Archive for June, 2009

Full Tilt Poker, $40/$80 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter

SB: $34,593
Hero (BB): $22,437
UTG: $19,010
CO: $22,366
BTN: $8,180

Pre-Flop: 8 6 dealt to Hero (BB)
3 folds, SB raises to $320, Hero calls $240

Flop: ($640) 5 4 5 (2 Players)
SB bets $420, Hero calls $420

Turn: ($1,480) A (2 Players)
SB checks, Hero bets $666, SB calls $666

River: ($2,812) K (2 Players)
SB checks, Hero checks

Results: $2,812 Pot ($3 Rake)
SB showed 9 Q (a pair of Fives) and WON $2,809 (+$1,403 NET)
Hero showed 8 6 (a pair of Fives) and LOST (-$1,406 NET)

This isn’t really all that fancy or anything, and obviously my range on the turn is quite wide, but a lot of people just aren’t capable of check-calling down with Q-high. I’m glad I didn’t bluff the river, because I’m pretty sure he would have called.

Sorry for the recent lack of updates, but I haven’t been playing all that much. Since I’ll be in Vegas soon and devoting myself to poker nearly 24/7, I’m trying to get some other stuff done right now.

Speaking of Vegas, thanks to everyone who’s asked what my plans are. I’m heading out there on the 27th and plan to play the $1500 Stud/8 tournament on the 28th. Should I somehow manage not to final table that, I’ll play the $5000 6-max NLHE event on the 30th, then Day of the Main Event on July 3. That’s likely to be it for major tournaments, as I do want to play some cash games and maybe a few of those juicy juicy satellites. I also want to meet/hang out with some people, so if you’re going to be in Vegas during that time, by all means let me know (foucault82 (at) yahoo (dot) com) so we can grab a drink or something.

Also, while I’ll continue to post daily updates here, I’m also going to try Tweating my chip counts and such during the tournaments. I know, I know, Twitter is largely a toolish thing to do, but it seems pretty ideal for poker tournament updates. You can follow me on @thinkingpoker.

Wish me luck!

Even though I’m too sloppy/lazy/uneducated to work out the details of complicated problems, I’m quite interested in the mathematics of poker. I feel like I do have a broad grasp of the game theory that underlies many situations and can use that to aid in my decision-making. Recently, I’ve been curious about how to quantify exactly the value of seemingly abstract concepts like position and implied odds. I think I may have come upon a sketch of how to work some of it out, though I doubt I’ll ever follow up on it.

We start with the “exploitability”, the idea that there is something about how you play that an opponent could potentially take advantage of. Conversely, “unexploitable” means that there is nothing an opponent could do to take advantage of how you play. Importantly, unexploitably is not always the most profitable way to play. Often, you will do something exploitable in order to exploit something exploitable an opponent is doing.

Suppose that you hold AQ in the big blind in a $1/$2 NLHE game. The action folds to the SB, who open shoves for $20. If you know that this opponent will only shove JJ+ and AK, you can fold your AQ. Though itself exploitable, this fold exploits your opponent’s excessively tight shoving range.  Read the complete post...

As a first step towards a larger blog/website revamping, I’m finally moving away from the awful Ipower company that’s been hosting the blog. This should be a smooth transition that doesn’t result in any downtime, but nothing with them has ever gone smoothly, so we’ll see. If for some reason you do have trouble accessing the blog at some point this week, no worries- it should be back up shortly.

Thanks!

Maybe I haven’t forgotten how to play tournaments altogether? I went into yesterdays’ session resolved not to LAG off too many stacks in my tournaments, and while I didn’t entirely keep that pledge, I did play a pretty disciplined game in the Stars $300. To wit:

Immediately after that hand, I was moved to the other table, where I made this slightly more questionable fold: