Hot Hand #6 (Updated with Results)

***UPDATED WITH RESULTS....Scroll down to update at bottom***

OK I'm back today with the next in my Hot Hand series of posts. This is where I will post shots of a specific hand situation that occurred while I was at an online poker table from beginning to end, and I will solicit input and guesses from you all as to what I should do along the way. Then, since it's an actual hand that actually happened, I can show you what I chose, and what happened next.

Hot Hand #6 deals with a situation where some mediocre cards turn into a mediocre hand, and then we have to try to figure out what our opponent is holding by making a read based on the way he has played the hand along the way, and what he thinks he knows about our hand. This hand occurs about 20 minutes in to a 180-person, $20 sng on pokerstars, so we're fairly early on in a multi-table no-limit holdem tournament, with blinds of 15 and 30.

Things started off innocently enough in Hot Hand #6, as I looked down to find QTo on the button. The first three players fold their hands, but then the next two both limp in for the $30 big blind. The next player folds, and action is to me on the button. I've got two limpers from middle position already in the pot cheap, plus a SB and a BB left to act after me who are also already in for small bets.

Question 1: What do you like to do here? Raise/call/fold?



For me, this one was fairly easy. QTo is normally a hand I would fold without even giving a second thought. I know guys like Hellmuth love to play the "20" hands, but as I've mentioned here in previous posts, to me these are the hardest hands to play in all of holdem. If you hit the flop you could still be dominated by a higher kicker, or an overpair, and of course there will always be straight draws to worry about in multiway pots if I really hit the flop hard. All that said, in this case it looks like I might be able to see a cheap $30 flop (with over $2000 in my stack) with two high cards and likely five players in. No one has shown any overriding strength so far preflop, so there's no reason I might not be able to take control after the flop or turn card and win this pot. And, if I do hit the flop hard, with five players somebody is bound to give me some action. For $30 I'll take a call here, knowing that if either of the blinds raises any significant amount, I will fold regardless of what the other players do:



Now the flop comes out Q99 (all different suits). So I've made a pair of Queens, plus a decent kicker. The SB leads out for $120 into a $150 pot. The BB folds, and the first two preflop limpers fold as well. Action is to me with my pair of Queens and a ten kicker:



Question 2: Now what? I've got top pair and a ten kicker. No one showed much strength before the flop. Do I just fold here to a bet that is 4/5 of the size of the pot? What would you recommend, and why?



In this case, I did not think folding was an option. I have top pair with a decent kicker, and the pair on the board makes it less likely that my opponents have hit this flop in any meaningful way. No one indicated a high pocket pair before the flop, and I am ahead of all but AA and KK among the pocket pairs at this point. I guess my biggest concern is a 9, but remember with two of them on the board, that only leaves two Nines left in the entire deck, and my opponent would have to have one of them. While I cannot discount the possibility of a 9 or a higher Queen than my QT, in general I think this hand is good enough to call with here, and take another card and see where we stand then. I don't want to raise and risk getting blown out of the hand right here by a large reraise that I will then have to lay down to in case my opponent in fact has made trip 9s. I call here for $120, making the total pot now $390 heading into the turn card.

And the turn brings an 8 of hearts, making two hearts on the board, potentially filling the JT oesd if one of us had played that on the flop. My lone opponent quickly leads out for $240, now about 60% of the pot, after an 80% of the pot bet on the flop:



Question 3: This pot is getting large enough to actually care about winning at this point. Am I ahead or behind here? How should I respond -- raise, call or fold?



Here was my thinking at this point in the hand. First, when an opponent fires a bullet at me on the flop and I call it, if they then fire a second bullet at me on the turn, I tend to pay attention to the trend in the size of their two bets in relation to the size of the pot. For example, if someone comes out and bets the whole pot at me on the flop, and I call, if they then bet out half the size of the new pot on the turn, I tend to view that as weakness, all other things being equal. Similarly, if someone bets half the pot at me on a flop with two high cards on it, and then a third high card hits on the turn and they bet the full size of the new, larger pot to me, I tend to assume it is because they have hit their straight draw on the turn. Again, this is all things being equal, I have no other reads or information to draw upon, etc.

So in this case, a guy went from betting 80% of the pot on the flop, to now betting just over 60% of the pot on the turn. That just doesn't seem to me like a guy who just made his open-ended straight draw. Although it could be someone who just picked up some kind of draw, and thus wants to try to hit his inside straight for cheap and is hoping to get there with a weak lead bet on the turn. Either way, my gut is telling me that this guy does not have a made straight. Again I consider AQ, KQ or QJ, all three hands of which outkick me currently. I still don't think he would have played AQ preflop without a raise, and possibly not KQ either (nor AA or KK, so I'm still not worrying about the overcards, nor is he betting strong enough for me to put him on such an overpair here). And I see this trend of making smaller-percentage bets compared to the size of the pot as suggesting that he does not have one of these top-pair-high-kicker hands either. Notice I'm not saying that it's impossible that he has one of these hands, but rather that I have to go with my poker instincts, and here they're telling me that this guy is feeling just a bit weak, but doesn't want to give up the lead here on the turn.

In the back of my mind I will admit I'm still a bit concerned about trip 9s, because there are people out there online who like to play flopped trips kinda slow until the river. But something about this just doesn't seem like trips to me, at least not with enough confidence that I'm willing to lay down what would still be top pair with a decent kicker for this board. I'm still concerned enough about being dominated by trips or a higher kicker that I don't want to raise here and put myself in a situation to really lose a lot of chips if my read is wrong. But I'd like to see one more card, and I'm confident enough that my hand is still the best that I'm willing to drop another $240 out of my stack to remain in the hand. I call, and the pot is now a sizeable 870 chips heading to the river card:



and the river comes the Jack of spades, giving me an unexpected Queen-high straight, and my opponent checks to me for the first time in the hand:



Question 4: Now what's the story? With a possible higher straight out there or a possible full house, am I even sure I have the best hand? Do I just check it down here and hope I have won, or rather would you make a value bet here, assuming you've got the best hand and can milk some more chips out of this guy?

I guess I will wait to hear some responses before I update this post with what I decided and why. And I'll tell you what my opponent was holding, if he ever revealed it to me.

Let me know your thoughts, and I'll post an update with results soon!

Btw another kudos to my boy Aquaverse who came in 3rd place in last night's WWdN. This guy has probably cashed in about half of the WWdNs he has ever played in. He may win 10 of these before he finally depletes his online bankroll for the last time. And speaking of on a roll in the WWdN, Weak Player's wife TransFish is showing up the competition, winning the WWdN last night for the second time in three weeks, and making her third consecutive final table. Way to go Amy!! Anyways I went out when I ran AK allin preflop into Surf's pocket Aces, but I'm not gonna beat myself up over that one. C'est la vie, n'est-ce pas?


******** UPDATED Wednesday 8-31 with Hand Results ********

OK first let me start by thanking everyone for their comments, as always. I've often said here that the ability for near-immediate public interaction and discussion is one of the greatest virtues of blogging as a medium, and for me this feature suits poker blogging as much as anything else. Anyways, this was seriously probably the most analytical set of comments I've ever had to a post on the blog, including my five previous Hot Hand posts, and I have pored over each of them and considered it all closely.

A few general comments. Let me begin by saying that there is a reason I picked this particular hand for Hot Hand #6, and that reason is that I myself was/am not sure I played the hand correctly or exactly where it went wrong. Usually when I review my hands after the fact, I either think I made the right play, or at least it's pretty easy to recognize where and why I got effed up, and I try to learn from that for future games. But with this hand, as I continue to review it, sometimes I think I played it just fine, and other times I feel like I can't believe how passively I played it. The actual hand occurred several weeks ago, although I reviewed it shortly after the hand took place, and I recall my exact rationale at every step of the way, which I will share below.

It seems that the overall picture painted by the comments is that I played the hand too passively. And I don't disagree. Those of you who play with me often know that I don't usually play poker this way. In fact I would be apt to call me a pussy if I watched this hand play out on the Internets the way I've presented it above. If I had to narrow it down to one general comment from you all that I agree with, it would be that I probably should have raised it up on either the flop or the turn. I could have easily put in a medium-sized raise -- say, 3x the existing bet -- and then I suppose would have found out right there "where I was at" in the hand (or he could have folded, for that matter). As I said, some times when I look at these screen shots I am surprised that I didn't make a move on the flop or on the turn with two bets from my opponent, neither of which was particularly large or strong. But let me tell you why I didn't:

No one indicated any strength at all preflop, including my eventual heads-up opponent in this hand. First few positions folded, then a bunch of limpers from MP, so I limped as well, and when it got around to this guy, he merely completed from the SB for 15 chips. To me, I was not going to believe that he had two high cards, a pocket pair of any kind, or an Ace with anything but a low card. Again, I'm not in any way saying it was impossible for him to have a good hand, but when I put him on a range of hands preflop, that range was low. Very Bad Cards. That's what I was thinking about him going into the flop.

I think when the flop came is where maybe I was able to start formulating another important read of this player, one that definitely went into my decision-making process here -- this guy was unsophisticated, and not the type to "put a move on someone". I recall having played at WillG971's table for the last 20 minutes or so, and not having really noticed him at all. He wasn't playing many pots, and wasn't being particularly aggressive when he was in there. He was not a "player". I hadn't made this note on the pokerstars software, but it was the impression called up in my head as this hand unfolded. There isn't any way any of you out there could have known this, and it's not really so much tangible information anyways as it is just the general impression I had of this player's play in the time I had sat with him. He doesn't put moves on people, he's more of a "simple" player than the tricky, aggressive types we tend to encounter more often in our blogger tournaments.

