I’ve decided to write up two hands I played in which I was faced with what is, for me, my least favorite situation in poker: getting correct odds to call a large bet when you expect to lose a majority of the time.

I knew what I was doing at the time. I knew I was probably going to lose the money I put in the pot. And I would do it again. If you can’t make calls like this, you’re giving away a lot of value over the long run, and should be embarrassed to call yourself a poker player.

Here’s the first hand:

First of all, I didn’t play this hand perfectly. You can make arguments for different action in at least two spots. Nonetheless, the big money decision on the end was made for me by the pot odds, which is why I detail the hand.

In a 1/2 NLHE game at Foxwoods, two players limped in, and the button raised to $15. The button raised a wide range of hands, but saved the larger raises (this qualified as one of his larger raises) for pocket pairs. Could be deuces, could be aces. He had been controlling the table fairly well, and I had been looking for a spot to play back at him. I looked down at 3d4d in the small blind and decided this was the spot. I called, and everyone else folded. (Can you spot the first place I could have played this hand differently? Yeah, easy fold ordinarily, but you can argue I could have played back at him with any two cards. Since I was to his immediate left, I could have just waited until I had position on him, which would have been better, but c’est la vie).

The flop came 2h 6d 7d, giving me a 12 out draw to a very strong hand. I checked, my opponent bet $25, and I check-raised to $75. I think both he and I felt the vibe that I had been looking to check-raise with almost any hand at that point. Ideally I could have disguised that, but what was done was done. He pushed all-in, and now I had a tough decision.

He had me substantially covered, and I had $170 behind. I was getting almost exactly 2:1 odds (2.09:1 to be precise, but at the table, doing the math in my head, I rounded it to 2:1), and I began thinking my way through the hand.

The real dilema was deciding whether my opponent had a set or an over pair. Against an overpair, with 12 outs, I knew I was almost in a coin flip against him (about 55% to 45%, or 11:9). Getting 2:1 pot odds, that meant I was definitely priced in to call. Against a set, however, I was a slightly worse than 2:1 dog, and was maybe, maybe not, priced in to call.

At that point, my opponent actually helped make my decision for me. “Are you trying to figure out if you have the best hand, or are you trying to figure out if you have the right odds?” he asked me.

“I know you have the best hand. Technically, I actually have the nut low right now, but I have 12 outs,” I honestly told him. “I have the three-four of diamonds.”

“Ooh. Now I don’t want you to call. I’m holding a diamond, by the way, so you only have 11 outs, not 12,” he informed me, clearly not wanting to gamble in such a large pot.

“Oh, so you don’t have a set?” I replied. In the moment, I was thinking he probably didn’t have a set of deuces, though that was possible. I just blurted out the set comment without thought, but it hit its mark by chance. He looked crest fallen, and replied, “No, I don’t have a set.” I could tell quite clearly that he was telling the truth. So he had an overpair, and I was priced in.

“OK,” I declared, “This is my last hand of the night, win or lose. I call.”

We turned up our hands. He had pocket tens, with the ten of diamonds.

Before I finish the story, let’s figure my expectation: There was $526 in the pot. I had 41.818% equity in the pot (I’m using PokerStove to calculate equity. It’s a free download. Every player should have it. Go download it now if you don’t have it already. And no, I’m not getting anything for pimping PokerStove. I just admire useful software when I see it). That means I had an expected win of $220. Subtract out the $170 call, and you get a $50 profit from the hand from calling.

I don’t enjoy risking $260 for an expected profit of $50. Taking risks like that substantially contributes to variance. I could have just smooth called the flop and, potentially, the turn, and put far less at risk. I also might have won far less, as my opponent might well have slowed down if a diamond or straight card came. However, I also had some fold equity as well, and if you never check-raise a player’s continuation bets, he’s never going to slow down against you. Anyway, enough of defending my questionable play, here’s how the hand ended:

The turn was the ace of spades. The river was the eight of hearts. I lost the pot and went home.

Posted by Beck as Poker at 11:40 AM PDT

5 Comments »

I am such a lazy blogger. I’ve had lots of thoughts and ideas and hands that would make for good posts, but just haven’t thought to write it up. Would you believe I was once a three post per day blogger for six months straight? (It was politics, not poker, but you get the idea). Anyway, I’m back, at least for now. Hopefully my erratic posting priorities haven’t driven away all the regular readers. Maybe if I had a few more readers, I’d be inspired to write more often…. [You actually think that's going to work? No, but worth a shot.--ed.]

Posted by Beck as Poker at 11:11 AM PDT

1 Comment »

In October I wrote about the scandal at Absolute Poker, and included the following warning:

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.)

 
Ten days ago, UB confirmed what had been long suspected:

The investigation has concluded that certain player accounts did in fact have an unfair advantage, and that these accounts targeted the highest limit games on the site . . . The fraudulent activity was enabled by unauthorized software code that allowed the perpetrators to obtain hole card information during live play.

A couple nights after that, while still in the process of clearing that bonus, this happened to me while I was there:

Getting Hand History Information…
—————————————————————-

Hand #53825458-2663 at Sheffield ($1/$2 Hold’em)
Started at 02/Jun/08 02:26:26

Mike is at seat 0 with $105.25.
hotpistol is at seat 1 with $4.75.
CHLuke10 is at seat 2 with $98.50.
Whangdoodles is at seat 3 with $28.
newwestman is at seat 4 with $113.25.
WyldeOne is at seat 5 with $90.
ilanbaba is at seat 6 with $19.75.
opponet is at seat 7 with $10.
Sterling7777 is at seat 8 with $77.75.
Dirty_Thien is at seat 9 with $100.
The button is at seat 7.

Sterling7777 posts the small blind of $.50.
Dirty_Thien posts the big blind of $1.

Mike: 4d Qs
hotpistol: — –
CHLuke10: — –
Whangdoodles: — –
newwestman: — –
WyldeOne: — –
ilanbaba: — –
opponet: — –
Sterling7777: — –
Dirty_Thien: — –

Pre-flop:

Mike folds. hotpistol folds. CHLuke10 calls.
Whangdoodles folds. newwestman folds. WyldeOne
folds. ilanbaba folds. opponet raises to $2.
Sterling7777 calls. Dirty_Thien calls. CHLuke10
calls.

Flop (board: Qh Jd Ah):

Sterling7777 bets $1. Dirty_Thien calls. CHLuke10
calls. opponet raises to $2. Sterling7777 calls.
Dirty_Thien folds. CHLuke10 calls.

Turn (board: Qh Jd Ah Qd):

Sterling7777 bets $2. CHLuke10 calls. opponet
raises to $4. Sterling7777 calls. CHLuke10 calls.

River (board: Qh Jd Ah Qd Ad):

Sterling7777 checks. CHLuke10 bets $2. opponet goes
all-in for $2. Sterling7777 folds.

Showdown:

CHLuke10 shows Td Kd.
CHLuke10 has Td Kd Jd Qd Ad: royal flush.
opponet shows As Ac.
opponet has As Ac Qh Ah Ad: four aces.

Hand #53825458-2663 Summary:

$1.50 is raked from a pot of $31.
$.50 jackpot contribution is raked.
CHLuke10 wins $29 with royal flush.
—————————————————————-

This triggered the Bad Beat Jackpot, at that point nearly $165,000, and I walked away with an almost $3,800 share.

And thus, perhaps, the oldest ethical dilemma in poker resurfaces. It had long been known that the first poker games, the ones swindlers had set up on Mississipi riverboats, were all completely rigged. When a friend asked legendary gambler Canada Bill, “Don’t you know this game is crooked?”, Bill reportedly answered “Yes, but it’s the only game in town.”

UltimateBet is not the only game in town, and I know this. I’m only staying until I’m done with the bonus, and then I’m gone, and there’s not a jackpot big enough to entice me to stay (though, I must admit, the 9% interest both UB and AP give to members of their top-level loyalty program comes damn close). Between the bonus money, the rakeback account I have, and some of the other rewards, my net contribution is minimal.

But still, I do feel a little bad contributing rake money to a shady organization. And even without the moral quandary, I don’t really feel like I earned this money. Even though I’m not mostly a tournament player, there’s something a little disconcerting about the fact that I won more money when I folded Queen-Four offsuit under the gun than I did in my two biggest tournament cashes combined. In fact, you can add my second-highest score again and it gets to roughly how much I won for sitting back and watching four Aces square off against a royal flush.

So, with that in mind, you will probably find me making multiple charitable donations to my fellow poker players and more than a few cocktail waitresses in about one month’s time. I should be easy to spot. Look for the guy having the time of his life.

Edit 6/8 5:39 PM: For more information, here’s the giant 2+2 thread on the subject. In addition, the 2+2 Pokercast interviewed Paul Leggett, COO of Tokwiro Enterprises, which owns UB and AP. A brief discussion begins at about the 30-minute mark, followed by the interview, which starts about 45 minutes in. (But listen from the beginning for some entertaining discussion on the WSOP, specifically some bizarre prop bets.)

Posted by Mike as Ethics, Gambling, Quotes, Travel, Vegas, WSOP at 10:36 AM PDT

4 Comments »