Timestamps

0:30 – NOT hello and welcome
52:33 – Strategy

Strategy Hand 1

Blinds are 600-1200 with a 100 ante, and we have 24,500 in our stack pre-flop (so 20BB). SB completes, and I look down at KcKd. Villain’s stack is 24,000. Hero checks.

Pot (3100) Effective Stacks (22,700)

Flop is: 9s4d3c

Villain leads for 2000. Hero raises to 4700. Villain shoves for 20,700. We have to call 16,000 to win 30,500.

Strategy Hand 2

I am in the button. 3 limpers to me. I had 17,200 and QTo (no spade).

The level is 800/1600 with 200 antes.

With 11 BB, I limped behind. The blinds came along and we had a 6 way pot.

The flop was Ts 9s 6x (pot: 11,400)

It checked to the main Villian who bet 3,000. Hero calls, the rest fold.

The turn came a brick – I noted it as 4x although it could have been a 3x or 2x.

Villian leads for 4K.

Part One is now live, and the rest should be going up over the course of the next week or so.

If you’re not yet a Tournament Poker Edge member, let this be your impetus to sign up!

The great thing about this kind of review is that the hand examples come from the smaller stakes tournaments that most members play, which provides plenty of opportunity to talk about what does and doesn’t work against those kinds of opponents.

If you’re not already a member, this is a great time to sign up and get access to this plus dozens of my other videos and hundreds more from other instructors!

Oh and do check out the KL Cleeton interview if you haven’t already, it’s one of my favorites from this year!t

I’m struggling to find an interesting hand from the $215. This is the best I came up with. It may look like a straight-forward spot, but in my experience a lot of less experienced players will just call the flop (which, to be fair, is probably what I would have done too a few years ago):

PokerStars – 800/1600 Ante 200 NL (8 max) – Holdem – 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

SB: 24.59 BB (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 15.56, 3Bet Preflop: 4.17, Hands: 45)
Hero (BB): 76.47 BB
UTG: 42.8 BB (VPIP: 21.13, PFR: 14.25, 3Bet Preflop: 6.29, Hands: 427)
UTG+1: 19.79 BB (VPIP: 19.32, PFR: 15.97, 3Bet Preflop: 5.83, Hands: 266)
MP: 59.01 BB (VPIP: 29.84, PFR: 17.74, 3Bet Preflop: 5.88, Hands: 124)
MP+1: 90.76 BB (VPIP: 20.97, PFR: 15.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 124)
CO: 58.3 BB (VPIP: 31.22, PFR: 20.78, 3Bet Preflop: 10.58, Hands: 238)
BTN: 31 BB (VPIP: 19.48, PFR: 13.25, 3Bet Preflop: 7.22, Hands: 578)

8 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.5 BB) Hero has Js Kc
fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, BTN raises to 2 BB, fold, Hero calls 1 BB

Flop : (5.5 BB, 2 players) 5h Td Jc
Hero checks, BTN bets 2 BB, Hero raises to 6.75 BB, BTN raises to 28.6 BB, Hero raises to 50.45 BB, BTN calls 0.28 BB and is all-in

Turn : (63.25 BB, 2 players) As

River : (63.25 BB, 2 players) Ac

Hero shows Js Kc (Two Pair, Aces and Jacks)
(Pre 25%, Flop 69%, Turn 9%)

BTN shows Ad Kd (Three of a Kind, Aces)
(Pre 75%, Flop 31%, Turn 91%)

BTN wins 63.25 BB

I also max late registered the $530 Courchevel, which is a game I really enjoy, though I’m not sure I’m a favorite in a $530 field. With the late register, though, I got in with about 120 players remaining and 35 getting paid, so that’s how I justified it. For those who don’t know, Courchevel is a five-card PLO8 game where one of the flop cards is revealed before the pre-flop betting.

I didn’t last long at all – had QQ with a Q in the door, got all in pre against someone holding AA with a nut suit of the door card and some wrap potential. There’s no equity calculator for Courchevel so I’m not really sure whether I was favored there, but I doubt it was dramatic one way or the other.

Anyway, the big news is that I won the $44 Bounty Builder, which is a daily Progressive Knock-Out event on PokerStars. In the past, during COOPs, I used to fill screen space with Zoom games, and I still do that sometimes. But early in a session, I’ve started using smaller buy-in tournaments instead. I find it helps not to have to switch back and forth between tournament and cash mentality, and in many cases these tournaments may be better value anyway, the drawback being that sometimes it sucks when your session is extended by a few hours for a tournament you didn’t really want to play anyway. But it’s all good when you win it!

Even better, I recorded the last few hours live for Tournament Poker Edge. I started recording because I was in a bunch of events that were tough to cover in a replayer: some PKOs, the $55 Razz, and eventually the $530 Courchevel. So I thought it would be fun to record live. Then I just kept recording as I made the final table and eventually won the tournament!

I’m not going to post any hands from that just yet because you’ll have a chance to see lots of the important action on TPE soon enough.

PokerStars – 175/350 Ante 45 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

Hero (BB): 183.45 BB
UTG: 165.5 BB (VPIP: 23.81, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 42)
UTG+1: 129.36 BB (VPIP: 25.42, PFR: 19.64, 3Bet Preflop: 10.71, Hands: 60)
MP: 145.31 BB (VPIP: 18.34, PFR: 14.11, 3Bet Preflop: 8.91, Hands: 574)
MP+1: 158.17 BB (VPIP: 15.91, PFR: 9.09, 3Bet Preflop: 8.33, Hands: 44)
MP+2: 142.54 BB (VPIP: 5.26, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 19)
CO: 115.69 BB (VPIP: 17.36, PFR: 10.95, 3Bet Preflop: 6.61, Hands: 481)
BTN: 131.73 BB (VPIP: 31.82, PFR: 15.91, 3Bet Preflop: 4.35, Hands: 44)
SB: 70.86 BB (VPIP: 31.25, PFR: 12.50, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 48)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.66 BB) Hero has Kh Kc
fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, CO raises to 3 BB, fold, fold, Hero raises to 12.35 BB, CO calls 9.35 BB

Flop : (26.35 BB, 2 players) Jd Qh 8d
Hero bets 13.17 BB, CO calls 13.17 BB

Turn : (52.7 BB, 2 players) Tc
Hero bets 26.35 BB, CO calls 26.35 BB

River : (105.39 BB, 2 players) Ks
Hero bets 131.45 BB and is all-in, CO calls 63.69 BB and is all-in

Hero shows Kh Kc (Three of a Kind, Kings)
(Pre 67%, Flop 55%, Turn 77%)

CO shows Ad 3d (Straight, Ace High)
(Pre 33%, Flop 45%, Turn 23%)

CO wins 232.77 BB

Villain was a world-class player, and I hated this spot from the flop.

My plan after the turn was actually to barrel off as a bluff, as I think I have way more AK in my range than Villain, and although KK could be good, it often won’t be and will be tough to showdown when it is.

Then I had to change course again on the river. In the moment I decided that I didn’t want to check-fold for a good deal less than a pot-sized bet, so I might as well shove for thin value. I remember thinking “just about the only Ace he can have is Ax of diamonds”. But in retrospect there are a good number of those, and Villain has some 9x as well which means he probably doesn’t need to call with hands I beat. So yeah, in retrospect I think I should have check-folded.

As for the $109, I ultimately busted in 54th. Here’s a Day 2 hand I’m pretty happy about:

PokerStars – 50000/100000 Ante 12500 NL (8 max) – Holdem – 7 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

UTG+1: 33.51 BB (VPIP: 19.06, PFR: 12.85, 3Bet Preflop: 3.79, Hands: 322)
MP: 20.39 BB (VPIP: 9.18, PFR: 7.37, 3Bet Preflop: 5.56, Hands: 98)
CO: 30.9 BB (VPIP: 29.58, PFR: 26.47, 3Bet Preflop: 15.00, Hands: 72)
BTN: 23.72 BB (VPIP: 23.26, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 8.24, Hands: 219)
SB: 36.51 BB (VPIP: 16.39, PFR: 15.00, 3Bet Preflop: 7.41, Hands: 61)
Hero (BB): 14.88 BB
UTG: 14.22 BB (VPIP: 28.83, PFR: 14.81, 3Bet Preflop: 2.17, Hands: 112)

7 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.37 BB) Hero has 7d 4s
UTG raises to 2 BB, fold, MP calls 2 BB, CO calls 2 BB, fold, fold, Hero calls 1 BB

Flop : (9.37 BB, 4 players) Tc 9h 6c
Hero checks, UTG checks, MP checks, CO checks

Turn : (9.37 BB, 4 players) Td
Hero bets 2.81 BB, fold, fold, fold

Hero wins 9.37 BB

Pretty nice to increase stack by about 2/3 with no hand and very little risk!

I also ended up running quite deep in the Big $109 again (I came 3rd last week) but ultimately busted in 18th.

Wednesday did not get off to a great start in the $500. Pretty early on, I lost this gem:

PokerStars – 200/400 Ante 50 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

MP+1: 142.61 BB (VPIP: 24.49, PFR: 10.20, 3Bet Preflop: 8.00, Hands: 49)
MP+2: 130.55 BB (VPIP: 27.19, PFR: 15.18, 3Bet Preflop: 7.41, Hands: 114)
CO: 126.32 BB (VPIP: 23.53, PFR: 19.73, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 154)
BTN: 130.29 BB (VPIP: 19.65, PFR: 13.86, 3Bet Preflop: 4.79, Hands: 343)
SB: 97.6 BB (VPIP: 22.38, PFR: 16.79, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 143)
BB: 116.88 BB (VPIP: 17.28, PFR: 12.45, 3Bet Preflop: 6.87, Hands: 273)
UTG: 127.12 BB (VPIP: 17.39, PFR: 16.19, 3Bet Preflop: 8.20, Hands: 184)
UTG+1: 172.18 BB (VPIP: 30.00, PFR: 15.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 20)
Hero (MP): 77.76 BB

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.62 BB) Hero has 9c Tc
fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.28 BB, fold, MP+2 calls 2.28 BB, fold, fold, fold, BB calls 1.28 BB

Flop : (8.46 BB, 3 players) 8c Qs Jh
BB checks, Hero checks, MP+2 bets 4.5 BB, fold, Hero calls 4.5 BB

Turn : (17.46 BB, 2 players) 5c
Hero checks, MP+2 bets 8.73 BB, Hero raises to 22.22 BB, MP+2 calls 13.49 BB

River : (61.9 BB, 2 players) 2c
Hero bets 48.63 BB and is all-in, MP+2 calls 48.63 BB

Hero shows 9c Tc (Flush, Ten High)
(Pre 34%, Flop 92%, Turn 84%)

MP+2 shows Kc Jc (Flush, King High)
(Pre 66%, Flop 8%, Turn 16%)

MP+2 wins 159.17 BB

The Zoom 6-Max was going better, for a while. It’s a fun format, over as quickly as a turbo but the Zoom structure means you get more hands per level than you would in a turbo (though it still isn’t as deep as a normal WCOOP). I actually gave some thought to folding this river, as I really couldn’t figure out what he would 3-bet-call from the SB that I could beat. Finally I decided it could be a strangely played AK, and thankfully it was!

PokerStars – 400/800 Ante 100 NL FAST (6 max) – Holdem – 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BTN: 58.23 BB (VPIP: 25.76, PFR: 16.92, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 68)
SB: 70.2 BB (VPIP: 25.33, PFR: 18.31, 3Bet Preflop: 3.57, Hands: 75)
Hero (BB): 105.34 BB
UTG: 47.54 BB (VPIP: 19.46, PFR: 17.19, 3Bet Preflop: 10.11, Hands: 2,416)
MP: 64.6 BB (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 12.90, 3Bet Preflop: 11.11, Hands: 133)
CO: 77.86 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 1)

6 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.25 BB) Hero has Jc Jd
fold, fold, CO raises to 2.2 BB, BTN calls 2.2 BB, SB raises to 7 BB, Hero raises to 20.83 BB, fold, fold, SB calls 13.83 BB

Flop : (46.81 BB, 2 players) Td 2s 4c
SB checks, Hero bets 11.11 BB, SB calls 11.11 BB

Turn : (69.03 BB, 2 players) Tc
SB checks, Hero checks

River : (69.03 BB, 2 players) 8h
SB bets 38.13 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 38.13 BB

SB shows Kh Ac (One Pair, Tens)
(Pre 43%, Flop 26%, Turn 14%)

Hero shows Jc Jd (Two Pair, Jacks and Tens)
(Pre 57%, Flop 74%, Turn 86%)

Hero wins 145.29 BB

Karma caught up to me though, as I eventually got in JJ vs AK pre-flop and lost.

Here’s an interesting one from the $215. I don’t love check-raising bottom two when this deep on a board like this one, because although you benefit a bit from protection you aren’t generally going to end up with a hand that you want to play for four bets. Case in point: by the time we see the river, I’m at the bottom of my range and ready to turn my hand into a bluff, mostly to get Villain off of a Q though perhaps also AA or AJ.

PokerStars – 150/300 Ante 40 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

MP: 168.05 BB (VPIP: 12.50, PFR: 12.50, 3Bet Preflop: 13.33, Hands: 32)
MP+1: 148.96 BB (VPIP: 44.44, PFR: 14.81, 3Bet Preflop: 7.14, Hands: 27)
MP+2: 171.63 BB (VPIP: 21.18, PFR: 13.58, 3Bet Preflop: 5.88, Hands: 86)
CO: 175.34 BB (VPIP: 21.15, PFR: 14.49, 3Bet Preflop: 4.59, Hands: 491)
BTN: 157.53 BB (VPIP: 5.56, PFR: 2.78, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 36)
SB: 140.37 BB (VPIP: 45.85, PFR: 34.51, 3Bet Preflop: 11.24, Hands: 233)
Hero (BB): 114.67 BB
UTG: 201.03 BB (VPIP: 14.29, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 20.00, Hands: 14)
UTG+1: 170.1 BB (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 25.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 4)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.7 BB) Hero has 8s Jh
fold, fold, fold, fold, MP+2 raises to 2.5 BB, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 1.5 BB

Flop : (6.7 BB, 2 players) Jd Kd 8h
Hero checks, MP+2 bets 3 BB, Hero calls 3 BB

Turn : (12.7 BB, 2 players) Kh
Hero checks, MP+2 checks

River : (12.7 BB, 2 players) Qd
Hero bets 8.38 BB, fold

Hero wins 12.7 BB

This was a gross one from the $530:

PokerStars – 200/400 Ante 50 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

UTG+1: 107.42 BB (VPIP: 19.17, PFR: 14.39, 3Bet Preflop: 7.03, Hands: 433)
MP: 92.68 BB (VPIP: 40.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 15)
MP+1: 171.23 BB (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 6.25, 3Bet Preflop: 4.35, Hands: 48)
MP+2: 86.44 BB (VPIP: 18.00, PFR: 12.00, 3Bet Preflop: 4.55, Hands: 50)
Hero (CO): 193.65 BB
BTN: 119.7 BB (VPIP: 21.59, PFR: 13.64, 3Bet Preflop: 7.45, Hands: 227)
SB: 119.16 BB (VPIP: 16.67, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 12)
BB: 121.14 BB (VPIP: 26.85, PFR: 20.56, 3Bet Preflop: 6.10, Hands: 217)
UTG: 163.31 BB (VPIP: 31.25, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 48)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.62 BB) Hero has Jh Js
fold, fold, fold, fold, MP+2 raises to 2.19 BB, Hero raises to 6.45 BB, BTN raises to 15 BB, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 8.55 BB

Flop : (34.81 BB, 2 players) 4s 9d 8d
Hero checks, BTN bets 10.7 BB, Hero calls 10.7 BB

Turn : (56.21 BB, 2 players) Kd
Hero checks, BTN checks

River : (56.21 BB, 2 players) Jc
Hero bets 167.83 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 93.88 BB and is all-in

Hero shows Jh Js (Three of a Kind, Jacks)
(Pre 68%, Flop 53%, Turn 0%)

BTN shows Td Ad (Flush, Ace High)
(Pre 32%, Flop 47%, Turn 100%)

BTN wins 243.97 BB

I can’t fault Villain’s play, it’s just a great spot for him to pressure me pre-flop. It’s possible I’m just supposed to raise again pre-flop; I certainly considered it, but the money behind seemed awkward. I haven’t run in CREV yet but I feel good about the river shove. I doubt Villain will have enough flushes and KK to be able to fold a lot of his AK/AA.

And in a throwback to one of my earliest poker strategy articles, here I am bluffing a calling station:

PokerStars – 200/400 Ante 50 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BTN: 108.05 BB (VPIP: 19.35, PFR: 14.52, 3Bet Preflop: 7.14, Hands: 429)
SB: 116.52 BB (VPIP: 36.36, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 11)
BB: 175.63 BB (VPIP: 22.73, PFR: 6.82, 3Bet Preflop: 5.00, Hands: 44)
UTG: 89.82 BB (VPIP: 17.39, PFR: 13.04, 3Bet Preflop: 5.00, Hands: 46)
Hero (UTG+1): 176.1 BB
MP: 115.08 BB (VPIP: 21.97, PFR: 13.89, 3Bet Preflop: 7.61, Hands: 223)
MP+1: 122.04 BB (VPIP: 12.50, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 8)
MP+2: 121.76 BB (VPIP: 27.36, PFR: 20.95, 3Bet Preflop: 6.17, Hands: 213)
CO: 149.74 BB (VPIP: 29.55, PFR: 13.64, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 44)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.62 BB) Hero has 9c Tc
fold, Hero raises to 2.28 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, SB calls 1.78 BB, BB calls 1.28 BB

Flop : (7.96 BB, 3 players) 8s 2s Jd
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets 5.26 BB, SB calls 5.26 BB, fold

Turn : (18.48 BB, 2 players) 6s
SB checks, Hero bets 9.24 BB, SB calls 9.24 BB

River : (36.96 BB, 2 players) 4s
SB checks, Hero bets 18.48 BB, fold

Hero wins 36.96 BB

My plan was not to double buy (that is, to rebuy 10K chips for $215 rather than 20K chips for $430), because the add-on buys 20K chips for $215, which means that buying that extra 10K during the rebuy period is quite expensive. Your initial chips are expensive too, of course, but you can’t add on if you don’t have chips!

Eventually, though, I convinced myself that the players on my right had enough chips and were playing badly enough that I wanted to have more to invest against them. I’m not sure that was the right decision, but it paid off:

PokerStars – 125/250 Ante 30 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

CO: 91.93 BB (VPIP: 18.84, PFR: 11.94, 3Bet Preflop: 6.90, Hands: 69)
Hero (BTN): 80.09 BB
SB: 157.66 BB (VPIP: 18.92, PFR: 15.09, 3Bet Preflop: 7.14, Hands: 113)
BB: 177.09 BB (VPIP: 47.00, PFR: 27.00, 3Bet Preflop: 9.09, Hands: 100)
UTG: 40.52 BB (VPIP: 9.09, PFR: 9.09, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 22)
UTG+1: 43.26 BB (VPIP: 22.97, PFR: 10.64, 3Bet Preflop: 5.03, Hands: 359)
MP: 36.4 BB (VPIP: 11.11, PFR: 7.04, 3Bet Preflop: 5.41, Hands: 144)
MP+1: 79.88 BB (VPIP: 19.11, PFR: 12.20, 3Bet Preflop: 6.86, Hands: 246)
MP+2: 104.4 BB (VPIP: 38.16, PFR: 18.42, 3Bet Preflop: 9.38, Hands: 76)

9 players post ante of 0.12 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.58 BB) Hero has 3s 3h
fold, fold, fold, MP+1 raises to 2.5 BB, MP+2 calls 2.5 BB, fold, Hero calls 2.5 BB, fold, fold

Flop : (10.08 BB, 3 players) 5h Qs 3c
MP+1 bets 5 BB, MP+2 calls 5 BB, Hero raises to 21.55 BB, fold, MP+2 raises to 101.78 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 55.92 BB and is all-in

Turn : (170.02 BB, 2 players) Jd

River : (170.02 BB, 2 players) Qh

MP+2 shows Kd Qc (Three of a Kind, Queens)
(Pre 48%, Flop 2%, Turn 0%)

Hero shows 3s 3h (Full House, Threes full of Queens)
(Pre 52%, Flop 98%, Turn 100%)

Hero wins 170.02 BB

I won more big pots with 66 vs 64 on 764dd (frankly that Villain overplayed his hand as well – I flatted his flop check-raise, and he overbet jammed a Qd turn!), and then a really big one getting QQ all in against AK and holding. After winning that huge flip – note this for when I start whining about losing flips – I was in second place overall. Eventually, though, I just blew up:

PokerStars – 1250/2500 Ante 325 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

MP+1: 43.44 BB (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 9.09, Hands: 65)
Hero (MP+2): 119.24 BB
CO: 10.53 BB (VPIP: 15.00, PFR: 11.76, 3Bet Preflop: 5.65, Hands: 301)
BTN: 23.3 BB (VPIP: 20.27, PFR: 13.46, 3Bet Preflop: 8.72, Hands: 376)
SB: 43.79 BB (VPIP: 14.68, PFR: 9.67, 3Bet Preflop: 2.27, Hands: 542)
BB: 25.05 BB (VPIP: 17.35, PFR: 9.28, 3Bet Preflop: 5.26, Hands: 98)
UTG: 81.7 BB (VPIP: 23.81, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 16.67, Hands: 21)
UTG+1: 40.24 BB (VPIP: 16.67, PFR: 13.14, 3Bet Preflop: 5.22, Hands: 288)
MP: 31.2 BB (VPIP: 23.56, PFR: 17.00, 3Bet Preflop: 7.89, Hands: 452)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.67 BB) Hero has Ts 9d
fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.28 BB, fold, fold, SB calls 1.78 BB, fold

Flop : (6.73 BB, 2 players) 9s 5h Ad
SB checks, Hero bets 2.02 BB, SB calls 2.02 BB

Turn : (10.77 BB, 2 players) 3d
SB bets 6.68 BB, Hero calls 6.68 BB

River : (24.12 BB, 2 players) 6h
SB bets 6.03 BB, Hero raises to 108.14 BB and is all-in, SB calls 26.66 BB and is all-in

Hero shows Ts 9d (One Pair, Nines)
(Pre 43%, Flop 18%, Turn 5%)

SB shows 3s As (Two Pair, Aces and Threes)
(Pre 57%, Flop 82%, Turn 95%)

SB wins 89.5 BB

This isn’t even typically a hand I’d open from this seat, but the BB was quite tight. I just got it into my head from the flop that I was going to three barrels, which I think is a fine plan holding the 9 blocker, but I refused to re-evaluate after Villain took the lead on the turn.

Frankly, his bet is bad. All he has to do is check and call and he gets my stack when he’s going to get my stack. Donking on a card that really doesn’t change the board – even though it did improve his hand – throws up a red flat that ought to enable me to change course and fold, though I stubbornly ignored it. So that was frustrating.

