OK, I’ve written a couple posts on all-in over bets on the river in situations where you’re looking to get called. There’s another situation where you’re all-in over betting that’s substantially different: an all-in on the flop when behind but a favorite to win where you’re not looking to get called.

Yes, I’m talking about flopping an open ended straight draw with a flush draw. With 15 outs (or more) twice, you’re going to be a favorite over most hands, but will need to improve. If you don’t improve on the turn, you will no longer be a favorite and could potentially face a bet that would be incorrect to call, so you want to get your money in on the flop, thus guaranteeing you get to see two cards. At the same time, you often have higher EV if your opponent doesn’t call than if he does call (if he doesn’t call, you win everything in the pot, if he does, you have a much bigger pot to win, but only perhaps a 50 - 55 percent chance of winning it, with a concurrently much larger loss when you don’t win).

Here’s an example from a 1/2 NLHE game I played in just last week at Foxwoods:

I had just returned from a quick dinner and posted my missed blinds from the cutoff. Behind a couple limpers, I checked my option with Ad 8d, and the blinds both stuck around. The flop came 5d 6h 7d, giving me a beautiful OESD, nut flush draw, and two overs. Even if I was behind, I potentially had as much as 21 outs twice. (Ring a bell?). There was only $10 in the pot, but I bet $15. Under the circumstances, that wasn’t really an overbet, as the minimum standard flop bet had always been around a minimum of $15 at this table. Much to my delight, the big blind check-raised the minimum, re-opening the betting. Everyone else folded, and action was on me.

I had already made up my mind what to do if anyone raised, but I’ll go ahead and analyze the situation for your general edification. The big blind was a pretty good player, but he was on semi-tilt. It was a pretty common tilt variant: the sort where when a player is down, he starts to play worse. The more he’s down, the worse he plays. To an independant observer it would have almost appeared as though he were playing to lose–calling too often, and bluffing too often. This argued against the all-in move, as my EV was greater if I didn’t get called all-in.

[Digression: there was $55 in the pot after his raise. If he folded to an all-in re-raise, I would win $55, so my EV would be $55. He had $125 left in front of him, so if I pushed and he called, I would win $180 Win% of the time, lose $125 (1-X-Tie)% of the time, and win $27.50 Tie% of the time. Here are some potential hands he could have, and the win rates I could expect against those hands, apologies for the lazy formatting:

HAND WIN% TIE%
A7 61.7 1.8
KK 61.4 1.8
45 57.2 1.5
AA 54.2 1.8
34 51.5 1.5
76 49.1 1.8 (note, this is a perfect coin flip with both players sporting 486 winning outcomes 486 losing outcomes and 18 tie outcomes)
88 44.2 19.7
77 38.5 1.8
78 43.8 19.7
a8o 36.4 63.6
8x9x 36.4 7
8x9d 32.7 10.61

So in my best case scenario, I actually want a call, as my EV would be $65.93. In my worst case scenario though, where my opponent has the nuts with a diamond, my EV if I get a call is -$9.08. Taking a hand in the middle of that range, two pair with 76, my EV with a call is $27.50. Clearly, I don't want a call here most of the time.]

Arguing in favor of the all-in, however, was that it was a safe bet that this tilting player would bet the turn hard regardless of what card came off, potentially forcing me to fold a monster draw. I decided to push. My opponent called, looking disgusted with himself in the process, and turned up his hand.

He had A7 offsuit, for top pair top kicker. That meant my outs to the ace were no good, but my outs to the 8 were, so I had 18 outs twice, and was a nearly 2:1 favorite. The turn was a brick, and the river was a 4 of clubs. “Straight. I win.” I declared.

I love saying, “I win.”

Posted by Beck as Poker at 1:05 PM PDT

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First, you should read my post on over bets. Here’s another example along with some more analysis for you to chew on. The hand history, told briefly as I can:

Playing in an online $1/$2 NLHE game with $185 in front of me, I limped on the button behind two other limpers with Ad5d, the small blind called, and the big blind checked his option. The flop was Ks Qd 2d giving me the nut flush draw. It checked around to me, and fearing a check-raise on such a relatively scary board, checked behind. The turn was the 7d giving me the nuts. Again it checked around to me and I bet $4 into the $10 pot. The blinds folded, the first limper raised the minimum, and the second limper folded. Happy to get any action at all, I called. The river was an inconsequential 5h, and my opponent, who had me covered, went all-in. That’s right, he bet $175 into a $26 pot. I called, naturally, and my opponent’s Kd6d went down in flames. So what are we to make of this?

