Live Poker Hand -- What are the Odds?

So here's an interesting poker problem I ran into recently when I was playing a no-limit holdem tournament at a live casino. The guy to my left had been raising and betting pretty actively early on, including in a couple of hands where I felt fairly sure that he had nothing more than a drawing hand. Contributing to my image of him as a reckless, super-active player, I won't lie that his face definitely had the look of a euro, and, well, if you play at all during the day on the major online sites then you can imagine what my generalization is as to the euros out there. Anyways, suffice it to say that I had this guy pegged as a loose, maniac style of player, and I could not wait to get involved in a pot with him.

I got my chance maybe an hour in to the tournament, with blinds of 100-200 and average stacks of around 14k (10k to start), when I open-raised to 750 from middle position with Q9 suited, and Mr. Euro quickly called my preflop raise to my left. The flop came down a juicy-looking TJQ rainbow, giving me top pair plus the bottom end of the open ended straight draw, and moreover I figured I was likely ahead of whatever my opponent had since he had quickly called my preflop raise. AK of course was a scary possibility with this board, but in the end he had called quite fast preflop, and AK is not a hand that I find many people act quickly with before the flop when it has already been raised up ahead of their action. So I figured my top pair might not be good, but my draw together with top pair likely was. And, since my opponent had called a preflop raise, I figured there was a good chance he hit this board in some way as well with a high card or two.

Figuring therefore that my opponent was likely fairly strong but that I was ahead with two cards to come, I led out on the flop for 1200 into the 1800 chips already in the pot, and Mr. Euro did his usual move of a very quick smallish raise, only up to 2700 total, just barely more than the minimum allowable raise. I had around 8k left in my stack at the time, and I pretty quickly pushed allin, figuring that this guy was making another Euromove and was probably himself either bluffing or drawing, given what I'd seen him do so far in this tournament. My opponent sat for a while, clearly struggling with what to do, which made me really want him to fold since I figured he probably had a King (for the higher oesd than mine) plus one of the other cards on the board. But alas, eventually he called. The Euro tabled JTo for flopped 2nd and 3rd pairs, and he happily yelled "come on, HOLD!" as the dealer burned and turned a rag, and then burned a turned the river, the 9 of diamonds to give me the hand with a higher two pairs.

When that 9 hit the river, you would not believe the ruckus that this guy made at the table. He slammed his hand down hard on the felt, so hard that everyone's chips jumped a little bit, and he kind of screamed out "I cannot believe that suckout!!" As he had had me outchipped by a little bit, he was then forced to sit there and continue muttering about his luck and how he could lose that hand after flopping the two pairs for the next 20-30 minutes until he was finally eliminated from contention. As he left he made some kind of nasty comment under his breath to how I got my money in as "an 80% underdog", which did not sound right to me given where I thought I was in the hand.

So the question is, off the top of your head (of course any monkey could look this up on a holdem odds calculator, like I did after I returned from the casino), what does your gut tell you his and my equity were in the hand in question? Again, I held Q9 and he held JT on a QJT rainbow board. I knew for certain that his estimate that he had 80% equity in the pot was a gross overstatement, but my instincts were telling me at the table that this was about a 60-40 shot. I actually guessed out loud to the guy who was on the other side of Mr. Euro that I was maybe a 42-58 dog in the hand, whereas he was estimating that I was maybe a 38-62 dog, but we both figured this hand to be somewhere around 60-40 given all the outs I felt I had.

So, again with no cheating by looking this up, what does your gut tell you in terms of my and my opponent's equity in the hand in question?

Live Poker Hand Question -- Conclusion

Yesterday I posted about a hand that occurred early in a $400 buyin tournament in AC this past weekend, and asked what you would do on the river if you were me. As a reminder, here is the setup from yesterday's post:

The tournament started with 10k in chips, and late in the first hour I called a preflop raise from mp with T8s, and the big blind called as well which brought us a flop of T84 rainbow, three-handed. With 1250 in the pot, the big blind led out for 400 chips, and the original preflop raiser thought for a few seconds before just calling, and I smooth called as well with the flopped top two.

The turn card was an offsuit Queen, making a board now of T84Q. The big blind surprised me by leading out again, this time for 1000 chips into a pot of 2450. The guy to my right thought it over, for a little longer this time, and eventually slid out a purple chip as well for the call, and again I made the pot-odds call as well, a bit reluctantly.

The river card then brought an Ace. The big blind hesitated a bit and then slid out another purple and some yellows, a 1400-chip bet for his third lead of the hand. The guy to my right had a kind of disgusted look on his face, but after a few seconds he too slid out 1400 chips to make his third postflop call of the hand. The action was to me on the river to call 1400 to win 8250 in the pot.

Now of course, the answers I got in the comments were mostly well thought-out, but like any good "What would you do?" hand, almost nobody could keep themselves from critiquing my earlier play of the hand -- even though that's not what I asked -- in particular my not raising on the flop. As I mentioned yesterday, top two pairs is the only two-pair hand that I will generally slow-play, and I should re-mention that nobody gave me any credit for the fact that I wasn't checking here, I was calling a decent bet, building the pot by about 60% on that street while keeping two potentially weak players in the pot. Someone, I think it was Astin, mentioned that when your top two pairs are Tens and 8s, it is almost not like top two pairs at all. That is a semi-valid point, although the math I imagine would not bear out that statement in its extreme. The turn card will be a Ten or below still more often than it will not be, and even if a Jack or Queen falls it is hard to be too concerned with just the one non-Ace and non-King overcard on the board (I certainly would not be, given the action in this hand so far). Another commenter mentioned the many straight draws available on this board as a reason for the raise on the flop, which I simply do not understand at all. For my money, if I see a flop of T84 in a 3-way raised pot, that is one of the least drawy boards I could ever hope for. If T84 rainbow is scaring you away from slow-playing because of draws, then you just have a different view of math and odds than I do I guess. Sure, 732 rainbow would be even less drawy, but T84? Come on. That is almost ideal from a drawing perspective as far as maybe letting another card slide off.

This is all a long way of saying that I think I agree that with medium two pairs like this, and only because of the fact that this is a 3-way pot and not heads-up, some kind of a raise on the flop is probably the more +EV play over time (I'll have to check with Blinders on the EV calculation of course). Certainly in this spot it did not work, as the turn was an overcard that also completed an open-ended straight draw from the flop, and then of course the river brought the dreaded Ace, but taking the results-oriented viewpoint out, I think I buy that raising my hand on the flop was probably the better move against two opponents. I just don't think it is nearly as obvious as the commenters seem to think it is, as I think a couple of key considerations I mentioned above were overlooked in general by the commenters.

That said, this was really a question about what I should do at the river. The comments were split about 50-50 as to folding and calling, though even those recommending a call seemed not very confident, calling more for the pot odds than anything else. Well, I already had the alarm bells going off in my head from the flop when the guy to my right just smooth called, and when he did the same thing again on the turn, I was thinking either overpair or flopped set in a big way. When the Ace hit the river, I figured I was going to have to fold to any action since at least one opponent had at least one pair heading into this street, and the odds of one of them holding an Ace as a kicker are fairly good given that they called a preflop raise in this hand to begin with. So when the first guy led out again -- for the third time after getting two callers on both the flop and the turn -- this to me smelled like a very solid hand, at least an overpair himself if not two pairs or better. I mean, how many times do you ever lead out on the flop, get called (twice), lead out again on the turn and get called (twice), and then actually lead out still another time on the river? That to me just screamed of strength. Similarly, the player to my right calling all three of those bets also screamed out that it was at least strong ish -- more than one pair, say -- in which case it seemed to me that I had no option but to fold on this river. I was not sure that both of my opponents had my two pairs beat, but 3rd and 4th pair really could not reasonably be ahead of both of these guys the way I saw it.

And so I laid it down, even for the measly 1400 into an 8250-chip pot. I would only have to be ahead of both guys roughly one time in six to make always calling here profitable, and yet I relied on my reads sufficiently to figure that I'm not going to be ahead of both of these guys even that often to make the call worthwhile.

The big blind flipped up?












Pocket Kings. How he bets out a third time on that river after getting called twice on each of the flop and turn is utterly beyond me, but that's definitely the way a big-time donkey would play this hand.

And the guy to my right flipped up?











We'll never know. He took one look at the big blind's pocket Kings and he fucking mucked.

One pair FTW!!!

As an epilogue, although it took me a good hour to truly get calmed down from the tilt induction that was that hand, eventually I bounced back in the tournament with several big hands, mostly without having to show down anything, and in the end I took 3rd place when my short stack push with J9s got called by A8o and I could not catch up. Still, I won almost $1600 for my efforts, and overall I played great in my last live tournament tune-up prior to leaving for Las Vegas three weeks from yesterday. Make that two weeks and six days from now. Just two+ weeks baby, just two+ weeks.

But tell me, how do those two clowns both bet and call three times with just one pair?

Sooted Connectors Hand -- Conclusion

Last Thursday I had posted some screen shots and asked some questions about how readers like to play a standard sooted connectors hand very early in a large MTT. It was the nightly pokerstars 25k guaranteed with a $27.50 buyin at 8pm ET, just the first couple of orbits. UTG limped, a few folds, and then I limped behind with 87s in clubs. We saw a five-way flop of 962 with one club, giving me an oesd, and when the action checked around to me, I bet 90 chips into the 110-chip pot. Just one player in late position called my bet, and we saw a heads-up turn card:



So, I just made my nut straight on the turn. And I picked up a flush draw. And an open-ended straight flush draw. There's 290 chips in the pot, and both myself and my opponent each have around 10x that still behind. I've now switched from win-a-small-pot mode to full chip extraction mode, and the question I posed is how would you play the hand now to give yourself the best chance to win and win big?

In a nutshell, you bet! That was the answer that mostly every commenter suggested, and I have to agree with that approach. There's two main reasons why I think a bet is almost mandatory here. First and foremost, I do not want to lose this pot at this point. Not giving this pot away after the hand I have amassed on the turn card is more important even that extracting my opponent's stack. And giving the entire pot away could very easily happen if I give this guy a free card to draw to another club that could give him a higher flush with the lone Jack, Queen, King or Ace of clubs in his hand. So I need to bet here, and the most important point is that my bet size be enough to clearly price him out of making a call with a lone high club in his hand. That' a little more than 4 to 1 against hitting on the river, so I need to bet more than a quarter of the pot to ensure that if he calls with just the one-card flush draw, that call is by definition profitable for me over the long term.

The other reason I think to bet here is one that was alluded to by a few of the commenters, and it has to do with extracting the most chips from my opponent. If I want to have a chance to get his whole stack, an all-in bet at this point would be for ten times the current pot, would look totally ridiculous, and is not going to be called by my opponent. Even a bet of twice the pot can't possibly be called really, unless the guy is holding the Ace♣ and is a total jackmonkey. But, I'm going to have that exact same problem on the river if I check here and my opponent checks behind. There's basically no way I can make a credible, callable bet on the river for most or all of my opponent's stack, unless I bet first on the turn here and get called, which will make the odds much more in favor of a sizable river bet if that's what seems like the most profitable move for me after the river card falls.

So I've got to bet this here to both maximize my chance of winning big and to minimize my chance of losing the whole pot on the river:



210 into 290. If he's got the Ace♣ and wants to call that bet, I sincerely hope he does. Because he is paying me free chips over the long haul by making this call, and because I know I can and will lay this down to almost any real action on the river if a fourth club hits. Unless it makes me a straight flush of course, in which case I probably move it all in and hope he's got the nut flush in there.

Cue the pokerstarsy river card:



Not a good card for me. There were two diamonds on the flop, and the guy called (not raised) two (not one) roughly 2/3-the-pot bets from me on the flop and the turn. Definitely the kind of play someone would make with a flush draw on the flop that did not fill on the turn, huh? And of course there's also the fact that the turn and river now made a higher runner-runner straight than the one I have, not that I am particular concerned about that longshot play but it's pokerstars, you never know. Would you lead out here, small maybe and try the blocking bet route? Or just check and hope to see a free showdown?

For me, he just played his hand so transparently like a flush draw that I dont' want to bet here. I check, and of course my opponent bets out:



Ugh. 200 chips into 910 in the pot. If that's not a suck bet, then I don't know what is. But then, it's only another 200 chips. Who's calling here, and who's folding?





Once you've decided what you would do, you can click here to see what I did.
[Edit: Link has been fixed]

Playing Those Sooted Connectors, Plus an NFL Pick

Wow. I write a little bit about poker one day and I must have had 15 people tell me to do it more yesterday. You wanted another poker post? Well here comes another poker post.

But first, I will get on the record right now and pick the San Francisco 49ers -3 vs. the Chicago Bears on Thursday night on the NFL Network. I will pick my other four of my Pick 5 NFL picks on Friday as usual, but with Thursday Night Football starting up this week I will try to get in a pick on the Thursday night game wherever it makes sense for me, and that means it will have to go up a day earlier than the other picks. Thursday night's matchup is a battle of the losers in a sense, with the 49ers having lost four in a row heading into Week 10 while the Bears have chipped in losing three of their last four as well. Both teams started the season off hot but have since really cooled, although their problems are kind of opposite of each other. The Bears can't stop anyone right now -- they've allowed 45 to the Bungles and 41 to the Falcons in their last two games against NFL-worthy opponents. Meanwhile, in San Francisco the problem is that, after scoring an average of nearly 26 points per game over their first four outings of 2009, the team has now managed to scrape together just 18 points per game over their last four, and they've lost three games in a row by a touchdown or less as a result. I don't love how the 49ers are playing right now, but the bottom line is that, especially at home, I have more confidence in Mike Singletary and the 49ers finding their footing tonight than I do in Jay Cutler and the Bears. At Candlestick Park this season, the 49ers have scored in the 20's three times, and that's roughly where I expect them to end up tonight against the porous Bears' defense. But on the road, Jay Cutler has led his team to four separate subpar offensive outputs, including games with 15, 14, 10 and 21 points. If the Niners can run it up to the mid-20s like I think they will, that ought to be enough to cover against the reeling Bears who will then have to face the Eagles next Sunday night in Chicago to try to right their own ship.

OK, so with that out of the way, you wanted some poker. As I've gotten back into playing a little bit these past couple of weeks, I've started dipping my toe back into the mtt pool, something I really haven't done almost any of since my big score out at the Venetian last summer in Vegas. I was kinda burned out on tournament poker for a while after that magical weekend in the desert, and then the baby came, and before I knew it it'd been basically three or four months of very little mtt play for me. But as I've started playing again I've really been enjoy anew the process of building a stack from scratch in the earlygoing in these things. Especially online, where even the "slow" tournament structures are still actually super duper fast in reality, where the whole time you have to "build a stack" amounts to maybe a couple of hours, as opposed to a couple of days of poker in most live events. After some time away, I'm finding myself amazed at how easy it is to just slide right back into it and play the same aggressive way I've always played ever since I first learned the game. I've always been someone who tries to stir up action -- rather than avoid it -- early in most of the mtt's I play, again especially when it's online. I like to see a lot of cheap flops when the blinds are small relative to the stacks, try to flop a big hand and then figure out the best way to extract the most chips from the most players when I do. I don't want to sit around the starting stack for 90 minutes and then hope to pick up AA or to win a race with AJ vs 88. I want to force the action with lots of spec hands for cheap early anid try to turn one of them into a big big pot for me and get myself up to full chip utility as early as possible whenever I can.

Recently I was playing in the nightly 25k guaranteed tournament on pokerstars at 8pm ET. It has a $27.50 buyin and typically attracts between 1100-1500 runners or so, with four-digit payouts usually going to the top 5 or 6 spots, and a top prize somewhere in the 5k range. It's about as small of a payout tournament as I will generally play in the no-limit context at 25k guaranteed, as I generally prefer larger prizes for the final table to even make it worth bothering trying to wade through the level of donkery one must always survive to make a run like this. I think nothing would piss me off more than to outlast 1500 other shitheads in a $1 buyin tournament, just to end up in third place when my AK goes down to JJ and get paid a total of $500. For me that's just not worth the effort, and the luck, really, that it takes to last through a huge field of players like that, so I typically try to play 30k guaranteed or larger events only whenever I can. This way I can at least be assured that if tonight's going to be another magical run for me, I know I can win more than 5k or at least in the few thousand range for a top-few-spots finish.