After that it was pretty uneventful, with not too many opportunities presenting themselves and me slowly blinding down as we neared the bubble. I open jammed AK, got called by TT, and that was that.

I did manage a cash in the $530, though even that got a bit dicey. I got off to a bad start thanks to more stubbornness:

PokerStars – 200/400 Ante 50 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

UTG: 160.07 BB (VPIP: 26.67, PFR: 26.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 15)
UTG+1: 14.47 BB (VPIP: 25.31, PFR: 14.88, 3Bet Preflop: 4.02, Hands: 748)
MP: 259.15 BB (VPIP: 22.88, PFR: 15.52, 3Bet Preflop: 3.17, Hands: 119)
Hero (MP+1): 129.48 BB
MP+2: 79.47 BB (VPIP: 11.04, PFR: 8.18, 3Bet Preflop: 4.23, Hands: 163)
CO: 121.62 BB (VPIP: 26.23, PFR: 11.67, 3Bet Preflop: 7.14, Hands: 61)
BTN: 143.79 BB (VPIP: 16.67, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 36)
SB: 123.99 BB (VPIP: 20.80, PFR: 17.03, 3Bet Preflop: 8.27, Hands: 330)
BB: 121.79 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 14)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.62 BB) Hero has 8d 8c
fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.79 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, BB calls 1.79 BB

Flop : (7.2 BB, 2 players) 5h 2h 3c
BB checks, Hero bets 2.16 BB, BB raises to 6.1 BB, Hero calls 3.94 BB

Turn : (19.4 BB, 2 players) Ah
BB bets 6.94 BB, Hero raises to 23.59 BB, BB calls 16.64 BB

River : (66.58 BB, 2 players) Qs
BB checks, Hero bets 43.94 BB, BB calls 43.94 BB

Hero shows 8d 8c (One Pair, Eights)
(Pre 82%, Flop 9%, Turn 6%)

BB shows 3d 3h (Three of a Kind, Threes)
(Pre 18%, Flop 91%, Turn 94%)

BB wins 154.46 BB

This Villain was fishy enough that I think I can just fold flop. I told myself it could be a protection raise, and then the turn presented an irresistible bluffing spot. I still don’t regret firing away at turn and river, but I do think I should have folded the flop. Recognizing and exploitively folding against obviously strong lines from weak players is something I used to be more diligent about. I need to regain that discipline.

After that, it was standard stuff. I won some all ins, ran up a large stack, then lost a flip as the bubble approached. That left with me about 25bbs which I nursed until we were in the money. I found a spot to open jam about 10bb with Kh 9h from MP and was horrified when a player who’d been quite tight snap called from the HJ. I guess he was ready to gamble now that he’d cashed, though, because he had Qs Ts. The flop was all clubs and missed both of us. The turn was the Qc, but then the river was a fifth club so we ended up chopping. What a roller coaster!

The very next hand an early position player jammed 4bb, I reshoved AJo, someone else shoved, and then the BB, who was extremely short, called off the rest with his AJs. He actually made a flush to win the main pot, but I couldn’t outrun 88 for the much larger sidepot, so I finished with a min cash.

Still, I’ve cashed two of the eight WCOOP events I’ve played so far, and both felt like they could easily have been deeper runs (as did a few of the non-cashes). There’s a lot I’m doing that I’m really happy about – just got to find some discipline and some (more) rungood!

Edit: Taking today off. Was going to play the $1000 6-max shootout, but it’s capped at 216 runners and will probably be a tough field. The $215 8-game always sounds fun, but I think a day off will be more fun than (probably) busting early or (best case scenario) playing Razz until 2AM.

PokerStars – 500/1000 PL Hi (6 max) – Omaha Hi – 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BTN: 48.94 BB (VPIP: 47.62, PFR: 23.81, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 21)
SB: 122.09 BB (VPIP: 23.81, PFR: 9.52, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 21)
Hero (BB): 45.3 BB
UTG: 178.14 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 9.52, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 21)
MP: 33.32 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 21)
CO: 215.82 BB (VPIP: 47.62, PFR: 19.05, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 21)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Js As 4d Qs
fold, fold, CO raises to 3.5 BB, fold, SB calls 3 BB, Hero calls 2.5 BB

Flop : (10.5 BB, 3 players) 4h 9d Tc
SB checks, Hero checks, CO checks

Turn : (10.5 BB, 3 players) 5h
SB checks, Hero bets 10.5 BB, CO calls 10.5 BB, fold

River : (31.5 BB, 2 players) Jd
Hero checks, CO bets 31.5 BB, Hero calls 31.3 BB and is all-in

CO shows Kh 7s Ks 3h (One Pair, Kings)
(Pre 57%, Flop 43%, Turn 68%)

Hero shows Js As 4d Qs (Two Pair, Jacks and Fours)
(Pre 43%, Flop 57%, Turn 33%)

Hero wins 94.1 BB

I made the money, surprising no one more than myself, and ultimately busted with dignity, holding a pair and a wrap against top two pair that turned a boat. I had to run the equity afterwards, but I got it in with about 62%, so can’t feel bad about that:

PokerStars – 8000/16000 PL Hi (6 max) – Omaha Hi – 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

MP: 35.37 BB (VPIP: 31.82, PFR: 4.55, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 22)
Hero (CO): 46.58 BB
BTN: 72.41 BB (VPIP: 29.69, PFR: 14.06, 3Bet Preflop: 4.00, Hands: 128)
SB: 40.05 BB (VPIP: 50.00, PFR: 13.33, 3Bet Preflop: 7.69, Hands: 30)
BB: 65.48 BB (VPIP: 30.56, PFR: 17.36, 3Bet Preflop: 1.96, Hands: 147)
UTG: 43.88 BB (VPIP: 42.55, PFR: 21.28, 3Bet Preflop: 5.56, Hands: 47)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 4h 3d 6d 7c
fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.79 BB, BTN calls 2.79 BB, SB calls 2.29 BB, fold

Flop : (9.37 BB, 3 players) 6h 5c Qd
SB checks, Hero bets 6.18 BB, BTN raises to 27.92 BB, fold, Hero raises to 43.79 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 15.86 BB

Turn : (96.94 BB, 2 players) 6c

River : (96.94 BB, 2 players) Ah

Hero shows 4h 3d 6d 7c (Three of a Kind, Sixes)
(Pre 44%, Flop 61%, Turn 0%)

BTN shows Kd As Qs 6s (Full House, Sixes full of Aces)
(Pre 56%, Flop 39%, Turn 100%)

BTN wins 96.94 BB

Although in retrospect maybe this just isn’t a good open from the CO? Like I said, undoubtedly lots of small mistakes.

I got trounced in the $1K in an interesting spot:

PokerStars – 175/350 Ante 45 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BB: 178.74 BB (VPIP: 22.60, PFR: 15.46, 3Bet Preflop: 8.33, Hands: 209)
UTG: 237.43 BB (VPIP: 20.20, PFR: 13.07, 3Bet Preflop: 5.60, Hands: 307)
Hero (UTG+1): 147.77 BB
MP: 121.09 BB (VPIP: 27.81, PFR: 18.67, 3Bet Preflop: 14.07, Hands: 608)
MP+1: 117.71 BB (VPIP: 22.44, PFR: 15.81, 3Bet Preflop: 9.48, Hands: 259)
MP+2: 240.61 BB (VPIP: 9.82, PFR: 5.94, 3Bet Preflop: 1.89, Hands: 226)
CO: 64.04 BB (VPIP: 23.45, PFR: 16.25, 3Bet Preflop: 7.44, Hands: 293)
BTN: 135.27 BB (VPIP: 22.26, PFR: 18.96, 3Bet Preflop: 10.53, Hands: 276)
SB: 141.29 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 13)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.66 BB) Hero has Ah 8h
fold, Hero raises to 2.28 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, BTN calls 2.28 BB, SB calls 1.78 BB, BB calls 1.28 BB

Flop : (10.28 BB, 4 players) 8d 2c 7h
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets 6.78 BB, fold, SB raises to 21 BB, fold, Hero calls 14.22 BB

Turn : (52.28 BB, 2 players) 7c
SB bets 35 BB, Hero raises to 124.36 BB and is all-in, SB calls 82.88 BB and is all-in

River : (288.03 BB, 2 players) 6h

SB shows 7s As (Three of a Kind, Sevens)
(Pre 36%, Flop 8%, Turn 95%)

Hero shows Ah 8h (Two Pair, Eights and Sevens)
(Pre 64%, Flop 92%, Turn 5%)

SB wins 288.03 BB

Of course it looks bad that Villain hit a two-outer, but I think he played the hand well, and there are other ways for him to win besides binking. I like my flop defend. It’s a nasty spot, but I think given how often I’ll hold overpairs in this same spot, I should continue with this hand (which blocks 88 and 87s) and mostly dump those.

I thought of the turn as a better card than it probably was. Of course it makes sets/two-pair less likely, but I didn’t really consider that 7x would be a likely flop bluffing hand for Villain because he wants to block 77 and 87s. In retrospect, folding or even calling turn might well be better than sticking it in, even with a bounty on the Villain (which really isn’t likely to come into play, come to think of it).

I had a tricky spot in the $500 that I’m still not sure about:

PokerStars – 400/800 Ante 100 NL (8 max) – Holdem – 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

UTG: 143.26 BB (VPIP: 21.55, PFR: 19.25, 3Bet Preflop: 10.53, Hands: 232)
UTG+1: 49.15 BB (VPIP: 22.62, PFR: 13.41, 3Bet Preflop: 6.06, Hands: 84)
MP: 79.88 BB (VPIP: 19.31, PFR: 15.00, 3Bet Preflop: 6.85, Hands: 668)
Hero (MP+1): 58.58 BB
CO: 62.9 BB (VPIP: 25.84, PFR: 21.32, 3Bet Preflop: 12.16, Hands: 332)
BTN: 86.71 BB (VPIP: 15.91, PFR: 10.13, 3Bet Preflop: 2.21, Hands: 398)
SB: 19.67 BB (VPIP: 21.78, PFR: 16.28, 3Bet Preflop: 9.55, Hands: 487)
BB: 68.82 BB (VPIP: 16.36, PFR: 12.79, 3Bet Preflop: 7.27, Hands: 276)

8 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.5 BB) Hero has 6d 5d
fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.28 BB, fold, fold, fold, BB calls 1.28 BB

Flop : (6.06 BB, 2 players) 4c 7d 9c
BB checks, Hero bets 4 BB, BB raises to 13.61 BB, Hero calls 9.61 BB

Turn : (33.28 BB, 2 players) 9s
BB bets 17 BB, Hero calls 17 BB

River : (67.28 BB, 2 players) Kd
BB bets 35.8 BB and is all-in, fold

BB wins 67.28 BB

It feels bad to call off so much with 6-high, but I still struggle to see a better option. The flop bet and call seem pretty clear-cut. Turn is tricky. Of course I could be in bad shape vs a 9, but I could also be very live against a flush draw, and if Villain doesn’t have the flush draw then I may get the opportunity to rep it if it comes in. I don’t think jamming the turn is any good, but I could certainly be convinced that it’s a fold.

I lost the rest with AK to 99 all in pre, nothing too exciting there.

I considered taking today off, but it’s dreary outside, so I’ll likely play the $215 rebuy.

Timestamps

0:25 Hello and Welcome
16:00 Strategy

Fortunately, I managed to win the first few pots of the day, first with an open shove to take the blinds, then with an UTG raise which went uncontested, then calling a shove with AT in the BB to beat A9 from the SB for a full double.

After that, I was back in action. As I mentioned, I ended Day 1 with a major regret from the then-largest pot of the tournament, but I can honestly say that from Day 2 I can think of only very small things I wish I’d done differently. A few hands I’m proud of:

Bluff on the Bubble

We’re on the bubble, with 20 players remaining and 18 to be paid. Blinds are 1500/3000, and I raise to 6000 UTG with Tc 8c. The only player at the table to have me covered 3-bets to 12K (he said later this was a misclick and he meant to make it 17K, which I believe), and I call.

Flop (34K) Ks 9h 7h. I check, he bets 15K, I raise to 45K, he calls.

Turn (124K) 4h. I bet 45K, he calls.

River (214K) Qc. I shove about 120K, he folds AK and asks me to show. I oblige.

Better Bet Sizing Through Tells

Still on the bubble. Blinds 1500/3000. The player in the BB has only about 60K to start the hand. An active recreational player with a big stack raises to 7500 from the HJ. I have him covered and raise to 20K. A very tight player in the SB looks at his cards and instantly jams ~65K. I put him on KK at worst and am ready to fold, but then the original raiser calls, so I decide to see a flop.

Edit: I have 66!

Flop (~215K) 884r. Checks through.

Turn 4. Checks through.

River 6. Bingo. Original raiser checks, and I am trying to think about how much he might call just an Ace. In my head, I settle on a small number, 40K.

As I grab chips, he says “Dammit!” and kinda bangs the table. I know that sounds so blatant that it must be an act, but in the moment it really felt like genuine frustration at the fact that he knew I was about to put him in a tough spot. This suggested to me that he would actually consider calling a larger bet, so I bet 75K. After much agonizing, he called with an Ace. The all in player had AA, so I scooped a big one there.

Bluff Catching at the Final Table

Recent podcast guest Chase Bianchi was at the final table of 10 with me (and recent podcast guest Elena Stover finished 12th).

Blinds are 2500/5000. UTG1 limps, Chase limps in MP3, the SB folds, and I check my option with the mighty 42o.

Flop (22,500) Q54r. Checks to Chase, who bets 12,500. I raise to 30K, UTG1 folds, and Chase calls. Lots of good things can happen when I raise. Although I may well have the best hand (I don’t think Chase needs much at all to stab at this), it benefits a lot from protection. It’s even possible that I can push UTG1 off of a better pocket pair and get called when I’m ahead against Chase, if he has a draw or just a random float.

Turn (82,500) 5. I bet 45K. This is actually a pretty nice card for me. Even though it reduces the combos of sets and two-pair that I could have, I still have all of them in my range, whereas Chase has only an ever-dwindling number of 54, 44, and 55, some of which I block (suits are actually relevant here, as I imagine he might limp 54s but not 54o, but I don’t remember them). I don’t know how much Qx or 4x he’s limping, and the turn makes 5x less likely for him.

He calls. I now think his range consists of 76, Qx, pocket pairs, 54, 55, and 44 (at least some of which may check the flop). My plan is to check-call river if the straight draw misses, as I don’t think he has much incentive to jam a better pair for value.

River (172,500) 2. I check, he jams 98K, I call, and he shows 97s, which quite surprising to me. I don’t recall whether he had a backdoor flush draw on the flop, but he definitely did not have a flush draw on the turn, so I guess he just thought he was going to straight up own me. Whoops!

In addition to giving me a comfortable chip lead at the final table, this call had several good effects. It eliminated one of my toughest opponents, and it sufficiently awed most of the table such that they were not inclined to mess around with me.

The Rest

We got down to five-handed with me, a satellite qualifier, a guy named Steve who knew me from Tournament Poker Edge, a likely pro from Michigan, and a guy named Carlos Chadha – more on him in a moment.

The satellite qualifier was absolutely unwilling to put his chips in without a top 5% hand, pot odds be damned. He eventually even folded his SB, leaving himself with just three ante chips. Amazingly, he kept picking up AQ and winning with it to stay alive. Eventually, he busted in 5th place.

The kid from Michigan seemed good-natured at heart, so maybe he was just a bit tilted, because on this particular evening he was acting like a salty circuity grinder. He was the second shortest stack at the table, which meant he was handcuffed by the presence of the satellite qualifier who just wouldn’t die. He was getting frustrated at the guy’s abject refusal to put money in the pot and started just openly commenting on how bad some of his folds were. I was happy to see him go out in 4th.

As I mentioned, Steve knew me from Tournament Poker Edge. Carlos, as it turned out, knew me from Poker Savvy Plus, a pre-Black Friday training site I worked for for several years. He was old school and, now, a high roller. Literally, a super high roller. This $570 was the smallest live tournament he’d ever deigned to play. But he was in the area, and he’d never won a live tournament, and he really wanted to do so.

Much as I hate to admit it, I doubt I was the best player out of the three of us. Carlos had an aura of confidence and deep thought about him, and I never saw him miss a trick. Actually, that’s not quite true. He once called down with an unimproved K2 vs Steve, only to find that Steve was indeed bluffing… with a better King! But I mean, if the biggest “mistake” you’re making is correctly identifying a bluff and calling down with King-high….

A Hero Check

We passed chips back and forth for over three hours. Really the only interesting pot I was involved in began with me raising the button (sorry, I don’t recall the stakes – couldn’t keep notes well while playing short-handed) with Kd Qd. Carlos called in the SB, and Steve called in the BB.

Flop As Td 6c. Checks around.

Turn Jd. Bingo. Carlos checks, Steve bets 75K, I raise to 175K with about 325K behind, Carlos folds, and Steve calls.

River Tc. Certainly not what I wanted to see. I watched Steve like a hawk as the river card came down, and to his credit, he didn’t give anything away as it fell, nor as he checked. Not a lot of people can so casually react to such a significant card with so much on the line, and it was only for that reason that I even considered betting the river. I just couldn’t figure what he could call with, as I think he would have re-raised pre-flop with AK/AQ, A6 and J6 got counterfeited, and from the way he called the turn I didn’t really think he had a bare Ace. I checked and allowed my pride in finding that check to counteract my disappointment in seeing Steve roll AT for a full house.

The End

I eventually busted Steve when he jammed ATs on the button and I woke up with QQ in the SB. That left me heads up with Carlos with nearly even stacks, something like his 1.1M to my 1M. That was only 20 big blinds, so there wasn’t much room to play.

I was hoping I might at least be the more experienced heads up player, but apparently Carlos was an online heads up pro for a while. He certainly seemed to know what he was going on a 20BB stack, which to be honest that part of my game is not particularly tight. I haven’t put much thought into a button limping range, for instance.

It was over quickly, though. Just a few hands in, he limped the button for 50K, and I, now with an 18BB stack, raised to 175K with A7s. He jammed, I called, and he showed me TT. Although I turned a flush draw, I didn’t get there on the river, and Carlos won his first-ever live poker tournament!

Although A7s is a strong hand with just a single opponent and 18BBs, against a weaker player, I might not force the action pre-flop. Against Carlos, though, I didn’t feel like there was any room to pass on thin edges, so I went for the raise-call. Basically it was just a cooler, which in all likelihood was how the match was going to end one way or the other.

We finished play around 12:30, nearly 12 hours after we started, but there’s no rest for the weary. The $1500 Main Event starts today!

Blinds are 2000/4000/500. Villain is in the BB. He’s a decidedly recreational player and seems VERY level 1/level 2 thinking. That is to, he doesn’t seem to consider his own ranges or what he’s representing. I’ve already seen him get caught in one non-sensical river bluff.

I’d been the most active player at the table, though that wasn’t saying much. Most of my pre-flop raises had been minimum, but in this case I chose a larger size because the BB had a lot of chips and seemed to inclined to defend his BB for that reason. My plan was to raise his BB less aggressively, and to use a larger size when doing so.

I begin the hand with about 120K, Villain covers by a lot (probably one of the chip leaders in the tournament).

Folds to me on the Button with Kd Qs. I raise to 10K. SB folds, BB quickly calls. “You don’t even want to think about folding?” I ask him.

“I thought about it,” he said.

“Did you even look at your cards?”

“Nope. I didn’t think you looked at yours.” This was just banter. I knew he’d looked at his cards, and he knew that I knew.

Flop (26,500 in pot) 7s 7c 4d. Villain very quickly bets 10K. I read this as a very Level 2 sort of play, where he just saw a board that was tough to hit and a player with a wide range and figured he could just bet whatever and I would have to fold if I didn’t have a pair. I think he’s looking for a fold basically always, but that doesn’t rule out his having better hands than mine. This is a shitty line to take with Ace-high, but certainly one that I see from people who are excessively concerned about protection and think too much about whether or not they have a “made hand”.

I called, thinking there was a good chance that I had the best hand. Raising is quite possibly better, though I think there’s a case for letting him put more weak money into the pot before doing so.

Turn (46,500) Ts. Villain bets 15K. I read this as weak, which I still think is correct, but in retrospect it’s weak in a different way. When he bets 1/3 pot, he doesn’t really expect me to fold anything I called the flop with, he just doesn’t want to be raised. This could be a blocking bet from a better hand than mine (Ace-high or small pair) or a set-my-own-price bet with a draw. Either way, I think this should just be a jam. It’s not that much more than a pot-sized raise, and even if it does seem suspect (it’s not really how I’d play many strong hands, though he probably won’t realize that anyway), what’s he going to do, hero it off with A3?

River (76,500) 6s. Villain bets 45K. I’d seen him bluff the river before by grabbing a stack of chips and slamming it down in front of him, one of those strong-means-weak tells that’s so blatant that you wonder whether it isn’t a reverse tell. Combined with the fact that I wasn’t giving his earlier bets much credit, I still didn’t believe him.

The trouble was that I wasn’t sure how many of his bluffs I could beat. Though it would be a terrible bet, I don’t even think it’s impossible that he’s just bluffing with a gutter that rivered a pair because he doesn’t want to check and face a bet (though maybe he’d use more of a blocking sizing for that). But if he got this far with Ace high, I think it’s plausible he fires like this. He sees flop with a LOT of combos of Ax so even if the chance of him playing it this way isn’t high, that still adds up to a fair number of combos.

I decided to jam the river for about 85K total to get him off of all of those “accidental value bets”. He groaned, which was a bad sign, because it meant that he thought he had the best hand when he bet, then reluctantly called with 8s 5s for a flush.

Again, I realize that this seems insane in a vacuum and is in fact legitimately not good, particularly with the last of my chips in a very soft tournament. However, I do think it’s an interesting case of considering all of the options on the table, even if that did lead to a bad decision in this case.

You can follow Ryan on Twitter and get more information about him and his coaching from his website. He recommends reading The Red Rising Triology.

Timestamps

0:30 hello
12:01 strategy
41:29 ryan laplante

Strategy

Full ring, $1-$2 NL. I have $350 in the BB and the main villain, on the button, has $600. Other two villains directly to my left are a mix of loose aggressive and loose passive with stacks of around $250.

I have 5h5c in the BB and main villain is OTB. UTG1 raises to $17, UTG2 calls, folds to main villain who calls. I call.

Flop ($69) Qs,5d,3s

Hero checks, UTG bets $25, UTG1 calls, BTN (main villain) raises to $50, I raise to $150, UTG 1 and 2 both fold. BTN calls.

Turn ($419) is 2d. We both check.

River ($419) is Jd. I check, Villain bets $110, I shove for $183, Villain calls.

Blinds 25/50

MP opens to 150, Villain calls in CO, I call 66 on the Button, and BB calls.

Flop (625) Js 8d 6h Two checks, the CO bets 325, I raise to 800, two folds, and he calls.

