More Lost, and More Sklansky

Today I've got another item from Sklanksy's No Limit Holdem: Theory & Practice book that I'd love to get your thoughts on. I like it how some of you guys clearly hate David Sklansky as a poker author. I mean, it's easy to hate him as a writer. I hate him as a writer. He's arrogant ("The most skilled players in the world know that I am correct"), he's talk-downy ("Do you see why?") and he's over-analytical. All that said, his poker analysis, and the thought processes he goes through with respect to various aspects of the game, are IMO pretty awesome and a useful tool to anyone who plays a lot and/or wants to learn a lot about the analysis behind the game. That said, some of you guys really can't seem to stand Sklansky and generally seem to balk at most of his advice. So today I think I've got something good for you guys to chew on.

But first, a couple of quick points about Lost. I've got to hand it to Le Donkeypuncher. Not only is his blog one of the funniest around, but I think he made two solid comments on Lost here on the blog yesterday. First, I like his prediction that it's going to be Ben in the coffin where Jack flashed-forward to. Personally, I think it's either Juliette or Ben myself, I don't know which but I think they are the only two people I know who seem to fit well each of (1) the reaction that Jack had to learning of the death, (2) the fact that there was no one at the funeral and (3) Kate's indignant question of why she would ever go to the funeral. If it's Ben, Jack could be upset because clearly he wants to get back to the island and he might have viewed Ben as one of the only people who knows how to get him back there, and if it's Juliette, Jack might semi-like her or have some kind of weird feelings for her (despite telling Kate he loved her, inexplicably out of the blue in the finale). Similarly, Ben really fits the "no one at the funeral thing" since he hasn't lived back in the regular Earth for almost his entire life, and Juliette doesn't fit this exactly but it could easily be that everyone assumes she is dead already from a few years earlier when she disappeared and never made contact again. If her obit was in the newspaper then that isn't necessarily a great theory, but it's possible. With Ben it's more than possible, it's highly improbable that there could be anyone at his funeral outside of the island environment. And lastly, the way that Kate reacted viscerally when Jack asked her about the funeral, that's got to be someone who Kate has quasi-negative feelings for at least. In other words, she isn't reacting like that about going to Michael's funeral or Sun's funeral. She might not go to those funerals, I don't know, but she would not have that highly reactive, negatory reaction about the question of her going.

Anyways, the other point that Donkeypuncher made about Lost that I 100% believe is correct is that, starting next year, I believe as well that we will quickly realize that what we thought was a "flash forward" in the finale this week is really the present time, once they've already been rescued from the island. We will realize probably even in the first episode of Season 4 that all of the stuff we've seen for three years about the island has been flashbacks. All of it. We will be watching the story of Jack and Kate (and who knows who else from the island is out there in the world with them at this point) out in the real world, with Jack all depressed and desperately trying to get back to the island, and some portion of next season will be flashbacks to us of the rescue, picking up from when Jack called and those guys answered on Naomi's satellite phone. So we will get to see the rest of what happened with the rescue next season, but not as we have been as if that is in fact happening in the present time on the show. We will now appreciate that for what it is, and for what everything we've seen through the first three seasons of the show is, one giant flashback from the present time, post-rescue, first of how the plane crashed, how they found the hatch, met the others, and all the way up until the rescue. So I am looking forward to that, and to another 8 flucking months of waiting around, until we get to see what Season 4 brings. All in all, though, a good finale from a show with very high expectations. The second half of this season was top notch on Lost, you have got to admit.

OK back to Sklansky. Today's point comes in the "Concepts and Weapons" part in the back of the book, and in fact it is Concept #36 if you're reading at home. Here Sklansky says "Be more apt to slowplay very good hands that aren't quite the nuts than the nuts itself." In favor of this position, Sklansky argues that slowplaying a hand like K6 on a flop of J66 (but not slowplaying JJ on this same flop) is right because (1) it may induce a bluff from an opponent, (2) it may allow someone to make a hand on the turn and then lose some more money rather than having folded if you had bet hard on the flop, and (3) it may limit your losses somewhat if you happen to be up against A6 or JJ.

More specifically, and the example that I found really interesting, Sklansky goes on to say, "Likewise, you should be more inclined to slowplay A2 on a 543 flop than 76 on the same flop. With A2, you're happy to give a free card to someone who might make a big pair on the turn or river. But with 765 you don't want to lose your action if someone made a smaller straight against you or is drawing to something like a pair and a straight draw." This is the advice that I just can't quite jibe with my own view on things. I mean, I get Sklansky's overall point here, that all things being equal you would rather be betting early in the hands because that's how you eventually get by the turn or river to be stacking the guy who made the second-nuts against your mortal nuts. But, I think Sklansky overlooks a major piece of the puzzle in his analysis of this particular point.

With A2 on a 345 board, you have flopped a straight and are almost surely ahead here on the flop. This is where Sklansky advises it is better to slowplay than it would be if you flopped the stone nuts with 76 on that same 345 board. But if you check or fail to bet out solidly with the A2, then you already know that any 6 will basically kill your action, and in fact you are probably behind if you get any serious action from a hand like A7 that might have folded to a real bet from you on the flop. In fact, if even a 7 falls on the turn or river, you will basically have to give up this entire pot to any significant action on a later street. With the 76 you do not have this problem, in that not only do you have the top end of the straight, but you have to two-overcards version, so that even if a 6 does happen to fall on the turn or river then you've still got an overcard on the top end of the straight you've made. So the way I see it, that is at least as strong of an argument for slowplaying with the 76, where you're basically not worried about any card hitting the board except for something that makes a pair and could create a boat (or quads) for an opponent. But with the A2, you not only are in a bad position, but you most likely have to fold and lose the entire pot if any 6 or even any 7 falls on the turn or the river.

For this reason, I actually think slowplaying with the 76 is a perfectly acceptable response on a board of 345. I have done that before I am sure, and I would do it again I can tell you right now. The slowplay with 76 still accomplishes the first two objectives of the slowplay that Sklansky outlined above -- namely, that a check may induce a bluff into your mortal nuts hand, and that it may give someone a chance to pick up a big pair or two pairs or a hidden set and get you some extra action. And although the slowplay with 76 on the 345 board does not get you Sklansky's third objective above -- that you can save some money if you run into the mortal nuts (because you already hold the mortal nuts in this spot) -- it does carry the extra benefit not mentioned by Sklansky that you will give no chance to the guy who does hold A2 or 62 on that same flop to get away from the hand. So, I like the slowplay with 76, and for similar reasons I do not like the slowplay there with A2. You have a hand that is very strong and is almost surely ahead right now, but slowplaying the flop gives your opponent a free shot at winning the entire pot from you on any 6 or 7 falling, and makes for a very tough decision for you to boot in that situation where you could find yourself tempted to call off the rest of your chips with a flopped straight using both of your holecards where you are flat out drawing dead if you're up against the higher straight.

That, right there, is some baaaaad advice by Sklansky if you ask me. I'm all about slowplaying any hand where it seems that the best combination of a high chance to stack my opponent coupled with a low chance to allow free cards that cause me to lose the pot lies with a slowplay. But slowplaying ass-end flopped straights is, to me, a recipe for no-limit disaster and it is not a move I recommend. Anybody agree / disagree?

I read on Al's blog that the next WPBT tournament is this Sunday night at 9pm ET on full tilt. I also do not recall receiving the usual email on the WPBT list announcing this tournament, but Al found it under the "private" tournament tab on full tilt so here is the information for the 7-Stud contest for the WPBT this weekend:

What: WPBT POY Event #5 - Stud 7
When: Sunday, May 27th
Time: 9pm ET
Where: Full Tilt Poker
How Much: $24 + $2
Password: I guess we don't want to give this out on the blogs, but it is the initials of the organization that hosts the event followed by the numbers of the Hammer -- if you don't get that then hit me up on the girly chat this weekend sometime and I will surely tell you.
Restrictions: Bloggers only, please.

I should be around in the evenings this weekend as per my usual, probably hitting up a few tournaments as well as trying to pad those stats at the $400 nl 6-max cash tables. If you know how to play aggro poker and don't mind getting stacked, then come sit at one of my tables this weekend and we'll see what happens.

L O S T, Hoyas and a Another NLH Tidbit

L O S T

Wow. What an episode. I mean, even though the entire script had been basically released and known to all of the spoiler sites by the day or two preceding Wednesday night's airing of the Season III finale of Lost on ABC, the show itself still delivered to my expectations when I actually saw it all shake out. I'm not going to do a big rehash here in case anyone hasn't seen it or, more applicably, in case some of you somehow don't watch the best show of the last decade-plus and just aren't interested. But let me just provide this list of some of the interesting questions and issues left open or raised from this episode:

1. Whose funeral was this that Jack attended? Many of the blogs and other Lost sites out there are suggesting Kate's father in law, whom she burned in a previous lifetime, or maybe Sawyer or another member of the Losties' crew. I don't see how it could ever be Kate's father in law, as Jack knew nothing of the man and would not possibly have had the reaction that he did to reading the obituary in the newspaper. But I have no clue whose funeral that was, other than maybe that it could have been the funeral of another person who was on the island with them. Kate's visceral reaction ("Why would I ever go to the funeral, Jack?") suggests that it's not someone she was close with there, but I really don't know what that means, and I wish I did.