So anyways, it's very early (first round) in the pokerstars 25k, and the UTG player limps for 20 chips. The next guy at our full 9-person table folds, and then the action is to me. I am holding 87s.

What do you do here?

I actually love to raise with sooted connectors in early position. In fact, as I've written here many times, when you raise preflop as aggressively as I do, it's basically a requirement to raise with these hands as well, just for balance if nothing else. From what I've seen and read, it seems like mostly all of the big tournament pros raise sooted connectors from early position as well, again in particular when the stacks are deep early in a tournament. However, in this particular spot, with one limper already in the pot, and him seated under the gun at that, I opt to check. To clarify my earlier statement, I like to open-raise with sooted connectors from early position. When the pot's already been opened for a limp from early position, now with a hand like 87s I am looking at a good possibility of a multiway pot if I just limp behind, which actually is my best pure math strategy for this kind of a hand. So where someone else has made the decision for me by open-limping ahead of me, and there is a decent chance of a multiway pot developing if I just limp as well, I will usually limp with connectors in this situation:



Two other players in late position limp in as well, as does the big blind, so we end up seeing a 5-way flop which is exactly perfect for what I'm holding. The flop comes down 962, with one of my suit, giving me the open-ended straight draw. The big blind checks, as does the UTG player, and the action is to me:



What do you do?

My answer is this: try to either take down the 110 chips in the pot now, or, if I end up building a little bit of a pot here, that's ok as well as long as I control the size of that pot such that I can profitably see at least one more card. Nobody has shown any strength yet before the flop here, and the flop is raggy enough that even most limpers should not really have connected with it in some huge way. More than that, the way I play I like to take a lot of little stabs at flops when the pots are still small, and this is a perfect opportunity to start creating that image of an active flop bettor so that the next time I am holding TPTK and of course decide to bet the flop, I will actually have created more action for myself by betting at flops like these as well. And, at this point in the hand, the pot is still super small relative to our stacks, so unlike at some point later in the tournament possibly, right now I have plenty of chips to make a move and still fold to a huge reraise or even to a turn bet or raise from my opponent. So I decided to make the exact same type and size of bet as I would make if I were holding top pair, or an overpair, on most flops:



90 chips into the 110-chip pot. In a pot with four other players, all of whom limped in and thus could be holding the middling-sort of cards that could have connected in some way with this flop, and with the flush draw on the board, I want to make sure I am forcing my opponents to make a poor call odds-wise at whatever they're drawing at. Remember, my game here is to play this flop exactly like I would if I were holding TPTK or something, because I know I'm going to be getting out there and betting at a lot of flops just exactly like that over the next hour or so here.

The late position player called my 90-chip bet here, while the big blind and UTG both folded their hands. So we saw a turn heads-up, and I was first to act:



Boom! I just made my nut straight on the turn. And I picked up a flush draw. And an open-ended straight flush draw. There's 290 chips in the pot, and both myself and my opponent each have around 10x that still behind. I'm thinking this is my chance to hopefully extract some serious chippage from this guy early on in an mtt and get some much-needed chip utility early, as the big blind will move from 20 to 50 over the next 20 minutes or so and I will soon be well below that magical utility level of 100 big blinds.

How do you play this hand now? If you bet, how much? If you check, why?

Back tomorrow with the conclusion.

Drawing Hands and Position

Big ups to Mr. Al today. Go check out the long-coming news if you didn't already hear. Al working full time for full tilt is just about the coolest thing I can think of and can only spell good things for poker blogs and poker bloggers in general. And having one's blog discovered by one's employer is just about the sickest form of torture that those of us stuck hiding our interweb presence from our overlords in the rat race can have to endure. And getting back to the T&A that is the primary drive behind my daily visits to Al's blog is all good too of course.

Today's little tidbit comes from The Poker Tournament Formula, by Arnold Snyder. This was another solid read for any serious poker tournament player, and one that approaches the whole idea of a tournament strategy book in a different way than most others. Although I can't say that all of the ideas in this book were new to me, personally, I think it is undoubtedly something that would help most players out there who either have not played a million holdem tournaments and/or have not had much success running deep late in these events. Although I think perhaps this book oversimplified things in some areas as far as generalized tournament strategy, the ideas in here are of paramount importance for any serious tournament player and will prove especially helpful to those who seem to have trouble playing aggressively enough to survive late and those who always find themselves threatened by the rising blinds and antes.

Anyways, one point Snyder makes in the middle of this book somewhere that I was just re-reading last night again really struck me today. In a section about the importance of playing in position, Snyder discusses drawing-type of starting hands vs. high-card type of starting hands. Snyder's overall point is that drawing-type starting hands -- such as connectors like JT or 76 as well as things like soooted Aces -- clearly benefit from being played in late position as opposed to early position. This should be fairly obvious in that if you hit your draw you get to decide whether to slow-play or bet depending on what action your opponent takes first on the flop, and if you miss your draw on the flop you once again can wait until your opponent acts before deciding if you want to bet/raise and go for the free card on the turn, just call and go to fill your draw, or fold if the odds just aren't there. So far, nothing new for most of you I would assume.

Snyder goes on to point out that a high-card hand like AK, or even plain old pocket Aces for that matter, should also definitely show more of a profit when played from late position than from early position. Again, pretty much a no-brainer.

But the point I thought was interesting was Snyder's last point on the topic, which is that, while both kinds of hands will benefit from playing them from late position as compared to playing them from up front, the pocket Aces or AK hand only benefits a small amount from better position. The drawing-type hands, in contrast, increase in value quite a bit when played from late instead of early position.

So, even though everyone knows that position makes all hands better in a game like holdem, the drawing-type of connected / big soooted starting cards are far more important to play from favorable position than the high-card starting hands. This is a good lesson I like to to keep in mind when, for example, I am considering calling a preflop raise from the blinds with two players in the pot and me holding something like, say, 98s. It happens probably a good once or twice a night in the blonkaments alone, and generally speaking calling in that spot with AQ or even KJ is perhaps more favorable than the call with a speculative, drawing type of hand like JTs that is hoping to pick up a draw on the flop and then win some money when it fills on the turn or river.

I'm sure next time you will fold that 43s into a heads-up pot against me in the blonkaments now, yes?

Don't forget the donkament tonight, 9pm ET on full tilt. Password as always = "donkarama".

MATH Recap, Early Tournament Hand Question (Continued)

We had 13 runners last night for Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt, with once again the top 3 spots paying out. With the 6-max action in da house, the Gigli came early as per usual, and another common trend also held true almost right from the getgo on the night -- the one and only Hoy virgin in the tournament, a player named AGuda (if you have a blog let me know in the comments and I will link you), absolutely blew up. I think Guda recorded both of the first two eliminations, jumping out to more than 7500 chips before anyone else even had 4000. Guda held a large chip lead all the way through the first hour, and shortly into the second hour when I busted losing a race he was still the prohibitive leader with sometihng like 11k in chips to second place's 8k. Eventually I fell asleep so I can't comment on how it ended, but I will say that the final payouts is a who's who of blogger tournament crushing people:

1. twoblackaces $156
2. AGuda $93.60
3. surflexus $62.40

So there he is, Mr. AGuda coming in second place and winning nearly a fresh hundy in his very first appearance at Mondays at the Hoy. Will the mysterious man named after a misspelled kind of cheese make another appearance in other blogger tournaments anytime soon? Will he return to continue his dominance over the MATH field? Only time will tell.

Meanwhile, there is tba winning yet another blonkament. This guy has been absolutely on fire in the blogger tournaments. I love another guy who takes playing with the bloggers seriously, but not so seriously that he gets pissed off in the chat box. Anyways this has got to be 4 or 5 top-2 finishes for tba in just the past few weeks of the blogger events, making himself a force to be reckoned with as we head into the typically slow summer months in the blogger tournaments.