Turn (2225) 3s. He checks, I bet 1500, he thinks a bit and calls

River (5225) Qd. He looks at my stack, then puts me all in for 4500. Admittedly, 66 is basically the nuts here, as I can’t see anyone good just check-calling 1500 on the turn with T9. Even spades probably plays better as a raise, especially given his incentive to get all in against me and put my bounty in play.

I was pretty sure I was going to call, but I took my time anyway, and I guess that made him assume that his QJ was good. I do think that especially in a bounty, where he has so much to gain by stacking me, he does make sense for him to shove the river, but it’s not a play a lot of people will make it, and I do try to think it through before making or calling large bets.

There were two other interesting spots, both at the 75/150/25 level. In the first, the HJ, who seemed just a touch too active but not overall a bad player, opened to 400, and I called with Qs Ts on my BB. He had a little over 7K behind, and I had about 11K.

Flop (1125) Qh 9c 7h. I considered donking here but ultimately checked. He bet 550, and I called.

Turn (2225) 5d. I checked, he bet 1500, I shoved, and he called with Ah 6h and hit the Th on the river.

In the second, the UTG player (at a 10-handed table) opened to 375, and I called with Ac Jh in the BB. I had about 3300 behind, and he had more than 30K, enough to still cover the entire table even if he doubled me.

Flop (1075) Kc Tc 5d. I actually bet 600, planning to fold to a raise. Even with his stack, this player seemed extremely passive and cautious, so I thought he would overfold and also shove much less often than he should. My hand is a decent one for betting because it’s equity is not so bad against a calling range but poor enough against a shoving range that I don’t lose a lot by folding. Plus I can jam turned clubs. However, the hand isn’t strong enough to check-call or check-raise, which means I usually just lose my equity if I check. Anyway, Villain called.

Turn (2275) Ah. Given Villain’s passivity, as well as the bounty factor, I just shoved. He reluctantly called Kc Q and my hand held up for a double.

I did a little GTORB analysis on both of these hands, and although that can’t take into consideration the very important bounty factor, it did reveal some slightly interesting stuff. Most notably, both of these players have such significant range advantages that I should very rarely (in practice, probably just never) donk bet in either spot.

I also wasn’t sure what GTORB would suggest for Villain’s Ah 6h. On the one hand, it’s obviously a huge draw, but on the other, with stacks being what they are, I thought Hero might often shove, putting Villain in a tough spot with a big draw.

Turns out that GTORB has Villain betting all of his A6 on the turn, with or without a heart draw, and always folding to a raise (though Villain’s call may not be wrong, as the bounty gives me incentive to raise a wider range, possibly including some dominated draws). And the Hero actually only check-raises about 10% (QT strictly prefers calling, though again, bounty may well change that). I guess it’s significant that the Hero generally raises his flopped monsters, and this is not a turn card that creates a lot of new monster hands (this is why A6 is a good betting hand, because it blocks 86), which means that Hero is pretty capped and the Villain can bet draws with abandon.

Tomorrow, I’ll most likely play the Venetian $1600.

Still, I got into two spots that are interesting not because of the magnitude of the decision – in both cases, it was quite small – but because of the frequency with which they occur, as well as the fact that in a shallow tournament, even small decisions have a big influence on your ROI.

Both occurred at the 50/100 level. In the first, I opened to 250 with Qs Qc on the button, and the big blind called.

The flop came AT4, all spades (meaning I had a flush draw), and we both checked.

The turn was the 9c, and we checked again.

He quickly checked a third time, on a Td river, and at the time it seemed so likely that my hand was good that I threw out a small value bet, about a quarter of the pot. He called with A6o to beat me.

In retrospect, I’m not so sure this was a good bet. Maybe it’s a bit results oriented knowing that A6o in his range, but I don’t think that’s really so surprising (it would be in mine). The Villain is going to have so many Ax combinations in his range that even if he doesn’t check a pair of Aces at a high frequency, it still could add up to enough combos that I can’t put in a value bet on the river. There are, of course, a limited number of worse hands that will call a bet, mostly 9x, pocket pairs, and maybe 4x or K-high.

In the second hand, I was down to about 2300 and had 7s 4s in the big blind. The hijack opened to 250, and the CO, who was the only truly good player among my opponents, called. With 550 in the pot, I had the option to call 100 more to see a flop. Although I would certainly call in a heads up pot, I elected to fold here, a decision that I later discussed with fellow Tournament Poker Edge pro Chris Moon.

My argument was that there aren’t many flops I can feel that good about in a multi-way pot. It will be rare that I can commit with just a 4 or a 7, and even when I flop a draw, I can’t expect that much fold equity against two players.

Chris suggested an interesting way of approaching that: assume you have no fold equity and will always either fold or get all in on the flop, at your option. Put them both on ranges, and run a simulation on ProPokerTools.

After the flop, you’ll commit 2200 chips for a final pot of 5050, meaning you’ll need 43% to get it in. Pre-flop, you’re getting 5.5:1, meaning that you need to get a “good enough” flop about 15% of the time. Of course these are simplifications: sometimes you will win without a showdown, sometimes you’ll see a turn, sometimes you’ll cause one player to fold substantial equity.

Even under these constraints, I found it to be close. For some reason I’m having trouble uploading the image, but here’s a link, which includes the ranges I gave both players (given my stack size, I think the CO can cold call some big hands, though maybe not quite as many as I gave.

It seems to me that given how rarely I’ll end up all in against two players, I probably should have called and just taken my equity on the 15% or so of flops that are “good enough” for me. Live and learn.

Today is the $1500 bounty, which I hope will be a fun and more interesting event!

Timestamps

0:30 hello and welcome
11:30 strategy

Strategy

Hand 1

2/5 game at the Aria. I have a stack of about 1400. Villain covers.

Villain raises from UTG+1 to 20, gets two callers. I have pocket aces in the BB. I raise to 85. Villain calls, callers fold.

Pot is now about $205. Flop 345 rainbow. Both players check.

Turn 2. I check, Villain bets $150, I call.

Pot is $505. River Q. I check, Villain bets $330.

Hand 2

$2/$5 live game. Villain has $500, Hero coves. Hero raises to $25 with AQss. Tilted guy re raises to $100. Hero calls.

Flop is Q74 two diamonds.  There is $200 in the pot and he leads out for a pot sized $200 bet. Hero calls.

Turn is 7h. Villain shoves $200, Hero calls.

Contrary to the fancy image seen here, The Thinking Poker Diaries Volume 8 is actually available only as an e-book. It’s on sale now in the Kindle Store, and EPUB, Kindle, and PDF versions will be available on Nitcast.com shortly.

If you haven’t yet read Volume One, well, there’s no reason you’d have to to make sense of this book, but why haven’t you?!

Collin is also the author or co-author of three poker books (Heads-Up No-Limit Hold ‘Em, Sit-and-Go Strategy, and The Math of Hold ‘Em) as well as co-author, with his wife Katie Dozier, of The Superuser. He produces instructional videos for CardRunners. You can follow him on Twitter @teammoshman.

We’ve also got a special treat for you in the strategy segment. Brian Koppelman, whom we interviewed on Episode 149, is back to talk strategy, specifically how to play against a deep-stacked maniac.

Enjoy!

Timestamps

0:30 H&W
23:58 – BK
39:22 – CM

In the meantime, please enjoy the next PLO8 strategy video from Nate and myself:

You can watch the video here. If you’ve already donated, thanks! If not, please give whatever you think the video is worth after you’ve seen it.

This is the second video I’ve released as part of this campaign. The first, with Gareth Chantler, is available here. There are at least three more coming – Daryl Jace and I recorded one today – and I’ve updated my fundraising goal to set the bar for another $500, at which point I’ll release a sixth video. We’ve raised over $2500 so far – please keep the donations rolling in!

If you donate before the end of December, you’ll get two additional perks:

1. Your contribution will be matched, meaning that every dollar you donate will generate two dollars for the organization!
2. Donations of $10 or more will be entered in a drawing to win a free custom video, a free month at Tournament Poker Edge, or free Nitcast gear!

For every $500 raised, I’m releasing a poker strategy video that’s at least an hour long (and knowing me, they’ll be longer – blame debate again for my motormouth!). Plus, every person who donates at least $10 will be entered in a drawing to win great prizes like a free custom video, a free month at Tournament Poker Edge, a free item from Nitcast.com, and more!

We’re over $1500 already, and I’m working to get these videos out as quickly as I can. The first one, where I basically berate Gareth Chantler for 90 minutes about his play in an Ante Up event, is available now!

I was responsible for one of the eliminations that burst the bubble. Blinds were 5K/10K/500, and the small blind open jammed something like 85K into my big blind, where I held 99. I called and busted him to the delight of my tablemates, some of whom also seemed a bit surprised by my call. Although I wasn’t thrilled, mostly because of how tight I thought he might be shoving on the bubble, I did have him covered with enough left to last me more than an orbit, so I was confident I could fold into the money even if I lost. As it turned out, he had Q2s, which of course if he’s jamming that wide it’s a very profitable call.

I picked up another big pot jamming my 20BBs into a 4x open from UTG and a UTG+1 call. Given that it was a ten-handed table, I expected the original raise to show extreme strength, but I’d also seen enough nitty folds to believe that I might actually get him off of some pairs or even another AK. A player in MP took two minutes to fold his hand because he hadn’t realized the action was on him, and yet somehow this still hadn’t given UTG enough time to think because he then tanked for at least two minutes before I called the clock on him. He ended up showing JJ to the player on his right before folding, and UTG+1 folded as well, so I increased my stack by about 50% without a showdown.

A phrase I hear a lot is “I don’t want to flip at this stage of the tournament.” Well, I don’t want to flip either, but I also don’t want to give away 2.5 BB (a rough estimate of my edge assuming I were to get all in with AK vs a pocket pair in the preceding hand) plus fold equity when I’ve only got 20 to begin with. It never ceases to amaze me how many people enter tournaments, the furthest thing from a sure thing poker has to offer, and proceed to demand near-certainty before they’ll take a significant risk. A lot of run good went into my winning this tournament, but the biggest skill edge I had consisted in the willingness to take these risks as well as the wherewithal to exploit opponents who wouldn’t.

The next time I got AK, I was in the BB. A player in MP opened, I jammed, and he ended up calling it off with KJo (he had me well covered, not that that makes it a good call), and I held.

This all goes to show the importance of having a solid theoretical understanding of concepts like expected value and game theory rather than just playing by feel. I can promise you there were plenty of situations where it felt “icky” to stick my stack in with AK or to min-raise as a bluff off of a 17 BB stack, but I was able to override my natural risk aversion because I understood the math well enough to know that these simply had to be profitable moves.

This also kept me from getting frustrated when these moves didn’t work out. For example, the players on my immediate left were making no secret of the fact that they were just waiting for strong hands and were not going to bluff. Consequently, I was min-raising any two if I got the opportunity to open from the button, even when I only had 14 or 15 BBs. Once, the BB called this raise and bet out on an Ace-high flop that missed me entirely. I folded, and he showed me AQ, which, far from tilting me, made me feel even better about my open with 83o, even though it had cost me about 15% of my stack.

It seemed like what most of these guys wanted was just for everyone to get out of the way so they wouldn’t get drawn out on when they had a monster. I was happy to oblige them in exchange for far more than my share of the pots where no one had much of a hand.

Predictably, the nits on my left were eventually replaced with (slightly) better players, and I did open fold T4o on the button and Q2s in the CO when I had a barely 10 BB stack. That same orbit, I picked up A4o with six players to act behind me. My push/fold game is a little rusty but I believe this is a fold at equilibrium. In this case, though, I believed everyone would be tight enough with their calling to make it a good shove, and it got through.

The very next hand I picked up A5s, which again would most likely be an equilibrium fold now that my stack was larger, but which I think was a clear shove given the opponents. I ended up getting called and sucking out on 77, to the shock of much of the table. I distinctly overheard someone mutter “What is he doing?” The general consensus seemed to be that I was simply reckless, which again reflects completely the wrong approach to late game tournament play, especially in an event as top heavy as this one was. Believe it or not, there were people openly sweating $600 prize increases with thousands already locked up and $125K up top. Short effective stacks make aggressive stealing a high variance proposition, but they don’t make it less correct.

I was also the player to burst the final table bubble, calling a 10BB shove from the SB with 22 and beating her QJs. There was once again some shock expressed at this call, which one onlooker described as “Spartan”.

The Final Table

One of the many ways I ran well was with regard to the seat draw at the final table. Contrary to what I reported on Twitter, I entered as the chip leader. The next biggest stack was clear across the table from me, and the best of my opponents, a guy named Stuart who had I think the fourth largest stack, was on my immediate right. There was an accomplished tournament player with a resteal stack on my immediate left, so that kept me in line initially, but other than that things were laid out pretty ideally for me.

We were required to step away from the final table to use phones, and even when I wasn’t involved in the pot I wanted to pay close attention, so I wasn’t able to take notes as I had during the rest of the tournament. Apologies in advance: details going forward will be a bit more spotty.

That said, I don’t think I contested a single pot in the first orbit and a half, so when the action finally folded to me in the CO, I couldn’t resist opening K5o. The aforementioned player on my left moved all in, and I had to fold. I don’t know what I had, but it was a good spot for him to shove almost anything, so I redoubled my resolve not to get too far out of line pre-flop, especially in obvious spots.

The next pot I opened was with As 9c UTG, once we were nine-handed. I got three calls and a Js 8h 3s flop and checked, fully intending to give up. However, the action checked to an amateur on the button who’d been openly bragging about his big laydowns and overbetting and then showing his big hands. He bet 200K, about the half the pot, and I went into the tank.

I have a habit of always considering my options when the action is on me, even when the right play seems automatic. In doing so, it occurred to me that a small check-raise might garner an absurd amount of respect from this player, even though it would be a strange line inconsistent with how I’d play many if any strong hands. I had him covered and there were several shorter stacks out there. My biggest fear, really, was that one of the other players in the pot would sniff out what I was up to and shove. However, I thought that was probably giving them too much credit, and besides they’d have to sweat the button actually waking up with a hand and busting them, whereas my check-raise could risk very little. I made it 450K, and everyone folded. The button gave me a bit of sweat but ultimately told me he was folding JT.

I was already pulling well ahead of the next biggest stack when I opened QTo in early position, mostly because the same amateur player was in the big blind. The other big stack called on the button, and the BB called as well. The flop came JTT and I bet 200K into 500K. I like this sizing in a vacuum, but for expoitive reasons I think 300K would have been better. Anyway, the button called and the BB folded.

The turn was an 8, and with an SPR of roughly 2, I found myself in an awkward spot. I doubted that I could get two more bets out of worse. I hadn’t observed much of this player’s behavior, but in this tournament in general I’d seen a lot of big “protection” bets from marginal hands that just wanted to take the pot down, so I figured I’d give him a chance to do something like that. I checked, he bet 450K, and I put him all in for about three times that. He tanked for a long time and reluctantly folded.

That gave me a commanding chip lead, close to half the chips in play at an eight-handed table. What set me back was a bad beat from the aforementioned amateur the next time he was in the BB. I opened with AJo, a medium stack called in middle position, and the BB, now short stacked, called. The flop came A96 with two diamonds, and he open shoved for about the size of the pot. Of course I called, and to my surprise, MP called as well.

That worried me a bit, but ultimately I just couldn’t see him playing AQ or AK this way pre-flop, nor two-pair or better on the flop. So, I jammed the turn, and after a long tank he folded what he told me was A6. The BB had a flush draw that got there on the river, so that set me back.

To make matters worse, Stuart, by far the toughest of the remaining players, doubled through the same guy by getting it in 77 vs AA and spiking a 7.

On the plus side, this created a new dynamic. I still had him covered, but he was the second largest stack, and given that he was also the second best player, he had a lot of incentive not to tangle with me. I started leaning hard on his BB.

Somewhere in there, I picked up AA in the SB when someone open shoved in front of me, but the board ran out a straight and I chopped with his AQ. The crowd erupted, but I knew enough to treat this as completely irrelevant. I don’t even consider it bad luck. The action would have gone down exactly the same if he’d had AA and I’d had AQ. If you insist on thinking in terms of luck, you can say that I was lucky to cooler him pre-flop and he was lucky to escape with half. You’re looking for excuses to feel sorry for yourself if consider this an unlucky outcome.

Speaking of luck, I busted the player who’d entered the final table second in chips when I opened KJ and got a QT9 flop. I can’t fault him for jamming over my flop bet with an A5s that flopped a flush draw, but I don’t think calling my pre-flop raise with it was such a good idea.

That left the player on my left as one of the shortest remaining stacks, which actually made it tougher for me to put pressure on him, as he had less to lose. I still planned to jam on him pretty aggressively given the opportunity, but I twice got hands so bad that I had to give him walks. The third time it folded to me in the SB, I jammed about 10BBs with J8o and he woke up with AKo to double through me.

Heads Up

Meanwhile, Stuart was busy winning a flip against one of the weakest remaining players plus a couple of medium-sized pots against me, putting the two of us virtually even. Thankfully, I busted the other two remaining players and entered heads up with something like 60% of the chips in play.

A few people suggested a chop both at the start of the final table and when we got to five- and four-handed, but neither Stuart nor I was interested at the time. First place paid about twice second, a difference of nearly $60,000, and I might have considered chopping a portion of that if Stuart had suggested it. That said, I did expect to have a sizable edge, as even many otherwise good players lack heads up experience, so I wasn’t all that eager to chop. I figured I’d let Stuart be the one to bring it up, as that would give me an edge in negotiating, but he never did.

The match was over almost before it began. On the third hand, I three-bet him with AQs, he jammed K2o, and my hand held up.

I have a bit more to say about the aftermath of victory, but this post is plenty long enough already, so I’ll save that for tomorrow.

Pick up your copy today at www.nitcast.com (you’ll get PDF, EPUB, and Kindle versions) or in the Kindle Store (Kindle version only).

Strategy

Hand 1

2-4 PLO8 on Bovada. 4-handed.

I open to $12 with (AT)J7–I’m using Bill Chen’s notation where suited cards go in parentheses.

Only the BB calls. He’s playing $200ish, and I cover.

Flop KQ8 rainbow. BB checks; I bet half the pot ($13).

Turn pairs the 8 and puts up a flush draw (I have the 7 of the suit). BB checks.

Hand 2

1-2 NLHE 6max on Bovada. I have 220.98 (after posting BB). Folds to button who raises to $6. SB Calls
I raise to $24 (pot) with AA. Button calls

Flop ($54 in pot) Jh Qd 8s
I bet $54 and the button jams and covers me. So $307 in the pot and I have 145 giving me almost exactly 2:1.

Hand 3

PokerStars – $1000+$50|8000/16000 Ante 2000 NL (6 max) – Holdem – 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

UTG: 61.6 BB (VPIP: 26.46, PFR: 18.59, 3Bet Preflop: 11.72, Hands: 359)
CO: 60.1 BB (VPIP: 40.00, PFR: 27.50, 3Bet Preflop: 15.38, Hands: 40)
BTN: 90.5 BB (VPIP: 19.22, PFR: 15.56, 3Bet Preflop: 6.07, Hands: 591)
SB: 61.46 BB (VPIP: 19.31, PFR: 15.97, 3Bet Preflop: 10.32, Hands: 295)
Hero (BB): 63.17 BB

5 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.13 BB) Hero has 9c Jc
UTG raises to 2.19 BB, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 1.19 BB

Flop : (5.51 BB, 2 players) Jd 3c Ks
Hero checks, UTG bets 2.41 BB, Hero calls 2.41 BB

Turn : (10.33 BB, 2 players) Ac
Hero checks, UTG checks

River : (10.33 BB, 2 players) 7s
Hero checks, UTG bets 4.65 BB, Hero?

Neil talks to us about this dubious honor as well as the other challenges facing him as an amateur, albeit a serious and accomplished one, among professionals.

You can root for Neil in November when ESPN airs the final table of the WSOP Main Event. If you’re in San Francisco, check out his girlfriend’s store.

Our strategy hand comes to us from the author of A Main Event Rookie Lives the Dream.

Timestamps

:30 – hello and welcome
12:40 – strat
54:30 – interview

Strategy

Blinds 2000/4000/300. UTG2 (80K) limps. Hero has JJ in the HJ and raises to 12,000. BB calls and the limper folds.

Flop (34.5K in pot) Q-6-8r. BB checks, Hero bets 20K, BB calls.

Turn (75K in pot) Q86Jr. BB checks, Hero bets 65K, BB calls.

River (205K)  Q-6-8-J-10. BB shoves 70K.

You can follow Julie Annie on Twitter @LuckyJadeJules.

Thanks to PokerWomenNews for suggesting this guest. If you enjoy our interview with Julie Anna, be sure to check out theirs.

Timestamps

:30 – hello
20:55 – strat
45:42 – interview

Strategy

Hero: 89.00 Villain: 86.00, Effective Stacks 170bb

Folds to Villain on BTN

Villain (BTN) raises to 1.50
Hero (sb) 3 bets to 5.50 with Jc10c
BB Folds
BTN calls

Flop: 2c7h8c pot: 11.50

Hero bets 5.75
Villain calls

Turn comes 9s, board is 2c7h8c9s pot: 23
Hero bets 11.50
Villain calls

River comes 9h board is 2c7h8c9s9h pot 46
about 65 behind

Hero bets 19.50
Villain shoves 65

Folding is an Opportunity, Not a Cost

Props to those of you who mentioned the relevant toy game from Mathematics of Poker. That was the first thing I thought of when playing this hand, and it was the impetus for my posting it.

For those who aren’t familiar, Chen and Ankenman demonstrate that when you have a big draw against a made hand, it can actually be correct for you to move all-in on the flop, knowing you are behind and have no fold equity, rather than give your opponent the opportunity to blow you off of your equity on blank turns.

The critical difference between that toy game and this hand is that in the toy game, we assume that the made hand knows his opponent is drawing and can play perfectly on the turn. In other words, not only can he force the draw out on blank turns, but he can also correctly check and fold on turns that sharply improve his opponent’s equity. No commenters suggested that Villain might check and fold a 6 or a heart on the turn with any hand that would have called a flop shove, and rightfully so.

There was, however, a lot of talk about how Hero will “have to” fold some turns, as though it were a cost or penalty of some sort. You should see this as an opportunity! In our example, checking back means that Hero will get to benefit from additional information about the hand he’s likely to hold at showdown. Because Villain is not in a position to make similar use of this information, this is an opportunity for the Hero.

The turn card is going to be what it’s going to be. It’s already sitting there on top of the deck, waiting to be dealt. Essentially, you are given the opportunity to peak at that card before you decide whether you want to get all in. Why wouldn’t you do that? Sure, it will be disappointing to see the Ac, but if you are going to see it either way, wouldn’t you prefer to know that it’s coming so that you can avoid putting $300 out there?

Put another way, assume that Villain never folds to a flop shove and will always shove any turn. In this case, shoving flop and calling a shove on any turn are functionally equivalent. The only question is whether Hero can make use of the additional information that the turn brings in order to avoid committing his stack on particularly bad runouts.