So, when this flop came and it was paired, I took that as very good for me. He bet out 80% of the pot, which is the right size for a standard steal-bet, and while of course it's possible that he had QJ or maybe KQ (which would have both been ahead of me), literally every other possible hand he could have had to be ahead of me was simply not believable. Possible? Yes, of course. But likely? No. So I didn't put those hands in my likely range of hands for him, even after his flop bet came out. That's called putting someone on a range of hands. If you're never willing to rule out any hands because they're all "possible", then the entire exercise is wasted. You need to use all the information available to you, and make your best guess. This guy has made a roughly Harringtonian-sized continuation bet (less than the size of the pot), and that bet did not scare me into thinking I was behind with my top pair Queens and a fairly decent Ten kicker.

Let me stop for a moment as I just remembered something from one of the comments. Blinders, who has a poker blog that I really enjoy reading, plays tight. I didn't realize how tight, though he writes about it in his blog, and I've played with him online several times, and he was even at my table at the WPBT tournament at Caesar's this past July. Anyways, His Tightness said in the comments yesterday that he would have 50% folded the QT on this 80% pot bet. I respect Blinders making that decision. But I can't stand it. How can you play so weak that you let a guy limp in to a pot preflop for half a bet since he was already the SB as it is, and then let him bet you off of your top pair Queens and a Ten kicker on a paired board, just by firing one 80% pot bet? I respect that there are multiple ways to play this game, but for the Super Systemy guy that I am, no way I'm giving up on the flop. Not 50%, and not 5% and not 0.05%. For me, it's either raise or call there. As I said above, I could have raised it. But I figured, with the possible trip 9s out there -- and a 9 is just the kind of card I would expect the SB-limper to have in his hand in this situation -- why bother raising it and risk being blown off of my TP10K?

And that takes me to another important point about my read of WillG971 on this hand -- let's talk about the trip 9s. Now I've written this on the blog many many many times, but maybe this hand will help show how seriously I take this as I play my game. In my experience, and in the experience of a great many successful professionals, most players check the flop when they flop trips. It's about as close to a poker truism as there can be for such a varied, situation-specific game. Again, this isn't necessarily true in our blogger games, late in large buy-in events, etc., where the sophistication level of the players approaches and eventually far outstrips that of our poker blogger games and even local casino tournaments. But when I'm playing a run-of-the-mill 20x180 sng on pokerstars and we're 25 minutes into the event, I'm not giving this guy credit for much. I've already discussed how he just came off as a fairly "simple" type of player. And for that reason alone, I never really put him on that set of 9s in this hand. If I did, I wouldn't have been playing here to begin with. A guy like WillG971 would have quickly checked that flop with trip 9s. But he didn't check it. He bet 80% of the flop. When it folded around to me, I recall being sort of happy. I figured I could smooth call here, get credit for being on a flush draw or middle pocket pair or something, and then hopefully he'd make a bigger move at me on the turn when I actually thought I had the best hand.

To repeat, I do believe the most reasonable read of the situation after the flop is that I have the best hand. His 80% pot bet on the flop did nothing to persuade me otherwise. If he had checked this flop, I would have been a bit more worried about trip 9s, and I might have checked it to see what he did on the turn card (the large bet on the turn following the flop check on a paired flop is often indicative of trips, in my experience. These same players who check their trips on the flop tend to get noticeably bummed when you don't bet at them on the flop, so they tend to try to "make up for" missing a betting round on the flop by making large bets on the turn. I've seen it a million times. This month.). Because he bet this flop, and I couldn't possibly put him on AA or KK given his preflop play, the range of hands I put him on when the action got to me on the flop was either (1) a middle pocket pair or (2) a Queen with a low kicker. Since I felt I was ahead and could call without giving away hardly any information about the actual nature of my hand (top pair decent kicker), but I knew the specter of the trips still existed, I opted to call the flop bet rather than raise it to find out where I was at. Again, most of the commenters seem to think I should have raised here, and you might be right. I think that would have been an effective way of playing this hand. But that was my rationale for just flat calling the flop bet. I wanted to see what this fairly simple-seeming guy told me with his actions on the turn.

The 8 on the turn was a fine card for me. While it did make it possible that my opponent had just filled a straight with JT in his hand (a hand he certainly could have limped with preflop), I then quickly reviewed the flop betting to see if this made sense. Would this guy have bet me 80% of the pot with just an oesd, especially with an overcard on the board? But betting me 80% of the pot on the flop would actually give him poor odds to draw at his own oesd. With $150 already in the pot before the flop, to get right near his 31% odds of filling his oesd, he would rather play for more like $70, requiring him to bet $70 to win $220, which is around his 31% odds of making his oesd. But instead he bet 120 on the flop, nearly double the amount he would have needed to have the right odds for his straight draw. So, unless this clown is a horrible donkey, there is just no way I'm going to put him on the made straight here. So the 8 itself didn't bother me.

Then, as I mentioned in my original post yesterday, the fact that my opponent cut his bet to just 60% of the pot on the turn also was something I noticed right away. Now remember, I had WillG pegged as "simple folk", a straightforward kind of guy who might be willing to drop a standard steal-bet on the flop, but was not the type to bet a strong hand on the flop, and then make a weaker-looking bet on the turn despite thinking his hand got stronger with the turn card. Of course I could have been wrong about this read -- and that happens all the time with me, make no mistake -- but in my head, this screamed weakness to me. In fact, I recognized exactly what I thought this was. Suddenly WillG seemed like one of those guys who fired a bullet on the flop, I called him, and then he really didn't want to fire another bullet on the turn, but he knows he's "supposed to", so he went ahead and raised it again, but with less conviction than his first bullet. Sammy Farha this guy is not.

This is something I see a ton of every single time I play in any poker tournament, whether live or online. Every. Single. Time. People who want to play what they think is "aggressive poker", yet they don't have the conviction or the lack of care for their chips to pull it off fully. And as someone who tries to read every single player in every single hand I ever play in, let me tell you there is very little that is easier to pick off than someone who is trying to act aggressive but doesn't have the testicular fortitude to put a lot of chips out there to do it. I'm talking about guys who quick-raise me on my steal attempts preflop, even when they themselves just limped in from LP preflop. Or guys who minraise me after a c-bet on the flop. Either put your money out there -- and make no mistake, if he had led out allin on the turn card here, I would have folded faster than yesterday's laundry -- or don't try to act aggressively if you're not fully committed to it. In this case, i was very strongly getting that precise read from WillG971. And as you know I am absolutely committed to playing my poker hands according to what my instincts are telling me.

And again, let's review the hands that could be ahead of me here. I'm not worried in the least about AA, KK or AQ. With those three hands I'm sure he would have raised preflop. I think any middle or higher pocket pair in fact would have raised it up preflop. And I'm not worried about JT because betting 80% of the pot when he had just the oesd on the flop is not believable enough to concern myself with. And let's take another quick look at the trip 9s scenario. So now we've got a guy that I have labeled as "non-tricky". Now I'm supposed to believe that he made trips on the flop, and instead of checking like almost every other "simple" type of player out there does, he bets 80% of the pot. Then when I call his flop bet, he has the sophistication to now bet only 60% of the pot, to try to make his hand look even weaker on the turn? I don't think so. If you flop trips, bet 80% of the pot, get called, and then bet 60% of the new pot on the turn, I consider that to be a fairly advanced play, but not a simple one. No simple player I know plays his trips that way. From some of the tricky players among the bloggers, I could not and would not make this assumption. But for your average poker player in the 20x180 sng, which WillG certainly seemed to be, this 60% pot bet on the turn was very meaningful for me -- I simply couldn't put him on a 9 as his most likely holding. Again, I knew it was possible, so I opted not to raise here because I knew he would just move in with any 9 and I'd be hurting. But I was happy to see the river and pay the 240 chips to do it, knowing that this guy's hand seemed to be getting weaker with every street so far.

When I made my straight on the river, and then Mr. Simple checked it to me for the first time in the hand, much like some of the commenters said, in my own head I knew I had won this hand. I mean, again, a tricky player might have made trip 9s on the flop, bet nearly the size of the pot to throw those of us who expect people to check their trips on the flop. Then that tricky player might have bet smaller on the turn to try to feign weakness and get an aggressive opponent to play back at them so they could push allin. I could even see the trickiest of players following all that up with a check on the river, fully intending to raise any bet allin. But there is just no way I was putting this simple guy on that kind of an advanced, multilevel play. No, I saw this as more of the same -- a guy whose hand just kept getting weaker and weaker with every new card to hit the board, and he couldn't help himself but let his betting pattern show that reality to anyone who is really watching.

So, the question then becomes, what do I do to maximize my intake on this hand? I was confident enough in my read that I was definitely going to bet here for value. I mean, I can't put him on a full house though I acknowledge that the possibility does exist for me to get burned by that, and there is no way I'm putting him on KT for the higher straight -- yes he would have limped preflop from the SB with the KT, and maybe he would have done the 80% pot steal bet on the flop with the overcard and the inside straight draw. But I refuse to believe he would have then led out for 60% of the new pot on the turn when the 8 fell. I just don't think he would have played it that way. So I have to figure my hand is best here.

In order to determine how to maximize my profit here, I needed to try to isolate (1) what he was holding in his hand, and (2) what he thinks I am holding in my hand. On the first point, he could have (a) nothing, having just fired two steal-bet attempts and failed, or (b) a middle pair or (c) a Queen with a lower kicker, since his weakness as the hand wore on just doesn't smell like top pair and a high kicker. So, if he has nothing, then I'm going to win the amount current in the pot, and he won't call any bet from me. So I'm not winning anything else on this hand if he has nothing. If he has a middle pair in the pocket, or a low Queen, I might be able to get him to call a bet at the river here, but that's going to depend heavily on what he thinks I have.

So let's look at my betting pattern in this hand from his perspective, and try some Level 3 thinking to figure what he thinks I have. I limped from LP into a pot with other limpers, so that does not indicate much strength from a starting-hand perspective. I smooth-called his 80% pot bet on the flop of Q99. Then I again smooth-called his 60% pot bet on the turn. If I were him, I might be afraid that I was the one slow-playing the trip 9s here, rather than him! But again, WillG971 is kind of a simple player, and I thought it entirely possible that my overall play on this hand looks kinda like I might have top pair Queens as well, or maybe just a busted draw of some kind. In which case, depending on exactly what his kicker is, he might think he can win the hand after all. That's what I was hoping he would think. So, when the river card came and WillG checked it to me, I very quickly hoyed him:



I purposefully moved quickly here, to make a move that would stand out and definitely be noticed by WillG. I wanted him to think maybe that I was seizing on the possible inside straight draw just having hit my Ten, and was making a bluff to take down the entire pot with maybe not much in my hand. After all, I had done nothing but smooth call all the way through here, and I was hoping he would think "No WAY he's just in here with an inside straight draw! That Ten can't have helped him." In Mike Caro's Big Book of Poker Tells, the author outlines a strategy of creating enough confusion and doubt with his opponents that they just have to call. That's what I went for here. I knew I had played this hand like I either had trip 9s myself, or top pair low kicker, or maybe just a busted draw of some kind, and I wanted to make WillG think I might have really just been pushing in the rest out of blind, stoopid desperation.

Whatever I did, it worked. WillG971 called my allin bet (actually, he raised me for his last chip, since I had hoyed him, and I called).

Last chance to guess what he had in his hand!




















And there it is. His play of this hand led me to believe more or less what I thought he had, and in the end I think my smooth calling approach worked about as good as any other strategy was likely to work, since he had just top pair and a weakish 7 kicker. I do not for the life of me understand why he called my allin bet on the river, though. That was the worst-played street of the entire hand for him as far as I'm concerned, and I still can't believe he called me there. I would love to take credit for his calling me, and I think my quick move on the river didn't hurt in that regard, but seeing what he called with, I think this was more one of those calls out of disgust more than anything else. I highly doubt he thought he was ahead at that point, given how the hand went down, but I guess he was just pissed to have lost so many chips, and maybe told himself I was bluffing on the river when I moved (almost) allin quickly like I did. Like Mike Caro always preaches, quite often people are secretly looking for a reason to call, and if you can just create enough confusion and ambiguity, you can often get them to make calls that they might not otherwise have made, especially if they've already got a lot of chips in a given pot.

Hope you enjoyed Hot Hand #6. I've got a few more of these saved up, so you can expect another Hot Hand post soon. And thanks again for all of the insightful comments, please keep those coming.

Hot Hand #6

OK I'm back today with the next in my Hot Hand series of posts. This is where I will post shots of a specific hand situation that occurred while I was at an online poker table from beginning to end, and I will solicit input and guesses from you all as to what I should do along the way. Then, since it's an actual hand that actually happened, I can show you what I chose, and what happened next.

Hot Hand #6 deals with a situation where some mediocre cards turn into a mediocre hand, and then we have to try to figure out what our opponent is holding by making a read based on the way he has played the hand along the way, and what he thinks he knows about our hand. This hand occurs about 20 minutes in to a 180-person, $20 sng on pokerstars, so we're fairly early on in a multi-table no-limit holdem tournament, with blinds of 15 and 30.

Things started off innocently enough in Hot Hand #6, as I looked down to find QTo on the button. The first three players fold their hands, but then the next two both limp in for the $30 big blind. The next player folds, and action is to me on the button. I've got two limpers from middle position already in the pot cheap, plus a SB and a BB left to act after me who are also already in for small bets.

Question 1: What do you like to do here? Raise/call/fold?



For me, this one was fairly easy. QTo is normally a hand I would fold without even giving a second thought. I know guys like Hellmuth love to play the "20" hands, but as I've mentioned here in previous posts, to me these are the hardest hands to play in all of holdem. If you hit the flop you could still be dominated by a higher kicker, or an overpair, and of course there will always be straight draws to worry about in multiway pots if I really hit the flop hard. All that said, in this case it looks like I might be able to see a cheap $30 flop (with over $2000 in my stack) with two high cards and likely five players in. No one has shown any overriding strength so far preflop, so there's no reason I might not be able to take control after the flop or turn card and win this pot. And, if I do hit the flop hard, with five players somebody is bound to give me some action. For $30 I'll take a call here, knowing that if either of the blinds raises any significant amount, I will fold regardless of what the other players do:



Now the flop comes out Q99 (all different suits). So I've made a pair of Queens, plus a decent kicker. The SB leads out for $120 into a $150 pot. The BB folds, and the first two preflop limpers fold as well. Action is to me with my pair of Queens and a ten kicker:



Question 2: Now what? I've got top pair and a ten kicker. No one showed much strength before the flop. Do I just fold here to a bet that is 4/5 of the size of the pot? What would you recommend, and why?



In this case, I did not think folding was an option. I have top pair with a decent kicker, and the pair on the board makes it less likely that my opponents have hit this flop in any meaningful way. No one indicated a high pocket pair before the flop, and I am ahead of all but AA and KK among the pocket pairs at this point. I guess my biggest concern is a 9, but remember with two of them on the board, that only leaves two Nines left in the entire deck, and my opponent would have to have one of them. While I cannot discount the possibility of a 9 or a higher Queen than my QT, in general I think this hand is good enough to call with here, and take another card and see where we stand then. I don't want to raise and risk getting blown out of the hand right here by a large reraise that I will then have to lay down to in case my opponent in fact has made trip 9s. I call here for $120, making the total pot now $390 heading into the turn card.

And the turn brings an 8 of hearts, making two hearts on the board, potentially filling the JT oesd if one of us had played that on the flop. My lone opponent quickly leads out for $240, now about 60% of the pot, after an 80% of the pot bet on the flop:



Question 3: This pot is getting large enough to actually care about winning at this point. Am I ahead or behind here? How should I respond -- raise, call or fold?



Here was my thinking at this point in the hand. First, when an opponent fires a bullet at me on the flop and I call it, if they then fire a second bullet at me on the turn, I tend to pay attention to the trend in the size of their two bets in relation to the size of the pot. For example, if someone comes out and bets the whole pot at me on the flop, and I call, if they then bet out half the size of the new pot on the turn, I tend to view that as weakness, all other things being equal. Similarly, if someone bets half the pot at me on a flop with two high cards on it, and then a third high card hits on the turn and they bet the full size of the new, larger pot to me, I tend to assume it is because they have hit their straight draw on the turn. Again, this is all things being equal, I have no other reads or information to draw upon, etc.

So in this case, a guy went from betting 80% of the pot on the flop, to now betting just over 60% of the pot on the turn. That just doesn't seem to me like a guy who just made his open-ended straight draw. Although it could be someone who just picked up some kind of draw, and thus wants to try to hit his inside straight for cheap and is hoping to get there with a weak lead bet on the turn. Either way, my gut is telling me that this guy does not have a made straight. Again I consider AQ, KQ or QJ, all three hands of which outkick me currently. I still don't think he would have played AQ preflop without a raise, and possibly not KQ either (nor AA or KK, so I'm still not worrying about the overcards, nor is he betting strong enough for me to put him on such an overpair here). And I see this trend of making smaller-percentage bets compared to the size of the pot as suggesting that he does not have one of these top-pair-high-kicker hands either. Notice I'm not saying that it's impossible that he has one of these hands, but rather that I have to go with my poker instincts, and here they're telling me that this guy is feeling just a bit weak, but doesn't want to give up the lead here on the turn.

In the back of my mind I will admit I'm still a bit concerned about trip 9s, because there are people out there online who like to play flopped trips kinda slow until the river. But something about this just doesn't seem like trips to me, at least not with enough confidence that I'm willing to lay down what would still be top pair with a decent kicker for this board. I'm still concerned enough about being dominated by trips or a higher kicker that I don't want to raise here and put myself in a situation to really lose a lot of chips if my read is wrong. But I'd like to see one more card, and I'm confident enough that my hand is still the best that I'm willing to drop another $240 out of my stack to remain in the hand. I call, and the pot is now a sizeable 870 chips heading to the river card:



and the river comes the Jack of spades, giving me an unexpected Queen-high straight, and my opponent checks to me for the first time in the hand:



Question 4: Now what's the story? With a possible higher straight out there or a possible full house, am I even sure I have the best hand? Do I just check it down here and hope I have won, or rather would you make a value bet here, assuming you've got the best hand and can milk some more chips out of this guy?

I guess I will wait to hear some responses before I update this post with what I decided and why. And I'll tell you what my opponent was holding, if he ever revealed it to me.

Let me know your thoughts, and I'll post an update with results soon!

Btw another kudos to my boy Aquaverse who came in 3rd place in last night's WWdN. This guy has probably cashed in about half of the WWdNs he has ever played in. He may win 10 of these before he finally depletes his online bankroll for the last time. And speaking of on a roll in the WWdN, Weak Player's wife TransFish is showing up the competition, winning the WWdN last night for the second time in three weeks, and making her third consecutive final table. Way to go Amy!! Anyways I went out when I ran AK allin preflop into Surf's pocket Aces, but I'm not gonna beat myself up over that one. C'est la vie, n'est-ce pas?

Early MATH Exit (What Else is New)

Well last night I decided to do something interesting. Or, should I say, my subconscious decided to do some interesting, because I would never conciously make such an idiotic and -EV decision of my own will. I played the Mondays at the Hoy tournament last night like I always do when I'm around, but instead of trying to win the event, I watched, almost like from outside of my own body, while my fingers went and played 63% of flops through the first 10 minutes of the tournament. No that's not a misprint, 63% of flops seen. The best part of course is that I never once got dealt a hand that would be considered playable, and yet I still saw 63% of flops, most of which I had raised up preflop. Playing this strategy left me to apply my Mike Caro reading skills as best as I could as I was constantly taking flops with the worst of it, and trying to play my way out of bad situations as a result.

I got out to my very-usual-for-blogger-tournaments early chip lead after I laid a huge move on PhinCity, a friend of a friend from my homegame who cashed in this event a week or two ago. Playing with Q6o, I put in a 4x steal-raise from middle position preflop, and Phin was the only caller from the button. Then the flop came K96 with two spades, giving me just lowly third pair and a Queen kicker, but I went ahead and made the continuation bet since I was the one who had raised it up preflop. Phin thought for a few seconds and made the smooth call. The turn card then came an offsuit 2, an obvious rag for any hand strong enough to raise or call preflop and on the flop. Here I bet out around 2/3 the pot, and Phin almost immediately minraised me 2x my bet on the turn. I mean, the reraise went in instantaneously. This is where I love to use my hand reading skills to try to get some chips to be aggressive with. I figured that since my fingers were playing the tournament with a mind of their own, I might as well take the opportunity to lay some reads on some people, and that's exactly what I did here. Something about the quick-minraise on the turn just rubbed me the wrong way. I mean, if Phin had a monster hand like Aces, trips, etc., then why only the minraise on the turn? A more standard raise of, say, 3 or 4x my bet would have been more indicative of a huge hand, and I would almost certainly have folded. Similarly, if Phin was really strong here, then why do the immediate raise, as opposed to the normal wait-a-few-seconds raise? In the end, I could not get away from the fact that the quickness of the raise was an intentional act, intended to convey strength from a player who did not know who he was dealing with. As Mike Caro preaches, "strong means weak and weak means strong". This guy was trying to muscle me with a quick-raise that looked strong, and on top of it, he wasn't even willing to commit more than the minimum to the raise, because deep down he knows he ain't got shit. So I re-reraised him 4x his reraised bet. And you know what he did? He sat there with his thumb up his ass for a good 45 seconds, trying hard to give the impression that he was mulling over a tough decision with a good hand, and then finally mucked his hand. My fourth pair 6s took it down.

Two hands later I made another very similar move on another player at my starting table (I can't remember who it was). A player min-raised me on the flop, giving off once again a clear signal that he was weak but was just putting me on a steal. I re-reraised 4x his raise on the flop, and he quick-folded. Why people minraise is really beyond me. As I recently said in a comment to the blog here, personally I don't believe the minraise is ever the right move, and the only time that I personally would ever crack out the move that makes Baby Jeebus cry is when I was specifically trying to put a specific move on someone by using the minraise to create an impression in my opponent's mind. In general you could play with me for a year and never see me minraise, other than maybe in heads-up play at the final table of an mtt.

In the end, two hands did me in in the Hoy last night, but both of which I actually enjoyed playing. The first culprit was TrophyHubby. In this case, I raised it up preflop again with A5o, as my fingers continued to play unabated like lunatics, and Trophy just called. Then I think the flop came AJ6, and I continuation bet as I had already done several times in the tournament so far. Trophy then types in "arrrgh" as soon as the Ace hits the flop. Then he follows it up with a long pause, followed by an all-in raise. Now this hit me as very strange. Why type in the "arrrgh" as if the flop bothered you, and then make the allin reraise? It was so weird and almost silly that I even typed back in the chat to Trophy" "Hmmmmm. An "arrrgh", followed by an allin reraise....What are you trying to tell me here?" Anyways, after basically publicly stating in the chat that I thought Trophy must be putting a move on me, I still went ahead and called his allin with my TP5K. And he flips over....









Pocket 6s, for trips.

A few quick notes about this hand. First and foremost, I have the screenshots but I am not looking at them as I make this post. Which means that I probably have a lot of the details wrong about this hand. But the general concept of what happened is right on. I had a bad flavor of top pair on the flop, and Trophy went out of his way to act weak (which according to Mike Caro typically means he is actually strong), even taking the time to type in "arrrgh" to me in the chat when the Ace flopped and I c-bet at him. Trophy even followed up by confirming that he was in fact strong by raising me allin on the flop right after the 'arrrgh" comment. Nonetheless, even knowing I was beat and indicating so in the chat, I still went ahead and made the call, and promptly paid Trophy off on his flopped trips.

Secondly, isn't it funny how much I tend to depart from my "moderated aggression" strategy that has done so well for me in the blogger tournaments? I mean, here I am fresh off my best week ever in the blogger tournaments, playing very solid and making three final tables and two titles in my last 3 blogger events, and then here I go here completely dropping the whole "moderated" part from my "moderated aggression" strategy. And as I've discussed here many times, a plain old "aggression" strategy is simply not one that works for very long against the aggressive and yet trappy group known as poker bloggers. Yet that's exactly what I did last night, right from the get-go in fact. Betting with anything, not giving people credit for good hands, and especially not trusting my own reads and instincts like in this hand here. I typed it into the chat even for crying out loud. But when the money was on the line, I couldn't lay down my top pair against someone whose act was almost amateurish in how obvious it was, even to me. So much for moderated aggression. And I paid the price.

The second and final blow was from Morgaina, a newcomer to the Hoy tournament and a friend of Jules whom she brought to introduce to Morgaina's first blogger tournament. Long story short, Morgaina just limped in from the small blind when it had been folded around to her, and I checked my option from the big blind while holding 85o. The flop came A73. She checked, and I checked behind her. Then the turn brought a Queen. Morgaina checked again to me, and I decided to bet out, representing that I had an Ace. I "knew" since Morgaina had only limped in from the SB, even as the first player to enter the pot, that she did not have an Ace or she almost surely would have raised. So, I figured after checking it down on the flop, here on the turn I would be and represent that Ace, knowing full well that Morgaina didn't have one. So I bet about 2/3 the pot, and Morgaina considered for a few seconds before calling. So, what did that tell me? I still didn't see how Morgaina could realistically have failed to bet an Ace from the SB with no one in the pot yet and just me and my BB left to steal. So I figured her maybe for 2nd pair with a Queen and a lower kicker, or maybe even third pair or some longshot draw or something. So when the river came another rag, I decided to show some ballz and represent the Ace again, dropping a hoy on Morgaina as I moved allin except for one chip left in my stack. Again, knowing she did not have an Ace, I figured I would put her to the test right here, and that certainly this move was my best -- if not only -- shot at winning the hand since she obviously had to have something to have called my bet on the turn to begin with. I was surprised to see Morgaina call quickly. I flipped my garbage, and Morgaina flipped....







A9o. So she had just limped as the first one in from the small blind with a strong hand like A9o. A very surprising and tricky move for her, but never having played with her before I could not put her on such a hand, even when she called my 2/3 pot bet on the turn. Second or third pair, or a weird draw I could see, but no way she had limped from the SB with an Ace in her hand. But in the end, my read was wrong, I had been behind all along, and I wasn't going to push Morgaina off of anything once that Ace came on the flop and I had just limped from the BB. Anyways, it sucked being eliminated in less than 15 minutes from my own tournament, but to be honest, as I've always maintained on the blog, I really enjoy playing against good, tricky players who are willing to put a well-timed move on me. It happens not very frequently to me, so when it does I tend to respect it, and almost enjoy it in a way. I'm kinda proud to have gone out on this kind of a hand, and in a way it is refreshing to just get downright outplayed instead of a bad beat, losing a race or any of the other myraid ways I have found to lose these blogger events over the past few months. So congrats to Morgaina on putting a move on me and knocking me out of my own tournament. What Morgaina doesn't know, never having played this event before, is that I haven't cashed in even one of these tournaments since I started running them in late Spring of this year. So if it hadn't been Morgaina, it would have been somebody else.

And congratulations to Lifesagrind, who won the overall MATH tournament out of its 22 entrants and took home the $220 first prize. Second prize ($132) went to a newcomer named BCOLOHIC whom I did not recognize but appeared to be maybe another friend of Surflexus's maybe? And our third and final casher last night was WillWonka, who nabbed $88 for third prize, after a long fought battle with just the three players left before wonka's luck finally ran out. In all, PhinCity just missed his second Hoy cash despite having sucked out to eliminate literally five different players from the tournament, and Jules and drraz each made another nice run in the Hoy but both came up just short of the money at the final table. And most importantly, a good time was had by all, as always.

Remember, next Monday night is Labor Day, which I view as the official beginning of the "busier" season in the online poker community generally, and among the bloggers specifically, as people will return from vacations and time away from poker to settle in for the long, hard fall and winter. Summertime has always been lighter in terms of blogger game participation, and I expect this year to be no different. So, I will still be setting up and playing in the Hoy tournament next Monday, but it may be on the small side given that it is the last day of a long weekend. But after that, I would not be surprised to see the MATH and some of the other regular weekly tournaments start to rise in popularity once again, with more players and new blogger meat always ready to take their stab at immortality and get hoy-raised and Hammered on the same hand by yours truly.

I've got a few fun posts planned for later this week, ones that I've already started writing while I was on vacay two weeks ago now, so tune back in. August is on pace to be the blog's biggest month ever in terms of overall viewership, which will make four straight months of that since I started keeping track of my stats, and frankly that is especially cool given that I was away for more than a full week during the month and was not posting at all. So I take all this as a sign that people are enjoying reading what I have to say, and I will try to keep the interesting posts coming in the days and weeks ahead. In fact, you know what, in honor of you my loyal readers who keep coming back here for my bad beat stories and lengthy tournament recaps that take forever to load, I'm going to do a new Hot Hand post later today. So check back in this afternoon and let me know your thoughts on my questions.

Quick Poker Update, and The Greatest Poker Books Ever Written

Today's post is about the great poker books I have read, and how useful and enjoyable they are likely to be to the average poker player (and poker blogger) out there. I've been writing this post for several weeks, and basically the research for this post has been done over the past four or five years, as I have truly devoured every single poker book I've ever gotten anything resembling a good recommendation on.

But first a few quick updates:

First, thanks for the many responses I got for two teams to join my fantasy football league this past Friday. The two lucky readers are TrophyHubby and jeciimd, two guys you might recognize from our weekly Mondays at the Hoy nlh tournaments on pokerstars. Anyways the league had our draft this weekend, and I think I did ok. Not my typical dominating draft day performance for fantasy football, I will say that. I got the first overall pick, with which I took Larry Johnson. But the problem with this pick is that I didn't get to pick again then until #20 and #21. And then not until #40 and #41. It's rough getting to pick 1st but then not again until #20, believe you me. Yes you get the top overall pick, something which has tremendous value, but then by #20 and #21, all the "great" ffl guys are generally gone. This definitely had an impact on my ability to get good ffl talent deep at the big-scoring positions of rb and wr, so I tried to focus on securing at least one stud at every position I could, and then playable starters to fill out the roster. Picking 1, 20, 21, 40 and 41 for the first five rounds is not a good great position to be in, despite getting the first overall pick in the draft.

In the end, I picked up Larry Johnson, Corey Dillon, Cedric Benson, Chris Brown and Kevan Barlow at runningback (we will play two each week), and Marvin Harrison, Joey Galloway, Keyshawn Johnson and Michael Clayton at wide receiver (play 3 each week). At tight end I nabbed Antonio Gates but was forced to use a 3rd round pick to get him since I had a full 20 picks before I would get on the clock again, and he would doubtless have been long gone. My quarterback situation is potentially my most dubious, as I have Kurt Warner, Byron Leftwich and Chris Simms (we will play one each week). Any one of those guys could turn out to be a playable starting ffl qb this season, and I'm banking on whichever one that is making itself clear early on so I can dump one of the stiffs at this position. I love Hurt Warner's passing offense this year in Arizona, but I definitely am not confident that Warner will be the guy throwing to those receivers throughout the season. In fact, I'm confident that Hurt won't play more than, say, 10 or 12 full games this season. I'm just hoping I don't get screwed too bad when he first decides to go down. I really don't care if he loses a limb permanently on a vicious illegal hit...just don't do it until the end of the 4th quarter in whatever game it happens, ok Hurt? Anyways my kicker is Jay Feely and my team defense is Jacksonville, both picks I am happy with. So I think I did a nice job amassing potential in the key ffl scoring positions, but I'll just need to identify the contenders and the pretenders at my #2 rb and #3 wr positions as soon as I can, and hopefully make some good trades to improve where I can along the way.

And Terrell Owens....what the fruck is the matter with you man? It's one thing to claim an injured hamstring, even if it is being exaggerated just to get TO out of preseason workouts and games. But now this weekend it comes out that you've missed a mandatory team meeting, a mandatory offense meeting, and mandatory rehab session last week, causing the team to fine him $10,000? Come on guy. What a piece of slime. Yes I am biased against this anus since I am a rabid Philadelphia Eagles fan, the last team this clown ruined with his cancerous attitude in the locker room. But things are starting off for Bozo in Dallas about as bad as could have been expected. And given what happened last year with Andy Reid in Philly, and given Bill Parcells's controlling nature, I predict those two are heading for a major butting of heads that is not likely to turn out well for TO. Hopefully he can ruin the Cowboys' franchise like he did in Philly before he is run out of town. What a scumbag. And the best part is, anyone who knows TO knows that he will now have to go and purposefully miss another team meeting just to show the team that TO is the boss of TO. I've said it before and I'll say it again -- what an anus. Can't wait till my Eagles soar back into the NFC Championship again this year.

OK before I forget, tonight is the night again! Come join your favorite bloggers and my favorite homegame guys in a battle for the $20 buyins at the weekly Mondays at the Hoy online poker tournament this evening:

What: Mondays at the Hoy
Buyin: $20 + $2 No-Limit Holdem
Where: Pokerstars, "Private" tab
When: 10pm ET, every Monday night
Password: hammer

Lately we've been averaging around 20 players per week, down from the highs before the summer doldrums kicked in, so I anticipate this will be one of the last weeks of the smaller events. Next Monday will be Labor Day, and although I will definitely run the tournament next week for whoever is interested (I will be there tonight and next week for sure), I also expect that one to be on the slow side due to the holiday. But after that I'm hoping that all of the blogger events will increase in popularity as people return from summers away, vacations, etc. and get back to business in September. Anyways, tonight should be another great week for all you first-timers out there to get your feet wet playing in a real life blogger tournament. No need to have any kind of a blog to play -- you just have to read this blog, or read about the Hoy tournament on some other site. That's it. Just hear about it, get the password from somewhere, and come play with some of the funnest, trashtalkiest and most skilled no-limit holdem players around. And with the $20 buyin, the stakes can get pretty high pretty fast. First prize is usually in the neighborhood of $200, so there is a lot to play for, not to mention the priceless glory that comes along with winning the Hoy tournament any Monday night.

And don't forget, I am coming off of two wins and three final tables in the weekly blogger tournaments last week, so I am definitely looking to overcome cc's overcards, to talk some mad smack to drraz and try to tilt him out of his chat privileges for another month, and to outlast perennial Hoy tournament casher Jules on my way to making my first cash in my own tournament, after some three months of trying. And I think I even got the $20 buyin right this week on the setup, but please let me know if I screwed that up again as well.

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For a long time I've wanted to write this post, and finally the time is now for me to talk about what I think are the best poker books I've read. And let me tell you, I've read quite a few. In fact it seems like almost the only thing I've read over the past few years has been poker books. Hammer Wife sometimes gets crazy because so much of our bookshelf space is taken up by my poker-related acquisitions over the past few years, especially because many of the best books end up being large texts that take up a lot of shelf space. But this all makes me as close to a poker book expert as anyone I know, and I thought I would share my thoughts here as far as which books I think are best, and why.

First and foremost, I am really a Super System guy. And I'm talking about the original Super System, although the newer volume has some good chapters as well. Super System was the first hardcore poker book I ever read, and I cannot overstate the impact that the chapters on holdem have had on my entire poker outlook. I don't play everything exactly the way that Doyle suggests it be played, but his general aggressive, pot-stealing strategy and approach, especially to no-limit holdem, simply cannot be topped in my book (pun intended). As a general statement, anybody who hasn't read Super System is at a significant disadvantage to someone who has carefully read it and selectively applies it to his or her holdem game. Just don't read this book (or the follow-up volume released a year or two ago) expecting to see some top-notch writing for writing's sake. The writing itself can be almost painfully bad in my view, in particular with its overuse of bold text in some of the oddest places, but the advice and strategy cannot be topped the way I see it. And the book contains a great chapter on Draw poker (does anyone even play that anymore) by the Mad Genius of Poker, Mike Caro, which also contains a lot of useful information on tells and how to read your opponents, plus an excellent chapter on 7-Card Stud by a very young Chip Reese, still today regarded as the best overall poker player in the world (and winner of this year's first-ever HORSE event in the WSOP). David Sklansky also writes a typically pompous piece on Stud Hilo, but that piece focuses mainly on the "cards speak" variation without the 8 qualifier for the low hand, a game that was much more popular in the casinos in 1979 than it is today, while the current preference is Stud Eight or Better. In all, Super System is a great way to learn about a lot of different poker games, all written by a recognized successful expert in the field, and again the no-limit holdem chapter is, in my view, second to none as far as overall strategy and approach to the game.

Super System II is also a fine poker book, with the no-limit holdem section basically the same copy as Doyle's original from thirty years earlier, with just a couple of small changes and additions thrown in. However, I did also enjoy Jennifer Harman's section on limit holdem, as well as Doyle's son Todd Brunson's very clear and helpful strategies for Stud Hi-Lo 8 or Better, another of my favorite games as my readers know. Even Daniel Negreanu's contribution on Triple Draw is enjoyable and useful to most of us who are not Triple Draw experts, and frankly represents the only significant writing on this fairly fringe poker variant that I know of. In all, nothing is going to top the original Super System in terms of overall poker content, but SS2 does a nice job as a follow-up work. Mike Caro also chips in with another set of poker tips for the modern poker player, which rounds out a number of solid offerings from recognized professionals in today's poker world.

After Super System, the next seminal work in the arena of holdem strategy has got to be Harrington on Holdem. If you're a holdem guy, and in particular a holdem tournament player, Harington is an absolute must-read. If you've ever been sitting at a poker table, either live or on-line, and heard people talking about so-and-so's M being below 5, but didn't know what they were talking about, or if you've read or heard others discussing the merits of making a continuation bet on a raggy flop, then you are sorely missing Dan Harrington's poker wisdom. Written by one of the most notoriously tight holdem players on the professional circuit, Harrington has a way of making a great many points that you might have understood on some basic level, but never really thought about in the way that he presents them. And the writing itself is actually fairly readable, especially for poker book standards. Just as with Super System, I personally laugh at the thought of someone seriously pursuing tournament Texas Holdem but not having ever read Volumes 1 and 2 of Harrington on Holdem. Personally I've read each volume several times and have almost ruined my copies of each with my foldovers, highlights and underlining of key passages and points. Although I'm not such a huge fan of Harrington's Volume III released earlier this year. Unlike the first two volumes, Volume 3 is all just hand examples and analysis, which is helpful but simply does not compare to the kinds of strategy and advice provided almost page by page through the first two sets of Harrington's works. As I said above, if you play no-limit holdem tournaments but have not read Harrington on Holdem, Volumes 1 and 2, then you're an effing clown. 'Nuff said.

Another great poker book I've read is Phil Gordon's Little Green Book. I read this book on a recommendation from my buddy Buckhoya, yes the guy who got me into online poker in the first place, and I have to say it lived up to all the hype. Little tidbits such as "the fourth raise always means Aces" and others like it have really rung true and have stuck with me through my poker playing career. I highly recommend this book as a quick but useful read for any serious holdem player. It's not nearly as detailed as far as providing a comprehensive holdem strategy, but Gordon includes many useful ideas and concepts in the book that will come in handy sooner or later (probably sooner) for anyone who regularly plays no-limit holdem, either live or online.

I also finished Gordon's follow-up book, Little Blue Book, last week while on vacation, after receiving an advance copy from Gordon's press assistant while at the WPBT gathering in Vegas last month. And I have to admit, I feel very similarly with this book as I do about Harrington's Volume III. This is mostly because it shares the exact same weaknesses in my view -- namely, that it is merely a book of specific hand examples and analysis, as opposed to chapters full of general holdem advice organized by topic or types of hands, etc. And this is not to say that Harrington III or Little Blue Book don't contain any useful strategy, because surely they do, but rather that I feel that each of them reads more like a book by a guy who has already written his poker strategy book, and now wants to cash in again with another poker book despite having already imparted all of his general poker strategy tips, so he is left with simply analyzing a bunch of real-life hands and applying the strategy already covered in an earlier book. Like his first effort, Phil Gordon is actually not a terrible writer as far as poker books are concerned, which is a welcome change from most of the major poker texts out there, but in my view Harrington and Gordon's books read more like regular books written by actual authors, as opposed to much of Super System for example, which reads like a poker guy who knows a ton about poker but not so much about writing in general.

Another poker book that I definitely place on the "good" list is T.J. Cloutier and Tom McEvoy's Championship Pot-Limit and No-Limit Holdem. This book seems to be mostly written by TJ, a guy whose poker resume needs no introduction, and it is chock full of tidbits from two world champions many times over as far as how to play certain hands. It's almost laughable in places how tight TJ advocates playing in tournaments, and I'm quite sure that explains why TJ hasn't exactly lit it up over the past several years in the major events (though he did win a WSOP bracelet in 2005, as I recall), but the advice he gives is still generally right-on for mostly any tournament player. And TJ writes in a very straightforward, almost in-your-face manner, which combines very well with McEvoy's softer, more down-to-earth tone. Personally, some of my favorite aspects of the book are where the two authors discuss their differing ways of playing the same holdem hand or the same situation. The value of getting specific hand advice such as what you find in this book from two world-class holdem players like this cannot be overstated, and I recommend this book to anyone looking for a new poker strategy book who hasn't already found his or her way to Cloutier and McEvoy's many works.

Mike Caro's Big Book of Poker Tells is another must-read for any serious poker player as far as I'm concerned. Like the original Super System, this is one of those books that was written in the middle of the 1970s, but is still every bit as applicable today as it ever has been. Almost every pro admits to having read and studied Caro's seminal work on reading other poker players, and his general theme of "strong means weak and weak means strong" works its way into so many different players' acts at the poker table (virtual or IRL) that it's not even remotely funny how much this book will help you, even the very first time you play after you read one of his chapters. Between watching players' eyes when the cards come out, their apparent level of interest, and more specific advice like never betting after someone "tsk's" their tongue, the Big Book of Poker Tells is literally filled with practical, moneymaking advice. And, like Harrington and Super System, it has been so widely read by so many professionals and amateur poker players, that you can actually even use some of Caro's tips as feints against other players, if you just take the time to read and study what the self-proclaimed "Mad Genius of Poker" has to say about reading people and their tells at the poker table. And for me, it is even very applicable to how players bet and play in online poker games, albeit with the physical tell aspects not as useful given the lack of ability to physically see your opponents. Even online, people still try to bet quickly or take a long time in yet another effort to act strong when they're weak, or weak when they're strong, so Caro's book would be most likely be very helpful and directly applicable to all of my readers' poker experiences as well. In general, this is one of the most useful and most practically applicable poker texts available, and I highly recommend it for a number of reasons to any serious degenerate gambler poker enthusiast.

There are also a few other major poker texts that are generally well-liked but which I have not had a positive reaction to for the most part. For example, I really got nothing whatsoever out of Barry Greenstein's Ace on the River. It must just be me, because I've heard more than one or two positive commentaries on this book, including I believe from Felicia whose poker opinions I respect, but I found almost nothing substantive of value in Barry's book, despite having thoroughly enjoyed watching Barry play in televised events and especially recently in "High Stakes Poker" on GSN. Similarly, I also read The Psychology of Poker by Dr. Alan Schoonmaker, also on a rec from Felicia, and again I got very little out of the book. Unlike Ace on the River, Psychology did contain a lot of substantive advice and strategies on poker. My problem with Psychology of Poker was that I already knew all that stuff. I could have written that book in fact. I think The Psychology of Poker would be a great read for anyone who is not familiar with the loose/tight and aggressive/passive distinctions, and how to best play against each type of player, but I would suggest that most experienced poker players probably already know most of this information fairly well.

One other book I read but did not get much out of, despite many poker players I know really enjoying the book (drraz, for example...how ironic is that?), is The Zen of Poker. Again, I found there to be plenty of substantive information in Zen, but in this case I just found it not to be very helpful in a practical sense. I read Zen back in my super-tilty days, back when I used to get repeatedly banned from Pokerstars chat, etc., as I thought it would be a help to my tilty game. What I found instead was a bunch of great generalized advice like "don't tilt" and "be one with the game", etc., but without any specific ideas about how to actually accomplish this. Again, it's good general poker advice, but it didn't do me much practical good at all, despite me having been able to significantly decrease my level of tilt over the past several months since reading that book. David Sklansky's Tournament Poker for Advanced Players also comes to mind as a book that I took the time to read but really wish I hadn't. I suppose some of what David has to say in this book is decent advice for cash games, but for the most part the book is about 500 pages of generalized strategies for limit holdem games, plus about 100 tons of Sklansky's trademarked brand of pomposity that even I can't take. And I'm someone in my job who deals with blowhards all day, every day, but Sklansky's level of conceit and his tendency to talk down to his readers are so distracting and stupid to me that I can hardly wait to finish reading him so I can move on to something else and clear the nasty taste from my mouth. I am not a fan of Sklansky at all (can you tell?), and I doubt I would read anything else from him after being so disappointed with this particular book.

I'll tell you one poker book that I really wanted to hate, but I have to admit, begrudingly, is actually really, really good: Phil Hellmuth's Play Poker Like the Pros. I had read Hellmuth's no-limit holdem book several months ago, and I thought it was fairly good, though the writing again suffers from much of the same issues as many other books written by poker players who are not (and never would be) authors by trade -- Hellmuth's prolific use of exclamation points alone is enough to drive any amateur book editor or punctuation nazi crazy I'm sure. But when I picked up the full version of Hellmuth's poker book, I have to admit I pored through the thing, and it really is quite good. I've re-read the entirety of the book several times now, and I have to say, the King of Tilt has really got an excellent assortment of advice on all the major poker variations. I mean, as much as I wanted to hate Hellmuth's book, it is honestly one of the best all-around poker books I've ever had my hands on. Phil's book has an extensive array of strategy on limit holdem for anyone interested in that kind of thing, plus some really great and easy-to-understand explanations on pot-limit Omaha, Omaha 8 or better, Stud, Stud hilo and Razz. I would strongly recommend Hellmuth's big book to any player who is interested in learning how to play the typical HORSE type of games, but doesn't have experience in many games other than the holdem cash games and tournaments typicaly of many of today's players. Phil's "best starting hands" charts for each of these games alone are probably worth the book's purchase price to anyone who plans to take any serious amount of time playing these games. In all, I think Phil gives really thorough and excellent strategy -- albeit perhaps a bit on the tight side -- for all of the major poker games played today, and as much as I am surprised and annoyed to admit it, I have to rank Play Poker Like the Pros is right up there with Super System as the best overall strategy books that deal with all of the major poker variations. To be clear, Phil does not necessarily go into tremendous detail or describe many particularly advanced plays for some of the poker variations, but, like the Super System books, he provides a very solid basis in all the major poker variants for anyone who has never played them, or is anything short of an expert in them.

I'm such a poker book junkie that I've even read this year the new World Poker Tour books by Erick Lindgren and Antonio Esfandiari. Lindgren's first book effort is called Making the Final Table, and it has some interesting stuff as far as the logistics of successful WPT tournament play, from a guy who has had a lot of success in the first few seasons of the WPT. There is also what I think is some really excellent original holdem strategy, from a guy who is definitely one of the more aggressive young players on the professional circuit today. Erick weaves helpful tidbits like "Bet small on raggy flops, and big on flops containing draws" and "You should want your opponent to have pocket Aces when you call a small raise preflop with a drawing hand like JTs" in with a lot of practical advice on surviving a multi-day poker tournament to create what I found to be a helpful, and actually re-readable, poker text. In general I think Erick does a very good job and as I mentioned, he really does have some fairly unique strategy and advice on playing tournament no-limit holdem that differs from most of what you're going to read in most other poker books, even the great ones. Antonio Esfandiari's book on beating no-limit cash games, called In the Money, is a bit more light on substantive original poker strategy, but he also has a few tidbits that you won't exactly find anywhere else, like the very mathematically correct fact that, if you are betting the right amount when you think your opponent is on a draw, then it should be irrelevant to you whether he calls your bet or not. Ironically, it is Antonio's departures from the strictly cash games subject of his book that I found to be most insightful, but those are few and far between. In general I would give only a lukewarm recommendation for In the Money for someone who is looking to get a leg up on the competition in no-limit cash games, as for me it was just not as directly helpful as many of the other books I've mentioned above. But it wasn't a bad read by any means, and I enjoyed most the portions of the book detailing Antonio's rise to fame and fortune as a professional poker player from his beginnings as a magician (hence his nickname) who was once hired by Phil Hellmuth to do tricks at a private party for poker players at Hellmuth's house. But if you really need limit holdem help for cash games, I would have to recommend either Super System, or Phil Hellmuth's Play Poker Like the Pros for their extensive and detailed coverage of this very popular casino and online poker games today.