OK, so back to the early tournament hand I had posted about last week. To refresh everyone's memory, I had already doubled up very early in a $10 buyin tournament, so I was sitting on a nice stack in the top 3 or 4% of the field with more than 300 players still remaining. I called a minraise from the big blind into a 3-handed pot at better than 5 to 1 odds with 85 of spades, and then the flop came 75J with two spades. I was first to act out of the big blind and I had asked for your opinions on how to best play this kind of a "drawing hand" from here:



I got a lot of well-thought-out responses as usual, but some of them were contradictory which I found very interesting and I thought I would weigh in with my thoughts. Basically some people advocated betting out some fraction of the pot size at this point, a slight majority it seems like the check-call line on the flop and then reevaluate on the turn, while a few commenters pushed for a check-raise in this spot. I think all three options have merit to them, so I thought I would focus on the factors that I was sifting through in my head as I contemplated my move.

The first thing I focus on is that the current pot size is small. It's small enough with just three players in for a minraise very early in an mtt, that I am just not too concerned about making sure I don't blow a chance to take this pot down now. There's barely anything in there right now, so I ended up not going with the line that involves betting out on the flop. If I had been the preflop aggressor, then a c-bet seems much more appopriate, as I want my opponents to understand and expect that I will be protecting my preflop raises with flop continuation bets in most situations. But given that no one showed any real strength preflop, I am honestly not concerned with the possibility of checking up front here even though it means I might miss a chance to steal the pot if it ends up getting checked around on the flop.

And this leads in to the other main consideration I have at this point: the nature of my hand. So yeah right now I have just a measly pair of 5s. But I have basically 14 outs to improve to a hand that I expect to win most pots (two pair, trips or a flush). It is a small hand now, but it has several outs to improve to a hand that I expect to be very strong. And yet, the pot is small enough and it's early enough in the tournament that, as a couple of the commenters pointed out, there is no real reason in my mind to build a huge pot at this point when I have just this very poor made hand at this point.

Whenever I have a hand with a large potential -- these 13, 14 outer type of hands -- but one that is not made right now, I am often looking to go for the check-raise on the flop. A few of the commenters suggested check-calling the flop and then check-raising the turn if I hit. I like this suggestion, and in some circumstances it is one that I definitely follow, but for my game I tend to do that more for hands that are already huge. For example, if I flop a set I might be very apt to check-call the flop and then assume the c-bettor will lead out on the turn as well, where I know I can put in a very large checkraise into a pot that, by the time the turn is out, will already be quite large. The check-call on the flop and then checkraise the turn line is one I use quite a bit, but again it tends to be a line I save for my big made hands mostly because it's a line that tends to create very large pots. Any time there is a raise preflop, a bet and a call on the flop and then a checkraise on the turn, that sounds like a very large pot to me, and I don't really like to start down that path with just a pair of 5s. That's why I don't like to checkraise the turn with this kind of a hand, at least not when I set about planning how I'm going to play out the whole hand right at the beginning.

If I can check-raise on the flop, however, I avoid the few significant weaknesses of the checkraise-the-turn line, which is that (1) if I don't hit on the turn, then I have a weak drawing hand with just one card to come, way less than 50% equity, and I often have to abandon my plan for the checkraise since my equity has dropped so much by the time the turn card is out and it has missed my hand, or (2) if I do hit my draw on the turn -- in particular if the board pairs my 5 or if a spade comes -- I am less likely to get paid off on that turn checkraise since my opponent will likely put me on the exact type of hand that I in fact just hit.

For me, in this kind of a hand in this small of a pot so far, checkraising on the flop is a superior line I believe for a few main reasons. Number one, it allows me to get some more chips in the pot now with my approximately 50% equity in the hand by not donk betting and instead allowing the preflop (min)raiser to bet out first before I make my move. Secondly, even if my checkraise does get called, I am not the least bit concerned for two reasons. First, my equity is strong, with around a 50% chance of having the best hand by the time the river is dealt. And second, by putting in my checkraise on the flop instead of waiting until the turn, the pot is still small. Even if I checkraise and my opponent reraises me allin, I can easily fold and still have lost just a fairly small portion of my overall stack here. And I like that, being that I have made only a pair of 5s so far in the hand.

You can see for yourself what I mean here with this screenshot when I in fact check-raised the flop:



For my game, with a nice stack early in an mtt, this is where I want to be. This way, if a large stack moves me allin or something, even with 50% equity in the hand I might call or not call depending on what I think he might has and how I am feeling at the time. But I have the freedom to fold to the reraise here on the flop and you can see I've only lost maybe 10% of my stack or so. No biggity. But if I wait for the turn after check-calling on the flop, then my turn check-raise, in order to be credible, would have to be a good thousand chips or so, representing a much bigger portion of my stack in a spot not as advantageous to me IMO as the checkraise on the flop, where my equity is high and no obvious draws have filled on the board.

In case you're wondering, in this case my opponent responded to my checkraise with very close a min-reraise of his own, which screamed out to me some kind of big pocket pair since he left so little of his own stack behind with this reraise:



At this point it becomes a simple math problem for me. I have to call 240 into 1090 with what I figure to be 14 outs twice, maybe discount it to 13 outs since my two-pair outs may not all be winners, but the point is this is the easiest call in the world. In fact, since his remaining stack is so small now that he will be forced to be or call any bet on the turn or river with what I am at this point quite sure is a strong pocket pair, I just went ahead and moved him allin. And again, if he had had enough chips to stack me, especially if this were a "real" buyin tournament instead of just a $10 one, and had reraised me allin on the flop, the idea would be to fold fold fold and move on to the next hand with a loss of only around 10% of my stack. But with this short stacked opponent, it's an easy call and really a matter of just common practice to re-reraise him allin for his last 290 chips into a pot of around 1400 chips by the time I call his reraise.

Or more accuately, I reverse hoyed him just to make a point since he felt it was so important to hold back those few chips even though it made his high pocket pair easy as ballz to read:



We got it all in, and he showed his hand:



Right on schedule. 13-14 outs or so for me here. And bloooom on the river:



And of course, my favorite part is the observer chat right after the hand:



Yeah it is pretty "sick" when those 14-outers on the flop fill by the river, huh? Man you have got to love the players at pokerstars.

Thanks again to everyone for the comments. I welcome any dissenting opinions now that you have seen how I like to play this hand. Oh and to the commenter last week who asked if I play this hand any different in cash or in a tournament, the answer for me is no. Either way with the small made hand that has a large draw to a winning hand, and with the pot small and my stack large, I am probably using the flop checkraise to find out when the checkraise is still cheap whether or not I am beat, and otherwise hopefully use my checkraise on the flop to get a free card on the turn even if I miss. Good question though.

So I guess there is no Skills event tonight? I'm actually liking the idea of some weeknights without blogger tournaments for a change -- it's funny but even though the BBT3 was obviously completely nailed by full tilt and Al this time around, the collective weariness and lack of interest in all the blonkaments right now belies the fact that people really want a break. Being in the middle of the typical summer doldrums doesn't help either. But I'll be curious to see if anyone steps in to fill the void over the summer here on Tuesday nights, as even the bodonkey is apparently on a hiatus. I should be on at some point tonight, playing the usual run of mtts in addition to dabbling in the turbo sngs that I have been playing more and more of lately.

Super turbo is calling me already, I can hear it even from a few miles away from my laptop at home. "Hoyyyyyyyy......Hoyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, come indulge yourself in me. Pillage and plunder my super turbo ways....You know you want it...." Foul temptress.

Firing That Second Bullet With Air

So today I had been planning to return to that early-mtt hand I had profiled last Thursday, but I was flipping through one of the bibles of limit holdem over the weekend, a book that I have worn thin from reading and re-reading it at least 10 or 12 times, and I had dog-eared a page with one of the coolest thoughts I have seen regarding aggressive limit holdem play. It's so cool that I'm thinking about it here again as the new week begins, so I figured today's post would be about that.

The book is Small-Stakes Hold'em -- Winning Big With Expert Play. Sklansky, Malmuth and Ed Miller. As I mentioned this is indisputably one of the bibles of limit holdem play, and anyone who does even a medium amount of reading about holdem has obviously read it. This thing is chock fuckin full of good stuff. Many great, original ideas about poker strategy, and interesting variations and recommendations for loose, normal and tight games, and detailed and useful treatments of various poker situations like semi-bluffing, playing overcards, etc. It is really great. Anyone who wants to develop a deeper understanding of the nature of the game and is looking to read one of the best books out there, Small Stakes Holdem is probably just the thing you're looking for.

