Q: My question is about calling UTG open raise (say 3.5X) on the button with small pairs (say 22 – 55). Unless UTG will stack off with one pair it doesn’t seem profitable to set mine. Say UTG has AA but will only lose 40 in a single raised pot, but will obviously get it in with a set of AA. I can’t call and then pot control when I hit a set. With set mining I see three cards, with AA UTG gets to see 5 cards, so my 12% for a set is reduced by 2%. So I have 10% chance of winning 40 and 2% chance of losing 100 so my EV is just 2 and I have paid 3.5 pre flop, so even if I was in big blind I can’t set mine. So what hands can I call in position with? Do good players either 3-bet or fold? Presumable when a good player calls it is with the idea of floating or bluff raising a c-bet.  Read the complete post...

Part of the impetus for Emily’s and my Europe trip is a friend’s wedding, to be held this June in a small town in Germany called Diez. Since we needed to bring formal wear for that anyway, we decided to dress up for the opera in Prague as well (there’s technically no dress code, though I think our usual travel wear wouldn’t have made us any friends). Afterwards, we figured we could mail the clothes to Diez, saving ourselves both the hassle of carrying them for the next three months and the expense of shipping them across the Atlantic. To do so required a large cardboard box and a trip to the post office.

Metric Fish

Little things like this, so trivial in your own country, can prove a major hassle (or adventure, if you want to be good-natured about it) in an unfamiliar place. We carried the clothes from Prague to Berlin, where there was a post office just across the street from the apartment we’d rented for the week in Prenzlauer Berg. I assumed we could buy boxes there, if perhaps at a premium price.  Read the complete post...

Happy Queensday everyone! Queensday is a huge national celebration in the Netherlands that falls on the day of the previous queen’s birth (the current one was born at an inconvenient time so they continue to celebrate on the last day of April). Last night was a huge city-wide party in Amsterdam with much public drunkenness. Today will be more of the same, plus a city-wide flea market. I woke relatively early and unhungover, so you get a blog post!

I only have like four hands on Villain, so no reads/stats. Doubt he knows anything about me either.

PokerStars Zoom No-Limit Hold’em, $2.00 BB (6 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button ($200)
SB ($90.82)
Hero (BB) ($200)
UTG ($360.14)
MP ($151.48)
CO ($134.28)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 5♠, K♦
1 fold, MP calls $2, 2 folds, SB calls $1, Hero checks

Flop: ($6) 8♣, K♣, 7♣ (3 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $6, MP calls $6, 1 fold

Turn: ($18) 8♥ (2 players)
Hero bets $10, MP calls $10

River: ($38) Q♣ (2 players)
Hero checks, MP bets $18

What’s your play and why? Post your thoughts and comments here, and I’ll be back with my own on or about Friday as usual.

Some of you may remember this e-mail that I received last year seeking staking advice:

I am 24 years old and I live in Henderson, NV. Following the shut down of service to US players on Pokerstars I decided to play a few live tournaments.  I instantly final tabled two Bellagio WPT $540′s back to back.  During one of those deep runs I was offered, by another player in the tournament, to join his team of players that are backed.  I had made out plans and set out a schedule of tournaments over the course of the summer only to find out that the backer of their team just went on $400k downswing and they are not adding any new players.

Now I am stuck in a bad spot, I am scrambling to find any sort of staking/coaching deal for the summer and I do not know anyone in the poker world….  Any help you could offer, even if just some words of advice, would be greatly appreciated.

My suggestion to this player was for him to focus on the games he could afford on his own bankroll rather than entering into a staking relationship that would have constrained his options. After hearing that he final tabled the first Venetian event and had a few other good cashes as well, I concluded that, “it looks like he’s going to be alright.”  Read the complete post...

This is a continuation of my recent Czech Mates post, which you might want to read for context before beginning this one.

Getting Out

The idea of taking a regional train from Prague out to a small town and then finding our way on foot to a castle sounded intimidating, given that we collectively spoke barely a word of the local language. Emily seemed confident we could do it, though, and I’ve found that if I trust and follow her on things like this, I’m almost always glad that I did.

This was certainly one of those cases. The trip proved remarkably easy and well worth the effort. For one thing, Czech is such an obscure language – only about 2 million people worldwide speak it – that there isn’t really an expectation that visitors will know it. Not that we’ve had much difficulty in Germany, but it was in many ways even easier getting around Prague because English is so widely spoken and everything is so well-signed and -explained. So buying train tickets, determining the departure time and track, etc. presented no challenge.

Also, the town of Karlstejn turns out to exist largely for the sake of visitors. Though the castle itself was not visible from the trainstation, it came into view soon enough, its massive walls and towers looming over the street lined with postcard shops and restaurants with green Pilsner Urquell awnings. There was no question of not finding it.  Read the complete post...

Despite my previous rant about the tourist’s dilemma, Emily and I did do a few more classically tourist things in Prague, like the castle, the Charles Bridge, and the St. Vitus Cathedral. Even at the opera, the audience seemed to consist mostly of tourists. Neither of us had ever been before, and it was cheap compared to any other European capital (60 euros bought us the best seats in the house), so it was a fun experience.

We also got back to another Easter Market, this time in Old Town Square, that remained open for the week following Easter. The sun was shining, the temperature was mild, the square was colorfully decorated, and the crowd was boisterous. Conversations in several different languages could be vaguely heard over the sounds of lively fiddle music and vendors calling out their wares. The smell of roasting meat and baking sweets filled the air while bright ribbons danced among the branches of still-barren trees.

Though still clearly a tourist trap, it was, admittedly, a really fun and vivacious tourist trap. And to the extent that there ever was some authentic, historic Easter market that the tourist industry is now trying to simulate, that market was surely itself a huge draw for medieval “tourists”. There were no doubt vendors selling overpriced baubles to out-of-towners, wafting food smells, roving pickpockets, and boisterous music to set the atmosphere. Tourist-filled or not, that square felt genuinely festive, and it was a really enjoyable place to be.  Read the complete post...

Well, I’m late and doing a half-assed job on top of it. Guess I’m really adapting to life in Europe! But seriously, sorry I’m so late in posting results for the EPT Berlin Wha’ts Your Play? There are just so many better things to do here in Berlin besides blogging! In the interest of finally getting this out, I’m going to be less thorough than usual in seeking out good comments to quote. I have tried to respond to many of the comments as they came in, so hopefully that’s some consolation. As always, I do read and appreciate every comment!

Villain 1

I’m going to start by talking about how I fare against each Villain, both now (ie after they make their respective raises) and if I continue putting more money into the pot.

Everything we know about Villain 1 suggests that he isn’t bluffing. He seems like a straight-forward player who wants to win the pot when he has the best hand. That doesn’t mean we’re behind, as especially with this small sizing he could be 3-betting hands like AQ, AJ, TT, and JJ, but it does mean that he’s not bluffing.  Read the complete post...

Q: My guess is most people (including me) don’t play 89suited (67,910,10J) the right way…
20BB 89 suited on button vs 3x raise?
40BB 89suited on button vs 3x raise?
100BB 89 suited on button vs 3x raise?
200BB 89 suited on button vs 3x raise?
What about 89s on the button vs raise/call before you act?
What about 89suited in BB?
Do we have to raise 89suited to play it?
What about 89 suited with 20BB on the button when it is folded to you? When it is limped to you?
So obviously I could have just asked what is the proper way to play 89 suited?

A: Good question, suited connectors are hands I see misplayed all the time. You’ve also zeroed in on the right variable to consider, as they are among the most stack-size-dependent of all hands.

With a very small stack, your only options are to re-raise or fold. Calling off 10% of your stack hoping to improve on the flop is a losing play. Against an aggressive opener, suited connectors are good restealing hands because they have decent equity even against a strong calling range. You still need a lot of fold equity to resteal with them, though; if you don’t anticipate getting a lot of folds, then you should be the one folding.  Read the complete post...