Fold Equity

All of that operates under the assumption that Villain never folds the flop. This was my expectation when playing the hand, though I do think that Gavrik makes a very good point (which also has some connection to a discussion in Mathematics of Poker):

Let’s see what happens if we base our play on trying to guess if we have any fold equity or not.

1) We assume we have ~10% fold equity. We are wrong and in reality we have 0% fold equity. We shove, get called and flip for it. We have lost a tiny amount of equity by being wrong.

2) We assume we have 0% fold equity. We are wrong and in reality villain would have folded ~10% of his range. We check back the flop and from there all sorts of bad things can happen – villain can “bluff shove” all the hands he would have folded on the flop, villain can hit a pair on the turn and shove for value, in addition, if villain shoves on a brick turn we are not really getting the right price to call. Seems like a recipe for disaster.

So, a lot depends on how confident you are that you have no fold equity. I was pretty damn confident.

Villain simply has to be strong based on the pre-flop action. If someone re-raises him pre-flop, he’ll be getting well over 2:1 to call. He just can’t make this play with any hand that isn’t ready to get all-in pre-flop, which means he’s functionally jamming $500 into a pot of $150 and an early position raise from a somewhat nitty player. Except that he’s not jamming, he’s deliberately offering his opponents good odds, which if anything only strengthens his range. Also, as Diane points out, the fact that Villain is in the big blind makes an “air squeeze” even less likely, as he could just call $40 more and see a flop.

Some commenters are suggesting that Villain might have KQ or KJ, but I just don’t see that based on the pre-flop action. Even if he did, I think there’s a fair chance he’s shove the flop as opposed to checking and folding. Just as Villain shouldn’t have any hands that will fold pre-flop, I also don’t think he should have any hands that will check-fold this flop. That means that when he does check, it has to be a trap.

I agree with Chris C. that many Villains will just shove AK on the flop, but I actually think it’s a pretty good hand for inducing, as he can’t really expect better to fold. It doesn’t matter, though. Whether or not Villain’s range includes JJ or AQ doesn’t change Hero’s play as long as Villain isn’t folding (and is planning to jam over a small bet, which I also expect to be the case).

The strength of Villain’s pre-flop range is certainly an argument for folding my hand. Against a range of only overpairs, I should fold. With AK in the mix, I have a call. With only a chance of AK being in there, I should probably fold. However, if Villain is going to make mistakes like this on the flop, my call is a little more appealing.

Turn Plan

Hero will need about 30% equity to call a turn shove. Although I think his ranges are too wide, I want to give props to Sean F. for using Pro Poker Tools to graph Hero’s equity across all turns. Here are graphs of Hero’s equity vs AA and vs KK+,AK.

Even against Aces, Hero can call almost 40% of turn cards. That would be any 7, and 8, any 6, and any heart, 18 cards total, 37.5% of the deck. The tricky thing is that Villain has all combinations of AK in his range, Hero should actually call more than twice as many turns, probably folding only on non-heart Aces and Kings. Putting only suited combinations of AK into Villain’s range again makes Hero call only on turns that clearly improve his hand, which was my plan (like Chris C., I’m skeptical that Villain would play AK this way, and don’t want to assign more than a small chance to that).

It’s worth noting that we might even get a check on some bad turns. Both AA and KK might want to check the Ac, for instance, and KK might choose to check Kc. I think shoving would still be a mistake for Hero, but occasionally getting to see a free river when way behind is a pretty nice perk.

Results

I checked. The turn was the 7c, Villain shoved, and I called and caught an 8 on the river to beat his KK. He was not pleased.

In this volume, you’ll find essays covering the following topics:

Navigating the Early Stages of a Tournament
Balance
Playing Your Image
Catching Bluffs
(Not) Talking at the Table
The Tournament Mindset

You can buy The Thinking Poker Diaries Volume 5 at www.nitcast.com (you’ll get Kindle, PDF, or EPUB versions) or in Kindle form on Amazon.

You certainly don’t need to have read the earlier volumes to make sense of this one, but if you need to get caught up, the first four books are available as a bundle at a discounted rate!

The table was, perhaps not quite as good as the previous day’s, but pretty spectacular. I made good use of one live tell, but mishandled another.

You Raise, I Call

At the 25/50 level, I looked down at 22 and was reaching for raising chips when I noticed the player on my left loading up. I grabbed just two green chips and called. He raised to 250, and I called. The flop came 843 and we both checked, so I immediately put him on whiffed overcards. The turn brought a 2, and I bet 200. This probably should have been more, but I really didn’t want to let him off the hook if he just had a gutshot, and I thought the smaller size might even keep in a hand like KQ. The river was a 9, I bet 400, and he called so quickly that I regretted not betting more, but at the time it seemed like a reasonable amount to expect an unimproved AQ to call.

Calling Chips

There was another pot where I can’t even remember what I had, but whatever it was, I was betting the river for value. I grabbed two yellow chips, planning to declare, “Twelve hundred”, but as I did so my opponent very clearly grabbed calling chips. I quickly changed course and said, “Fifteen hundred,” but he tanked for a long time before folding. What I should have realized is that he knew I could see him grabbing chips and it was actually a “strong-means-weak” tell meant to deter me from betting.

Blocking Bet?

The two significant pots that I lost were both to that same player.

At 75/150, I opened to 450 with As Kc on the Button, and the BB called. The flop came Ah 8h 3h, and he checked and called 500. He checked and called 1000 on a Qd turn, after a long tank.

The river was the 2h, and he threw out 1000 without much hesitation. At this point I was getting nearly 5:1 and convinced myself he could be block betting a worse Ace, but I don’t think that’s consistent with his thinking so long on the turn. I called, and he showed me 7c 6h.

Lucky Turn

I opened to 400 with ATo at the 100/200 level. Villain called, as did the CO, Button, and BB. I was pretty tempted just to give up, but the Q52 was a little too good, so I bet 700 into 2100. Villain called, and everyone else folded.

I had about a pot-sized bet behind, and was thinking Ks and Js would be great for shoving, but then a 3 popped off and I realized I had more backdoor straight draws than I’d consciously realized (though this was probably part of the reason the flop struck me as too good to give up). I stacked up my chips to jam, and Villain once again reached for his chips. Remembering what this meant the last time, I carried through on my shove, but he practically beat me into the pot. “I got very lucky,” he told me, turning over 33 for a turned set.

“Indeed you did,” I said, a little more snippily than I intended. On to the next one.

Another Lucky Turn

My cash session started off with more of the same. After scoping out five tables at two different venues, I settled into a 5/10 game at Bellagio. There were a few young guys who seemed like serious players, but only one of them seemed to rise above the level of “mediocre reg”, and there were a few soft spots as well.

I limped UTG with 22, two players limped behind, and then one of the seemingly mediocre regs made it $40 on the Button. The seemingly good reg on the BB called. Thinking that the Button would have raised bigger with a premium hand, I re-raised to $160. The action folded to him, and he called quickly. The BB called as well.

The flop came 6c 3c 3s. The BB checked, I bet $200 into a pot of about $500, the Button called with about $500 behind (this is why my flop sizing was small), and the BB folded.

I was ready to be done with it, but the turn was an offsuit Ace. Intriguing. I checked, and Villain checked behind. The river was a Q. I threw five black chips into the pot.

“So sick,” Villain said. “I know you got there. Ugh, I did not want to see a Queen.” Huh, that’s not what I wanted him to be afraid of. “Fuck it, I call,” he said, turning over Ac Kc. I showed him my twos, tossed him $500, and mentally demoted him from “mediocre reg” to “wannabe”.

Bad Donk

I played this one pretty badly to be honest, but because it turns out I was winning until the river, I’m allowed to feel sorry for myself, right?

UTG opened for $30, Wannabe called on the Button, and I called with 43o on the BB.

Flop ($95) 864r. I bet $70, UTG folded, Button quickly called.

Turn ($235) 2. I really need to just cut my losses here, but the gutshot was just too tempting to keep me from firing again. I bet $170, and Button called with no hesitation.

River ($575) A. This is probably a decent card to follow through, but he seemed in no mood to fold, so I finally gave it up. He proudly tabled A5o.

I planned to leave pretty soon and decided not to top my stack off from $1250 to the $1500 cap. Of course a few hands later I flopped the nuts and doubled through someone who probably would have paid off another $250 considering he put me all in for $500 more when I bet $500 on the river.

Pot Odds

I finally got my revenge, plus a good laugh, on what turned out to be my last hand of the session (I was waiting for dealer change because it was a time rake #nitcast). UTG, a weak player who’d been raising too much from all positions, opened for $40. UTG1, who seemed like a good pro, called. I made it $140 with As Js UTG2. Wannabe cold called from the SB, UTG called, and UTG1 called.

Flop ($575) 2s 3c 7h. Checked to me, I bet $300, SB called, the other two folded.

Turn ($1175) Ac. He checked. I briefly considered trying to get my value now, but I actually thought AK was a real possibility for SB, so I decided to check back and fold to a big river bet or value bet if he checked.

River ($1175) 2d. He checked. I thought about betting pot but settled on $700.

Wannabe groaned. “I told myself the bigger you bet, the more I was going to call you. You bet the pot. That means you have either Aces or nothing.” Wow, it was hard to keep a poker face after that little monologue. But he wasn’t done yet. “How much is in the pot?” he asked the dealer.

“I can’t tell you that,” she said.

“You can spread it out, right?” he said. She spread the pot. “Eleven hundred,” he muttered to himself. “That means I only have to be right half the time.” Again, I suppressed a smile. Finally, he gave up the facade and copped to his true logic: “Fuck it, I call.”

PokerStars – $2000+$100|200/400 Ante 50 NL (8 max) – Holdem – 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BTN: 91.04 BB (VPIP: 42.86, PFR: 28.57, 3Bet Preflop: 12.50, Hands: 14)
SB: 79.65 BB (VPIP: 27.91, PFR: 9.52, 3Bet Preflop: 4.17, Hands: 43)
Hero (BB): 29.43 BB
UTG: 20.47 BB (VPIP: 23.89, PFR: 9.82, 3Bet Preflop: 7.41, Hands: 113)
UTG+1: 20.85 BB (VPIP: 22.22, PFR: 11.11, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 9)
MP: 29.11 BB (VPIP: 21.03, PFR: 15.98, 3Bet Preflop: 5.75, Hands: 196)
MP+1: 102.62 BB (VPIP: 16.67, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 6)
CO: 40.3 BB (VPIP: 27.91, PFR: 18.60, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 43)

8 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.5 BB) Hero has 4c 7c
fold, fold, MP raises to 2 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 1 BB

Flop : (5.5 BB, 2 players) 3d 5c 6c
Hero checks, MP checks

Turn : (5.5 BB, 2 players) 6d
Hero bets 3.09 BB, MP calls 3.09 BB

River : (11.67 BB, 2 players) 5d
Hero bets 5.84 BB, MP raises to 21 BB, fold

MP wins 23.34 BB

There may be a case for betting bigger than I did on the turn. Villain is generally drawing dead or two two outs, though, so I’m not too concerned about the price I’m laying him. The river is obviously not a great card, but moreso because of how much it strengthens my range than because it’s likely to give Villain the river.

I suspect a lot of people will want t check-call here, but I don’t see any value in that. Villain is too likely to have showdown value that he won’t turn into a bluff. I see my options as bet-fold or check-fold, and given how capped Villain ought to be, I think a thin value bet is best.

Unfortunately he manages to find a raise. It’s awfully hard to see him doing this without a 6, regardless of how improbably it is that he played a 6 this way to the river. I suppose my hand is a reasonable bluff-catcher, but still, I just don’t expect to see a bluff here. Among other things, I expect Villain to put me on a more polarized range than I actually have.

Next up was the $1K Main Event, where I wriggled my way out of at least one dicey spot:

PokerStars – $1000+$50|125/250 Ante 30 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

MP: 85.65 BB (VPIP: 22.09, PFR: 15.34, 3Bet Preflop: 7.69, Hands: 164)
MP+1: 67.92 BB (VPIP: 26.84, PFR: 18.42, 3Bet Preflop: 2.70, Hands: 193)
Hero (MP+2): 78.2 BB
CO: 62.44 BB (VPIP: 18.18, PFR: 10.81, 3Bet Preflop: 2.60, Hands: 189)
BTN: 53.54 BB (VPIP: 38.39, PFR: 22.32, 3Bet Preflop: 9.09, Hands: 112)
SB: 82.09 BB (VPIP: 21.62, PFR: 12.61, 3Bet Preflop: 9.62, Hands: 112)
BB: 33 BB (VPIP: 16.22, PFR: 10.81, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 112)
UTG: 51.23 BB (VPIP: 18.75, PFR: 13.39, 3Bet Preflop: 2.13, Hands: 112)
UTG+1: 26.18 BB (VPIP: 18.92, PFR: 11.71, 3Bet Preflop: 7.69, Hands: 112)

9 players post ante of 0.12 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.58 BB) Hero has Kd Kc
fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.5 BB, fold, BTN raises to 5.28 BB, fold, fold, Hero raises to 13.33 BB, BTN calls 8.05 BB

Flop : (29.24 BB, 2 players) 7h Ac Qd
Hero checks, BTN checks

Turn : (29.24 BB, 2 players) 9d
Hero bets 6.66 BB, fold

Hero wins 29.24 BB

Eventually, though, I lost a pretty big pot in a pretty good spot:

PokerStars – $1000+$50|200/400 Ante 50 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BTN: 45.27 BB (VPIP: 23.12, PFR: 14.52, 3Bet Preflop: 6.49, Hands: 187)
SB: 35.65 BB (VPIP: 26.29, PFR: 17.84, 3Bet Preflop: 2.35, Hands: 216)
Hero (BB): 88.34 BB
UTG: 22.05 BB (VPIP: 18.57, PFR: 10.58, 3Bet Preflop: 2.20, Hands: 212)
UTG+1: 76.72 BB (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 8.33, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 12)
MP: 56.37 BB (VPIP: 21.64, PFR: 12.69, 3Bet Preflop: 9.23, Hands: 135)
MP+1: 47.31 BB (VPIP: 17.91, PFR: 11.19, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 135)
MP+2: 23.96 BB (VPIP: 19.26, PFR: 13.33, 3Bet Preflop: 3.28, Hands: 135)
CO: 9.53 BB (VPIP: 17.91, PFR: 11.28, 3Bet Preflop: 6.15, Hands: 135)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.63 BB) Hero has Ah Kc
fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, BTN raises to 2.25 BB, fold, Hero raises to 6.67 BB, BTN raises to 14.25 BB, Hero raises to 88.22 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 30.89 BB and is all-in

Flop : (91.91 BB, 2 players) 8c 2s 3s

Turn : (91.91 BB, 2 players) 4s

River : (91.91 BB, 2 players) Jh

Hero shows Ah Kc (High Card, Ace)
(Pre 74%, Flop 81%, Turn 69%)

BTN shows Js Ac (One Pair, Jacks)
(Pre 26%, Flop 19%, Turn 31%)

BTN wins 91.91 BB

I got my second and final High cash of the SCOOP in the $1K 6-max turbo, though because it was a turbo those were pretty much all uninteresting pre-flop spots.

Thanks to everyone who followed along here, on Twitter, on Twitch, or anywhere else. I’m in Las Vegas now, I’ve actually been here for over 48 hours and am yet to play a single hand of poker. I had dinner with Keone last night, and he, Carlos, and I will be picking Nate up at the airport in a few hours.

At the moment, I’m on way out the door to a Red Chip Poker meet-up. Details on a nitcast meetup will be coming soon. So much to do in Vegas this time of year even without setting foot in a poker room!

The only High buy-in event I played on Saturday was the $2000 Six-Max Progressive Super Knockout Variable Level Times. Say that three times fast. It was basically a turbo with bounties, pretty fun though my bounty was collected in rather gruesome fashion. First off, just because I’ve posted a lot of failed bluffs lately, here’s one that actually worked:

PokerStars – $1000+$1000+$100|40/80 NL (6 max) – Holdem – 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

Hero (BTN): 71.63 BB
SB: 93.38 BB (VPIP: 39.29, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 28)
BB: 38.31 BB (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 28)
UTG: 52.94 BB (VPIP: 35.90, PFR: 33.33, 3Bet Preflop: 20.00, Hands: 39)
MP: 79.88 BB (VPIP: 30.77, PFR: 23.08, 3Bet Preflop: 25.00, Hands: 13)
CO: 42.81 BB (VPIP: 28.57, PFR: 21.43, 3Bet Preflop: 6.67, Hands: 28)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 9d Jh
fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.5 BB, SB calls 2 BB, fold

Flop : (6 BB, 2 players) 7c 4h Td
SB bets 3 BB, Hero calls 3 BB

Turn : (12 BB, 2 players) 6c
SB bets 6 BB, Hero raises to 20.5 BB, fold

Hero wins 24 BB

And here’s where the last of my chips ended up:

PokerStars – $1000+$1000+$100|125/250 Ante 30 NL (6 max) – Holdem – 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

Hero (BB): 15.65 BB
UTG: 30.24 BB (VPIP: 32.31, PFR: 16.92, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 65)
MP: 13.6 BB (VPIP: 38.10, PFR: 33.33, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 21)
CO: 17.02 BB (VPIP: 27.63, PFR: 24.66, 3Bet Preflop: 18.52, Hands: 76)
BTN: 21.04 BB (VPIP: 28.57, PFR: 20.00, 3Bet Preflop: 14.29, Hands: 22)
SB: 48.32 BB (VPIP: 26.15, PFR: 21.54, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 65)

6 players post ante of 0.12 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.22 BB) Hero has Tc 8c
fold, fold, fold, BTN calls 1 BB, fold, Hero checks

Flop : (3.22 BB, 2 players) 6c 9s 7s
Hero bets 2.41 BB, BTN raises to 4.82 BB, Hero raises to 14.53 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 9.7 BB

Turn : (32.28 BB, 2 players) 7h

River : (32.28 BB, 2 players) 9h

Hero shows Tc 8c (Straight, Ten High)
(Pre 34%, Flop 91%, Turn 88%)

BTN shows Th 9c (Full House, Nines full of Sevens)
(Pre 66%, Flop 9%, Turn 13%)

BTN wins 32.28 BB

Thursday was a $1K Super Knock-Out, though my bounty was collected before I could nab any of my own. This first hand wasn’t a huge pot, but I’m disappointed in myself for calling the river:

PokerStars – $500+$500+$50|15/30 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BTN: 210.43 BB (VPIP: 24.75, PFR: 16.75, 3Bet Preflop: 2.11, Hands: 204)
SB: 165.67 BB (VPIP: 6.67, PFR: 6.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 15)
BB: 156 BB (VPIP: 19.35, PFR: 12.90, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 31)
UTG: 55.37 BB (VPIP: 37.04, PFR: 18.52, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 55)
UTG+1: 237.3 BB (VPIP: 37.25, PFR: 13.73, 3Bet Preflop: 3.23, Hands: 52)
Hero (MP): 137.67 BB
MP+1: 234.8 BB (VPIP: 13.64, PFR: 11.36, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 44)
MP+2: 166.67 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 1)
CO: 159.93 BB (VPIP: 22.00, PFR: 14.00, 3Bet Preflop: 12.00, Hands: 50)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Kc Kh
fold, fold, Hero raises to 3 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, SB calls 2.5 BB, fold

Flop : (7 BB, 2 players) Jh 3d 7c
SB checks, Hero bets 5.23 BB, SB calls 5.23 BB

Turn : (17.47 BB, 2 players) 2s
SB checks, Hero checks

River : (17.47 BB, 2 players) 5h
SB bets 17 BB, Hero calls 17 BB

SB shows 5d 5s (Three of a Kind, Fives)
(Pre 20%, Flop 10%, Turn 5%)

Hero mucks Kc Kh (One Pair, Kings)
(Pre 80%, Flop 90%, Turn 95%)

SB wins 51.47 BB

I don’t think Villain is bluffing, and with that sizing, he’s not value betting worse either.

I had a bad feeling about this one, but I think, despite the outcome, I was correct to suppress it as “seeing monsters”:

PokerStars – $500+$500+$50|30/60 Ante 5 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

MP+1: 310.33 BB (VPIP: 27.31, PFR: 16.97, 3Bet Preflop: 2.29, Hands: 285)
MP+2: 14.77 BB (VPIP: 17.71, PFR: 11.46, 3Bet Preflop: 6.52, Hands: 96)
CO: 50.67 BB (VPIP: 14.10, PFR: 8.97, 3Bet Preflop: 10.53, Hands: 79)
BTN: 74.15 BB (VPIP: 21.05, PFR: 14.04, 3Bet Preflop: 7.69, Hands: 57)
SB: 150.58 BB (VPIP: 36.92, PFR: 16.15, 3Bet Preflop: 3.23, Hands: 133)
Hero (BB): 62.23 BB
UTG: 74.27 BB (VPIP: 21.77, PFR: 12.90, 3Bet Preflop: 5.17, Hands: 125)
UTG+1: 140.47 BB (VPIP: 22.22, PFR: 12.35, 3Bet Preflop: 7.32, Hands: 82)
MP: 123.92 BB (VPIP: 24.43, PFR: 13.74, 3Bet Preflop: 8.20, Hands: 131)

9 players post ante of 0.08 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.25 BB) Hero has Kd Ks
fold, UTG+1 raises to 3 BB, fold, fold, MP+2 calls 3 BB, fold, BTN raises to 7.02 BB, SB calls 6.52 BB, Hero raises to 20 BB, fold, MP+2 calls 11.68 BB and is all-in, BTN raises to 74.07 BB and is all-in, fold, Hero calls 42.15 BB and is all-in

Flop : (149.75 BB, 3 players) Tc 9d 8s

Turn : (149.75 BB, 3 players) 5d

River : (149.75 BB, 3 players) 7h

Hero shows Kd Ks (One Pair, Kings)

Main Pot [54.82 BB]: (Pre 18%, Flop 12%, Turn 5%)
Side Pot [94.93 BB]: (Pre 18%, Flop 12%, Turn 5%)

BTN shows Ah As (One Pair, Aces)

Main Pot [54.82 BB]: (Pre 65%, Flop 79%, Turn 5%)
Side Pot [94.93 BB]: (Pre 82%, Flop 88%, Turn 95%)

MP+2 shows 5h 5c (Three of a Kind, Fives)

Main Pot [54.82 BB]: (Pre 17%, Flop 9%, Turn 90%)

MP+2 wins 54.82 BB
BTN wins 94.93 BB

I also Twitched some PLO8 on Thursday, you can find that here.

I’ll be playing all day tomorrow, probably late registering the earliest tournaments by a bit just so I don’t end up with an insanely long day, but hey, it’s the last day of SCOOP, gotta make it count!