Anyways, it is the section dealing with how to play overcards after the flop where the poker point I like so much is hidden. So again, as you already know if you're an avid Sklansky reader, he advocates generally speaking a tight-ish but position-based starting hands play range, so the assumption behind the upcoming statement is that you are not in the pot to begin with unless you have something worthwhile in the way of overcards. Like, the below statement does not so much apply to playing overcards like 97o on a 642 flop, as opposed to playing AKo on that same 642 flop. What we're talking about here is when you raise before the flop with two high cards, typically in the AT+, KQ+ range, and then the flop comes with three undercards.

The next thing to understand is that in limit holdem, the Sklansky-Malmuth-Miller approach would have you c-betting the flop in most cases where you were the preflop aggressor. So again the assumption here is that you are playing two solid high cards with a preflop raise, you get called, the flop comes with three undercards, and you make a continuation bet on the flop. We've all been there. If you haven't, then you blow. You raise preflop, someone calls you out of the big blind with probably a shit hand, and the flop comes with rags. You have to bet out in a game like holdem (limit or no-limit) a significant portion of the time here with the c-bet, or you are undinably giving up value. You're only going to make a pair or better with two unpaire hole cards what, 32% of the time or something? Those other two-thirds of the time, if you take the aggression preflop but then give it up on a bad flop, you are passing the baton to your opponent to steal that "dead pot" away from you. Who's going to win that other 68% of the time when you don't flop a pair with your non-pair hole cards? If you don't c-bet regularly, you are definitely not following the Sklansky et al way.

So the question being addressed for this situation in the book is when is the best time or the best situation to follow up with a second bullet on the turn card when you play overcards on the flop? And the answer is what I thought was so interesting. The authors explain:

The best time to follow up with a second bullet on the turn after c-betting the flop is when the flop was moderately coordinated.

That's it. It's so simple, but simple little rules like this are a lot of what I'm reading poker books for in the first place. I love the easy little rules that explain quite well how to play in a particular spot, especially when I've never quite thought about such decisions in nearly as simple a way as it is dealt with in the literature. I rememeber posting here way back when about a quick n dirty rule I found in Professional No-Limit Holdem regarding when to semi-bluff on the flop, which was another little heuristic just like this one and also something I was really into because of the fresh way it presents of looking at an often-encountered situation by all successful holdem players.

So the best time to follow up with a second bullet on the turn after c-betting the flop is when the flop was moderately coordinated. If the flop was totally uncoordinated -- say like a Q75 rainbow flop -- you c-bet it and someone called you, then that caller is not likely to have a draw given the nature of the flop. In this case, they are highly likely to have at least one pair, and therefore are not likely to fold on the turn either in limit play. So you might consider not firing that second bullet on the turn with just the overcards since your opponent is not going away even if you do bet, and since you have nothing but a high-card hand at this point.

Similarly, if the flop was highly coordinated -- say a flop like TJQ double-sooted -- and you c-bet and got called, that caller is likely to have a strong draw or to be slow-playing a big hand. In either situation, once again your opponent is not going away for just the one bet on the turn after the pot was raised preflop and bet and called already on the flop in limit poker. Plus, in this spot you could be facing a raise on the turn, and you might not even know if your hand would be ahead even if you manage to hit one of those overcards on the river.

This is why the best time to lead out again on the turn in the hopes of taking down the pot uncontested with just overcards is when the flop is moderately coordinated. It is in these cases where the likelihood is highest that your opponent smooth called your flop c-bet with just a hand like two overcards, a gutshot or similar low-quality turn hand. These are the times you want to be looking to fire that second bullet, because your chances of folding your opponent out are higher than if he stayed in on the flop when it was highly coordinated or highly uncoordinated. This is a rule that I have used to significant benefit over the past few years since I first read it in the book, and I thought I would get it up here today in case anyone has any thoughts on the concept or might be able to make use of it in your own games.

Mondays at the Hoy is tonight again at 10pm ET, don't forget. Password as always is "hammer", and as always we are always looking for new and first-time players, so if you're out there and you've been reading for a while but have never sat down to play with the bloggers, come on out tonight and see what it's all about. First-timers have traditionally had great luck in the Hoy so perhaps tonight will be no different. The game is 6-max nlh and the buyin as always is a mere $26 or a Tier 1 token, so hopefully we will see you tonight under the "private" tab for Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt!

Early Tournament Hand Question

Congratulations to Instant Tragedy for winning this week's Mookie tournament. I donked it up and tried to suck out on people, leading to the inevitable early exit, but I had fun trying while I lasted. I love the sense of humor out there, as I saw someone played under the handle "ICrushBloggers". Very cool, definitely brought a smile to my face. Don't ask me who it was because I don't know. But I guess we can ask Mookie, right? I mean, after all, any host of an online poker tournament is automatically entitled to know the real-life identity of everyone who signs up, right? Right?

Seriously though. I counted at least three multi-accounting bloggers playing last night in the Mookie. And that's just the ones I know of. What's up with that? It's like, some people seem to have a really solid grasp of what "cheating" is, but then others do not. And even those who seem to have the good grasp on cheating when some people are involved, I guess they're just never there to see the multi-accounters, hmmm? Especially when it's their friends doing the multi accounting. Interesting.

Fucking bloggers. I dare you to find more unintentional comedy anywhere.

Anyways, today I wanted to discuss an early mtt situation and get some thoughts on how to best play a hand like this. It is a situation that tends to tempt me to lose some chips that I would not normally want to be risking this early in to an mtt on a drawing type of hand. Here's the setup:

I am playing in a $10 mtt with 360 entrants. We are about 15 minutes in, and I have already doubled against a donkey. I am sitting in 10th place of 333 players remaining, again very early in a small-field mtt. I am seated in the big blind with 85 of spades. Middle position open-minraises the big blind to 40 chips, and the hijack calls. Action folds back to me, where I am looking at calling 20 into 110 chips. Getting more than 5 to 1, and for a measly 20 chips out of my 3000+ stack, I don't want to fold the soooted 2-gapper. How could I, right? So I call.

The flop comes 75J with two spades, and I am first to act out of the big blind:



Here is where my question comes in. How do you like to play this kind of a hand? Assuming you're not a donkey and aren't just going to start betting or checking away on the flop without having some sort of a plan for how you're going to play this situation out, what is your optimal line here? Is this hand good enough to warrant some aggressive play (i.e., betting and raising)? Or are you looking to take this one as slow as possible, see if you hit your hand and then make sure it is not behind something like a higher two pair or higher flush before you start comitting chips? Does being under the gun after the flop affect your decision of what line to take at all? Are your chipstack and your opponent's chipstack factors? How about the $10 buyin of the tournament, does that weigh in the decision at all? Do you play it any different at the WSOP in a $2000 buyin event?

Love to hear your thoughts in the comments, and I will give mine as well.

MATH Recap, Yesterday's Comments, and Same Old Pokerstars

For starters, thank you to everyone for your comments to my questions from my pokerstars 50-50 busto hand yesterday. Interestingly, this is the first time in forever that I received mostly people agreeing with the way I played the hand, and yet I actually have more doubts about the way I played this one than most of the hands I profile here. But that's why it's so great to have the blog to analyze hands and situations just like this.

In general, I like the preflop call once the second opponent came in. Interestingly, Bambam indicated that he would fold there precisely because of all the interest being shown in the hand before the flop, but I do think that is the wrong way to play it and the wrong way to look at it, though I recognize that this is just my opinion, and not stone cold poker fact like most of what I say here about the game. Heh heh. But to me, with a speculative hand like 97s or any suited one-gapper like this, for me I only want to play this in a multi-way pot. If the player to my right had not called as well from the button, I know that I would have folded my 97s here. No reason to take a speculative hand like this heads-up against just one opponent, because that significantly limits my ability to get the large payoff that I need when I play hands like this.