My play in this hand, of course, was relatively simple and straightforward. The outcome would have been essentially the same regardless of how I played the hand. Unless I had bet the flop then faced a raise so large that I had to fold, I was going to get a lot of money. (Incidentally, things could have easily ended on the flop. You’ll note my opponent flopped top pair along with his second-nut flush draw. A flop check-raise would be a great way to protect his hand, potentially force top pair with a better kicker to fold, and at the same time add some deception to the strength of his draw). In order to analyze the play, you have to look at it from the perspective of my opponent.

So what range of hands could he put me on? The answer, of course, is an extremely wide range. For starters, I’d been playing about 25% of hands, so I clearly wasn’t an uber-tight grinder. I was on the button. There were limpers in front of me. There are a lot of players who would play virtually any two cards there. I myself would play probably 35% of hands in that situation. I checked the flop, giving away a little information. My play at the table had been agressive any time I had a made hand, so, if he even troubled to think about it, my opponent could probably assume I had neither a king nor a queen in my hand. Betting the turn gave away practically no information. It’s standard to bet when last to act after the field has checked to you twice. It’s practically an automatic bet. Calling a minimum raise didn’t mean much either. Hell, there are some people would have called that raise–only twice the big blind–just to save face. So on the river I could have practically anything, though my call on the turn suggested I had at least a little something. A pair or ace high.

My opponent has the second nuts, assumes he is best, will only not be best a very small fraction of the time, and wants to get paid off. He could bet small, and probably get called by a wide range of hands. He could bet near the pot size and probably not get called by very many hands. Or he could over bet, hope I interpreted that as a bluff, and get called by a wider range of hands. He chose the last option and paid the price.

This raises the question: should you ever make the over bet ploy when holding anything less than the nuts? I think the answer is yes. Let’s say that I’m not a suspicious player and won’t ever interpret his over bet as a bluff. As such, what hands can I call with? With no straight possible, the only hands I can likely call with are two pair, three of a kind, or a flush. Let’s say I’m tight enough to only call with a flush, and then, with only the top half of possible flushes. There are 36 ways I could have a flush here, so we’re saying I’d call with the top 18. 8 of those ways, the ace-high flushes, beat that king high flush. The remaining 10, I’d be calling with a losing jack-high or ten-high flush (and counting all ten high flushes, all equally strong in relative terms, actually gives 13 hands that are losing). With that calculus alone, the king high flush is winning over half the time, and should want to bet as much as he can. When you start adding back the rest of the possible flushes, the three of a kinds, and the two pairs, you have many more losing hands that might call. The potential for me to call with a hand that can only beat a bluff just adds gravy.

That the play is profitable over the long run, of course, is a different issue from whether the play maximizes expected value. But calculating that would require an entire post of its own. And I don’t have that in my right now. Tough.
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Posted by Beck as Poker, Poker Strategy at 3:13 PM PDT

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Everyone makes mistakes at the poker table. You just have to hope they don’t wind up costing you too much money. Yesterday, after about 8 hours of play at Foxwoods, the following hand came up. I’ll be brief.

Four people saw a flop of K-T-8. I had KJs and bet. The LAG player to my left raised the minimum, everyone else folded, and I called. The turn was a 9. I checked, and LAG checked. The river was a Q. I bet, LAG called. I declared, “I have king jack,” and turned my cards up. My opponent’s reaction went something like this: “Hah! Two pair! … Oh … Nice catch.”

It was only then that I noticed I had back doored a straight.

I was so intent on playing out a routine poker hand script that I had fallen into a sort of poker hypnosis. The script was, “Top pair medium kicker out of position against a loose and aggressive player.” Strategy: try to keep the pot small, lean towards calling. Once I hit play on that scenario, my mind sort of shut down on future analysis of the board as it developed. I likely would only have noticed an Ace, King, or Jack coming off the deck at that point. When the queen hit, I distinctly remember my thought: “Good thing that wasn’t an ace!” This because my opponent played any ace and his check on the turn suggested second or third pair.