PokerStars – $2000+$100|1500/3000 Ante 375 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

Hero (MP+2): 21.83 BB
CO: 67.09 BB (VPIP: 27.79, PFR: 20.00, 3Bet Preflop: 10.73, Hands: 403)
BTN: 157.16 BB (VPIP: 10.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 10)
SB: 15.14 BB (VPIP: 30.00, PFR: 20.00, 3Bet Preflop: 25.00, Hands: 10)
BB: 45.85 BB (VPIP: 18.79, PFR: 12.73, 3Bet Preflop: 4.00, Hands: 166)
UTG: 36.72 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 1)
UTG+1: 65.67 BB (VPIP: 50.00, PFR: 33.33, 3Bet Preflop: 16.67, Hands: 12)
MP: 23.49 BB (VPIP: 27.27, PFR: 20.66, 3Bet Preflop: 7.41, Hands: 123)
MP+1: 14.18 BB (VPIP: 23.08, PFR: 22.58, 3Bet Preflop: 4.55, Hands: 65)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.63 BB) Hero has Kh Jh
fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.22 BB, CO raises to 5 BB, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 2.78 BB

Flop : (12.63 BB, 2 players) 5h 9s Qs
Hero checks, CO checks

Turn : (12.63 BB, 2 players) Tc
Hero checks, CO checks

River : (12.63 BB, 2 players) 6d
Hero bets 16.71 BB and is all-in, CO calls 16.71 BB

Hero shows Kh Jh (Straight, King High)
(Pre 36%, Flop 30%, Turn 97%)

CO shows Jc Js (One Pair, Jacks)
(Pre 64%, Flop 70%, Turn 3%)

Hero wins 46.04 BB

I saw Kim do a lot of pot control and delayed continuation betting yesterday, so I was ready to check-raise the flop (in part because his betting range is probably more polarized than some people’s) and also the turn. When neither of those things happen, I think he’ll feel obliged to call an overbet with some hands, and because his range is likely capped, it’s a situation where I can and should shove the nuts and some air. I was a bit lucky not just to drill the gutshot but also that he had such a good bluff-catcher.

The next orbit, he did actually catch me in a bluff:

PokerStars – $2000+$100|1500/3000 Ante 375 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

Hero (BB): 45.54 BB
UTG: 44.76 BB (VPIP: 27.70, PFR: 20.00, 3Bet Preflop: 11.17, Hands: 408)
UTG+1: 154.25 BB (VPIP: 13.33, PFR: 6.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 15)
MP: 34.93 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 26.67, 3Bet Preflop: 33.33, Hands: 15)
MP+1: 43.73 BB (VPIP: 18.24, PFR: 12.35, 3Bet Preflop: 3.90, Hands: 171)
MP+2: 21.2 BB (VPIP: 16.67, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 6)
CO: 63.54 BB (VPIP: 35.29, PFR: 23.53, 3Bet Preflop: 12.50, Hands: 17)
BTN: 23.99 BB (VPIP: 26.98, PFR: 20.63, 3Bet Preflop: 7.27, Hands: 128)
SB: 15.18 BB (VPIP: 22.86, PFR: 22.73, 3Bet Preflop: 4.55, Hands: 70)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.63 BB) Hero has Jd As
UTG raises to 2.2 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 1.2 BB

Flop : (6.03 BB, 2 players) 5h Td 5d
Hero checks, UTG bets 1.83 BB, Hero calls 1.83 BB

Turn : (9.69 BB, 2 players) Kd
Hero checks, UTG checks

River : (9.69 BB, 2 players) 9c
Hero bets 6.3 BB, UTG calls 6.3 BB

Hero shows Jd As (One Pair, Fives)
(Pre 28%, Flop 12%, Turn 5%)

UTG shows Qd Qc (Two Pair, Queens and Fives)
(Pre 72%, Flop 88%, Turn 95%)

UTG wins 22.28 BB

There may be some runouts where I can just check and try to show my hand down unimproved, but this isn’t one of them. Between the King coming on the turn and his passing up a decent bluffing card, there’s little chance that AJ is good. The flush getting there makes this just about the bottom of my range, and he’s got plenty of underpairs and maybe AQ that will be hard-pressed to call, so I think a bluff is clearly correct. QQ isn’t a hand I’d expect him to fold, especially after he saw me value bet a relatively weak hand in a spot like this yesterday.

I picked up some more chips busting a short stack AK > AJ, then lost JJ < QQ versus another short stack. The only other interesting one that went to the flop was this:

PokerStars – $2000+$100|2000/4000 Ante 500 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

MP+1: 25.39 BB (VPIP: 43.70, PFR: 36.44, 3Bet Preflop: 21.43, Hands: 123)
MP+2: 51.78 BB (VPIP: 26.54, PFR: 12.96, 3Bet Preflop: 7.69, Hands: 162)
CO: 25.98 BB (VPIP: 20.68, PFR: 13.62, 3Bet Preflop: 12.26, Hands: 238)
BTN: 169.98 BB (VPIP: 13.33, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 25.00, Hands: 15)
SB: 75.43 BB (VPIP: 27.63, PFR: 22.37, 3Bet Preflop: 4.35, Hands: 78)
BB: 24.22 BB (VPIP: 18.75, PFR: 9.38, 3Bet Preflop: 4.00, Hands: 64)
Hero (UTG): 23.35 BB
UTG+1: 29.85 BB (VPIP: 40.00, PFR: 26.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 15)
MP: 17.51 BB (VPIP: 6.67, PFR: 6.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 15)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.63 BB) Hero has Kd Ad
Hero raises to 2.22 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, BB calls 1.22 BB

Flop : (6.07 BB, 2 players) 8d 3h 7c
BB checks, Hero checks

Turn : (6.07 BB, 2 players) Js
BB checks, Hero checks

River : (6.07 BB, 2 players) 3d
BB bets 2.81 BB, fold

BB wins 6.07 BB

Villain’s stack size makes betting the flop awkward. Especially as he could shove semi-bluffs, bet-folding causes me to forfeit a lot of equity, but I don’t really want to bet-call either. I tanked a while before folding the river. Yes, he could easily be bluffing, but my entire range can beat a bluff, so I don’t need to call with all of it. I can have some 7s, maybe even some 8s or Js, and 66 and 55 make particularly good bluff-catchers as they block a few of his 7x and 8x combinations. Folding all of my non-pairs might still be a bit exploitable, but especially in a tournament I’m OK with that.

As it happened, Randal Flowers, who eliminated me from the previous 2K event and nearly busted me on the bubble of this one, ended up taking the last of my chips when his AK beat my KK.

The upside was that I got to spend some time outside and take a long walk. I’d planned on having today as a day off, and it felt that way even though it technically wasn’t. Here are some pics from my walk around Stanley Park:

Thanks to everyone who wished me well today or showed up to rail. I start tomorrow at 11AM Pacific playing all three Super Tuesday tournaments, though I’ll probably late register the Low and Medium PLO events at that time as well. I’ll post the new podcast tomorrow morning, but wanted to get this up first as I didn’t want to leave you hanging concerning results.

I won Round One of the $700 in dramatic fashion:

PokerStars – $665+$35|40/80 NL (2 max) – Holdem – 2 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

Hero (SB): 58.33 BB
BB: 66.68 BB (VPIP: 76.81, PFR: 44.93, 3Bet Preflop: 17.65, Hands: 72)

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Ah Ks
Hero raises to 2 BB, BB raises to 5.5 BB, Hero raises to 12.49 BB, BB calls 6.99 BB

Flop : (24.98 BB, 2 players) 9h 4h 3c
BB checks, Hero checks

Turn : (24.98 BB, 2 players) 3h
BB bets 15.25 BB, Hero calls 15.25 BB

River : (55.48 BB, 2 players) 6d
BB bets 38.94 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 30.59 BB and is all-in

BB shows 8d 5d (One Pair, Threes)
(Pre 40%, Flop 23%, Turn 9%)

Hero shows Ah Ks (One Pair, Threes)
(Pre 60%, Flop 77%, Turn 91%)

Hero wins 116.65 BB

Unfortunately in Round 2 I went down to a bad beat and a cooler:

PokerStars – $665+$35|40/80 NL (2 max) – Holdem – 2 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

Hero (SB): 71.3 BB
BB: 53.7 BB (VPIP: 78.26, PFR: 53.62, 3Bet Preflop: 14.71, Hands: 70)

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 7h 9c
Hero raises to 2 BB, BB calls 1 BB

Flop : (4 BB, 2 players) Kh 7s 4d
BB checks, Hero bets 2 BB, BB raises to 6.8 BB, Hero calls 4.8 BB

Turn : (17.6 BB, 2 players) 7c
BB bets 10.55 BB, Hero calls 10.55 BB

River : (38.7 BB, 2 players) Js
BB bets 34.35 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 34.35 BB

BB shows 4s 4h (Full House, Fours full of Sevens)
(Pre 51%, Flop 98%, Turn 84%)

Hero shows 7h 9c (Three of a Kind, Sevens)
(Pre 49%, Flop 2%, Turn 16%)

BB wins 107.4 BB

PokerStars – $665+$35|40/80 NL (2 max) – Holdem – 2 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

Hero (SB): 98.35 BB
BB: 26.65 BB (VPIP: 76.92, PFR: 53.85, 3Bet Preflop: 15.63, Hands: 66)

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Qc Qh
Hero raises to 2 BB, BB calls 1 BB

Flop : (4 BB, 2 players) 2c 7s Js
BB checks, Hero bets 2 BB, BB calls 2 BB

Turn : (8 BB, 2 players) Kh
BB checks, Hero bets 6 BB, BB raises to 22.65 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 16.65 BB

River : (53.3 BB, 2 players) 9h

BB shows Tc Qs (Straight, King High)
(Pre 11%, Flop 9%, Turn 18%)

Hero shows Qc Qh (One Pair, Queens)
(Pre 89%, Flop 91%, Turn 82%)

BB wins 53.3 BB

I got to take a few minutes off before the rebuy events started. I got off to a good start in the $700, then ran into this spot:

PokerStars – $665+$35|200/400 Ante 50 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

MP: 37.5 BB (VPIP: 16.67, PFR: 9.76, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 42)
MP+1: 12.62 BB (VPIP: 21.31, PFR: 21.67, 3Bet Preflop: 3.85, Hands: 61)
MP+2: 13.15 BB (VPIP: 12.77, PFR: 9.09, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 47)
CO: 18.98 BB (VPIP: 16.67, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 5.26, Hands: 42)
Hero (BTN): 64.76 BB
SB: 48.04 BB (VPIP: 19.05, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 42)
BB: 43.54 BB (VPIP: 26.19, PFR: 19.05, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 42)
UTG: 23.57 BB (VPIP: 18.52, PFR: 12.77, 3Bet Preflop: 3.45, Hands: 189)
UTG+1: 14.23 BB (VPIP: 21.43, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 5.00, Hands: 42)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.63 BB) Hero has Ad Qc
fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 2 BB, SB raises to 5.95 BB, fold, Hero raises to 13.89 BB, SB raises to 47.92 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 34.03 BB

Flop : (97.96 BB, 2 players) 6h 9d Tc

Turn : (97.96 BB, 2 players) Kh

River : (97.96 BB, 2 players) 9s

SB shows Ac Kd (Two Pair, Kings and Nines)
(Pre 75%, Flop 84%, Turn 91%)

Hero shows Ad Qc (One Pair, Nines)
(Pre 25%, Flop 16%, Turn 9%)

SB wins 97.96 BB

Getting it in pre is on the thin side, but I don’t see how else to play it. I guess flatting the 3-bet is an option, but even for 50 bigs AQ is a pretty big hand button vs SB.

I got the last of my money in good, but I’m still not sure I played it optimally:

PokerStars – $665+$35|250/500 Ante 60 NL – Holdem – 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

SB: 31.23 BB (VPIP: 19.75, PFR: 19.23, 3Bet Preflop: 3.23, Hands: 81)
BB: 19.08 BB (VPIP: 11.67, PFR: 8.77, 3Bet Preflop: 3.85, Hands: 60)
UTG: 14.72 BB (VPIP: 14.55, PFR: 12.73, 3Bet Preflop: 4.17, Hands: 55)
Hero (UTG+1): 16.51 BB
MP: 99.18 BB (VPIP: 21.82, PFR: 18.52, 3Bet Preflop: 8.70, Hands: 55)
MP+1: 24.02 BB (VPIP: 25.45, PFR: 16.36, 3Bet Preflop: 7.69, Hands: 55)
CO: 4.48 BB (VPIP: 17.82, PFR: 12.50, 3Bet Preflop: 4.35, Hands: 202)
BTN: 11.89 BB (VPIP: 21.82, PFR: 16.98, 3Bet Preflop: 4.35, Hands: 55)

8 players post ante of 0.12 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.46 BB) Hero has Ah Ks
fold, Hero raises to 2 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, BB calls 1 BB

Flop : (5.46 BB, 2 players) 5h 2h 9c
BB checks, Hero bets 1.8 BB, BB raises to 15.5 BB, Hero calls 12.59 BB and is all-in

Turn : (34.24 BB, 2 players) 7h

River : (34.24 BB, 2 players) 6c

BB shows Th 6h (Flush, Ten High)
(Pre 37%, Flop 49%, Turn 84%)

Hero shows Ah Ks (High Card, Ace)
(Pre 63%, Flop 51%, Turn 16%)

BB wins 34.24 BB

Arguably just shoving pre is better. I do have a raise-fold range from this stack size, though, and I definitely do get three-bet when I open in spots like this. I could also see checking or jamming flop, too. I mean, it’s not like I WANT action from Th 6h.

I’ll be playing again tomorrow starting at 11AM Pacific with the $2000 Super Tuesday replacement. I usually tweet interesting hands while I’m playing, so if you aren’t already, you might want to follow @thinkingpoker.

I had a bit of friction coming into Canada yesterday, nothing too serious, but the most difficult I’ve encountered on any or my trips here. The first customs agent asked me the usual questions but seemed satisfied with my answers and sent me on my way. Thinking I was in the clear, I retrieved my bag and went to leave the airport, handing my declaration form to another customs agent on the way out. The first agent must have marked something on there, because the second did a double take and then sent me to the immigration office.

The agent there was polite and a bit less aggressive than the customs people usually are, which was nice. He asked about how often I came to Canada, how long I planned to stay, and where I planned to stay. He also asked whether poker was my only source of income, and when I mentioned coaching and writing, he asked whether my writing was entirely online. I’m not really sure why that was important, but he told me to leave my bag and have a seat, then he disappeared for at least fifteen minutes.

Finally he returned and told me I’d be allowed in (he never actually inspected my bag). He said they’d had problems with online poker players staying in Canada for months at a time, returning to the US only briefly, and then coming back to Canada again. Apparently my track record of relatively brief visits over the last few years reassured them, and I was allowed into the country. Still, this was a bit of a scare, and also significant for being the first time a customs/immigration officer I’ve dealt with has demonstrated an awareness of the phenomenon of US poker players coming to Canada to play online.

Now that I’m here, it’s great to be playing the SCOOP on the west coast. Event 1 started at 5AM, which was early even for me, but from here on out none of the tournaments starts before 8AM or after 2PM. 8AM might sound early to some of you, but it’s roughly when I tend to wake up anyway, and I’m glad not to have events starting at 5PM and running until 5AM (I skipped several events last year for this reason).

I late registered all three Event 1s and came somewhat close to cashing in the $1K, ultimately busting on a coin flip:

PokerStars – $1000+$50|250/500 Ante 50 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

MP: 34.46 BB (VPIP: 26.92, PFR: 15.38, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 26)
MP+1: 26.33 BB (VPIP: 15.38, PFR: 11.54, 3Bet Preflop: 21.43, Hands: 26)
MP+2: 25.08 BB (VPIP: 24.44, PFR: 15.56, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 45)
CO: 41.15 BB (VPIP: 12.33, PFR: 5.48, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 73)
Hero (BTN): 30.1 BB
SB: 13.1 BB (VPIP: 23.08, PFR: 11.54, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 26)
BB: 14.84 BB (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 8.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 26)
UTG: 40.98 BB (VPIP: 15.38, PFR: 15.38, 3Bet Preflop: 14.29, Hands: 26)
UTG+1: 75.37 BB (VPIP: 26.92, PFR: 15.38, 3Bet Preflop: 8.33, Hands: 26)

9 players post ante of 0.1 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.4 BB) Hero has Jh Ac
fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, CO raises to 2 BB, Hero raises to 5 BB, fold, fold, CO raises to 41.05 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 25 BB and is all-in

Flop : (62.4 BB, 2 players) 3s 4c 9h

Turn : (62.4 BB, 2 players) 6h

River : (62.4 BB, 2 players) 4s

CO shows 6d 6s (Full House, Sixes full of Fours)
(Pre 55%, Flop 76%, Turn 100%)

Hero shows Jh Ac (One Pair, Fours)
(Pre 45%, Flop 24%, Turn 0%)

CO wins 62.4 BB

Relatively standard I think, though I can see a case for flatting pre-flop as well.

The 6-max progressive knock-out was a lot of fun, and I wish I’d lasted longer in that one. I got off to a pretty good start, three-betting quite a bit against a very active player on my right and generally getting the better of the many pots we played together. Then I lost a chunk running JJ into his QQ. I would have been ready to lose it all, but he just flatted my three-bet out of position, and we didn’t end up getting stacks in post.

I once again miraculously managed not to go broke here:

PokerStars – $1000+$1000+$100|75/150 Ante 20 NL (6 max) – Holdem – 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

UTG: 60.97 BB (VPIP: 5.88, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 17)
MP: 282.54 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 28.57, 3Bet Preflop: 16.67, Hands: 22)
CO: 61.31 BB (VPIP: 47.37, PFR: 32.43, 3Bet Preflop: 8.33, Hands: 38)
BTN: 147.22 BB (VPIP: 35.96, PFR: 19.70, 3Bet Preflop: 2.17, Hands: 203)
SB: 77.58 BB (VPIP: 24.50, PFR: 13.91, 3Bet Preflop: 5.13, Hands: 155)
Hero (BB): 61.95 BB

6 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.3 BB) Hero has Qd Ks
fold, fold, CO raises to 2.16 BB, BTN calls 2.16 BB, fold, Hero calls 1.16 BB

Flop : (7.78 BB, 3 players) 6s Qh As
Hero checks, CO bets 3.5 BB, fold, Hero calls 3.5 BB

Turn : (14.78 BB, 2 players) Qs
Hero checks, CO bets 12.5 BB, Hero calls 12.5 BB

River : (39.78 BB, 2 players) 7s
Hero checks, CO bets 14 BB, Hero calls 14 BB

CO shows Ac Ah (Full House, Aces full of Queens)
(Pre 86%, Flop 95%, Turn 98%)

Hero mucks Qd Ks (Flush, Ace High)
(Pre 14%, Flop 5%, Turn 2%)

CO wins 67.78 BB

Villain could have easily shoved the river, and given that there was a $500 bounty for eliminating me, I think he clearly should have.

Ultimately, I was busted by a player who went after my bounty a bit more aggressively:

PokerStars – $1000+$1000+$100|75/150 Ante 20 NL (6 max) – Holdem – 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

SB: 167.27 BB (VPIP: 40.00, PFR: 20.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 10)
BB: 373.33 BB (VPIP: 41.30, PFR: 34.78, 3Bet Preflop: 40.00, Hands: 47)
UTG: 107.29 BB (VPIP: 52.38, PFR: 40.32, 3Bet Preflop: 10.53, Hands: 63)
MP: 61.73 BB (VPIP: 35.53, PFR: 18.86, 3Bet Preflop: 2.75, Hands: 228)
CO: 68.97 BB (VPIP: 23.30, PFR: 12.50, 3Bet Preflop: 4.30, Hands: 180)
Hero (BTN): 24.38 BB

6 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.3 BB) Hero has 2c 2h
fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 24.25 BB and is all-in, fold, BB calls 23.25 BB

Flop : (49.79 BB, 2 players) Tc Ah Ks

Turn : (49.79 BB, 2 players) 8h

River : (49.79 BB, 2 players) Th

BB shows 8d 2d (Two Pair, Tens and Eights)
(Pre 37%, Flop 15%, Turn 98%)

Hero shows 2c 2h (Two Pair, Tens and Twos)
(Pre 63%, Flop 85%, Turn 2%)

BB wins 49.79 BB

The most interesting pot I played was against Chris Moorman in the $2000 Sunday Million replacement:

PokerStars – $2000+$100|50/100 Ante 10 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

Hero (UTG): 135.17 BB
UTG+1: 105.97 BB (VPIP: 38.46, PFR: 23.08, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 13)
MP: 69.55 BB (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 8.89, 3Bet Preflop: 2.22, Hands: 91)
MP+1: 23.7 BB (VPIP: 21.11, PFR: 10.00, 3Bet Preflop: 4.76, Hands: 91)
MP+2: 108.03 BB (VPIP: 31.87, PFR: 19.78, 3Bet Preflop: 7.69, Hands: 91)
CO: 105.24 BB (VPIP: 22.47, PFR: 17.98, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 89)
BTN: 104.23 BB (VPIP: 20.69, PFR: 8.62, 3Bet Preflop: 2.94, Hands: 60)
SB: 103.1 BB (VPIP: 6.67, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 15)
BB: 95.76 BB (VPIP: 16.44, PFR: 13.70, 3Bet Preflop: 5.26, Hands: 74)

9 players post ante of 0.1 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.4 BB) Hero has As Ac
Hero raises to 3 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, CO calls 3 BB, fold, fold, fold

Flop : (8.4 BB, 2 players) 3d 4c 7c
Hero checks, CO bets 4.2 BB, Hero calls 4.2 BB

Turn : (16.8 BB, 2 players) 7s
Hero checks, CO bets 8.4 BB, Hero calls 8.4 BB

River : (33.6 BB, 2 players) Jc
Hero checks, CO bets 22.39 BB, Hero calls 22.39 BB

CO shows 5d 5h (Two Pair, Sevens and Fives)
(Pre 20%, Flop 23%, Turn 14%)

Hero shows As Ac (Two Pair, Aces and Sevens)
(Pre 80%, Flop 77%, Turn 86%)

Hero wins 78.38 BB

It was all downhill from there, though. I was really card dead, barely opening at all and getting three-bet almost every time I did (except when I had Kings, of course!) Eventually I open jammed 13BBs with JJ and lost a flip to AK in the big blind.

Tomorrow is the heads up, which should be a lot of fun!

Ruud says, “Generally I find Villain has the goods when he bombs the river like this.”

Pepito agrees, “unless he contemptuously views you as a bad, nitty player, what adept villain expects Kx to fold given that particular run out and action? river looks like soul-owning thin value from AK and/or KQ, or fat value from 2P, straights, and flushes.”

Mike argues exactly the opposite: “if he’s a good player, he will know he can try to rep something strong considering both a flush draw and straight draw got there.”

I think this is as telling a demonstration as you’re going to get of the value of guessing at the meaning of Villain’s bet. A “good player” shouldn’t be so easy to pigeonhole as definitely bluffing or definitely value betting, just as he shouldn’t feel confident about whether or not I’m going to call a river bet, so let’s dig a little deeper.