2. Who does Kate have to "get back to" at the end? Who is that who's going to wonder where she is? Again a number of outlets have suggested that this is maybe her father in law in some other time, or perhaps another U.S. Marshal sent to capture her. Again I don't really see these possibilities as realities since Kate would not say she has to get back to a Marshall (they would never have let her out to visit Jack like that anyways) and similarly would not have been speaking of her father in law in that way. I suppose it could be Sawyer, assuming Kate and he ended up together, but I've always been of the mind that Kate and Jack may end up together in some way, so I don't know that I believe that either. I don't even really know what to make of this question, or, frankly, if it is even important specifically who she has to get back to.

3. Why does Jack multiple times refer to his father being alive still, if this is truly Lost's first flash-forward after three seasons of flash-backs? In fact, why did Naomi tell the Losties just a few weeks ago that Oceanic Airlines went out of business a few weeks after the crash of Flight 815, and yet we see Jack flying on Oceanic at the beginning of the flash-forward, and he and Kate discuss the "golden passes" that Oceanic gave them for surviving the crash, and how Jack flies across the Pacific every single weekend in a blind attempt to get back to the island. I don't have any good explanation for this, other than two possibilities, one of which I bet is correct on some level. First, maybe Naomi has been lying, which is entirely possibly since she clearly is not who she says she is -- I don't see how or why Penny would lie and say she doesn't know Naomi -- in which case maybe Naomi made up everything about what happened in the Losties' original timeline after the crash, and thus there is nothing odd about Jack flying on Oceanic after being rescued from the island. But this does nothing to explain why Jack's father might be alive and a practicing physician again in the flash-forward. Which brings me to explanation #2, which is again that there is some kind of temporal or dimensional transport going on here.

4. Why would Ben tell his Other companions to only pretend shoot Jack's friends, instead of really shooting them? This seems minor compared to some of those larger issues above, but what was Ben's end game with that move? I don't get it.

Some cool theories or tidbits I've read out there on the Internets regarding the finale and information we learned in the finale:

1. The woman Jack killed by leaving his car on the bridge when he was about to kill himself is in fact the big mistake that Jack makes in his life, ultimately leading to his presence on the island in the first place, in another time period. There are a lot of holes to this theory that still need to be filled in, but basically it posits that all of the main characters on the island seem to have messed up somewhere, made some terrible decision, in their past lives before arriving at the island. On some level this has given rise to all the theories about the island really being heaven, or purgatory, or something like that, and that these people are here to atone for their sins in some form or another. Well, up to this finale we have been led to believe that Jack's big issue has been the bungled relationship with his father, or perhaps his infidelity to and ultimately split from his ex-wife. Now we see that perhaps killing this woman (they referred to her as the "Alden girl" a few times I believe, does that name ring a bell to anyone? It is not immediately familiar to me.)

2. The Losties are somehow caught in a temporal loop of some time, not to sound all TNG'ish on you. That is, they are each somehow caught in a loop where they are sent to this island, and continue to make mistakes rather than properly live out their right destinies on the island, and are thereby doomed to repeatedly be brought to the island, with no memory of their past lives and past trials there, in an attempt to "get it right". Again, this is really just a bare bones theory with a lot of details still to be filled in, but it appears to have a lot of support out there among the die-hard Lost fanbase. So, for example, Desmond is not really seeing the future with all of these premonitions. Instead, because of his proximity to the hatch and the button when the electromagnetism shot out and took down the Losties' plane originally, he is merely able to see some of the various "other" visits this group has all made to the island in past travels here, where many of the exact same decisions are made. Simlarly, those two skeletons sitting in the caves when the Losties first moved to the caves with the fresh running water back in season I, those two skeletons are actually Jack and Kate's skeletons, there from a prior visit by these same characters to the island in a previous attempt to correctly live out their destinies there, which also failed which is why the group is back there again for our viewing of the Lost series. Another nice aspect of this theory is that when the chica tells Charlie underwater in the finale this week that the code to the communications jamming equipment "was written by a musician", in reality that code was written by Charlie, in a previous, and yet unremembered, time at the island. In the same way, the whispering is Losties from other timelines, possibly trying to communicate with one another and help each other figure out what to change this time around.

3. This may all be a Dharma experiment. They are purposely guiding the Losties in this temporal or dimensional loop. Pressing the button kept them in the loop. It was all Dharma's doing. Once Desmond blew the hatch, he gained this power to see into the other timelines. Suddenly, he could change the future. He warned Charlie about his death, so Charlie got the marker and wrote the list. Because of this, Charlie has the pen in the looking glass station and was able to warn desmond it isn't Penny's boat. Maybe the future was changed in this episode as a result? Also, the hatch blast shot Desmond back to before he met Penny. This worried Dharma as their experiment can only go on with Desmond setting sail and crashing on the island to press the button. To this end, Dharma has sent agents traveling through time (such as the old woman from Desmond's 'ring' episode) to guide Desmond to meet Penny. The old woman might not be the only agent traveling in and out of timelines.

4. Staying on the alternate dimension theme I've been on for several weeks now, maybe being rescued by Naomi's people has led Jack and Kate (and others?) to be "returned", but returned to a different timeline, a different reality, than the one they came from (where they are already dead from the plane crash, per Naomi). In other words, Jack is thrust back into a world where his father is still alive and Oceanic Airlines is still in operation, and Kate is returned to a state where she is not currently under pursuit by U.S. Marshals for her crimes. In fact, the kicker of this theory is that the reason that Jack is so utterly depressed and hopeless after his rescue from the island is that he knows he is not in his "right" timeline. His father is alive and he feels completely out of place and lost (pun intended). Kate, on the other hand, is happier in her "new" place in the space-time continuum (I just had to work that phrase into this post somehow), as she is no longer being chased and at risk of going to jail, and thus she does not share Jack's desire to go back and make things right at the island.

I think that is all I'm going to get to today, but as always on Thursday mornings Mr. Goat is in da house with this take on the world, Lost-wise, so go check him out, always a great read when it comes to our favorite televsion series.

In other news relevant to me in Hammer Land, word is out as of Wednesday afternoon that star Georgetown forward and 2006-07 Big East Player of the Year Jeff Green will leave the school and begin selecting an agent immediately as he plans to remain in the NBA draft and forego his senior year of eligibility at Georgetown. That is too bad, but I think moreso for Jeff Green and less so for my alma mater. Jeff Green is not ready for the NBA yet (I doubt he will ever be), but his presence will be replaceable on this Georgetown team. I mean, Green had a nice career and a great junior season at Georgetown, but his game is not one that is overpowing in any aspect. He's a good scorer (14 ppg led the team this year), a good rebounder (6 rpg) and a decent passer (3 assists per game), but in college basketball these days, numbers like that are not irreplaceable. Especially when you've got the second part of Wednesday's big announcement out of the basketball team in the DC area -- 7-foot-2 big man center Roy Hibbert will, in fact, return to the Hoyas for his senior season. Now, to be sure Hibbert has got a lot of work to do and a lot of improvement to undergo if he expects to be NBA-ready after one more year of college ball. But, he will almost surely have his best year as a college player as a senior in 2007-08, and his presence should make the absence of Green under the boards feel more or less non-existent. Similarly, Jessie Sapp and Jonathan Wallace, both returning next season as well, basically averaged as many or more assists per game already than Green, so I really think the biggest deficit with the 2007-08 version of the Hoyas will be on the scoring front, and more than that, on the leadership front as Green really seemed to be the guy to take a lot of those must-have shots late in games during the Hoyas' late-season stretch run. Whether the team will actually be better next year remains to be seen, but one thing is for certain -- if Roy Hibbert has the game, and the guts, to be a real leader for this team in the coming season, not only will he personally go far in his quest to go at the top of the pecking order in the 2008 NBA draft, but the team is in for great things in the coming season as well.

Today before I go I thought I would throw in another little tidbit from David Sklansky's recent work on no-limit holdem, this one about preflop raise-sizing. Those of you who have read a lot of poker books will be familiar with the common views and strategies on sizing your preflop raises in nlh. The most common refrain on this point is to always use the same or similar size for any preflop raises, on the thinking that this way no one can ever glean any useful information about the quality of your starting hand from the way you bet it. This is a strategy that I have followed often, in particular in nlh tournaments. Then Phil Gordon's Little Green Book came along and changed my thinking somewhat on preflop raise-sizes. Gordon argued for a slightly modified approach, one where you also always raise the same amount in similar situations, but where you raise less from up front, an average amount (around 3x) from middle positions, and more, maybe as much as 3.5x to 4x) from late position. There is good logic to this preflop raising strategy as well, and many players I know of -- again, myself included on occasion -- have adopted this or a similar strategy based on different size raises not based on different quality hands so much as on different positions from which you are raising with those same hands.

In his no-limimt book, Sklansky turns this idea on its head by explaining that it is preposterous not to raise certain types of hands more or less than other types of hands based on the nature of the hand and their capacity to win big or small pots. Sklansky classifies starting hands with some promise as either "big pot" hands or "small pot" hands, referring to the likely size of the pot you can win with such a starting hand. For example, according to Sklansky, flopping a set is the classic "big pot" scenario, where you play 44 against a guy with AK on a flop of AK4, and you proceed to stack his ass from here to China in a large pot. In such a situation, when you are dealt a small or medium pocket pair, Sklanksy argues that your best chance of stacking someone in a large pot is going to be if you put in a significant raise preflop. Now, obviously you can't go around bumping it up 10x every time you see a pocket pair before the flop in no-limit holdem cash games, but at the same time Sklansky argues for a somewhat larger raise than "normal" with this sort of a hand under the right circumstances. He gives a good mathematical explanation for how even a $50 larger preflop raise can lead to a $200 larger flop bet, and $600 or more larger bets on the turn and river than if a small preflop raise is used instead, mostly because bets on later streets in deep stack nlh tend to be based on the current size of the pot, which of course includes all previous raises into that pot from before the flop came down.

Sklansky contrasts such a "big pot" hand like a pocket pair -- another fine example is a soooted Ace which can nail a big flush -- with a hand like AK, which Sklansky explains to be a classic "small pot" hand. He classifies AK in this way because, Sklansky argues, you can rarely win a big pot with a hand like AK, but your best chance for a profit is against a dominated hand like AQ or AJ, hands which are more likely to fold if you put in a large preflop raise. So with a "small pot" hand like AK, the argument goes, you are better off putting in a somewhat smaller than "normal" sized raise before the flop, than you are with some of the other hands mentioned above.

The net of all this is to say that Sklansky presents I think a very strong argument for actually varying your raise sizes in big-stack nlh cash games based on the strength of your hand preflop, much in contradiction to the advice provided in the vast majority of poker books in my experience (and I've basically read them all). Of course one must always be careful not to be too robotic in one's application of these rules, lest someone pick up on your preflop raise-sizing tendencies and be able to tell the nature of your starting hand by how much you raised it up preflop. Here Sklansky just makes the very correct observation that, if done correctly and at appropriate times, just a little bit of misdirection on this front -- raising larger with more typical "small pot" hands, and vice versa -- is enough to completely prevent your opponents from being able to get a good handle on the kinds of starting cards you hold in your hand.

Real quick, congrats to Willwonka (I hope that link is right since I never know which wonka is which) for taking down the Mookie last night. I did not play due to Lost, but this week's finale means that, starting next Wednesday, I will be back in the house in a big way and ready to take my shot at my first-ever Mookie title. Will I meet my goal of winning a Mookie sometime during 2007? Only time will tell.

Lost, and Thoughts on Cash Games

Back on another Wednesday, and only two things on my mind this morning: the Mookie, and Lost. Tonight is the season finale of Lost, a two-hour extravaganza, apparently preceded by a rerun of that Mysteries of Lost show they ran last Thursday night, and that should make for one dam fine night of television in Hammer Land. As much fun as this season of Lost has been, in a way this finale is kinda like the end of every NFL season -- although clearly I will miss it, especially since I know it will be snowing outside the next time I see a new episode of the show, at the same time it's almost a relief in a way. I mean, I spend more time than I should every single week thinking about Lost, what happened last week, what's going to happen this week, wtf is really going on there, etc. It's a major time suck. And in a life that is already full of several major time sucks, it will be nice to get that portion of my life back, to have one fewer thing to focus on for the next nine months or so. So be there at the next BBT event, Wednesday night's Mookie tournament at 10pm ET on full tilt (password as always is "vegas1"), but also don't forget to be in front of the big screen or set those dvr's at 9pm ET for the early start to the explosive two-hour season finale of Lost. I've heard about ten thousand rumors of what's going to happen tonight, most of it pretty crazy, involving deaths, destruction, major discoveries, mindfucks, rescues, you name it and I've heard it's going to happen to someone on tonight's show. One thing I am very, very sure of is that Charlie has got to die. It's time. They've gone way too far with that at this point to turn back now. And I'm almost equally sure that Locke is alive. With all the other deaths that have been survived somehow on that show, a simple bullet wound, especially one that did not hit the kidney that would have been there if his father had not stolen it from him earlier in his life, is not going to stop him at this point. Especially not with all the Jacob stuff we got a tiny glimpse of a few weeks back. Anyways I am raring to go to see what they come up with tonight, and I'm already looking forward to this guy's writeup on Thursday. Get that shit up early man!

So last night I played another 100 hands or so of $400 nl 6-max. I stopped shortly after being involved in the biggest pot I saw all night, where I flopped bottom set with 99 on a QJ9 board. I liked the flop because I had open-raised from the cutoff with the 9s, and the button had called my preflop raise which I figured meant he had some high cards of some kind, cards that would likely fit in in some way with this two-high-card flop. I bet out the size of the pot on the flop with my set, and he raised me, which I just smooth called after taking some time to think. Surely I had to be ahead here, and the smooth call might hopefully induce another bet on the turn that I could then raise and take down the pot. The turn brings another Jack for a board of QJ9J, and now I've got a boat so even a straight isn't going to scare me (much the opposite, actually). This time my opponent bet out again for about 2/3 the size of the pot, and I took some time to fake-think, and then raised him about 3 times his bet, up to around $180. I had around $200 left behind after my raise, and my opponent had a little bit less if he were to call my bet here. He let his timer run all the way down to nearly the bottom, before reraising me allin for his last $350 or so.