Once the flop came down, I had surely hit a big draw so I don't really mind my playing it somewhat aggressively from that point either. In fact, in general I really do think I played this hand just right, but for one big point. This late in a major mtt -- we were down to the final 90 players and well ITM already -- I usually tend to slow things down a bit, and try to conserve chips and really wait for my spots while there is actual money to be made by being a little patient and trying to wait for the really strong flops. Here I flopped a large draw, but no made hand, and while I know it is close I still have my doubts if I made the best play given the situation at the time in the tournament. An hour in to a 1000-person mtt, this is the way I would want to play my hand, and I think that's what most of the commenters were reacting to in Monday's post. But at this point fairly late in the tournament, I at least think it becomes a much closer decision. I'm not a huge fan of just smooth calling the 9000-chip bet on the flop with a plan to push on the turn like some of the commenters suggested, because that is a play that you can only even consider making if you put my opponent on a flush draw. And given the smallish preflop raise and the smallish flop bet, and the fact that I myself held two diamonds, there is just no way in hike that I could put him on any kind of a draw on that flop. Generally flop callers can be put on draws, but a preflop raiser who then bets out smallish on the flop as well, it is very hard to put them on precisely a draw, especially when I am holding a big piece of both the straight and flush draws availalbe out there. So to me, just calling the 9k on that flop would be classified as spewage of over a quarter of my remaining stack with no made hand whatsoever. That's just not the way I play. But while I do like my preflop call with two players, a lot of blinds and antes in there and 97s, I think a good argument can be made for me just folding my big draw and living to fight another day.

Dammit, why can't I just have hit one of my billion outs and not have to be having this conversation here? Someday, someday. And btw, thanks as well for the comments about the play my opponent made. Try as I might, I cannot see his play as anything but a poor decision at poor odds on his part. Once I check-raised him allin, he should be thinking he had just the 9 flush outs. His 3 is an undercard to the board, he cannot possibly think his Ace is good for 3 more outs given the preflop and flop action from me, and there is a pair on the board which creates the possibility of a boat by the river which would beat even his flush. At best realistically speaking he could see himself as having approximately 9 outs, and I don't think he quite had the pot odds for that call on this board. More than that, even in a close decision with the odds at this point, you could not pay me enough to make this call here. Why even take a roughly even-money gamble pot odds-wise when you can just fold and keep 35,000 chips and still have a nice-sized stack for later in the tournament, rather than take a 70% chance of failing to hit and being eliminated with 90 players left? So thank you confirming what I already thought with your comments, but this guy made what I call a bad play, and I was the victim. Ah well.

This actually brings me to something I wanted to discuss today as I have been playing more and more poker tournaments at my old stomping grounds pokerstars lately. The players at pokerstars are simply clearly worse than those at full tilt. This is something I actually cannot believe I am saying, but I have little doubt that it's true. Yesterday I put up a hand history from the pokerstars version of the 50-50 where I got called down by KJo unimproved for a large pot-committing bet on the flop, and today I want you to see this, from the Very First Hand of the stars 50-50 on Monday night (notice we are just 1 minute and 14 seconds after the stated beginning of the tournament, which actually makes this the second hand we played, but still):

PokerStars Game #15065488814: Tournament #76072570, $50+$5 Hold'em No Limit - Level I (10/20) - 2008/02/04 - 21:31:14 (ET)
Table '76072570 56' 9-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: maximum8282 (3000 in chips)
Seat 2: Titantom32 (2990 in chips)
Seat 3: gigagambler (2970 in chips) is sitting out
Seat 4: hoyazo (2980 in chips)
Seat 5: FMA ED (3030 in chips)
Seat 6: Tobins2008 (3000 in chips) is sitting out
Seat 7: iropeudope (3000 in chips)
Seat 8: teqbuster (3030 in chips)
Seat 9: mig.com (3000 in chips)
hoyazo: posts small blind 10
FMA ED: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hoyazo [8h 9h] I love these kinds of hands as you know.
Tobins2008: folds
iropeudope: folds
teqbuster: folds
mig.com: folds
teqbuster is sitting out
gigagambler is connected
gigagambler has returned
maximum8282: folds
Titantom32: folds
gigagambler: raises 40 to 60
hoyazo: calls 50 Later in a tournament I might fold 98s into a heads-up pot, but this early and with these deep stacks I clearly have a nice opportunity to gamble against a late-position raiser who could likely hold just about anything here.
FMA ED: folds
*** FLOP *** [4h 2h Kh] Bingo!!!
hoyazo: bets 100 Betting cuz I'm a Man. But not too big, cuz I don't want to lose this guy, and I'm well past the point where I can't handle having to lay this thing down to a four-flush on the turn or river.
gigagambler: calls 100
*** TURN *** [4h 2h Kh] [7c]
Tobins2008 has returned
hoyazo: bets 340 A little more this time, let's try to milk this a li'l more and see where the river brings us.
gigagambler: calls 340 Nice!
*** RIVER *** [4h 2h Kh 7c] [4c]
hoyazo: bets 880
gigagambler: calls 880 Notice the lack of any pause on his part for any of these calls. No raising, so I know my flush is ahead, but no pausing before calling down half his stack on hand #2 of the tournament now either.
*** SHOW DOWN ***
hoyazo: shows [8h 9h] (a flush, King high)
gigagambler: mucks hand
hoyazo collected 2780 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2780 | Rake 0
Board [4h 2h Kh 7c 4c]
Seat 1: maximum8282 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: Titantom32 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: gigagambler (button) mucked [Ac Jc]
Seat 4: hoyazo (small blind) showed [8h 9h] and won (2780) with a flush, King high
Seat 5: FMA ED (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 6: Tobins2008 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: iropeudope folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: teqbuster folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: mig.com folded before Flop (didn't bet)

So there you go. Calls me down for half his stack on three separate streets without hesitation with AJ unimproved on an all-suited flop when he had NONE of that suit. Is this even possible? I swear to you this does not happen on full tilt, and yet I have gotten off to nice starts and fairly easy doubles in almost every mtt I have played on pokerstars over the past couple of weeks on plays marginally like this one here. Just wow.

Now for those of you wondering whether pokerstars has gotten any better about the recockulous, redickulous redonkulous suckouts that have made the site famous over the past several years, I present to you my elimination hand from the stars 50-50 last night, which sadly is also not an aberration anymore than that earlier double-up I just showed you is. Keep in mind this is down to around 300 players left from the 1300 or so who started on Monday night, and my stack is around 40th place at the time as I am doing great like I have been in most of my pokerstars tournaments of late:

PokerStars Game #15068072902: Tournament #76072570, $50+$5 Hold'em No Limit - Level VIII (200/400) - 2008/02/04 - 23:36:08 (ET)
Table '76072570 74' 9-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 2: strazin (20235 in chips)
Seat 3: hoyazo (17147 in chips)
Seat 4: SJR48 (13327 in chips)
Seat 5: shannonmacs (9772 in chips)
Seat 6: pbdrunks (15474 in chips)
Seat 7: popfurf (11841 in chips)
Seat 8: AAAA316 (16490 in chips)
Seat 9: oregon (12050 in chips)
strazin: posts the ante 25
hoyazo: posts the ante 25
SJR48: posts the ante 25
shannonmacs: posts the ante 25
pbdrunks: posts the ante 25
popfurf: posts the ante 25
AAAA316: posts the ante 25
oregon: posts the ante 25
SJR48: posts small blind 200
shannonmacs: posts big blind 400
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hoyazo [9s 9h]
pbdrunks: folds
popfurf: folds
AAAA316: calls 400
oregon: folds
strazin: raises 900 to 1300
hoyazo: calls 1300 Not a big raise, very easy for me to call and hope I flop overpair, or especially a set.
SJR48: folds
shannonmacs: folds
AAAA316: calls 900
*** FLOP *** [8d 9d 8s] Or a boat!!!
AAAA316: checks
strazin: bets 2400
hoyazo: raises 2400 to 4800 Minraise. Not my usual move but in this case I wanted to leave my opponent, who had raised a limper preflop so I was hoping he had an overpair (which no one can fold on stars, EVER) enough to think that he could get me to fold with an allin rereraise. It's actually a good strategic move on my part I think to think about stack sizes in this way when you can put your opponent on a particular type of hand that is hard to lay down and when you know you have flopped a monster with the overboat. If I raise him to 10,000 there, he could still push for value but he will know I am not likely to lay down given the size of my remaining stack, so the minraise was my preferred move in this particular spot.
AAAA316: folds
strazin: raises 14110 to 18910 and is all-in Bingo again!!!
hoyazo: calls 11022 and is all-in
*** TURN *** [8d 9d 8s] [Qh]
*** RIVER *** [8d 9d 8s Qh] [Kc]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
strazin: shows [Qd Qc] (a full house, Queens full of Eights) OMMMMMMMMFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFG.
hoyazo: shows [9s 9h] (a full house, Nines full of Eights)
strazin collected 36344 from pot
AAAA316 said, "wow"
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 36344 | Rake 0
Board [8d 9d 8s Qh Kc]
Seat 2: strazin showed [Qd Qc] and won (36344) with a full house, Queens full of Eights
Seat 3: hoyazo (button) showed [9s 9h] and lost with a full house, Nines full of Eights
Seat 4: SJR48 (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 5: shannonmacs (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 6: pbdrunks folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: popfurf folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: AAAA316 folded on the Flop
Seat 9: oregon folded before Flop (didn't bet)