The Knowns (or Strongly Suspecteds)

1. Villain is raising exploitably many hands pre-flop and consequently will see the flop with an overly wide range. That means he’ll see the flop with a lot of weak hands. As long as we don’t fold exploitably often, he can’t show a profit by bluffing with them, so one way or the other our strongest hands will win the pot on any given run out – either Villain gives up frequently and lets us win at showdown, which also benefits some of our more medium-strength hands that aren’t going to call multiple barrels, or he bluffs frequently, meaning that we win the pot less often when we have the best hand but win larger pots with our bluff-catching range.

2. This is a particularly bad river for our hand and a good one for many of the draws Villain could have.

The Unknowns

1. Villain’s value betting strategy. Would he bet AK or AA for value here? If so, would he use this sizing? Multiple bet sizes, particularly on the river, is not necessarily an exploitable strategy, so let’s not rule out the possibility that this bet is more polarized than a $250 would be, but less polarized than a shove would be.

2. Villain’s turn barreling strategy. Does he bluff only/primarily draws? Because his range is more polarized than mine, he has room to make a larger bet with a range that includes more bluffs, and I think his sizing is likely a mistake on the turn, one that forces him either to give up with a lot of his weak hands or offer me appealing odds to call against a bluff-heavy range.

3. Villain’s river bluffing strategy. There are three options here: (a) He does his best to bet in a balanced way, though the number of bluffs available to him may be limited because of his turn sizing and the exact river card that came; (b) He bluffs too much, which requires him to also have bluffed too much on the turn; (c) A large bet means he is weighted towards value hands, which is a common tendency among non-elite players.

Against strategy (c), we do best by folding. Against (b), we’d prefer to call, and against (a) we’re either close to indifferent or prefer folding, depending on whether his turn bluffing strategy enables him to bluff the river adequately. The fact that we prefer folding in a lot of these hypotheticals does seem to argue for a fold, as does the fact that calling against (b) is probably less good than calling against (c) is bad, because (c) contains few if any bluffs, whereas (b) contains all value hands in addition to a lot of bluffs.

There’s another factor to consider, though. Given that Villain bet the turn and river, it’s somewhat more likely that he is playing overly bluffy strategy (b). In other words, because strategy (b) bets more often than the other strategies do (it’s easier to have air than a strong hand, not to mention that (b) bets both), if we thought that all three strategies were equally likely before we saw any action, seeing two bets should incline us towards calling.

Although Villain seems uncommonly good, there are still more players in the 5/10 NLHE pool who play strategy (c) than those who play (b). Bayes’ Theorem cuts us both ways.

Reading Hero’s Range

Although my pre-flop range is somewhat narrow and well-defined as “too good to fold but not a good candidate for three-betting”, the small bets on the flop and turn mean that I haven’t folded too much of it. Pocket pairs, Kx, AJ, AT, sets, and perhaps some 6x and 7x (though I probably three-bet those pre) all call the flop. The AJ and AT get bluff-raised or ditched on the turn, and sets raise, which means that the pocket pairs and Kx both go to the river. I probably don’t make any flushes or straights on the river.

To make Villain indifferent to bluffing, I’d need to call about half the time. The chance of Villain playing AK or KK this way makes KJ a slightly better bluff-catcher than the pocket pairs, though they really aren’t very different.

I’d much rather have the Js for bluff-catching than the Ks. Some of Villain’s Ks Xs might actually check the turn, so I think the blocking value of Ks is not what it seems.

It’s also possible that this river is so good for Villain’s range that I can’t profitably bluff-catch at all, at least not against this sizing. If his large bet prevents him from balancing with sufficient bluffs, I can exploit him by folding all of my bluff-catchers, which is probably what I should have done. In game, I didn’t appreciate the significance of the small turn bet in terms of potentially limiting Villain’s ability to bluff, especially on this river.

Results

I called. Villain had 98o for a rivered straight, which suggests his pre-flop range was even weaker than I expected.

Seeing that hand makes me like my river call even less, though it also makes me dislike folding pre-flop even more than I already did.

Props to Bryan Gour for considering a raise. I did think about that in game, and I agree that the Ks blocker is perfect for it, but I don’t know that I’d ever raise her for value, so I chose not to do it as a bluff either.

Told Ya So

“This is why I would have raised pre-flop…” To be honest, I was expecting more comments like Zachinacubicle’s than I got.

I’ve already talked about three-betting vs calling pre-flop, and while I’ll admit that as Villain’s pre-flop range gets wider, three-betting gets more appealing, I still prefer calling even knowing that Villain may be raising half the deck. After all, KJo is only a very small favorite against that range, and will not play well out of position. The only reason to three-bet this would be if you expect Villain to fold exploitably often, and that doesn’t seem to be his bag.

It’s important to recognize that this was a really bad river, perhaps the worst in the deck, and Hero still ended up with a close decision. Not all run outs will be this bad, and considering that even a bet on this worst case scenario river produced a close-to-break-even spot for the Hero suggests that this hand is really not so hard to play out of position.

If you are in the “Bah, I don’t care about game theory, people are so easy to exploit!” camp, that’s a fine attitude when it comes to calling or folding the river, at least if you think you have a handle on how Villain can be exploited. But if you’re folding pre-flop because you fear post-flop decisions, then learning to defend your equity by checking and calling in an unexploitable way is valuable for you. Calling and then bluff-catching in a balanced way is simply more profitable than folding pre-flop (and than three-betting pre-flop, unless Villain folds too often).

Contrary to Greg’s assertion, you don’t have to “guess” at Villain’s bluffing frequency. You simply have to call often enough that his bluffing frequency doesn’t matter.

Brian has a slightly different criticism of the call: “You play a limited number of hands live and recreational players make enormous mistakes with deep stacks. Setting up dynamics with almost zero EV vs the best players is a waste of your most precious resource – time playing against the recreational players.”

There’s something to this, but I think the argument cuts both ways. By passing on a profitable call here, you are giving your chief nemesis an opportunity to play against the recreational player, and in fact a very profitable opportunity to exploit that player. Not to mention that calling does still give you a chance to see a flop against that player. This is actually a concept that Nate and I discuss in our WSOP Premium Podcasts.

Edit: I meant to add that it’s quite easy to construct scenarios in three-bet pots that will make you wish you called, much as this particular scenario might make you wish you three-bet. Example: you three-bet pre-flop and get this flop. You either bet and get called, or check and call. On the turn you check and call. You’re in at least as bad of a spot now as I was in this hand, and you’ve put a good deal more money into the pot even before you contemplate calling a river bet.

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He open limped the CO for $10, I made it $40 with Ah 5h on the Button, the blinds folded, and he called.

The flop came Kh Qh Ts. He checked, I bet $75 (was experimenting with multiple bet sizes last night), and he called.

The turn was the Jh, he checked, and I bet $75 again because I was mostly targeting two-pair or a low-straight. I didn’t think he’d play much Ax this way, and I blocked a lot of flushes.

He tanked for a while, then raised $200. I was planning to 3-bet to $600, but I took my time, and he started giving off some really blatant weak-means-strong tells. He told I didn’t have anything, that I should just let him win a small pot, etc. At some point he asked if I had an Ace or a 9.

All of that made me aim a little higher, so I popped it to $700. He pushed out a stack worth about $1800, I shoved for his last $600 or so, he quickly called, and I tabled my hand even before the river came down because I thought I had the nuts. The river blanked off, and then he tabled the Th 9h. Even after I saw it, it took me a minute to realized I’d lost.

Despite the blatant tells, I don’t regret my play. I think he could behave the same with a lot of flushes, thinking that I just have an Ace.

You can follow Gavin on Twitter @nhgg and read his column in Cardplayer Magazine.

Timestamps

:30 hello
7:57 fat harry potter
23:05 GG

Strategy

The reason I find it interesting is that it reminds me of an important conclusion from Mathematics of Poker that I’d forgotten about entirely until I reread that book. In “Playing Accurately, Part I: Cards Exposed Situations”, Chen and Ankenman demonstrate that there are situations where a player with an obvious (exposed, in their hypothetical) draw actually does better by raising all-in on the flop, knowing he’ll put the rest of his money in from behind (though with sufficient pot odds) rather than calling and giving his opponent the opportunity to bet him out on a blank turn or check-fold when the draw comes in.

Of course there are any number of reasons why that may not be applicable to this hand. It presumes an opponent who will correctly bet the turn when ahead and correctly check-fold when behind. If, as Eddie argues, Villain can be expected to run a big bluff on cards that complete Hero’s draw, then there is more room to outplay him on future streets.

On Calling

I think many commenters are overestimating how easy it will be to outplay Villain on a blank turn, though. Shoving over a turn bet works only if Villain has a lot of air in his range, as he probably isn’t bet-folding a Q or a 9 or a better draw. Calling in hopes of getting there on the river probably requires decent implied odds to be better than getting it in on the flop even if Villain never folds.

I’m not at all sure what would be the best play if Villain checked a blank. I suppose I would opt for a smallish bet of perhaps 1/3 pot, but getting check-shoved is such a disaster that I don’t feel too great about that plan.

I don’t think the best play is particularly clear if the turn is a J or a T, either. Some people seem to want to call down on blank rivers, and I can see why, but Pepito also makes a good point that “villains of these sorts tend to thin hero calling rather than triple barreling with air (particularly in a 3b pot where hero has called a check raise and a second barrel).”

On Shoving

Pepito also asserts that, “shoveling 4.5K into 1.2K pot against a callbox seems terrible– particularly with position.” Having already explained why I don’t see a lot of ways to capitalize on my position, I’ll now address the “callbox” argument.

The tricky thing here is that this hand actually blurs the line between a value bet and a bluff. On the hand, it certainly feels icky to stick in a lot of money with Jack-high against a player who’s shown a willingness to call down extremely light. But what, really, can his looseness do to hurt us?

No one is check-raise-folding the hands that have us in truly bad shape, which would be nut flush draws, two pairs, and sets. I wouldn’t really expect Qx to take this line either – people might check-raise-call it, or they might not check-raise it, but I don’t see it getting check-raise-folded.

So what can Villain’s looseness add to his calling range, and how can that hurt us? All he can do is start calling with really weak hands, and Hero is a pretty big favorite against those, as Sean F. points out. Hero has 63.5% equity against 9d 8d and 76% against 8s 7s.

There’s a lot of talk about not wanting to put your stack in “on a flip”, but that’s a misleading way of framing the situation. What you really need to consider is not just the end result – how much equity do you have when the money goes in – but rather how can your actions manipulate the situation to give you more or less EV.

Regardless of your flop action, there are a lot of scenarios where you end up playing big pots against the top of his range. Against the bottom of his range, you’re a solid favorite, and raising the flop can only lead to good things. Villain can either forfeit a significant amount of equity by folding, or he can put his money in from behind and lose the ability to play well on future streets (he might continue bluffing a spade with air, but will he bet/stack off with 98?).

A lot of the value in calling comes from inducing bluffs. Maybe we get to shove over a bet on a blank turn, and maybe we induce some big bluffs when we hit.

Results

Raising less than all in still leaves open the possibility of inducing a bluff. If Villain check-raises the flop with more than just pairs and draws, then there’s a real chance he’ll four-bet-fold some of that air. He’s shown a propensity for this sort of play in wide range situations before.

That last point was the deciding factor for me. I three-bet the flop $1300, Villain made it $3100, I shoved, and he did some thinking (about what, I’m not sure – whatever it was presumably should have happened before he four-bet) and then called with what turned out to be Ad Kd. That was an outcome I hadn’t anticipated, but again I’m a 65% favorite in the case where Villain decides to make a really loose call, which means that getting it in on the flop is better for me than shoving over the check-raise and having Villain fold (though I would have preferred a fold to the five-bet).

The board ran out blank, and Villain collected a massive pot with Ace-high while the table collectively gawked. I warned you this was a bad beat post!

The latest and greatest volume in my Thinking Poker Diaries is now available at nitcast.com or in the Amazon Kindle Store. This third volume in the series follows the same format as the first two, interspersing anecdotes from the tournament with strategy essays that discuss topics that came up during my play. Longer than the first two volumes combined, this one tells the story of my 35th place finish in the 2008 WSOP Main Event. Please check it out and let me know what you think!

UTG opens to $40, MP calls, I call with 4c 2c in the BB.

Flop ($125 in pot) 9c 5s 3h. I check, UTG bets $75, MP folds, I raise to $275, UTG makes it $640, I call.

Turn ($1405 in pot) 4h. I bet $800, UTG calls.

River ($3005 in pot) As. I shove for ~$3000, UTG calls with 99.

Pre-flop isn’t exactly standard, but MP was the weakest player at the table (overly loose, sizing tells, etc.), and although UTG seemed like a pretty decent player, I knew that he wasn’t one of the best regs, because even though I don’t play at Maryland Live that often I do know who the best pros there are.

I love my hand on this flop. As deep as we are, I’m more excited to have hit this than to have hit bottom set. The only hands I’d rather hold are top set, 76 with a backdoor, or 64 with a backdoor, in that order. This is a very easy check-raise. If you’re not clear on why, put yourself in UTG’s shoes and imagine how you’d feel about playing for stacks with anything less than 55 (which may not even be in his UTG range).

To be honest, I was skeptical of Villain’s three-bet. I’d actually won another pot recently at the must move table (Villain was already in the main game so wasn’t around to see this) by min-4-bet bluffing against another reg in a very similar spot. I can’t see him doing this with the intention to get stacks in unless he has a set or a big draw, and many players won’t take this line with those hands anyway. Because I had such a good draw, though, I decided to peel and pull the trigger on a later street.

The turn is a great card for my purposes, because it completes the most obvious draw. I can’t definitively exclude 76s from Villain’s range, but I had my doubts as to whether he’d open it pre and whether he’d three-bet the flop. I think he should do both, but even many pretty good mid-stakes live pros are too nitty about that sort of thing.

My biggest mistake here is the sizing. I planned to shove any river that didn’t pair the board (maybe not hearts either, just because he might not expect me to jam non-flushes for value although I would), and consequently I should have set up sizing so that I was betting more similar percentages of the pot on both streets. I think $1000 into $1400 on the turn and then $2800 into $3400 on the river would have worked out better.

Frankly, I think his river call is pretty bad. Most of my semi-bluffs have gotten there, and on this run-out I’m not shoving a lower set for value. This is what happens when you just think about “bluffs” generically rather than considering which exact hands your opponent would bluff with.

I was initially excited not only to win the pot but also to have a player sitting two seats to my right who still had me covered! As tempting as the prospect of winning a $20K pot was, he proved pretty nitty and it was getting late, so after an hour of unsuccessfully trying to provoke a confrontation with him, I cashed out and called it a night.

Best Strategy

Nate and I talk strategy on just about every episode, but of course the show is at its very best strategy-wise when the game’s top players share their wisdom.

Ben Sulsky – It was a great privilege to talk about game theory (and philosophy) with a player who is blazing new frontiers in poker strategy.

Mike McDonald – Our conversation with Mike was great in a lot of ways, but among other things he was generous enough to share some deep thoughts on tournament strategy, including the underappreciated “hero check”.

Fascinating Stories

My favorite guests are not only great players (sometimes they aren’t players at all) but also fascinating people who open up about their struggles, their successes, and unique poker careers.

John the Lawyer – A long career in big live games, including a lot of private games, is bound to produce some great stories, and John tells them well. If you overlooked this episode because you didn’t recognize the name, go back and listen. There’s some solid strategy discussion in here as well.

Dara O’Kearney – Going pro later in life gave Dara a unique perspective on the poker world, and his Irish blood gives him the ability to share his thoughts with both humor and deep insight into many facets of the game, including staking.

Terrence Chan – Terrence not only shares stories from his poker and mixed martial arts careers but also gives some insight into the state of regulated online poker in Nevada. This interview is particularly interesting in light of what happened with Ultimate Poker just a few months later.

Ari Engel – Ari reveals that the life of the circuit grinder isn’t always a glamorous one. Even one of the most successful player on the WSOP circuit has to live a nitcast-approved lifestyle to keep his dream alive.

Alex Fitzgerald – Alex is brutally honest about the highs and lows of his career, including his struggle with drugs and his new life in Costa Rica.

Just Plain Fun

Nate and I rarely have as much fun as when we get to catch up with some of the great friends we’ve made through the podcast, and when we’re having the most fun, that’s usually when the show is the most fun to listen to.

Live From Las Vegas featuring Carlos Welch – One of the perks of our relationship with PokerNews was the opportunity to record together in person (a rare treat in itself) from the halls of the World Series of Poker. Carlos Welch joins us for this entertaining episode that includes a lot of strategy discussion from non-hold ’em games.

Episode 100 – This is one for the fans. In this double-length episode, two of our most popular guests, Carlos Welch and Gareth Chantler, turn the tables and interview Nate and me about our lives and poker careers.

If you don’t have the first book yet, now is the time to pick it up. It’s on sale for just $0.99 at www.nitcast.com through the end of the weekend!

If you aren’t already a member, please click here to sign up for Tournament Poker Edge.

For just $2.99, you can purchase The Thinking Poker Diaries, Volume 1 directly from me (you’ll get an EPUB, a PDF, and a Kindle file) or from Amazon (Kindle file only).

There’s a substantial preview available on Amazon, but for a better idea of what to expect, here’s the Table of Contents:

Introduction
How I Became A Poker Player
Introduction to the WSOP
Day One
Three-Betting Light
Day Two
The Bubble
Day Three
Playing a Short Stack
Day Four
More Stories! More Strategy! More Poker!

For those who do read it, please star & review on Amazon and recommend to your friends. I deliberately made the book very inexpensive because I’m more interested in reaching a wide audience than in maximizing my profit.

I’d also be very appreciate for any constructive criticism, as I plan to do a lot more of these and would love to see them improve with each volume.

Thanks!

Andrw

This is our final episode on the iBus Media Network. The Thinking Poker Podcast will once again be available on its original feed, which you can subscribe to here, by using the links on the right-hand side of this page, or by searching Thinking Poker Podcast in your podcast player of choice.

This was from the $215 10-minute levels NLHE 6-max WCOOP event. Villain is Philipp “philbort” Gruissem. As many of you know I’m pretty stubborn about folding my BB to small pre-flop raises and also folding to smallish barrels once I get any piece of the board. When I see the flop with such a wide range, even a gutshot is in the top 2/3 of range, and then I turn a pair…. I still think it’s possible Villain has air, but I don’t know how likely it is that he’ll fire the river with that, so I chose instead to make what I’m sure was a very confusing shove for him. He tanked all the way down literally to the last second before calling with a hand that I doubt he was going to bet on the river. Although maybe he was, to be honest it is still very likely to be good, and a player as good as Philbort should be able to recognize and act on that.

PokerStars – $200+$15|500/1000 Ante 125 NL (6 max) – Holdem – 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

UTG: 59.04 BB
MP: 35.77 BB
CO: 27.02 BB
BTN: 29.05 BB
SB: 46.6 BB
Hero (BB): 83.28 BB

6 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.25 BB) Hero has Ts 9c
fold, MP raises to 2.25 BB, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 1.25 BB

Flop : (5.75 BB, 2 players) Ks 5c Jc
Hero checks, MP bets 3 BB, Hero calls 3 BB

Turn : (11.75 BB, 2 players) 9d
Hero checks, MP bets 6 BB, Hero calls 6 BB

River : (23.75 BB, 2 players) 9h
Hero bets 71.91 BB and is all-in, MP calls 24.4 BB and is all-in

Hero shows Ts 9c (Three of a Kind, Nines) (Pre 34%, Flop 18%, Turn 11%)
MP shows Kh Qh (Two Pair, Kings and Nines) (Pre 66%, Flop 82%, Turn 89%)
Hero wins 72.54 BB

PokerStars – $300+$20|600/1200 Ante 150 NL (6 max) – Holdem – 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BTN: 127.59 BB (VPIP: 26.58, PFR: 20.09, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 228)
SB: 66.01 BB (VPIP: 23.23, PFR: 18.37, 3Bet Preflop: 8.51, Hands: 100)
BB: 107.86 BB (VPIP: 36.81, PFR: 26.38, 3Bet Preflop: 27.40, Hands: 166)
UTG: 58.67 BB (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 14.62, 3Bet Preflop: 11.54, Hands: 133)
Hero (MP): 105.67 BB
CO: 28.34 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 6)

6 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.25 BB) Hero has Ts As
fold, Hero raises to 2 BB, fold, fold, fold, BB calls 1 BB

Flop : (5.25 BB, 2 players) Jc 8h 5d
BB checks, Hero checks

Turn : (5.25 BB, 2 players) 2c
BB bets 10 BB, Hero calls 10 BB

River : (25.25 BB, 2 players) 5s
BB bets 50 BB, Hero calls 50 BB

BB shows Qc Ac (One Pair, Fives) (Pre 71%, Flop 86%, Turn 95%)
Hero mucks Ts As (One Pair, Fives) (Pre 29%, Flop 14%, Turn 5%)
BB wins 125.25 BB

This was a big pot. The amount that I lost was about the average stack at the time. Honestly, even if this is in his range, I still like my call. I think he just never has a value hand, and there are enough weaker draws that missed for me to come out ahead even if I lose or chop occasionally.

Also, even if I do occasionally call with worse, Villain’s bet is really bad, for basically the same reason that jamming 60BBs with AJo vs a 3BB button open is bad. His equity is very good vs my flop check back range but not good against my range for calling such a big turn bet.

Nevertheless, this was my 10th cash of the WCOOP, out of 25 tournaments played, so I feel good about that.

PokerStars – $300+$20|5/5 Ante 300 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BB: 2476.4 BB
UTG: 8686.2 BB
UTG+1: 10924 BB
MP: 4431.4 BB
MP+1: 5299.6 BB
MP+2: 11989.8 BB
CO: 3856.2 BB
Hero (BTN): 8377.2 BB
SB: 6175 BB

9 players post ante of 60 BB, SB posts SB 1 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 542 BB) Hero has Ad Td
fold, fold, fold, MP+1 raises to 2 BB, MP+2 raises to 548 BB, fold, Hero calls 548 BB, fold, fold, fold

Flop : (1640 BB, 2 players) Qc 2d 4d
MP+2 checks, Hero checks

Turn : (1640 BB, 2 players) 5d
MP+2 checks, Hero bets 1128 BB, MP+2 raises to 2413.6 BB, Hero calls 1285.6 BB

River : (6467.2 BB, 2 players) 5s
MP+2 bets 8968.2 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 5355.6 BB and is all-in

MP+2 shows Jd Ks (One Pair, Fives) (Pre 38%, Flop 17%, Turn 0%)
Hero shows Ad Td (Flush, Ace High) (Pre 62%, Flop 83%, Turn 100%)
Hero wins 17178.4 BB

And here’s the really gross hand that I mentioned on Twitter, the one that caused me to bubble the $215 Heads Up NLHE:

PokerStars – $200+$15|25/50 NL (2 max) – Holdem – 2 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

SB: 129.14 BB (VPIP: 82.61, PFR: 52.17, 3Bet Preflop: 12.50, Hands: 30)
Hero (BB): 70.86 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Ah Kh
SB raises to 2 BB, Hero raises to 6 BB, SB calls 4 BB

Flop : (12 BB, 2 players) 2h 5d 4h
Hero checks, SB checks

Turn : (12 BB, 2 players) Ad
Hero bets 7.2 BB, SB raises to 17.26 BB, Hero calls 10.06 BB

River : (46.52 BB, 2 players) 3d
Hero bets 47.6 BB and is all-in, SB calls 47.6 BB

Hero shows Ah Kh (Straight, Five High) (Pre 77%, Flop 83%, Turn 93%)
SB shows 6c Ks (Straight, Six High) (Pre 23%, Flop 17%, Turn 7%)
SB wins 141.72 BB

Edit: Sorry, typo in the original post. The SB completed pre-flop, he did not fold, which is how he was able to bet the flop.