One last honorable mention also goes to Positively Fifth Street by James McManus. This was the first and one of the only fictional poker novels I've read, and to this day it ranks as perhaps my favorite poker novel. For those of you who don't know, this book details the author's trials and tribulations when he was sent to Vegas in 2000 during the WSOP to cover the story of Benny Binion's death and subsequent murder trial, and how the author ended up buying his way into the main event as a player/reporter. Long story short, McManus ends up going on a huge run in the main event, knocking out T.J. Cloutier among others at the end, and going out in 4th place overall just a few hours before Chris "Jesus" Ferguson took down the first-ever $1 million first prize. McManus really does a great job weaving his WSOP experiences in with the story of Binion's death and trial that he had been sent to cover, and he includes many individual hand histories and other specific poker stories that very effectively capture the incredible awe inspired by playing in the main event, with all those top-notch players. I imagine that anyone looking to read a great poker story would really enjoy this book, and I highly recommend it.

Since we're all degenerates here, one other honorable mention in the area of gambling fiction -- I really loved Ben Mezrich's Bringing Down the House. This is a book about the MIT blackjack teams that have reportedly made millions of dollars for their investors going back 20 or 30 years at this point -- a group that known poker professional Andy Block was a member of when he matriculated at MIT before his time at Harvard Law School. So this is a blackjack book, and not a poker book, but if you have any interest in card-counting, blackjack, and gambling and casinos in general, then I really think you will like this book. Mezrich's follow-up work called Busting Vegas is not nearly as good or original in my book, but if you're looking for a good, quick read, and something which you will truly enjoy and barely be able to put down, I highly recommend Bringing Down the House. But only if you have time to read something that is not related to poker.

I guess that's it for now. Suffice it to say, I've read countless other poker books as well, but these are the ones that most quickly come to mind, either because I loved them, was disappointed by them, or just that I read them the most recently. In any event, take my recommendations with a grain of salt. I'm just some guy who plays a lot of online poker and who loves to read. Ymmv.

OK that's all for now. I welcome anyone's comments on these or other good poker books that are out there. Come to think of it, I am in need of a new shipment myself, so I'd love some ideas that are not mentioned in my post above. See you tonight at 10pm ET on pokerstars for Mondays at the Hoy! I'm serious, if you read this blog every day, then let's go, get off your asses and play in the Hoy tonight -- it's the tournament specially designed just for people who read this blog! How can you pass that up?!

Limited-Time Fantasy Football Invitation, and Oh No....NOT Again!

Well, the time has come for my annual fantasy football team's live draft, which will take place on Yahoo! Sports tomorrow morning (Saturday) at 9:45am ET. As of now we have an 8-team league, which is a nice number to have a lot of playable options for each team each week. However, we're toying with the idea of a 10-team league, which I really think deep down is the "perfect" number of teams for fantasy football. So, I thought, with all my new fake internet friends, there might be two of you out there who would like to join and give us 10 total teams. There have got to be at least a few of you out there who regret not having signed up for the blogger fantasy football league that KJ is running (we drafted last weekend), and now is your chance to make up for that mistake, or someone who is in that league but would like to get their ass kicked by me in two leagues for the price of one. Or maybe it's one of the thirty-something of you who will be playing in the NFL Pickem League this year with us and who desire to see the greatness of my football predicting ability up close and personal. So come join up for my fantasy football league on Yahoo! right now! First two teams that get there, are in. It's that simple, and it's free. Here's how you do it:

Just go to Yahoo! Fantasy Football and follow the link there to "Join a Custom League" (you will have to sign in to Yahoo!, but if you don't have a Yahoo! ID yet, then you're a freak of nature and I'm not sure you can play with us in this league).

My league is called the "Baker League" (same name as my yearly Yahoo! NFL Pickem league, which is still available for signups for anyone interested -- just go to this post for details). The details to find the league are:

Name: Baker League
League ID#: 422435
Password: hammer

Remember, our live draft for this league is at 9:45am ET tomorrow (Saturday) morning, so keep in mind that you will want to be at the draft by clicking over to the league homepage, or have pre-ranked your players before then in order to get the players you want.

http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/f1

I'm hoping to get two new teams before midnight tonight. If not I may have to close off the team at 8 because we don't want to play with an odd number of teams, which means someone is on a bye every week.

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Poker Content Ahead!

Last night's WWdN was another tournament I didn't think I would end up playing. But then time shifted, events occurred, and suddenly there I was sitting in the dark as 10:30pm ET approached, and I figured why not. I mean, I won the WWdN tournament this past Tuesday, and then followed that up with a final table 6th place finish in the Mookie tournament on Wednesday. So why not take a stab at my third career victory in the WWdN Not tonight, now that I'm suddenly available? And unlike my WWdN triumph, this time I was on the good computer all the way through, so I can give you as much detail about my WWdN Not performance as you care to have.

Here was my starting table for last night's WWdN Not tournament:



This was another fine starter for a blogger event, including Rick (Darval, the host), Lifesagrind, slb, Ll8bloomer, Guin, and three non-bloggers (as far as I know) -- LOK1 and bigpokerwin, both of whom I've played with before, and cantseefade, someone whom I did not recognize.

Things got started off fun early for me, as I took a page out of my winning WWdN performance from earlier this week by calling an allin reraise preflop when I knew my Big Slick was up against a race situation. Of course, this is normally an inadvisable move to make early on in a no-limit holdem tournament, but I have lost so many of these things recently on races just like this -- usually when I am holding the pair and thus have a slight lead in fact -- that I have become a little bit enured to it at this point, and in the right situation I sometimes like to just go ahead and do it. And to once again illustrate just how important it is to win your races in order to do well in nlh tournaments, this happened for me:



And I had a nice stack just like that, about 25 minutes into the event. Unfortunately, I was forced to lay down a large pot to LOK1 when the worst possible card (a suited Ace) came for me on the turn, negating my top pair top kicker that I had been sure was ahead after the flop, and before I knew it, I was down to less than half of my starting stack of 1500 chips, and watching in horror as my eyes looked down at 75s, and my fingers clicked on the "allin" button from middle position:



but this board:



gave me new chips and a new lease on life in the tournament. So that was one race won and one lucky suckout (shouldn't that be called a "luckout" and not a "suckout"?) already, and here we were still less than 45 minutes into the event. Little did I know the fireworks were just getting started for me. Two hands later, this flop happened:



Boom! With cantseefade leading out at that flop for me, I went for my patented slow-raise move:



which had exactly the desired effect:



and when cantseefade flipped over his hand:



I took a huge pot down, and was vaulted into first place with 14 players remaining:



About 20 minutes later we made the final table:



which included some friends from my starting table, in addition to NewinNov, Trophyhubby on the back of a solid performance streak in this tournament, Shadowtwin, and BlkBeltJones who won this event two weeks ago, and someone named Anithri whom I also did not recognize.

Donnie (Shadowtwin) was out on I believe hand #1 of the final table with his very short stack of less than 1000 chips, and just a short while later, I made the first big score when I karate-chopped BlkBeltJones when he thought I was stealing. BlkBelt raised it up 4x preflop from one before the button, a stealy-looking position as it is. Then I reraised his bet 4x more to 2400 chips from the button and holding AKo, which I supposed came off looking quite re-stealy to BlkBelt. Everyone else folded, but BlkBelt just called, and then barely had the flop come out AK4 that BlkBelt moved me allin:



I called of course with my top two pairs. Want to guess what he was holding? I'll give you some space to formulate your guess, and then you can scroll down to see the shot:














and suddenly I was back in first place with 8 players left in the tournament (top 3 spots to pay). And I have to say, while I think BlkBelt's 4x raise preflop from one off the button with KQo is a perfectly fine move, and one that I almost certainly would have done myself in that situation, the calling my large raise was a bad, bad move. What did he think I had that I would reraise so big there, and yet that he would be ahead with? I think, not even knowing me from Adam, he's got to put me on a pair or at least some kind of Ace here, which means he is well behind heading into the flop. Then to top it off, the flop came with an Ace and a King, and he pushes allin, totally disregarding the presence of the Ace on the flop and the fact that I had reraised him to 16x the big blind preflop with still two players left to act. BlkBelt should have put me on an Ace there, and at least waited to see what I did before pushing allin. But oh well, I'm not complaining.

And this is where the fun part began for me. After this hand, I had around 8500 chips, a good 3000 more than second place or anyone else left in the tournament at the time. So, it became time for me to use that stack to do what I do best -- bully. I stole everything at the final table last night. I mean everything. I successfully stole holding decent cards from the button:



I took down pots uncontested preflop holding a bit weaker cards from one spot before the button:



I pilfered blinds with even weaker (but sOOted!) cards from two spots in front of the button:



Eventually it got so bad, and people laid down to me so often, that I lowered my stealing requirements even further, moving on to even pure trash and from early-middle position:



I stole more pots in last night's WWdN Not tournament than I can ever remember consistently stealing in any other single holdem event in which I've played. It was fun and exhilarating to have everyone lay down their cards to me preflop, again and again and again and again. I stole so much, from every different position on the table, so many times that I even had everyone fold around completely to me preflop on nine different occasions. In one 2 1/2-hour holdem tournament. I was the thieving king last night, and it paid off for me in many great ways.

I formally removed BlkBelt from the tournament as we approached the first hour break on this hand, when he tried to take the Mookie (T8) up against my dominating A8s:



and Trophyhubby went out soon after on what was also a very short stack (under 1000 chips) at that point in the event. Down to five players remaining (Darval had also managed to go out thanks to a big beat by SLB early on the final table), I was still the prohibitive chip stack, thanks to all my pilfery:



In fact, stealing the blinds was working so well for me as the big stack, that when we got down to five people, I conciously opened up a bit more and started using my aggressive image to decisively bluff at big pots after the flop was out, and sometimes even after the turn card. For example, I made this move with a truly terrible hand on the turn:



and won:



and similarly, this large pot-sized from me on a high-flop with just an inside straight draw:



also resulted in another laydown:



I did this again and again, preflop, postflop, on the turn and the river, and it all added up. It was the most untouchable table image I can recall having in an online blogger game in some time. It didn't hurt that every once in a while I got to show a really good hand either:



DQB baybeeeee!!!!

And remember, all this while with just a handful of players left at the final table, I was successfully stealing blinds as well, with nothing:



and nothing:



and still more nothing:



I won a big pot here from Newin when he folded to my raise of his turn bet when I held top pair, terrible kicker, but had the feeling that he was on more like second pair or a draw of some kind:



This pot got me up to a nearly 3-to-1 chip advantage over everyone else at the table, even with Anithri having just eliminated SLB on a tough call situation. With the way I was playing, and the image I had created at this table, I knew it was going to be damn near impossible to take me down in this one. That said, we played with four players remaining, the money bubble, for quite some time without anyone making a real effort to get eliminated. Just when we were beginning to think about a 4-way chop, LOK1 suddenly put us out of our bubble misery when he reraised me allin from the BB preflop, thinking again I was on a naked steal, only this time he wasn't quite right and I quick-called his allin bet:



Eventually, Newin lost a big pot, again to Anithri who was slowly accumulating other people's chips at the final table, and this left me basically "forced" to call Newin's allin one or two hands later even though I had missed the flop completely and held two of the worst fucking cards imaginable:



I got lucky to spike a 4 on the turn, and Newin GH in 3rd place, leaving me and Anithri to fight it out for my second heads-up WWdN battle of the week. My first opponent, in this past Tuesday's WWdN tournament, had been skidoo, a guy whom I would describe as having played hyper-aggressively in heads-up play, raising and reraising before the flop almost every hand, and almost a guarantee to move at the flop, or for sure the turn if the flop was checked by both of us. Anithri was almost the total opposite, to a fault. I very quickly ascertained that Anithri would fold his terrible hands preflop to me (that's always good in heads-up), and would not put in a bet or raise it up under any circumstances on any street if he did not hold a good hand at the time. Thus, it was exceedingly easy for me to put Anithri on a range of hands early on in each hand, and I went into every flop I saw knowing more or less where I was at, generally speaking. This makes heads-up so much easier, and frankly it's a rare thing to run into in these blogger events. In this case, Anithri said he doesn't have a blog and is really just a WWdN guy, and I think his poker inexperience showed through a bit in this headsup matchup.

So, for example, after seeing a flop of JT6 (2 spades) with 32o in my hand, Anithri checked that flop to me, and I checked back with my powerhouse pocket cards. But then when Anithri again checked the turn card of a raggy offsuit 3, I knew from observing his play that this meant he had nothing. I bet out big, the size of the pot, and took it down:



Two hands later, I looked down to find ATo, a veritable monster hand in heads-up nlh play. Anithri raised it up (to the extent you can call a measly 2x minraise an actual "raise"...), and so I double-popped him right there, knowing with certainty that Anithri would call me because he had already put in the minraise preflop, indicating that he liked his hand okay at least:



Figuring for sure I had the better hand at this point since he had just minraised it, and was playing very straightforwardly, I figured I would just do this minraise right back at him, and ensure I didn't lose him yet since I knew he thought his hand was good enough at this point. Then the flop came, and it was a doozy for my hand:



The even better part was that Anithri bet out half the pot at me here. Now, with my top two pairs, and with Anithri having minraised and then smooth called my min-reraise before the flop, I figured for sure I had to be ahead here. But I still didn't want to lose this guy just yet, so I did the thing that makes baby Jeebus cry, for the second time this hand:



That's right. Another minraise. Why not? If he can minraise and minbet all day at me, then why the hike can't I? Anyways, the bet worked perfectly because Anithri called off another $2400 of his suddenly dwindling stack to me in a situation where I had to think I was ahead. On the raggy river, I tried the hoy to end this once and for all right there:



but Anithri didn't bite, perhaps finally realizing for the first time that he was beaten here:



And now I had a very significant chiplead over my heads-up opponent to end the WWdN Not. Nearly 8 to 1 I was up. And I was determined not to let this last much longer, not when I was basically in tune with what my opponent was holding even before we saw the flop in most cases. So, when Anithri failed to raise preflop on the next hand, so I thus knew he did not have an Ace, I then bet out on the flop when it came with a single Ace on it:



and Anithri quick-folded, netting me some more of his stack. Two hands later, the same thing happened again -- Anithri just smooth-called preflop, and so when an Ace hit the flop, I knew I could bet him out. This time I waited until he checked the flop again, and then again checked the turn, which was the single best tell I had on him the entire night -- he never once failed to fold quickly in this situation, and this hand was no different. I bet that flop:



and he quick-folded:



Now my chip lead was about 14-to-1, and it was almost like my opponent just didn't realize how much he was letting his stack shrink while he let me take advantage like this. On the next hand, Anithri quickly raised allin before the flop, which told me quite clearly that he held a strong hand, so I folded my crap cards and knew I could wait for a better opportunity. Next hand, Anithri smooth-called my big blind preflop, so I knew he was not strong, which was my cue to move in with my "20" hand of two cards Ten or higher:



He called, the board came out:



and I had done it! My third WWdN Not title in probably about 10 or 11 attempts:



This was another significant victory for me, for a few key reasons. Look, the $90 is nice, don't get me wrong it will buy me probably another couple of weeks of donkage on pokerstars, getting beaten in races by cc, getting Smokkee to call my allin preflop raises with AQs, and myself calling xkm's allin preflop raises with my AJo and winning. But what is more significant about this win is what it says about my holdem tournament game, which as my readers know has been sorely lacking these past couple of months. Now this week alone, I won the WWdN (my first), final tabled and came in 6th place in the Mookie tournament, and now won the WWdN Not. This after not final tabling in any blogger tournament for a good month or so prior to this week.

What does it all mean? Well I can say one thing definitively -- this week I played a much tighter, smarter, more patient game in the blogger tournaments than I have for some time. I didn't make too many stoopid pushes or overaggressive moves in poorly thought-out spots. And when I did get caught with a decision to call or fold with a hand that was likely beat, I played it smart, got out of Dodge and waited for another day when a stronger hand and/or better situation would present itself to me. As an example, with 5 players left in this tournament, I raised it up 4x from first betting position with A8s, a very typical move for me in this event and in any nlh tournament I'm involved in. But when the BB reraised me allin, for not even that many more chips:



I thought it over, and figured this guy is almost surely either on a pocket pair (in which case he is roughly a 51-64% favorite, depending on whether his pair is above an 8 or below an 8), or a stronger ace, in which case he is likely a 75% or more favorite. So, why call this bet, just because I put in a nice pile of chips already preflop, if it will require me to give up a lot of my stack in a situation where I figure, realistically, I am hoping at best to be a 49% dog? So I laid that one down, a laydown which I would not normally be making over the recent past in a blogger tournament. Similarly, with four players left, I raised my standard 4x from the button with actually a decent hand of pocket 6s. But then LOK1 in the SB pushed in a large reraise:



Here, even though I knew I was in steal position and thus LOK1 could easily be restealing with nothing here, I also knew that I only had a pair of 6s. Even if he flipped 2 high cards, I would only be a 51% favorite. And, if LOK1 flipped instead the dreaded higher pair, then I'm a 20% dog. Why bother calling a huge raise, even if I suspect I am slightly ahead, if my best case scenario is an ever-so-slight favorite in a race, and I might be a 4-to-1 underdog? So I laid this one down too. It's always hard to keep in perspective how much little laydowns like this along the way will end up affecting your overall performance in a no-limit holdem tournament, but here is a great case in point: I ended up winning this entire event, just by trying to be smart, and cautious (yet aggressive) where it was called for to do so. And it paid off in spades (pun intended). And, I think back to my last really hot streak in the blogger tournaments -- this was a couple of months ago -- and I recall how I was using at that time a strategy I called "moderated aggression", which basically amounted to playing aggressively when no one else has indicated any strength, etc., but to otherwise rein in the aggression a little bit, just enough to be able to stick around for enough time to get my good cards, make some good plays when I'm out in front, and stay in it till the end when I can amass a large stack and really start laying some reads on my opponents. Somehow along the way, the whole "moderated" part of that "moderated aggression" strategy I think got lost in the shuffle, and maybe, just maybe, I finally have it back now.

Can't wait to try this out again in next week's Mondays at the Hoy tournament on Monday night at 10pm ET, where I have still failed to cash in at least 12 attempts in my own tournament. Sad.

But why are you still reading this now?! Go join my fantasy football league dammit! First two come, first two served.