DELICIOUS!! MOTHERFUCKERS!!! STARS CAN LICK MY MOTHERFUCKING BALLZ YOU COCKNSHITS!!!

OK so back to Mondays at the Hoy this week. We had another nice showing with 30 runners coming out for this week's MATH, making for an even $720 prize pool. I managed to be the second one out on this night, busting in 29th place out of 30 players when I flopped a set of 3s on a 753 all-suited flop. I bet nearly the size of the pot since I can't let someone stay in to draw to the four-flush for free and since I know someone will call any size bet like this with just the four-flush. The turn is an offsuit raggy 6. I of course bet nearly the size of the pot again, this time expecting the four-flusher to fold, but instead I get called again. Nice. The river also raggy and offsuit 9, leaving no possible straights or flushes on the board. I move allin for now what is less than the size of the now large pot, and am instacalled by a turned set of 6s. Delicious! But at least it's been a good week or so since a blonkament crushing elimination like that, so I can't complain. I guess.

But four people did manage to survive the minefield this week and bring us three out of four brand new first-time cashers for 2008's Mondays at the Hoy tournaments. Those four lucky winners are:

4. $72 -- Pirate Wes
3. $144 -- pureprophet
2. $216 -- astin
1. $288 -- Tripjax


And here is the updated 2008 MATH moneyboard, including this week's results:

1. surflexus $488
2. fuel55 $445
3. astin $366
4. Jordan $332
5. twoblackaces $298
6. Tripjax $288
7. Donkey Shortz $215
8. VinNay $203
9. buckhoya $150
9. Miami Don $150
9. Mike Maloney $150
12. pureprophet $144
13. chitwood $127
14. bayne_s $112
15. thepokergrind $95
16. bartonf $89
17. Pirate Wes $72
18. Hoyazo $67

Thanks to everyone who came out and played this week, and I look forward to seeing you all again next week for Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt. And speaking of full tilt, don't forget tonight is the latest Skill Series event on full tilt at 9:30pm ET, which tonight will be stud hi-lo, one of my longest-playing and favorite games. See you then!

MATH Recap, and Drawing Hands on the Flop in Holdem

With all the bloggers still in Vegas, on a plane back from Vegas, or just generally too broke groggy to play any more poker, this week's Mondays at the Hoy tournament turned out to be the single best chance for anybody to qualify for the BBTwo Aussie Millions Tournament of Champions, with a field of just 39 runners. It was still big for the Hoy overall, but far smaller than the other MATH events during the BBTwo, paying out the top five spots and significantly increasing each individual's chances of climbing to the pinnacle and winning a ToC seat here in the 4th-to-last tournament in the BBTwo.

My starting table was without exception the toughest starting table I have ever been seated at for a blogger tournament, and it only had 6 players to boot. It was myself, jeciimd, KOD, Don, columbo and chitwood, this last player being the only one with whom I was not familiar. Honestly I've never had to play at a table like this before in my entire life in a tournament, and to make matters worse, KOD was playing recklessly which is always a problem, and I felt I was being floated on on more than one occasion by a few of the players at the table, which is always difficult for someone who likes to raise preflop like I do. Being at a shorthanded table only made the whole situation worse. Wishing I could just get a table change rather than face this smattering of solid, aggressive and deceptive players, I had to perservere and decided to just try to hold my own for as long as I could and hope to pick up a monster hand. Of course I do not get dealt many monsters in blonkament play, so I was forced to loosen my calling standards a bit against the players I figured were themselves raising a little light preflop, which mostly meant KOD and Don.

After laying down to flop bets from Don three different times in the first half hour or so, the fourth time about 40 minutes in to the tournament saw me call Don's utg preflop raise with K7s in the big blind into a heads-up pot. It's a questionable call, but it was my express plan to not just fold every time KOD or Don raised it up and K7s was actually the best hand I was dealt in any of these situations, and possibly the best hand I had seen all night at the time, so I made the call. I got lucky and flopped 77A for trips, and hidden trips at that since I had called the preflop raise from Don to begin with. Hoping Don had an Ace, I checked to the preflop raiser, he bet out, and I just smooth called, hoping even more now that he had a strong Ace and knowing there was no way he could put me on a 7 given the preflop action. The turn was something unimportant, a Jack as I recall, and I checked it again. This time I think Don bet out small again which I of course called. At this point I figured he would start to put me on a 7 but as I've mentioned, I was in a great situation where the preflop action could not have let Don think I possibly had the hand I had. But I could have called preflop with A7s, with 87s or 76s (if I'm a donk), or certainly a number of decent Aces or even middle pocket pairs. In any event, when the river brought a Queen, Don moved in the rest of his chips, and I called thinking I might have just gotten outboated, but in the end it was a setup for Don as his AQ lost to my flopped trips. It's not every day that I get to take K7s up against AQ and live to tell about it against a trappy, deceptive player like Don in a blonkament no less, so I'll take it. I really only write about it here because that's the kind of hand that would have burned me the phuck up if it happened against me instead of for me, and I try to write about those hands more as they happen since I certainly end up posting about them when they happen to me in basically every blonkament I play.

Anyways, my night ended just a few hands later when I unfortunately ran pocket Jacks into chitwood's pocket Aces at my new table, having gotten that table change I so desperately wanted once I busted Don from the MATH. I was in a heads-up pot preflop againt chitwood, whom I had observed stealing a few times already at my starting table, and basically I raised from the cutoff with the JJ from 100 to 300. Chitwood in the blinds kicked it up to 950. So it wasn't a minraise, it wasn't an overbet, but it was just your standard reraise from a guy who had been a bit stealy. Now, to be sure I was not thinking he was restealing me with air here, not by a longshot as I've never seen chitwood do that in the few blonkaments I've seen him in, but what would you do in that spot with JJ facing a reraise from the blinds after my own stealy self had open-raised from the cutoff at a shorthanded table? My answer was to just push. I knew I had the 4th best starting hand, and even though his range was pretty strong to be reraising me here, I know he knows I like to steal pots, and in the end I figured his range included enough hands like 88, 99, TT and AQ and maybe even AJ or KQ that I could get him to lay down or to call my allin with many of the hands I would be ahead of or at least racing against. In retrospect, I don't love my move, but at the time it definitely seemed like the right play. Of course he had pocket Aces -- I have to run into AA at least three or four times every night or it's just not a blonkament these days -- and a smooth call from me would clearly have been best since an Ace flopped and I would easily have folded to any action on the flop here. I suppose he might've checked his flopped set of Aces anyways on the flop, in which case I might very well have gotten it allin anyways, but the whole thing just kinda sucked, just two hands after surviving that tough starting table as it was. Ah well, such is the life of a blonkament player.

After winning and cashing in 3rd place in a couple more $55 turbo sngs, I headed to bed, but I saw in the morning that the MATH ended at a very reasonable 12:39am. I guess some of that is due to the smaller field no doubt, but in general I am liking 6-max as the new format for the Hoy and I enjoy the action that this game generates. I understand that not everyone loves the shorthanded game, but I have to say that I for one think a little something to break up the monotony of three, four or even five blonkaments a week that are straight up ring game no-limit holdem is a good thing for everyone. 6max is fun, it is a live game, and I guess I just don't have a whole lot of sympathy for people who want every single blonkament every single week to be the same exact game. I'm not one who is trying to change this game to HORSE or Omaha or some shit like that -- I love those games and play them often on my own in my nightly trials and tribulations on full tilt -- but I do recognize that most of you who play in the Hoy are nlh guys and I like to respect that and encourage participation. But if you can't get it up for one game a week of shorthanded nlh, then I guess I don't know what else there is to say about it. That's the game for now, and if it seems not to be working then of course I will consider changing it. That said, the last couple of MATH tournaments of the year will be a little different due to each occurring on the night of a big holiday, but otherwise for now it's a 6max tournament and I'd love to have you all embrace your inner aggromonkey and play.

Anyways, here are your cashers in this week's MATH tournament:

1. twoblackaces 374.40
2. LJ 215.28
3. lucko21 149.76
4. islandbum1 112.32
5. dabag 84.24

So just two bloggers in the top 5, but all five are names that we recognize, as they've all played many of our events and especially many of the BBTwo tournaments. I did not see the final table action so I really can't comment on twoblackaces finally winning one of these after coming out consistently for the BBTwo, or on LJ producing at least her second runner-up finish in one of these in her so far unfruitful attempt to play into the Tournament of Champions. But I am happy to congratulate twoblackaces, a very good player with whom I have played a number of blonkament and non-blonkament tournaments with, on winning his way into the ToC with I'm sure another hard-fought win out of him.

And here is the updated MATH moneyboard for 2007, including the results of this week's tournament:

1. Columbo $1823
2. cmitch $1703
3. Bayne_s $1400
4. Hoyazo $1162
5. RaisingCayne $1110
6. Surflexus $1107
7. Daddy $999
8. LJ $867
9. Lucko21 $815
10. Kajagugu $806
11. Fuel55 $802
12. twoblackaces $801
13. Astin $793
14. Pirate Wes $792
15. VinNay $775
16. Tripjax $759
17. IslandBum1 $754
17. Numbbono $754
19. Iggy $745
20. Gary Cox $734
21. Blinders $720
22. NewinNov $677
23. Waffles $650
24. XxMagiciaNxX $630
24. JJ $630
26. Mike_Maloney $612
27. Jamyhawk $576
28. Buddydank $553
29. swimmom95 $545
30. riggstad $537
30. Chad $537
32. ScottMc $532
33. Emptyman $513
34. Byron $510
35. Julius Goat $507
36. bartonf $492
36. mtnrider81 $492
38. PokerBrian322 $490
39. wormmsu $475
40. scots_chris $474
41. whiskigrl $467
42. jeciimd $460
43. RecessRampage $434
44. Otis $429
45. leftylu $424
46. Miami Don $402
47. Zeem $389
48. Joe Speaker $384
49. Jordan $382
50. cardgrrl $371
50. lightning36 $371
52. ChapelncHill $353
53. OMGitsPokerFool $324
54. buckhoya $312
54. oossuuu754 $312
56. Mookie $304
57. Wigginx $288
58. Fishy McDonk $277
59. actyper $276
60. Irongirl $252
60. Manik79 $252
62. Wippy1313 $248
63. Easycure $244
64. Garthmeister $216
64. wwonka69 $216
66. Omega_man_99 $210
67. katiemother $209
68. Pushmonkey72 $208
69. Thepokergrind $198
70. StatikKling $180
71. 23Skidoo $176
72. Santa Clauss $170
73. jimdniacc $166
74. Iakaris $162
74. Smokkee $162
76. cemfredmd $156
77. lester000 $147
78. Heffmike $145
79. Julkeus $144
80. brdweb $143
81. DDionysus $137
82. Patchmaster $135
83. InstantTragedy $129
84. NinaW $120
85. UnTiltable $118
86. Fluxer $110
87. -o-LuckTruck-o- $103
88. hoops15mt $95
89. Gracie $94
89. Scurvydog $94
91. DaBag $84
91. Shag0103 $84
93. mattazuma $82
93. crazdgamer $82
95. PhinCity $80
96. Presidentdave $79
97. maf212 $78
98. evy35 $72
99. Alceste $71
99. dbirider $71
101. kevin-with-AK $66
102. Rake Feeder $53

Today I thought I would leave you with (to me) a very interesting point made in the latest poker book I am reading, called "Professional No-Limit Holdem" by Matt Flynn, Sunny Mehta, and Ed Miller. This is a book I am reading on a recommendation from the Gnome, and I have to say I am enjoying it so far. I thikn Gnome is correct that there are, as in every poker book that I read, some examples that I think give poor advice or at least are poor examples of what may otherwise be good advice. But overall, I am maybe halfway through the book and I just ran across one of several good pieces of general nlh advice in here for those who know when they've seen something useful.

To me, what I am really looking for in a nlh strategy book is generalized poker rules that can be applied across a majority of situations and circumstances. No-limit holdem is such a complicated game that just about anybody can say in their book that the game is too complex for a bunch of bright-line rules, and for the most part I think that is true. But, as a result, when I run into a nice rule that seems generally applicable in most nlh situations, I view that as a good thing, and today I want to share one such rule with you from "Professional No-Limit Holdem". This is from the section dealing with how to play drawing hands, most of which I think is applicable on the flop in nlh games:

With a weak draw and poor pot equity (i.e., an inside straight draw), choose between folding and calling (rarely raising). Call if you have good implied odds, and fold if you have bad implied odds.

With a strong draw with good pot equity (i.e., a straight flush draw or a flush draw and two overs, etc.), choose between raising and calling (rarely folding). Call if you have good implied odds, and raise if you have bad implied odds.

That's it right there. Again, in a highly complex game like no-limit holdem, to have a fairly bright-line rule like this one and be able to have it apply across most situations is a rare thing, and more than that, I think, a very profitable thing. And to me, this is great advice. So when someone bets the pot at me on the flop when I have 89o on a board of QJ2, the best move is almost never to raise. If the implied odds are good (i.e., my draw is hidden, my opponent is loose, etc.) then it might make sense to call, but in most cases on this flop I am likely to fold since it is hard to disguise a straight when the board shows QJTx. Similarly, if I have 6♠4♠ and the flop comes A♣5♠3♠, giving me the oesfd and someone bets the pot at me when I'm sure they have a strong Ace, I figure to have a good 17 outs. This gives me a very strong draw and very strong pot equity, so I am very unlikely to fold in this spot. If my implied odds are good, again because like in this case my oesfd is somewhat hidden by the gap in the sooted cards on the flop, I am more likely to call and not raise here. But if I think I have not much chance of getting paid off if I do hit my draw -- for example if I'm playing against one of these always-assume-the-worst tightydonks if a third spade or third straight card hits, then I might as well raise it up now and try to get that additional money into the pot with my better than 50% equity and not much chance of getting paid if a good card does hit on the turn or river.

Like I said, it's not often that I find a concise, well-put statement like this that makes for good strategy across almost all no-limit holdem situations. This is the kind of thing I am always looking for when I read poker books, and frankly these sorts of strategy points are very few and far between. I bet from the tens of poker books I've read over the past few years, I could probably come up with only 20 or so statements like this with broad applicability across the poker games that they are about, so I wanted to post this here. Frankly I don't know that I will change my game all that much as a result of what it says in the book that I have reproduced above, but that doesn't take anything away from the fact that this is first time I have seen this idea stated in exactly this way. I think I already played draws on the flop in no-limit holdem very similarly to the way this rule would recommend that I play them, but it's still always good to see something stated and explained in such simple, broadly-applicable terms as this. Hopefully some of you out there who have struggled with how to play draws on the flop in nlh will get some further insight and guidance from this, what I consider to be very sound, very solid (and somewhat rarely so) advice, and that's why I wanted to post it today.

If anyone is feeling like a man tonight, hit me up on the girly chat and we can play some $55 sitngos. Turbos only please, I am far too manly for regular speed.