This is from a $5/$10 NLHE live game. Opponents are some combination of intimidated by and annoyed with Hero, who has won a lot of good-sized pots recently without showdown. Effective stacks are around $1500.

SB and BB are both recreational players, mostly just trying to make big hands and then make sure they win the pot.

MP identifies as a pro but seems a little spazzy/tilty. Still, he’s got a clue and doesn’t like playing big pots without big hands. I’ve seen him limp stuff like offsuit broadway hands that a lot of people would raise. There was recently a pot where he raised in MP, I called with K9s on the BN and raised him on a T86 flop. A 7 on the turn went check check, I called a bet on the river and she showed 97s for a flopped straight and was pretty annoyed when I claimed half the pot with my three-outer.

UTG1 limps, MP limps, HJ limps, I limp 65o in the CO, the SB folds, completes, and the BB checks. FWIW I was pretty sure the BN wouldn’t get involved as much as he should and would limp a lot more than he would raise, but I’m still not at all certain that limping this is a good idea.

Flop ($60) K74r. SB bets $25, BB calls, two folds, MP raises to $75, Hero?

What’s your plan? I realize a lot could happen but try to say a bit about what you’re anticipating for future streets. The central questions are whether you want to play the flop passively or aggressively and what could cause you to deviate from that course? If you call, would you ever bluff the turn? If you raise and are called, which turns would/wouldn’t you bet?

I’ll respond to comments throughout the week and will post my own thoughts and results on Sunday.

Although every hand that could have me in bad shape – sets, overpairs, higher flush draws, even two-pairs – are presumably in the Button’s range, I don’t want to approach this situation by thinking about how I can get away from my hand if I am up against a monster. I’m a 60-40 favorite against the Button’s random hand, and even against the top of my opponent’s range my equity is not bad, so I’m ready to commit my stack. What I really want is for one of my opponents to put some money into the pot with one of the many weak hands in his range and ultimately fold to my shove.

Timestamps

• 0:00 About the Thinking Poker Podcast
• 4:38 Teaching kids to play poker
• 18:02 Strategy: Turn a straight, fold the river?
• 36:23 Interview: Dr. Michael Bowling and Michael Johanson of the University of Alberta Computer Poker Research Group

Find Us at PokerNews!

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See you in Vegas! (details on that coming soon)

Monday

I played all three of the Action Hour tournaments. For those who don’t know, these are tournaments where the blinds go up very quickly for the first hour or so, during which rebuys are permitted. After that, the blinds go back down and the tournament ends up playing very deep as a result of all the chips on the table. Combine that with the long structure on a SCOOP-H event, and this made for frankly an absurd tournament. I played for hours and busted nowhere near the money, though I did manage a shallow cash in the $50. I’m not too thrilled with my bustout from the $500:

Poker Stars $500+$30 No Limit Hold’em Tournament – t75/t150 Blinds + t20 – 6 players – http://www.handconverter.com/hands/2501934

CO: t11046 M = 32.02
BTN: t14568 M = 42.23
SB: t19535 M = 56.62
Hero (BB): t13608 M = 39.44
UTG: t26519 M = 76.87
MP: t23706 M = 68.71

Pre Flop: (t345) Hero is BB with 7s 9s
4 folds, SB calls t75, Hero raises to t450, SB calls t300

Flop: (t1020) 9h 8s 8h (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets t510, SB raises to t1388, Hero calls t878

Turn: (t3796) 4c (2 players)
SB bets t2688, Hero raises to t11750 all in, SB calls t9062

River: (t27296) Qh (2 players – 1 is all in)

Tuesday

After 48 hours of clouds and rain, the sun finally appeared over Montreal. I took the opportunity to ride to the Marché Jean-Talon, which is just about my favorite thing to do in Montreal.

In the afternoon I played the M and H heads up events without cashing. I think I was pretty fortunate in my High matchups, in that I twice drew tournament players who didn’t seem to have a lot of heads up experience. The second match ended with me five-bet jamming AQo into his KK, which could probably be called “standard” although I really try to avoid big pre-flop pots against opponents like this who are so easily outplayed after the flop. You only only take that so far, though, and while I wouldn’t have 4-bet AQ to get it in, that doesn’t mean that I’m wrong to 3-bet it or to shove it over a 4-bet.

I also managed a shallow cash in the Super Tuesday $1000 SCOOP. As reported here, I made Day 2 with only about 20BBs. They all went in when I got AJs in the BB against a min-raise and a call, so it was a spot I felt quite good about it although the raiser had AQ and busted me.

Wednesday

I played and whiffed all three Super Knockout tournaments. I think in some spots I made a little too much allowance for the large bounties (seeing a lot of flops early) and in others not enough:

Poker Stars $1025+$1025+$50 No Limit Hold’em Tournament – t30/t60 Blinds – 9 players – http://www.handconverter.com/hands/2501938

Hero (SB): t7127 118.78 BBs
BB: t5156 85.93 BBs
UTG: t4964 82.73 BBs
UTG+1: t9403 156.72 BBs
UTG+2: t3672 61.20 BBs
MP1: t7236 120.60 BBs
MP2: t3712 61.87 BBs
CO: t1932 32.20 BBs
BTN: t9301 155.02 BBs

Pre Flop: (t90) Hero is SB with Qh Qd
3 folds, MP1 raises to t150, MP2 calls t150, 2 folds, Hero raises to t750, 1 fold, MP1 raises to t1525, 1 fold, Hero calls t775

Flop: (t3260) 8h Th 4c (2 players)
Hero checks, MP1 bets t1285, Hero folds

This was a complicated hand. I expected my squeeze to look very strong, and the original raiser was quite good, but the caller was really weak so I figured I could just blatantly build the pot with him. I took it for strength that the first player was willing to raise the weaker one out of the pot, but in retrospect because he covers me he really has a lot of incentive to get it in preflop with AK and maybe even worse than that, so I probably should have gone with this, post-flop if not pre. Trying to setmine to the 4-bet was likely the worst option.

Thursday

I love the Ante Up format, and I played all three tournaments. The fields were disappointingly small, and I took bad beats early in the L and M events, but i ended up making quite a deep run in the H. I was really happy with the adjustments I made to the format, and I think that my recent live cash game experience helped because I was much more familiar with hand reading in deep, multiway pots than was anyone else and was able to make some nice plays as a result. Unfortunately I ended up taking it too far and running a suicidal bluff into a full house, ultimately finishing 19th.

The tournaments didn’t start until 5PM, though, so I got to spend the day with Luisinho, whom some of you may recognize from the blog comments. Vegetarian chili, the best coffee in Montreal, and some of the best natas (Portuguese egg tart) in the world were a great start to the day.

Friday

I played the $10 and $100 Big Ante events. I was on the fence about playing the $1000, but it drew a small and tough-looking field and I wasn’t at my sharpest after staying up until 5AM playing the Ante Up the night before, so I passed. Nothing remarkable happened in the other two.

Saturday

I played all three six-max shootouts and made the semifinals of both the H and the M. If I’d used the same tactic as on Friday and monitored the H field closely, I probably wouldn’t have played, but unlike on Friday I was really feeling sharp and pretty roundly outplayed my first table. The second table just wasn’t winnable from my seat. I got set under set for half of my stack and then lost a flip to bust the other half.

The $200 event was much more interesting, but I’ll likely cover it in a series for Tournament Poker Edge, so I won’t get into too many details here.

Sunday

Sundays are such brutal days. The fields are just so huge that even running well for hours on end isn’t enough to guarantee success. I finished in the top 2% of the L Warmup event for less than $200 and near-bubbled the M and H Sunday Million tournaments. The big news was final tabling the Sunday $100 rebuy, ultimately finishing 4th for about $30,000. Really I just ran absurdly hot. I won’t deny that I made some good plays along the way, but in retrospect my play at the final table was embarrassing. I guess if nothing else it’s a good wake-up call that I’ve grown rusty in this regard, which when you’re playing tournaments you simply can’t afford to do.

It reminds me of a point I always scold my MTT students about, which is not being confident with heads up play. When you enter a tournament, you simply can’t afford not to play well at the final table or heads up. Even though they don’t come often, so much of your equity depends on making the most of these situations.

I limp TT UTG+1. CO limps behind, SB makes it $75, BB calls, I call, CO calls. Flop 7s 5d 4d. SB checks, BB checks, I bet $200 into $300, everyone calls. I’m pretty confident at this point that SB has an overpair, which more likely than not at this point is better than mine, and the other two are either drawing or have a made hand no stronger than one pair (or both, of course).

Turn Kh. SB bets $500 into $1100, BB folds, I make it $1800 with about $4000 behind, CO instantly shoves his whole stack in which is about $1500, the other two fold. He was so confident getting it in that I thought maybe my read was off and he’d slowplayed a set or straight but nope he flipped over K7. If CO isn’t randomly improved by a turn card that the vast majority of the time does nothing for anyone, then I’m pretty sure I get SB off of the winner right then and there. This is sort of the cash game equivalent of finding a great cold 4-bet spot in a tournament just to have the BB wake up with AA.

The key to minimizing these headaches is to anticipate and prepare for the situations you’re likely to encounter. You want to avoid giving the aggressive player the opportunity to put you in tough spots. When you do get involved in pots with him, you want to have ranges that will be difficult to exploit and hands that will not lead to a lot of uncertainty about where you stand.

The article draws on a couple of examples from a live MTT I final tabled recently and should be useful to anyone who, well, has to deal with aggression in tournaments.

If these prove popular, we plan to release similar content in the future, so any feedback or suggestions for topics you’d like us to address in the future would be very much appreciated!

Hand 1: Almost a Shame to Get There

Blinds 100/200/25, typical loose-passive limpy guy in MP open limps, CO limps behind, I make it 1000 with Kc Qc, both call.

Flop As Js 4d (3550 in pot). Checks to me, I bet 1800, MP calls, CO folds.

Turn 9h. He checks, I bet 4500 into 7100, he calls with about 19K behind (I cover).

My plan was to shove most rivers, but instead I binked the T so I bet 10K. He folded. Quite possibly even that was too much to get a call.

Let’s acknowledge a few things here: this guy almost certainly does not have AA or JJ based on the pre-flop action, and he may well fold 99 and TT on the flop. AJ and 44 are somewhat more probable, but with the draws on board and the pot getting big there’s a very good chance those hands would raise before the river. Likewise with an AK or AQ that just limp-called pre-flop. So, if you ship the river, what are you really worried about getting called by, expect maybe a rivered two-pair?

The most obvious answer would be some random Ax, so now let me ask you this: are you shoving AQ for value here? If not, then you aren’t putting your money where your mouth is on this whole “they never fold” business. If it’s that easy for you to stack someone for well over 100 BBs when you have top pair with a good kicker, then you have my permission not to bluff here.

Hand 2: Even When It Doesn’t Work

Blinds 200/400/50. A different loose-passive limpy guy, who was not at the table for Hand 1, looks at his cards before action is on him and immediately turns away and seems disinterested in the pot. Folds to him and he has to be told it’s his turn to act. He looks at his cards again and then open limps. I look left and the CO is doing the “fold hold” so I figure I have a license to come after this guy with almost anything. I make it 1600 with J4s, action folds back to the limper, and he quickly calls.

Flop (4300 in pot) AKQr. Perfect board for me, not only do I have a gutter but it also provides a blocker to the only hand better than one pair he could possibly hold. If you look at this flop and say “Crap these guys love to play broadway cards, I better take a free card and try to make a straight” you are looking at it all wrong. I bet 2200, he calls.

Turn (8700 in pot) 8r. He checks, I bet 4500, he calls.

River (17700 in pot) 9. He open shoves for about 20K.

All he had to do was check and my stack was his. But he couldn’t do it. Now think about how profitable your river shove is going to be if he can’t bring himself to check a strong hand one last time….

You can follow Richard on Twitter @tzen1 and read his blog, in English, at http://www.tzen1.com/. If you’re disappointed that we didn’t talk limit hold ’em strategy with him, you can get your fix with videos like this one at Poker School Online.

Timestamps

0:30 Hello & welcome: How cold is it?
4:51 Strategy: Set mining against tough opponents
43:45 Interview: Richard Veenman

All that, plus strategy discussion of when to play for stacks in a sidepot. For most poker strategy, be sure to check out the articles Nater and Andrew will be posting, starting with Nate’s Seven Attention Targets for Beginning Poker Players, on the new Learn.PokerNews.Com site brought to you by Martin Harris.

Timestamps

0:30 Hello and welcome
11:28 Strategy: Stacking Off in a Sidepot
36:03 Keone Young

Edit: Somehow failed to record my conversation with Carlos, so won’t be able to include that tonight after all. Sorry, show is going to be a bit shorter than usual as a result.

Anyway, I finished Day 1A with 110,500 chips. We started with 30K, and the average is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 60K, so I’m pretty pleased with that result. It was a wild ride, though, with a lot of ups and downs.

I recognized only one player at my starting table, but he was the very accomplished Darren Elias, so that was enough to make it a potentially tough table. Fortunately, he was sitting just a few spots to my right, and the rest of the table didn’t seem too challenging (though a few of them surprised me in that regard).

Darren had a few of the weaker players on his immediate right, and he was just making life hell for them in the early-going, using his position and the deep stacks to apply a ton of pressure when they were obviously weak. Though it was frustrating to see so many chips flowing into his capable hands, this ultimately proved beneficial for me.

We were still at the 25/50 level when I overcalled a raise with 66 in the small blind and got an AA6 flop. The pre-flop raiser, one of the guys Darren had been picking on, bet 300, I raised to 1200, and he quickly called. I doubted he could fold an Ace, but I didn’t want to count on him doing the betting for me, so I needed to find a way to get as much of the 23K remaining in his stack into the pot. I started by overbetting the turn, tossing a 5K chip into a pot of about 3600. To my delight, he quickly shipped his whole stack, and I was happy to call. I faded seven outs to bust his AJ and nearly double up. Darren primed him, but I was the one to benefit from the resulting blow-up.

The whole table was talking about how crazy it was for him to go broke there, but two players were especially vocal about it. I made a mental note to run big bluffs on them in the near future, which is how I managed to get my stack back below 30K before the antes kicked in. Apparently some poker players talk a better game than they play, who knew?

The first of these bluffs began with me raising 88 under the gun. One of the talkers three-bet from middle position, I called, and we saw a A46 flop. We both checked. I’d seen this guy limp and call AK before, so I wasn’t sure he’d 3-bet it against an UTG raise, and I also thought he’d probably bet the flop if he had it. So, when the turn brought a 5, I overbet the pot, 2500 into 1750 or so. He called.

The river paired the 6, I bet 7000, and he agonized and called with AQs. I can really only chalk that up to a bad read and/or a good job of mixing up his play, as he’d showed up with a hand I hadn’t expected to see.

The next big bluff came a while later, when I’d overcalled a raise from the other big talker with Kd 4d on my big blind. The flop came 88J with two diamonds. I checked, he bet less than half the pot, got one call, I made a pot-sized raise, and the pre-flop raiser quickly shoved about three times the pot. I didn’t see his cards, but based on the situation I highly doubt he had better than one pair. With somewhat shallower stacks I could actually see calling with my hand, but the real possibility of him having AA, AK, KJ, or the nut flush draw, all hands that kill some of my outs, made me want to fold.

I reined in the aggression and set out to make the most of my spewy table image. I got the opportunity when I overcalled a raise with 44 on the button only to have the small blind put in a squeeze. Someone else called in front, and there was still a lot of money behind, so I called again, still looking to set mine. The KJJ flop was no help, but we checked it around. I was still done with my hand on a 9 turn, but we checked it again.

And then there it was, a beautiful 4 on the river. Now the small blind bet 2500, about a third of the pot. The other guy folded, and I threw out two blue 5K chips. He shrugged and called, disgustedly throwing away his Aces when he saw my hand.

Not long after that, I flatted a raise with JJ only to have this same guy jam behind me. He ended up having AQs, so it wasn’t as great as I was hoping but still a good spot for me, and I was lucky enough to win the flip and eliminate him.

Both players I busted were replaced with much, much tougher tournament players. Also, the long-vacant 9 seat on my left was finally filled by Orson Young, a regular in the highest stakes cash games at the Borgata.

I kept my held down and was lucky to get into some pretty good spots and keep accumulating chips, both and without showdown, mostly by making strong hands. Both Orson and Darren were eventually eliminated, but both were replaced by beastly new players, including another winning regular in the big Borgata games. Thankfully by that point there was only an hour left in the day, and I managed to avoid spewing off to any of them.

0:30 – Hello and welcome; impressions of WSOP final table
18:23 – Playing Kings
42:17 – Barreled on a paired board at the Lil’ One for One Drop final table
1:07:40 – Game selection: tournaments vs cash games

You can follow Dave on Twitter @dave_j_thornton and one of his partners, Jay Greenspan, @mizdflop. If you have suggestions for problems you’d like to see them research, please leave them here or email us.

The neural network project that Andrew mentioned is PokerSnowie.

Timestamps

0:30 – Hello and welcome
4:14 – Mailbag: What exactly is an angle shot?
16:21 – Strategy: A big hand and a big draw
37:08 – Interview: Dave Thornton

Strategy

$300 NLHE tournament. Blinds 100/200, Hero has 13K, Villain has 11K.

Villain raises to 450 UTG, 5 calls, Hero calls in the BB with Ac TC. I flat.

3150 in pot, flop is Ad 6c 4c. Hero checks, Villian bets 450, folds to button who calls. Hero raises to 2000, Villain calls, button folds.

7550 in pot, 8500 in effective stacks. Turn is 10. Hero bets ~3800. Villian tanks for a long time and calls.

River is off suit 7. Hero moves all in.

Edited to clarify that OneBillionHands’ hand histories are anonymized. 

Timestamps

0:30 – Hello and welcome, Andrew’s WCOOP life in Montreal
7:06 – Interview: Sean Lango
47:10 – Strategy: An ugly turn

Strategy

10 handed live $1/$2 NLHE
UTG fold
UTG+1 call 2
MP – call 2
MP2 – call 2
MP3 – call 2
HJ- call 2
CO (hero) call 2 with Jc8c
BTN – folds
SB (villain) – makes it 12 to go
BB – folds

all call 12 except HJ who folds.

FLOP ($71 after rake and BBJ)
KdJs8d

Villain bets $20, all else fold, Hero raises to $100.

Villain tanks a bit and then calls saying “OK I’m gonna call you.”

TURN ($271)
KdJs8d Ks
villain checks, Hero checks

RIVER ($271)
KdJs8d Ks 7s

Music

The following are the songs used on the podcast, listed in order, and with links to them on bandcamp.

Spires

http://palmyra.bandcamp.com/track/spires

Cold Coffee

http://palmyra.bandcamp.com/track/cold-coffee

Suicidal Female Poets

http://palmyra.bandcamp.com/track/suicidal-female-poets

Whereby The Signatory

http://palmyra.bandcamp.com/track/whereby-the-signatory

Here’s a list of albums Sean has been listening to over the past few weeks:

1. Mike Krol – I Hate Jazz

2. Jay Dee (J Dilla) – Welcome 2 Detroit

3. Charlie Parker – anthologies…no specific album

4. Yes – Close to the Edge

5. Die Antwoord – Ten$ion

The read I provided was that each opponents were likely either a nitty regular or a loose recreational player. Although we don’t know which, neither is likely to slowplay an overpair pre-flop in a large, multi-way pot. The button functionally never has KK+ and rarely QQ. There’s a slightly higher chance that CO is going for some spazzy slowplay, but the chances of that are at least as good as the chances that he’s made bad pre-flop and flop calls with TT or even weaker hands that have now flopped either a pair or a draw. As soon as I see the pre-flop action, I tell myself that I am not going to worry about better overpairs being out there. Against one player, I’m prepared to play a flopped overpair like the nuts.

Button’s jam into Hero’s very strong line and CO’s seemingly strong call should give us pause. If we rule out overpairs, that leaves just sets and big draws as plausible jamming candidates. Small pairs are not especially likely three-betting hands for him, though.

If we knew that CO were folding, we’d be risking roughly 60 BB to win 180 BB and would need 25% equity. If we give button a couple of combinations of big draws (AcTc, AcJc, and AcQc, assuming he would jam AcKc preflop, which isn’t a guarantee) and all of his 77 but no 33 or 55, Hero has 29%. Throw in 9c 8c and Hero’s equity jumps to 33%, so you can see that the decision is extremely sensitive to the relative likelihood of sets vs big draws in Button’s range.

If we call and CO overcalls, we only need 20% equity, but our equity may drop a bit due to the added risk of his showing up with a set, QQ, or big pair. Realize, though, that this won’t happen 100% of the time, and also that a CO loose enough to show up with 77 is also seeing the flop with 88, 99, and TT, and may not have the discipline to fold them. Giving him some but not all of each of these types of hands, it’s not a great outcome for us:

Button: 57.168% { 77, AcQc, AcJc, AcTc, 9c8c }
Hero: 16.040% 15.70% { JdJh }
CO: 26.791% 26.45% { QQ, TT, 77, AcQc, AcJc, AcTc, 9c8c }

Still, if CO folds half the time and Hero has 33% equity when he needs 25%, and half the time CO calls and Hero has 16% equity when he needs 20%, Hero still comes out ahead by 4% of ~60 BBs, or roughly 2.5 BBs.

Of course I didn’t crunch those numbers in real time. My thought process went like this: “There are only a few hands that could beat me, so focus on those. Better pairs probably jam preflop, CO either folds small pairs pre-flop and/or is so loose that he still has TT in his range, BN probably doesn’t three-bet small pairs all that often, and I only need to win 20 – 25%. Call.” And it worked, sort of:

PokerStars – $1 NL FAST (6 max) – Holdem – 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BTN: 103.43 BB
Hero (SB): 112.01 BB
BB: 100 BB
UTG: 100 BB
MP: 90.3 BB
CO: 131.74 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Jd Js
fold, fold, CO raises to 2 BB, BTN raises to 6.5 BB, Hero raises to 18 BB, fold, CO calls 16 BB, BTN calls 11.5 BB

Flop : (55 BB, 3 players) 5c 7c 3d
Hero bets 26 BB, CO calls 26 BB, BTN raises to 85.43 BB and is all-in, Hero raises to 94.01 BB and is all-in, CO calls 68.01 BB

Turn : (328.45 BB, 3 players) Qc

River : (328.45 BB, 3 players) 8s

Hero shows Jd Js (One Pair, Jacks) (Pre 53%, Flop 47%, Turn 0%)
CO shows Ts Th (One Pair, Tens) (Pre 18%, Flop 5%, Turn 0%)
BTN shows Jc Ac (Flush, Ace High) (Pre 29%, Flop 48%, Turn 100%)
BTN wins 308.49 BB
Hero wins 17.16 BB

An important takeaway here is that it’s not sufficient simply to say “I’m either way behind or flipping, so I fold.” You don’t need a lot of equity to get it in here, so the relative frequency of those two outcomes matters a lot. You have to do some light hand reading to figure out which is more likely and by roughly how much.