Now this bet scared me a little bit, and for the first time in the hand I had to consider if I might actually be behind. I'd shown massive strength throughout the hand when you look at it, and yet here he is reraising me allin at the river, and I have a strong hand but not the nuts. Any QQ, JJ, QJ or J9 has me beat by a higher boat or quads. The bottom line is that many players would call behind preflop with QQ or JJ, and many would be likely to do the same with QJ or J9, at least with QJs and J9s. So any of those four hands would justify his play on every street including the river in my book, and to those I'm about to get stizznacked. My question was, are there enough other hands that my opponent also might play this way to justify my moving in the rest of my stack in this situation?

Let's think. The most obvious possibility is trips. My opponent could be holding a Jack in his hand, and not be willing to lay it down because he thinks his trips are ahead. The way I've played this hand, if this guy has any clue what he's doing then he has to at least assume that I might have a Jack as well, so the fact that he is reraising here on the end tells me that, if he does have trip Jacks (not Tripjax), it is most likely AJ, for trips with top kicker. So AJ is a distinct possibility that I could see many players playing just like this, and it's a hand I am ahead of.

Similarly, he could have flopped some kind of a straight. That could be either T8 or KT, although again the T8 is somewhat unlikely because he called my preflop raise (though many players on these tables, myself included under the right circumstances, might make that preflop call with T8s and hope to hit a big flop just like this one). But KT was a distinct possibility, also the kind of hand that people tend to call with before the flop, especially if it's sooooted, and that gives him a flopped straight that he must think is best but in reality is far behind me and not something that is going to improve to beat me.

Also, I thought there was an outside chance that he could be moving here with a hand like AQ, for top pair top kicker. It's not a good play by him, but believe me when I say I've played enough 400nl 6-max on full tilt to know this at least has to be considered. Similarly, an overpair is always possible here, maybe even moreso that the AQ hand just discussed, and of course a hand like QT or T9 is also a possibility for two pairs and a lot of optimism on this guy's part.

In the end, I struggled and thought there was maybe a good 35 or 40% chance I was beat, but I decided he probably had a hand like AJ, for second trips and high kicker, and figured this was best or at least worth going to the mat with to see what happened. So I made the call, typing into the chat that I was not happy about his river bet but I just can't find a reason to lay the hand down. I flipped over my pocket 9s for 9s full of Jacks. He flipped up....





KQ. Offsoooot. Top pair second kicker on a board with commonly-held straight possibilities, a pair on the board, and all high cards to boot, against a guy who raised it up preflop. $845 sliding my way. You gotta love it, even at this level. I didn't take it too much longer after that big win, pleased with my performance on the night and feeling very tired after several late nights of late in my recent FTOPS run. Obviously this player is a cash game donkey, but I take a lot of the credit for stacking him here based on the way I played this hand out, and in particular my decision just to smooth call his flop raise. Think about it -- he raised the flop because he had top pair second kicker, and he wanted to find out if I was really strong or not. So he raised my bet on the flop, and by my smooth call instead of a reraise, this guy basically put me on a not-great hand, a read that he could never get away from as this hand progressed further. In many ways I find nlh to be all about manipulating your opponents and thinking one level higher than they are, creating opportunities for yourself through plays like this where you can get inside your opponent's head, know just what he is thinking, and then use that knowledge to force him to believe exactly what you want him to believe.

In general, I know I've been saying this more and more lately, but the bottom line is that building a bankroll is way, way easier through cash games than it will ever, ever be through mtt's. The big tournament scores of course are and always will be the greatest thing ever, blowing away any kind of cash game performance that is reasonably attainable by any of us, but for day-to-day grinding out of a bankroll, it's not even close. The dry spells are just too long and too frequent when you're an mtt guy, and over time only the very, very best will be able to consistently profit every month or so from purely tournament play. But in the cash games, it's not unreasonable if you play enough -- say, two-tabling for the exact same number of hours a night that you would have otherwise spent in a few large mtts -- to leave mostly every week with a tidy profit of, say, a grand or more, much more even depending on the levels you're playing at. No mtt guy I know personally would ever make that kind of claim, that you could add a grand a week to your bankroll just by playing mtts. But in the cash games it really is doable in my view. I'm not even necessarily trying to say that I could do it consistently in cash games. But I'm saying that one could do it. A solid player who never tilts and always plays his smart, solid, aggressive game, could be a consistent weekly or monthly winner at the cash tables. I've made more money at cash in the past month than I make in all but my biggest mtt scores, and those are few and far between. It's amazing to me as I sit here now that I played online poker for two years and never really made the effort to focus on the cash games. And even more amazing to me is that people say these games got a whole lot tougher since the UIGEA last year. To think that there were more fish then than there are now, that is really a shocker and something I can't believe I missed out on all that time.

I thought I would leave you today with an interesting and I think spot-on observation made by David Sklansky in his recently-published no-limit holdem book. In his "Concepts" section on page 244 of the version I have in my hands, Sklansky gives the very sage advice of "Don't give action to tight and trapping players. Know who to play big pots against." That right there is half the battle in nlh cash in my view.

Taking the second type of player listed first, when someone traps me or another player at the cash table hard, that shiat is getting noted instantly by me. You definitely want to know who the trappers are at any cash nlh table you're playing at, and always keep an eye out for those guys. There are enough non-trappers who you don't really ever need to fear making a move on you, that you can actually afford to take note and try to avoid the trappers unless you've got a big big hand. Other than the inevitable suckouts, there is just about nothing worse than betting big into a guy you're sure is weak, and getting called for all your chips by that flopped boat, that turned straight, etc. that blows you out and stacks your ass.

And on Sklansky's first point, you also want to know who the tightydonks are at your table. You have to know. Because you can steal their blinds more or less with abandon, and you do not want to be involved in pots where they are making or calling large bets unless you are very strong yourself. Sklansky goes on to make a great, great point that I think all of us, certainly myself included, have fallen victim to on more than one occasion at the nlh tables -- Sklansky advises us that, when we use aggression to continually bet that tight player out of pot after pot, that we must not imagine that our ability to tilt our opponents is so great that this tight player is thinking "Wow that punk plays all sorts of trash. I think I'll play Ace-Jack against him for all my chips." The tightydonk never thinks like that. Ever. He's a tightydonk. He's not planning to play you for all his chips with the JackAce, Sklansky is totally right. Sklanksy observes, very astutely I believe, that the tightydonk is instead thinking, "I can't wait until I pick up Aces so I can bust this maniac." That's exactly what's going through his head. So, when you find yourself tempted to push allin with that AQ heads-up on a preflop re-reraise against a true tightydonk, think again. As Sklanksy goes on to say, "When all the money goes in, he'll still have pocket Aces or a set, just like he always does. Don't try to outthink these players. Steal all the small pots and refuse to play big pots against them, and you'll be fine." That right there is some of the best stuff in Sklansky's entire nlh book, and IMO it is mighty fine advice for anyone thinking about a foray into the cash nlh tables.

OK that's all for today. Now go get ready for the Mookie, and start looking forward to the finale of the best series on television of the last fifteen years tonight, at its earlier start time of 9pm ET on Fox.

Free Card on the Flop Question -- Analysis

Thanks to everyone for their thoughtful responses to my question yesterday about giving a free card on the flop. To review, essentially my question yesterday was would you prefer to bet out, or check and give your opponent a free card, on a board of J73 when you have A7 in your hand and your single opponent checks to you on the flop (assume there were no raises preflop and just the two blinds are in the hand, and you have no reads on your opponent since you just arrived at a new table)? Then I asked if this answer would change at all if you held 88 in your hand instead of A7. Maybe I didn't do the best job I could have of explaining the essence of my question, but what I was really getting at was how the A7 vs. 88 holding would change your answer to whether or not to give a free card to your opponent in this spot after he checks it to you on the pretty raggy flop. In the first example, you have middle pair top kicker with your A7 on the J73 flop, while in the second example you have 88, a better hand that actually beats any middle pair on this flop. So the question is whether you would be more likely to give a free card in one situation than the other.

As with many of my questions, this one actually comes directly out of a poker book, and I thought the answer given was interesting, and somewhat counter-intuitive, which is why I wrote about it here yesterday. The book is The Theory of Poker by everyone's favorite pompous ass, David Sklanksy (seriously, this guy even makes me look humble!), which I am sitting down to read lately for the second time, as my poker skills and experience have improved dramatically since the last time I read this seminal poker text. Anyways, a couple of the commenters (most notably Doog) hit right on David's key point with respect to this question, which I was impressed with because it is as I said somewhat counter-intuitive, while Matt came very close to making Sklansky's point but then went the other way with his proposed answer despite nailing the analysis up to the point of the answer exactly as Sklansky had. Otherwise, most of the commenters did not really draw any distinction between how they would decide whether or not to give the free card here between the A7 or the 88 holdings, which I think makes sense but as I said it is against Mr. Pompass's thoughts on the subject.

So, on to Sklanksy's point here. On page 88 (at least of the version I am reading) of The Theory of Poker, Sklansky points out that he would be more likely to bet out in the exact situation described above if he were holding A7 than if he held 88. He reasons, much as Doog did at the end of his comment here yesterday, that the A7 has five cards that can improve it to beat a hand like, say, pocket Jacks (three Aces and two 7s), while the pocket 8s only has two cards that can improve it to beat the same hand (the other two 8s). Thus, Sklansky argues, since the A7 is so much more likely to improve than the 88, he is more willing to bet out with the A7, taking the risk that he is behind currently to a higher pocket pair or maybe even two pairs, while with the 88 he is much more apt to check it since he does not want to bet as much with a hand that is so much less likely to improve if he is in fact behind on this flop.