The lesson is one you’ve all heard before (and I’ve heard enough times to really kick myself): you must always stay alert while sitting at he poker table. Get up. Walk around. Take breaks. Whatever it takes to remain focused. Fortunately this time it didn’t cost me a pot, and no one at the table was aware of what had happened. Still, it wasn’t long after that hand that I decided it was time to head home.

Posted by Beck as Poker at 12:17 PM PDT

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Card Player had an article on the art of the over bet recently which, combined with two recent hands I played, got me thinking. The idea behind the over bet is to bet so much that your opponent can’t call without a near-nut hand. It’s typically a sign of a bluff. As such, one can use an over bet to increase the likelihood of getting called when you yourself have a monster. It’s essentially a double-reverse psychology play. Your huge bet represents a huge hand. The reverse is that your huge bet represents a week hand since a huge hand would want to bet an amount which would actually get called. The double reverse is to still go ahead and make that huge bet with a huge hand knowing that your opponent knows that your bet wouldn’t get called by any but a strong hand. The hope here is that he’ll call with a wider range than he would have called a value bet.

Actually, the real hope is that you maximize expected value. To give a simple example, say you and your opponent each have $400 in front of you and there’s a $200 pot on the river. A reasonable bet would be $100, an over bet would be $400. If [% of time over bet called] * 400 > [% of time reasonable bet called] * 100, then you should make the overbet. In this example, you’d want to make the over bet so long as you think the over bet will be called at least a quarter as often as the reasonable bet. Thus the real problem in this situation is determining the likelihood of your opponent calling, and that depends on a lot of factors, many of them entirely intangible. Fun fun fun.

Here’s an example and some thought process to illustrate all that.

In a 8 handed $1/$2 NLHE game online, I limped in 4th position behind a 2nd position limper with pocket 6s. One other player limped, the SB folded, and the BB checked. With a paltry $9 in the pot, the flop came 8s Jd 6d giving me a set on a board with moderate draws. It checked around to the last limper who bet $6, the first limper called $6, and I check-raised to $18. The initial bettor called, and the player stuck in the middle folded.

The turn was the 6c giving me quads and the unbreakable nuts. Feeling that I needed to keep betting, but not wanting to scare off any drawing hands, I bet $18 and was promptly called. The river was the Ac. Now I needed to decide how much to bet on the end.

What hands might pamejo have? He limped behind two other limpers in late position, so that suggests a wide range of hands off the bat. He could have had a diamond draw of course, some weird straight draw, or a pair of jacks. He also could have had a pair of 8s. He might also have a weak ace or random pocket pair like 99 or 77. He had $240 in front of him, I had him covered, and there was $96 in the pot.

A bet of about $60 would have been “reasonable”. What hands is he going to call $60 with? Jacks probably. Aces probably. Maybe a pair of 8s, but I suspect that after the check raise and two bets he’d probably give up on those. None of the busted draws can call there, and I hardly think he’s going to decide that NOW is a great time to run a bluff raise with a busted draw. Overall, a pretty small percentage of hands. What hands could call an over bet here? A pair of aces perhaps, but even that is iffy if the other player assumes that bet size is proportional to hand strength. If I think he’ll call $240 more than a quarter of the time that he would call $60, then I should bet $240. In this situation, I think he’s already calling $60 with few enough hands that it’s worth it to go for the $240. And if it suddenly looks to him like I’m bluffing, I might actually induce a call from a few hands that wouldn’t have called $60 (perhaps pocket 7s or 9s for instance).

I decided to push. He folded so quickly that it was clear he’d set his pre-action check/fold button, so it was clear that I wasn’t getting any money out of him regardless of bet size.

Do you notice what’s missing from all that discussion? No mention of his past behavior. No interpretation of his tendencies. No consideration of whether he’s hyper-aggressive (in which case inducing a bluff becomes an important option) or hyper-passive or somewhere in between. In truth, I hadn’t been at the table long enough to have any kind of a read on the player. As you can easily imagine, though, those factors should also influence your estimation of the likelihood of being called.

Posted by Beck as Poker, Poker Strategy at 11:17 AM PDT

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The other day on Full Tilt, I noticed a low stakes NLHE game ($.50/$1) with a red name seated in the game (for non-FT players, a “red name” indicates a member of Team Full Tilt). I checked it out and saw that it was Jim McManus. I hopped onto the waiting list, as I didn’t want to miss a chance to play against my favorite non-strategy related poker author. I was only 9th on the list, and eventually got a seat, shortly before he left.

For those unfamiliar with McManus, he wrote the fantastic book Positively Fifth Street, which I highly recommend. The book details the Ted Binion murder trial, the rise of women players in poker, and the 2000 WSOP main event, which McManus entered after winning a satellite. It’s a fascinating read, and McManus’s writing style is engaging and gripping. I’ve actually blogged about the book once before.

One player, in talking to him, asked if she could get a signed copy of his book. He responded in the affirmative, telling her to email him to get details. I don’t want to smear his email address across the internets, but if you’re interested, leave a comment and I’ll email you his email.

Once I got my seat in the game, I was eager to jump in, and despite my usual policy, posted to get dealt in immediately. I was dealt Qs 9d, checked my option, and 3 players (myself and the blinds) saw the flop, including McManus who was seated in the small blind.

The flop of 10d 9c 5d gave me second pair, and when it checked around to me, I bet $2 into the $3 pot. McManus check-raised the minimum up to $4, the big blind folded, and I called. The turn was a scary looking Ad. McManus checked, and I checked behind. The Qh on the river gave me two pair. McManus bet $5, I raised the minimum to $10, and McManus folded, saying simply, “nh.”

After another orbit, he had to leave, and I didn’t get involved with any more hands with him. Still, i twas cool to play against (and beat! Yay luck!) such an accomplished author and player.

On a final note, McManus mentioned in chat that he, along with Dr. Alan Schoonmaker and Mike Sexton, is going to be speaking at a conference at Harvard on November 10. The conference is open to the public, and details can be found here. Anyone who plans on attending leave a comment, as I hope to be able to attend as well.

Posted by Beck as Books at 3:52 PM PDT

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If you’re within any one of the myriad online poker discussion loops, you’ve probably already heard about this. But if you’re not, then you need to read on. In the briefest possible terms, evidence exists that strongly suggests that former or current top-level execs of Absolute Poker used a backdoor beta-testing account to see all of their opponents’ hole cards and, with that knowledge, swindle no less than $700,000 from high-stakes ring-game and tournament players.

Now, a slightly longer version of the story: On September 12, Absolute Poker player POTRIPPER won the $1,000 buy-in tournament for a $30,000 prize. Other players and railbirds noticed his maniacal play up to that point, but he topped it all in the final hand. On the turn, with a board of 4h Kd Kh 7s, the eventual runner-up CRAZYMARCO check-raised all his chips with 9h-2h for a flush draw semibluff. POTRIPPER called — an amount nearly 1/4 of his stack — with 10c-9c. No pair. No draw. Ten-high. The river was the harmless 5s and POTRIPPER won.

Given POTRIPPER’s incredible play, especially the final hand, CRAZYMARCO suspected something was no good, and requested the entire hand history of the tournament. He received a 10-MB Microsoft Excel file from AP and, not realizing the eventual goldmine he was sitting on, ignored it for the time being. Around this time, other players were noticing similar bizarre play in high-stakes ring games. In one hand at 15/30 no-limit, DOUBLEDRAG called a $2,665 all-in bet — correctly — with King-high and no draw. In another hand at 200/400 fixed-limit, GRAYCAT capped preflop from the big blind, then check-folded the three-way flop when another player flopped a full house.

After evaluating hundreds of hands of these suspicious players through software programs like PokerTracker, some very disturbing trends began to emerge. In many cases, these players had a VP$IP (Voluntary Put $ In Pot) number of well over 60%, in one case over 90%, and still managed to win at an incredible rate. After the flop, they NEVER put money in behind unless they had odds to chase, and, even more damning, they NEVER just called the river unless they faced an all-in bet. If they had the winning hand, they ALWAYS raised or reraised; if they had a loser they folded (or presumably raised/reraised in cases when their opponents didn’t have a hand worthy of a big call).

Absolute Poker dismissed claims that these players were so-called “superusers” who had the ability to see everyone’s hole cards in a similar fashion to all the other times irate losing players accuse their site of being rigged. AP claimed that they had performed an investigation and found that their play had been unorthodox, but not in any violation of poker ethics.

