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Carlos sits down in-person with Nate and Andrew to talk about putting happiness, rather than profit, front and center in his poker career (though of course winning tends to make one happier than losing!). Then the three discuss a hand from a single table satellite Nate and Carlos played, and a hand from the final table of the $10,000 SCOOP Main Event.
Timestamps
0:30 Hello & welcome & happiness & poker
18:19 Strategy
Just a brief note to say that this was an enjoyable listen. I look forward to hearing more about the Vegas exploits of you all three of you.
Viel glück aus Deutschland.
Thanks for the note! It was great fun to record, and I’m glad you enjoyed it. And thanks also for the good-luck wishes!
Just got back. It was a great time being with you 3 guys. Listening to the podcast I was glad I couldn’t make the invitation as I probably would have messed it up with my crazy life stories. Listening to you talk about poker life and specific hands reminded me why Im so honored to know you noodniks. You love life and love what you are doing. Which is all one can ask for in this life.
I couldn’t make it as you know I was stuck in some game called R.O.S.E. A wicked and cruel game. I had a great time with you all and feel blessed having such good friends.
Next year?
It was a pleasure to see you, too, Keone. I certainly hope to see you again next year.
Good to see you too my man. I’ll probably holla atcha you on Twitch this Sunday.
Re: Carlos’s A2s hand.
He loses roughly 1/3 of his stack in EV whenever he gets called (his equity against a wake-up-and-cold-call range is about 30.5%, and his equity against my rough estimate of the raiser’s calling range is about 32.5%, and there’s some extra money juicing the pot). Optimistically, we estimated that he gets called by the raiser only 20% of the time that someone else doesn’t call (if he’s raising the top 45% or so and calling with roughly 66+, ATs+, AJo+). We also estimated that each of the three of us behind Carlos would have called with roughly the top 4%-5% of hands.
Ignoring the times when he gets called more than once (they’re pretty rare, and the extra money juicing the pot often very roughly cancels out the decreased odds of winning), Carlos would get called about 1/3 of the time.
So, Carlos loses 1/3 of his stack 1/3 of the time and gains the blinds and the opening raise 2/3 of the time. I think the stack was roughly 900 chips and the raise was to 125 at 25-50, so the EV of the shove is roughly -100 + 135, or roughly +35 chips.
A few notes:
(i) It matters quite a bit whether the first raise was to 150 or 125 (Carlos’s and my memories disagreed on this point), assuming that the calling range isn’t sensitive to that difference (which of course it should be, but probably wasn’t in this case).
(ii) Some of the assumptions here are pretty friendly to Carlos, in particular that the first raiser only calls him 1/5 of the time, which requires both a very loose opening range and a fairly tight calling range. That said, I overestimated the probability that Carlos gets called, because I didn’t account for the blocking effect of his Ace. Very approximately, we can guess that Carlos blocks 1/4 of 1/2 of the calling hands, so his true probability of getting called might be closer to 28-30%.
(iii) *If* all of these assumptions were correct, then Carlos’s shove actually would have been correct, which runs counter to our pretty vehement remarks on the play on the show.
(iv) That said, if the opener only raised 30% of his hands, which is still a very wide range, and would have called with the same 9% or so, then Carlos gets called more like 40-45% of the time, which makes the EV of the play slightly negative or just about zero.
(v) I think it’s also not great to assume that the three players left to act only call 4% to 5% of hands here. I saw someone cold-call a 3-bet in this situation in a different SNG for his whole starting stack with A7o. That’s pretty loose, but AJ, 55, and so on will certainly shrug and call sometimes.
(vi) After that A7o guy–who had been very friendly for the 10 minutes we’d been sitting together–lost to AK, he stood up, turned to the AK guy, and said: “I hope your balls fall off.”
My conclusion is that the shove Carlos had considered is not as bad as I’d initially estimated, but is probably still not good against these fields.
Nate you are a gentleman and a scholar. Nice work.
Nothing cracks me up more than 6th street bust out statements like this. Chris Moon informed me of one where a guy chased a draw, rivered the nuts, then called hero’s shove while proclaiming “I have the nuts buddy. Go kill yourself.” Brutality.
It was a treat to hear the three of you together, and to know that you were all face to face. Good discussion on happiness related to a sense of choice. Keep your equanimity and have fun!