Funny enough, as I mentioned above, Matt correctly pointed out in his comment that you have fewer outs with the 88 than you do with the 77, but he therefore reasoned that he would be more likely to bet with the 88 because it is therefore more vulnerable. It's interesting because I think there is a certain logic to this strategy as well, and it's certainly a strategy that I follow often at the poker table in other situations (betting my more vulnerable hands early, and checking the ones I'm more confident about). I think in this case it really comes down to how possible you really think it is that your opponent is actually ahead here. If for whatever reason you were basically 95% sure your opponent did not have anything worth playing here, then I think betting the 88 a bit more strongly makes more sense. But, if you think there is any reasonable chance from the way your opponent reacted on the flop that he might really be ahead right now, then you would want to bet the A7 more strongly than the 88.

In any event, it surely is a close decision, but I thought this was an interesting point to post about because as I said it's somewhat counter-intuitive if you think about it. Clearly, the 88 is ahead of the A7 right now, in that the A7 is just middle pair top kicker, while the 88 beats all middle pair hands, and yet Sklansky says he wants to bet more strongly with the A7 than the 88. I will admit that this was not a distinction that I myself thought of at first, but this is exactly why I am constantly reading poker books, constantly striving to learn more about the game and to make myself a better player, and specifically why I would ever read a book written by such an abhorrent guy as Sklansky is to me. The pomp associated with his writing style irks me to no end, but I have to tell you, his analysis of almost every common poker situation and poker strategy is almost second to none in the poker authoring world as far as I'm concerned. There's a reason that The Theory of Poker is as popular and as oft-cited as it is, and analysis like this is exactly why.

And all this is not to say that those of you who said you would bet both the A7 and the 88 in this situation equally strongly are wrong in any way. First of all, I think that is a very smart way to play both hands, being aggressive on the flop when you believe you're ahead, and I think even Sklansky would not disagree with that approach. And secondly, FWIW I don't think betting both the A7 and the 88 is even necessarily in conflict with Sklansky's advice on this point -- he merely says he is more likely to bet the worse A7 hand than the technically stronger 88 hand, but he never says he would not bet the 88. If anything he implies that he would be inclined to think about betting the 88 as well, so I think most of the commenters were right on with Sklansky's thoughts as well as my own. But I do think he makes a very valuable distinction, one which again I find to be somewhat counter-intuitive, but very insightful nonetheless and one which I plan to incorporate more into my own game as a result.

OK, so tonight's Mookie is the second event of the Battle of the Blogger Tournaments, and I am really excited for it. Although I haven't been playing the Mookie too much lately due to it running at the same time as Lost on ABC, for the BBT I am going to be making an exception this week, and probably in future weeks as well. And believe me when I say that I am just about as addicted to Lost as any of you donkeys out there could possibly be, so if I can DVR and watch Lost while also donking it up at the Mookie, and if I can prevail over my own wife that it's cool for me to play poker while we share our favorite tv show together, then believe me you can too. I was knocked out early when my AK failed to improve against pocket Tens in the first BBT tournament at the MATH this past Monday, so I will be looking to rip some shit up tonight to get my revenge and stake my claim atop the BBT leaderboard early on in the challenge. And if you recall from my first post of 2007, winning the dam Mookie remains one of my unfulfilled goals for the year, so I would really like to get hot tonight and cross that one off my list for 2007. I'd really like to see the attendance list for the Mookie get up over 70 players with the advent of the Battle of the Blogger Tournaments, since so many players already get involved in this weekly funfest as it is, and now with all the great prizes available to the top BBT players it just seems to me like a friggin slam dunk that you gotta get in there. And please remember, although you'll still pay a $1 rake to play the $10 Mookie tonight at 10pm ET on full tilt (password is vegas1 as always), that $1 is coming right back to us as a group as full tilt has graciously agreed to return all the juice from every MATH, Mookie, Riverchasers and Big Game tournament over the next three months in the form of cash payouts to the top BBT finishers as well as for funding the BBT Tournament of Champions in early June. So if all that aren't reasons enough to play the Mookie tonight, then you're a jackace and probably don't deserve to be there with us anyways. So all you guys who've been skipping this thing for Lost or for bankroll reasons or whatever, now is the time to come out and play and get your game on with the largest weekly gathering of poker bloggers on the planet. Be there and give me your chips!

Edit: I finally added Trust Me I'm a Blonde to my non-poker blogroll today after months of reading everything this crazy chica has to say. If you're a red-blooded man and you like great writing about topics that will certainly interest you, then you cannot go wrong with the Blonde. She is an awesome writer and a great story teller, and she's from Philly like me and as you all know you cannot go wrong with that combination. Enjoy.