Just after this initial denial, and about a month after his runner-up finish in the tournament, CRAZYMARCO finally got around to examining the large Excel file AP had sent him. He realized that he hadn’t been given his hand history for that tournament; he’d been given a master hand history with every player’s hole cards at every table for the first two hours and twenty minutes of the tournament. (The only reason it wasn’t for the whole tournament is because the file filled up all 65,536 rows of most versions of Excel.)

Now, it is possible for any random donk to get astoundingly lucky in one tournament. Lance Funston cashed in the 2005 USPC even though the whole time he looked like he had more alcoholic beverages in his system than brain cells in his head. But with the HH of POTRIPPER’s entire tournament, it was abundantly clear that he displayed the same characteristics as the cash-game players: calling many hands preflop (or raising when nobody else had anything), and blowing opponents away with big postflop bets unless it was clear they had a hand to take a stand with, in which case he’d fold. Very astute tournament players at the 2+2 Forums, PocketFives and elsewhere all reached the same conclusion, and it was near-unanimous: POTRIPPER could see everyone else’s hole cards.

But there was more information buried in the large Excel file. All of the in-play action that you’d find in a normal HH had a tag before it that read “TABLE_INFO.” But there were other tags that read “TABLE_ENTER” and “TABLE_LEAVE” that initially confused some of the cybersleuths that CRAZYMARCO had shared the file with. After some deduction, they realized that those tags were to record players logged into the AP client who opened the table to railbird the action. In that record was the player’s e-mail address, AP account number, and IP address.

One such player, in particular, caught everyone’s eye. In the first two hands of the tournament, POTRIPPER folded. But then someone opened the table to observe POTRIPPER, and it was only then that his suspicious play began. The mystery observer had an IP address that came from Costa Rica, where AP is based, and had a user number of 363. With millions of people who’ve set up accounts on Absolute, either for play money or real money, a number so low is inherently odd. The best theory of what’s going on is that this was an account set up during the initial testing of Absolute Poker’s software that was either intentionally designed to see everyone’s hole cards to double-check its programming, or through some flaw of AP’s recent system upgrade can only now see hole cards. Either way, Account #363 observed POTRIPPER’s table starting in the third hand and did not leave until some point after the file cut off because of the size limit.

Cross-referencing #363’s IP address led to the discovery of another user who shared it — meaning s/he was also in Costa Rica, where AP is based — who briefly peeked at the action going on at the table where AP pro/spokesman Mark Seif was playing in that same tournament. (Note: this is not meant to implicate Seif, though many players are trying.) A check of the domain name belonging to this second observer’s e-mail address revealed that it was from . . . Absolute Poker itself. Meaning that Account #363, whose presence allowed POTRIPPER to play with superhuman accuracy, came from AP. Furthermore, AP insiders confirmed to some of the crack Internet investigators that the POTRIPPER account is registered to the former AP Director of Operations.

There is far more to this story, and it’s seemingly unraveling by the hour. Here are the best places to go for information:

Nat Arem’s blog. Nat maintains pokerdb.com and is part-owner of Bluff Media. This post is a deeper explanation of what I’ve laid out, but it’s about two days old, so it’s just the start.

The HH of the POTRIPPER tournament was run through a hand simulator at PokerXFactor, which in turn was uploaded to YouTube. It’s broken up into four parts; each successive video is posted as a response to the one previous.

In order to keep up with the news as it breaks, the easiest place to go is at absolutepokercheats.com, a website/blog set up by Michael Josem with updates. Of course, if you want to be right on the cutting edge, you can look for the relevant threads at 2+2, P5s, neverwinpoker.com or a dozen other places. Since I’m a member of 2+2, I’m obviously partial to them; look for the huge thread in the BBV forum probably marked something like “AP Cheaters.” Nat Arem posts there as “N 82 50 24″ and Michael Josem posts there as “Josem.”

What else you can do: if you played with POTRIPPER, DOUBLEDRAG, GRAYCAT, or another one of the suspected gang named STEAMROLLER (edit: also PAYUP), and have their statistics in PokerTracker or similar software programs, or even if you just have the raw HH’s, forward them to the crack team of investigators at one of those sites. Even if they lost money; in fact, especially if they lost money, because once the forums got wise and generated some buzz, the players in question (allegedly) laundered their ill-gotten gains via chipdumping to other accounts.

