next two players cold-call $30. That’s right, the action has been bet-raise-call-call. Your brain is screaming, “What in hell is going on here?!?” There is $105 in the pot, and you have about $250 in front of you. What do you do?

This is the decision I was faced with at Caesars in Atlantic City this past Tuesday night, and this hand is very difficult to handle. The worst thing you can do here is to simply call, but quite a few people–in fact, probably the majority of low stakes no-limit players–would do just that. Their thought process goes roughly, “Well, I think I probably have the best hand, but I’m not sure, so I don’t want to risk any more money, but I don’t want to fold a winner, so I’ll just call.”

You have to consider more than whether or not you have the best hand right then. For the record, I concluded, based on what I knew of my opponents and the play in the hand to that point, that I did have the best hand right then. And I was also seriously considering folding.

What hands was I likely up against? In my estimation, the bettor who opened the pot was almost certainly on some sort of a draw, and the raiser probably had two pair. The two cold callers both likely had very strong draws. I know it seems foolish to discount the possibility that a higher set is out, so you’ll simply have to trust that given the play I’d observed prior to this hand, I was very confident that was not the case. If we assume that one person had two pair (probably Ace-Nine, what with how three of the 6s are accounted for by our hand), that one person had an open-ended straight draw, and that another person had a flush draw, there are 18 to 19 outs (depending on whether the person with two pair is holding the 9 of spades) out against you with two cards to come. You are, in other words, a favorite to lose the hand. If someone improves on the turn, the only redraw you will have is one out to quad 6s.

Calling here gives any or all of those outs a chance to catch up. You could end the hand with the third or even fourth best hand despite being in first on the flop. As a consequence, folding here could well be the best EV play, assuming you know that no one is going to fold no matter what you do.

Of course, that’s not the case. Some people will fold some draws. Others will likely make mathematically incorrect calls, which you want them to do despite the fact that they will occasionally draw out on you. You probably see where I’m going with this by now. What you want to do is raise–raise enough that you’ll destroy the odds of any draws. In this case, go all-in. That has the added benefit of removing any implied odds a caller might have hoped to pick up by catching up on the turn and extracting future bets.

And that’s just what I did. I didn’t particularly like it, but the situation dictated the play to me. If I were to fold here, I shouldn’t be playing poker in the first place.

“I raise all-in.”

The blinds folded, and the original better, rather pointlessly, announced that he too was all in (I had more chips than any of the other people in the hand, so his “raise” changed things not a whit). This didn’t really surprise me, as I expected this guy would make a call getting 12-7 pot odds with just a 5-2 draw(assuming he had a flush draw). I was slightly more surprised when the first raiser also called, but then, he was relatively short stacked. The two players who had cold-called $30 both folded.

The short stack turned up A - 9 for top two pair. Unfortunately, the large stack turned over 7s - 8s. He had both a straight draw AND a flush draw, all rolled up in one cute little hand. He had, in other words, 14 outs, not 9. With two cards to come, that made him a favorite in the hand, not a 5-2 dog as I had surmised. His call, astonishingly enough, was perfectly correct here.

The turn was a red 5, and I got to practice my rebuying skills.

In a similar vein, read DoubleAs’ Folding when you think you’re ahead - ring games.

Update: Per Mr. Subliminal’s comment, I corrected one minor mistake, and I’d like to clarrify another point:

When I say that I’m a “favorite to lose” in the hypothetical situation where I’m up against three hands–one a two pair, one a flush draw, and one an open ended straight draw–what I mean is that I’m more likely to lose than I am to win. Despite that fact, I’m still the most likely to win of those four hands, and, as Mr. Subliminal points out on a post at his site, I’d have 36.5% pot equity. I didn’t mean to imply that I’m the most likely to lose, which, poker jargon considered, one might easily think I meant.

Posted by Beck as Poker at 1:35 AM PDT

2 Comments »