If you have an account at Absolute Poker, it wouldn’t hurt to cash out and close it or at least refrain from playing there for the time being. While it’s almost certain that what happened here was cheating, there’s no evidence that it’s widespread, but until whatever security loophole these guys exploited is sealed shut, it’s not worth taking the risk.

I should note that these guys bilked high-stakes players, so if you’re a 3/6 limit grinder like me, you probably have no reason to worry. In fact, the games there will, on average, probably get better, since knowledgeable players from 2+2, P5s et al are leaving in droves. This might entice you to go back there, but think about whether or not you want your rake money going to a company which has thus far proven itself either incompetent, dishonest, or some combination of both.

I should also note that there’s no evidence of anything of this magnitude happening at any other site, so if you’ve come just to say “I told you so, online poker is rigged,” kindly get lost. Until you can marshal the sort of heavy statistical analysis that was brought forth against AP, you’re nothing more than just another bad-beat story, except worse.

AP and UltimateBet are now corporately linked, so you may want to consider leaving UB as well. I intend to as soon as I clear my remaining bonus there, on the grounds that they will be paying me more in bonus than I will be paying them in rake. Well, that and contrary to what Phil Hellmuth has bragged about in their latest run of commercials, their software sucks. (At least it does for me.)

UPDATE 10/19 2:19 AM: This is what I get for writing this instead of reading the latest news. From P5s:

PocketFives just received a phone call from Absolute Poker confirming the suspicions of the online poker community over the past month. While we need to be vague in this post to respect their wishes, we can say that their systems were compromised, and that they are prepared to provide the details in a statement coming shortly.

Part of the statement will include a plan to refund players affected by this compromise.

UPDATE 10/20 1:05 PM: This story has now reached non-poker media, with articles on MSNBC.com and abcnews.com. Absolute clearly appears to be spinning. From the MSNBC article:

The cheater . . . was an employee of AbsolutePoker.com who hacked the system to show that it could be done, said a spokesman for the company, who spoke with msnbc.com on condition of anonymity.

“This is literally a geek trying to prove to senior management that they were wrong and he took it too far,” he said.

This is transparently ridiculous. If the cheater was a white-hat hacker, why make it look like he was cheating from the accounts of top-level former executives? And why cheat in games that robbed tens of thousands of dollars from legitimate players? If you wanted to prove it could be done, it could be done just as easily in play-money games — essentially a victimless crime. In fact, all you’d need to do is rig the hole-card cam and then call your boss in to show that it could be done — you wouldn’t need to actively cheat at all. Furthermore, this theory ignores the suspicious activity done in the high-stakes cash games, not just the tournaments (the article only mentions tournament play); and it also ignores the allegations that the fraudulent accounts chip-dumped their loot to other accounts.

Serge Ravitch, quoted in both stories, is 2+2 member/moderator “adanthar,” and his blog is another good place to go for updates.

Posted by Mike as Ethics, Gambling, Poker at 1:10 AM PDT

2 Comments »

A home game in Florida was broken into by a couple masked gunmen. When everything was over, a 62 year old man was dead. I don’t have much to add to the article apart from expressing my own regret that something like this could happen, but a friend to whom I sent this link had a one line response which I thought worthy of reprinting.

“Lesson: don’t be a home well known for gambling.”

Sadly, he’s right. If you’re going to host a home game, be careful.

Posted by Beck as Poker at 3:08 PM PDT

1 Comment »

There’s a promotion on Full Tilt known as the Iron Man Challenge (explained (poorly) here). Basically, for people who play a whole lot of poker on Full Tilt, you gain additional benefits like a special rewards store and some freeroll tournaments, and that sort of thing. It’s an answer to Poker Stars VIP excellent VIP program, and apart from a degree of unnecessary complexity, it’s a goo idea.

You also get a little icon by your screen name when you’re sitting at the poker table. And therein lies the problem.

Now, when I sit down at a Full Tilt poker table, practically the first thing I do is run a player search on everyone else I’m seated with to find out how many tables they’re playing at once. But seeing that Iron Man logo next to their name gives me an additional bit of info. Furthermore, I’m sure there are quite a few players not making the same how-many-tables check that I am. That goes particularly for the same recreational, casual poker players that the long-hour-playing multi-table-working grinders expect to make the bulk of their profits from.

And nothing says “Grinder” like a cute, unmistakable icon next to your name (which, if clicked, takes you to the web page I linked above re: The Iron Man Challenge).

Interestingly, you can decline to partake in the Iron Man Challenge. I’ve decided to decline to participate in fact, precisely because I don’t want that logo by my name. I’m missing out on freerolls and other perks as a consequence though, and I regret the need to do that.

Thoughts? Comments? Insults?

Update: I just figured out that you can turn off the display of the Iron Man icon by your name. This raises another interesting question: just what are people thinking who leave that icon displayed? It’s free information that you’re giving away, and that’s virtually always a mistake at the poker table.

Posted by Beck as Poker at 4:39 PM PDT

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Short version: I ran a terrific bluff.

Longer version: In The Book of Bluffs, Matt Lessinger argues that you should always have a reason for bluffing. “I thought it might work,” or, “I was trying to pick up the pot,” do not constitute valid reasons. You need to have a reason why you think your bluff will actually succeed. This hand illustrates that point in my not particularly humble opinion.

In a 1/2 NLHE game at Foxwoods, a player in early position open raised to $7, and after two callers, I called from the button with 5h3h. The blinds folded, leaving $30 in the pot. The flop was A-9-8 with two hearts, giving me a flush draw. The preflop raiser checked, the next player to act bet $20, and the next player called. I called $20 with my flush draw, and the preflop raiser folded, bringing the pot up to $90. Everyone involved in the hand at this point had over $300 in front of them.

The turn was an offsuit 2, adding an inside straight draw to my flush draw. At this point the flop bettor bet $20 again, and the flop caller called. Action was on me. Time for some explication.

I had seen the bettor bet the same amount on the turn as the flop once before. The time before he had a weak made hand and was basically betting scared and trying to keep the pot to a manageable size. The caller was an agressive flop player, leaning heavily towards a raise-or-fold mentality. For him to be calling suggested a weak draw. He probably would have raised a weak made hand or a strong draw. The bettor was a pretty active player, and I think the caller was just calling because he didn’t really know where he was in the hand and hadn’t made up his mind to commit to the hand.

I raised to $100.

The first player folded, showing a pair of 8s. The second player laughed, said he shouldn’t have even been in the pot in the first place, and folded, showing a K-T (!). And I showed them my 5 high, declaring, “Well, it’s not quite the nut low, but it’s pretty close.” Ordinarily I would never show a bluff like that, but I was leaving in a half hour and had already decided to protect my win from that point by playing very tight. As such, it wouldn’t hurt to create a loose image, as any hand I was involved in from that point onwards I wasn’t going to be betting unless I had the goods.

Good times.

Posted by Beck as Poker, Poker Strategy at 12:55 PM PDT

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Nothing’s more disheartening than logging into my online site of choice and finding that every table at the limit I desire to play either has a 5 player long waiting list, or has < 20% players per flop and minuscule pot sizes. OK, maybe a few things are more disheartening than that. Just a few. But you get my point.

So anyway, I’ve found something that works with decent reliability when it comes time to find a table that’s weak enough to be worth investing some time and money into. Sit down at a newly forming table. Unless it’s late at night when tables are breaking left and right (and at that time of night, it shouldn’t be too hard to find good tables), new tables tend to fill up pretty quickly once they get more than one or two people at them. If you don’t want to actually play short handed, you can just sit out until the table fills up.

The thing is, most of the time people sitting down at new tables aren’t the regulars or grinders. Those people aren’t paying attention to anything but tables that are already full and going. The people sitting down at those tables are people who’ve just logged on and are eager to get in a game, regardless of the game conditions. They’re the sort of people who want to play, not sit around folding weak hands.

One thing to be aware of though: these sorts of tables often create great table condition stats (playrs/flop; avg pot size), and you often get a whip-saw effect where a few producers bust out, and the table suddenly fills up with tight agressive multitablers. As such a table can rapidly go from the juiciest to the leanest in just a couple orbits, so keep an eye on the changing game conditions.

Posted by Beck as Poker at 1:01 PM PDT

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