“By the end of Day 1, I was playing deep-stacked PLO8 with relative comfort, even with Mark Gregorich, author of the O/8 chapter ofSuper/System, at the table. He actually complimented me on a sort of tricky slowplay, which was great for the old ego.”

In other Two Plus Two news, recent podcast guest Carlos Welch also has an article in this month’s magazine. It’s the first in a three-part guide for small-stakes players who want to spend a summer in Las Vegas:

“This is a World Series of Poker (WSOP) guide for small stakes tournament players. It should be useful for those of you who dream of experiencing the magic of the WSOP but don’t have the bankroll to play for millions or the skill to play with top players. This is for the grinders, the modern day near-Moneymakers who bubbled the $40 satellite, but still want to live the impossible dream. I’m here to tell you it’s not impossible because I just did it. I spent 45 days in Vegas with less than $3,000 in my pocket. I rubbed shoulders with giants and returned home with more than twice the bankroll I brought with me.”

And regular podcast contributor Two Plus Two Pokercast!

0:30 Hello and welcome
6:50 Strategy: making nuanced reads; playing top pair out-of-position in a three-bet pot
45:21 Interview: Jennifer Newell

Strategy

$2/$5 NLHE, Hero is in SB with $550.

UTG+1 opens to $15, MP calls, CO raises to $35, Button calls, Hero calls, BB calls, UTG+1 calls, MP calls

Flop ($210) Ad Jh Qc. Checks to Button who bets $110, Hero calls, everyone else folds.

Turn ($430) 9c. Hero checks, Villain bets$130, Hero shoves for $400, Villain calls with QT.

Timestamps

0:30 Interview: Mike Stein
50:38 Strategy: Optimal multi-street bluffing
69:23 Strategy: Hero-calling a four-flush river

Strategy

Hero is on the button with $315, Villain is in SB with $225.

3 limps in MP, Hero raises to $16 with Ac 7c on the button, SB calls, limpers fold.

Flop 3d-6d-7d
Pot = $40
Hero = $299
Villain = $219

Villain checks, Hero bets $25. Villain calls.

Turn 2c
Pot = $90
Hero = $274
Villain = $184

Hero bets $50. Villain calls.

River Jd
Pot = $190
Hero = $225
Villain = $134

Villain shoves, Hero calls.

I also have a new article called Just a Cooler appearing on CardPlayer.com. It’s about how to conceptualize, theoretically, what it means to get better at poker:

“Getting better at poker, finding new value, is about forcing your opponent into more coolers while getting away from more of them yourself and/or making yours less expensive. Thus, you should always be reluctant to write off a loss as “just” a cooler. A cooler for the player you are today may be a hero fold for the better player you will be in the future, and the sooner you recognize it, the sooner you will be that better player. “

Finally, don’t forget that next week’s podcast guest John Beauprez has made available for free a chapter from his book The PLO QuickPro Manual entitled Postflop Warfare. It’s a great introduction to how much room there is for creative play in a game where nut-peddling is often misunderstood to be the correct strategy.

Timestamps

Strategy

Hand 1

Blinds 800/1600/200. CO (50K) opens to 3500, SB (350K) calls, Hero (30K) calls with 9h 7h in the BB.

Flop (12K) Qh 8h 4c. Checks to CO, he bets 8K, SB calls, Hero calls.

Turn (36K) Ts. SB bets 25K, Hero folds, CO calls.

Hand 2

$2/$5 cash game in Las Vegas. Hero ($600) opens to $20 with Ac 4c on the button. SB ($575) raises to $55. BB folds. Hero raises to $150, SB calls.

Flop ($300) 5d 4d 2s. SB checks, Hero bets $225, SB calls.

Turn ($750) 7h SB shoves $275, Hero calls.

Timestamps

0:30 Hello and welcome: Andrew’s first week in Las Vegas
8:30 Strategy: Aces in a four-bet pot, Queens on an AAA flop, strategy for single-rebuy tournaments
59:48 Interview: Ray J the WSOP Dealer

Strategy

Hand 1

Near the end of the first hour of the $3000 NLHE Shootout WSOP event, blinds are 25/50, and Hero starts the hand with 7600. Button has 11K and covers everyone at the table.

Hero has AA in the CO and open to 125, Button 3-bets to 350, and SB who’s been quiet so far cold calls the 3-bet. He’s got about 9K.

Hero makes it 1100, Button folds quickly, SB asks how much Hero has left and then calls.

Flop 47Tr, Villain checks. There’s 2550 in the pot, 6600 in Hero’s stack. Hero bet 1050, SB shoves.

Hand 2

$1/$2 NLHE. Hero is UTG with QQ and opens to $15. One caller in middle position.

The flop is A – A – A. Hero bets $30, Villain shoves for $180 total.

Even better, I took a big bite out of his 7500 starting stack almost immediately. Blinds were 25/50, and I called a min-raise with T8o on the BB. He bet 175 at a 965 flop, and I check-raised him to 425. He called, but no problem, I binked the gut shot on the turn. He called 800, and then paid off an overbet of 3500 on a K river.

I played my next big pot at the 75/150 level. The UTG player raised to 400 and got two calls when I found Ah Kh in the small blind. I raised to 1600, intending to call a shove from any of the players already in the pot, all of whom had 8K or so. To my surprise, the big blind cold called, and the others all folded.

He was an amateur and seemed uncomfortable with the situation. I put him pretty squarely on Jacks, with a chance of AK, QQ, or a slightly smaller pair, but thought he would certainly reraise Aces or Kings considering how many players were still to act behind him.

The flop came 557 with a heart. It’s not often that I try to bluff someone off of an overpair, but this seemed like a pretty ideal spot. There’d been surprisingly little reraising at our table, and considering the stack sizes involved, I got the sense that he’d correctly read me for strength. He’s probably playing just a few WSOP events and not eager to be eliminated in level three. Plus even if he were to call with JJ, my hand would have a lot of outs. I decided to check and see what his bet sizing told me.

He bet 1200, barely a quarter of the pot. I moved all-in for about 8K more. He tanked for a very long time before calling. I turned the flush draw but didn’t get there on the river, so it was back to the starting stack for me.

Shortly thereafter, the player to my right opened to 400, and I called with 77. The button and SB called as well, then the player in the BB, who was a relatively new addition to the table and seemed to know what he was doing, moved all-in for 6K. The original raiser folded, and I went into the tank. This seemed like a good spot for him to try to increase his stack by about a third, and while he would surely play all better pairs this way, I thought he might shove a few worse ones and quite a few unpaired hands as well.

I called. So, to my great displeasure, did the player in the small blind, who turned out to have 10s. The big blind had AKo, but once again a miracle 7 led to me raking a big pot.

On break, I stepped into the blazing afternoon sun for some fresh air. A day laborer started talking to me, and I was about to compliment him on his flawless English when I realized that it was Leo Wolpert!

The table got progressively tougher with the addition of some new players, most notably Christian Harder who landed two seats to my left. He put me to quite a decision at the 150/300/25 level, when I opened to 700 with A8o in the CO and he called from the SB. We both checked an AQQ flop and a 5 turn, then he checked again on a K river. I bet 750, and he quickly raised to 3000.

This is a tough spot because I’m quite unlikely to have a Q, and I know that Charder knows that, and he knows that I know that he knows and etc. It’s also a very plausible way for him to play a Q. The question is how many Qs he really has in his pre-flop calling range versus how many hands he’d feel the need to bluff with. I wasn’t sure what to make of his preflop range, but it seemed not at all out of the question that he could turn a pocket pair into a bluff here. I called and was good.

I picked off another bluff from a really aggressive guy who’d previously gotten the better of me in a few pots. I called his button raise with J9 on my big blind and check-called a Td 9d 4s flop. The turn was the Tc, and I bet out for slightly over half the pot. He called. I checked a 5d river, and he bet about half the pot. Against some people this would be more of a decision because their turn calling ranges wouldn’t be all that wide, but this guy hated to give up on pots. I called, and he announced 8-high, so probably he had 87 but maybe 86..

I’d been reluctant to make dinner plans for fear of jinxing myself, but with half an hour to go I finally texted a friend who’d just arrived in Vegas. I was out of the tournament within 10 minutes. First it was AQ in the small blind versus the over-aggressive guy with QQ in the CO, then AK into JJ on the very next hand.

I was approximately three minutes late getting to the tournament area, and consequently I missed the first hand. That’s not like me. I like to be punctual, and I don’t like to miss hands.

But I also want to be comfortable. I want to be unhurried. I got a little lost on my way to the Rio – leave it to me to screw up right, left, right, and then left on to Rio Drive. I didn’t panic. I didn’t run yellow lights. I didn’t sprint from my car to the Brasilia Room. In fact I stopped to go the bathroom. Postponing that would only mean missing more hands later, because no way I was going to last two hours.

After folding the first hand I actually looked at, I started sizing up the table. An Asian guy about my age was two seats to my left, then an amateurish-looking middle-aged guy, then a kid who was trying too hard to look like a good player, then another amateurish-looking and slightly younger guy.

In this particular hand, the kid bet and called a small raise from the amateur on his left when a third spade came on the turn. The board paired on the river, the kid potted it, and the amateur shrugged and called quickly. The kid showed a full house, and the amateur turned over a small flush like what-can-you-do? He was welcome at my table.

He and I played a small pot the very next hand. We’d both checked the turn, but the dealer wasn’t revealing the river card because she was puzzling over a receipt that Kevin “ImaLuckSac” MacPhee had just handed her. The other amateur hurried her along. She dealt the river, we both checked, and my opponent won a small pot. “You’re at the wrong table,” the dealer said to my opponent as she tossed him a few chips.

“You checked me in,” he told her, and presumably she had. I wasn’t there to see it, but the dealers are supposed to check each player’s receipt and photo ID as he claims his seat. She’d let this one sit at the wrong table and lose nearly half of his stack. The floor was called. He ruled to send the amateur to his assigned seat and put Kevin MacPhee in his, an unequal exchange if ever there were one.

I protested. “Are the stacks equalized in the second round? Or will the winner of our table bring more chips into round two than the winner of that other table?”

The floorman started to tell me that the stacks weren’t going to be equal anyway because some tables had more players than others, but Kevin cut in. “I just claimed my seat, no one’s been eliminated, yet I have less than the table average. That’s not fair to me. It’s not a big deal, but it’s obviously not fair to me.”

The floor ended up retrieving the player who’d been in the wrong seat – he hadn’t yet played a hand at the other table – and swapping him back, sending MacPhee over to the table where the amateur was supposed to be. That strikes me as the right decision. Obviously it’s not a perfect outcome, but that’s a problem that’s created when the dealer lets the guy sit and play at the wrong table. Provided dealers are generally diligent about checking these things, which in my experience they are, it’s not exploitable.

One guy at the other table was decidedly not happy about it, though. He kept arguing with the floorman. He insisted that Jack Effel be called. Then he argued with Jack. They seemed to settle it, but he was clearly still steaming, and in a few minutes he hopped out of his seat and chased Jack down to argue some more. I can only imagine how badly he hurt his chances in the tournament by letting himself get so worked up over this.

Meanwhile a new player had joined our table, a Russian who claimed the seat on my immediate left. He described himself as “a software guy”, not a poker pro, but he seemed to know what he was doing and in at least one past year he’d played in the 50K Player’s Championship event, so he was not just any amateur.

As we neared the end of the first hour, blinds were still 25/50. I had 7600 out of a 9000 starting stack when I found pocket Aces in the cutoff. I raised to 125, which was the amount I’d been raising all level. The Russian on the button, who began the hand with about 11K, made it 350.

The Asian guy in the small blind, who had about 9K, cold called the 3-bet, which was uncharacteristic and noteworthy given that he’d been playing a pretty snug game. This is a clear 4-bet, though I may have erred a bit on the small side. I made it 1100, the button quickly folded, and the small blind asked to see my stack. Then he called.

With 2550 in the pot and 6500 in my stack, we saw a T74 flop. He checked, I bet 1050, he shoved, I called, and I lost to a set of 4s.

I’m not going to go too much into the strategy of the hand right now because Nate and I discuss it on Episode 35 of the podcast, which should be out on Wednesday. Suffice to say that I thought he was probably setmining preflop – his double call and counting down my stack sure made it seem that way – which makes the flop a more tricky spot than it may seem.

So the largest WSOP event I’d played so far this summer was over and done with before the end of the first level. It was over thanks to a stupid spot that I probably didn’t play badly but that maybe – just maybe – there’s some sick soulreader out there who would have let it go correctly (as opposed to some nits who might have folded for the wrong reasons).

Walking to my car, I came to the sickening realization that this could be the rest of my summer. I’m not guaranteed any deep runs nor even any cashes. Plenty of players at least as good as I whiff the series every year. I knew that intellectually, but now I felt it in a visceral way that I hadn’t before. I guess there’s always a part of you that believes you aren’t going to be that guy, that couldn’t happen to you. But of course it could.

Given that I’d put in just an hour at the tables, part of me wanted to go play something else. There was a $1500 Fixed Limit Hold ‘Em starting at 5. I’m not good at FLHE, but I might still be +EV in a $1500 field. Or I could go play cash somewhere.

I was doing it for the wrong reasons, though. I would have been chasing losses. Instead I ran some errands, went to the grocery store. I suggested dinner to Ed Miller, a writer whose work I admire and who’s been a guest on the podcast but whom I’d never met in person. He accepted.

It was great, exactly what I needed when I was feeling frustrated. He recommended a Thai place that, though not strictly vegan, had a lot of vegan options on the menu. I selected one in his honor.

We talked about tournaments, where to find the best mid-stakes cash games during the series (no consensus), writing and publishing, Las Vegas, non-poker careers, and debate. Yep, turns out he too was on his high school debate team, which helps to explain why I feel like his thinking parallels my own so well. Serious debaters learn to think and to structure their arguments in a very specific way that manifests itself in their speaking and writing in many other contexts, and I’ve always been good at spotting a fellow debater.

I’m usually an excellent judge of how much time has passed, but that night I was way off. When I finally checked the time, I was thinking we’d been at the restaurant for two hours, and in fact it had been three. I walked out of the restaurant a lot less tilted than I was walking in. Thanks, Ed.

Most WSOP events start at either noon or 5, but this one was bumped back to 11AM to free up more tables later in the day. Even so, one of the daily deepstack tournaments was cancelled and the other postponed for hours for lack of tables. When I arrived, the convention center parking lot was slammed, and I joined the mass of humanity surging towards the entrance from either their private vehicle or the steady stream of taxis depositing them at the foot of the red carpet.

I was happy with my starting table. Out of eight opponents (it was a ten-handed tournament, but the seat on my immediate left was unoccupied), only two seemed capable of giving me tough decisions. The only downside was that they were one and two seats to my left. One of them lost a flip to a weaker player and was eliminated early, which was nice. I later realized that the other was Mike Sowers, whom I really should have recognized sooner given that he is a fellow Tournament Poker Edge instructor. Ana Marquez eventually claimed that empty seat on my left, but she was playing pretty tight, and before too long the table broke anyway.

I ran my stack up to about 10K without any big confrontations, then I lost a big pot to a pretty nasty beat. I limped 22 behind an early position limper and got a 552 flop. I called his flop bet and shoved over his turn bet. He called with AA and rivered a 5 for a higher full house. I was proud of myself not only for not reacting externally but for not even really getting upset on the inside. I just shrugged it off and settled in to play some 20 BB poker. That proved boring but quite profitable, and I got up over 30BB without any showdowns.

Because we started with just 4500 chips and blinds were doubling every level, players started dropping quickly. A vacant seat on my left was filled with a very nice Canadian who was a paradigmatic example of the sort of guy you come to the WSOP to play with. On the first hand that he played, he accidentally bet out of turn, confidently declaring, “3000” and throwing his chips eagerly into the pot. When the dealer told him it wasn’t his turn to act, he started stammering and apologizing profusely. “Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I just… ah… sorry. I get… sorry… I get… ah… nervous, y’know?” If any of you are Pokercast listeners, his accent was even more pronounced version of Mike Johnson’s, which made it that much funnier.

He left the table for a minute, and there was actually speculation as to whether he was putting us on, that’s how over-the-top his nervousness was. Also, he had to ask how antes worked. If he was acting, though, he deserved an Academy Award. “He took second in the PCA High Roller, so he must be doing something right,” I said, which drew a few astonished explanations before the table realized that I was pulling their leg.

A few minutes after the nervous Canadian returned to the seat on my left, Scott Seiver showed up holding a seat card for that same seat. Apparently when the floor seated the Canadian there, they hadn’t given the seat card to the dealer as they were supposed to but instead held on to it and reassigned it to Seiver, so he ended up at another table instead of on my immediate left. Talk about a suckout!

With blinds of 100/200, I opened to 450 with KJo in late middle position. The Canadian on my left called me, and the big blind called. We checked around a QJ6r flop. The turn was a T, and the big blind checked again. Given the lack of action, I was pretty sure my second pair was good, so I bet 650. The Canadian folded, and the big blind called. I decided I could still get value on a river 5, so I bet 1600 out of my 3800 stack, and he called with Q9. That hurt, and I’m conscious that overly thin value betting is sometimes a leak of mine in tournaments, but even in retrospect I like this bet. This and maybe AJ are about the only better hands than mine that I could see him playing this way.

That left me short stacked, which wasn’t the end of the world. A lot of good spots came up, I just never had quite the right cards to take advantage of them, but I could see that the potential was there. For example, the action folded to me on both the button and the CO, where my shoving ranges there would be extremely wide, but I found 62o and 82o respectively.

I lost a flip with 77 against the AKs of an even shorter stack, but it left me with just 3 BBs. Thankfully I was in late position and the ante was just 25, so I had a little room to wait for a hand. I got 99, got it in against three others, and miraculously held up. The next hand I open shoved KTo and lost to AJo.

I think this was pretty typical for a low buy-in WSOP event. There was a bit of play in the beginning, but not a lot of room to recover from early hiccups. I spent much of the tournament short-stacked, and on the whole the experience felt both (theoretically) profitable and boring.

On the way, I had to put gas in the car – there was less than 1/8th of a tank when I picked it up, and it’s an Economy car, so I wasn’t going to get far on that – and stop at the bank to pick up cash. It was a Friday, so of course the lines were long. Most people looked like they were cashing paychecks, but something told me that the two young guys a few spots ahead of me were fellow poker players. That something was the poker chip shaved into the head of the heavier guy, and the letters WSOP shaved into the other side of his head. As I waited my turn, I watched him flirt not unsuccessfully with the teller.

Cash in hand and gas in tank, all that remained was to buy in to the tournament. Being generally unfamiliar with the preliminary WSOP events, I was surprised to find the buzz in the Rio convention center pretty comparable to what it’s like during the main event. The halls were filled with poker players, most of them identifiably so if not quite as blatantly as the guy from the bank. A security guard recounted a bad beat story to a bored-looking cocktail waitress who was way out of his league. Two dealers swapped bat beat stories of their own; I overheard something about “so now I’ve got a fourth sidepot” as they passed by me. A young man stood alone in the hallway catching a ball in a cup.

I was an hour early for the $1500 6-max, and the line for registration looked to be about 15 minutes long. A security guard reminded me that I’d need a WSOP Player’s Card, which of course I’d once again forgotten to bring with me, so I had to go to another section of the convention center to get a new one, easily my sixth in eight years, printed.

Finally I bought into the event, and as I was walking away from the cage, Diego AKA RonFezBuddy from Tournament Poker Edge called my name. We chatted for a minute and he introduced me to Casey “BigDogPckt5s” Jarzabeck, and they asked me to join them for lunch. I needed coffee, though, and I already had my lunch. So I sat in the Starbucks, drinking a small iced Americano, eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich from a plastic baggy, reading Saul Bellow’s Herzog, and waiting for my World Series of Poker to begin. Now there’s a sentence that’s never been uttered before.

There were just two of us at the table when “Shuffle up and deal” was announced, and I had position. Blinds were 25/25, and with both of them sitting out, my opponent opened with a raise to 50. I made it 150 with 7c 5c, and he called. The flop came KQ9, he checked, and figuring that he’d fold on the turn anything that he’d fold on the flop, I checked behind. The turn brought a 7, he checked again, and now that I had some showdown value, I was happy to check as well. The river brought a 5, but I wasn’t too thrilled when he bet 325 into the pot of 350. I called, and sure enough he had KQ.

I didn’t show my cards, but I nonetheless worked up a pretty aggressive image with this player on my right. After that hand, I won every postflop contest we had, though none of them was particularly interesting.

Then, with blinds of 25/50, I opened to 125 with K7s in the HJ, which was also UTG since we were playing five-handed. This in itself is probably a mistake at a table full of decent players, which mine was. Anyway they all folded except for this player in the big blind, who called a little spitefully.

The flop came 765r, he checked, I bet 175, he raised to 475, and I called. This wasn’t the first time he’d check-raised my continuation bet, and I’m pretty sure the last time he’d had nothing. That might make him less likely to do it as a bluff again, but at least I know that move is in his arsenal, and I didn’t get the impression he was calling pre-flop to play fit-or-fold.

The turn brought a 3, he checked, and I bet 725 thinking I could be called by worse made hands and also charge 8s and overcards. Probably a little too ambitious for a tournament with an unforgiving structure. He fingered calling chips – a tell to which I ought to have been more alert – and then moved all-in, laying me roughly 2-1 on a call. He had a commandingly large stack, probably three times the size of mine, so it was actually my survival and not his that was at risk.

I began the staredown. He was quiet and a little fidgety. I’d seen him act very animated in big pots before, and though we didn’t actually see showdowns, I got the impression in those cases that he was looking for calls. This would be a crazy call, since I could easily be drawing dead and an overcard + open-ended-straight-draw was probably the best I could hope to see. Still, my gut was howling at me that he was weak. Admittedly I’m not one of those feel players, but I’ve rarely experienced a “gut reaction” at the poker table as strongly as this.

I ran through the possibilities. Did it make sense to check a 4? Sure, that was reasonable, though not a guarantee. Probably more 8s than 4s in his pre-flop calling range. Pretty likely to check-raise an 8 on the flop, unless he had a pair, which actually a lot of his 8s would. Same is true of his 4s though. Think he’d bet 98 on the turn. Better non-straight hands than mine seemed unlikely though not impossible.

He called the clock. That’s arguably a sign of strength as well, but something about the way he did it felt weak to me. As the floorman counted down my time, my opponent saw someone he knew passing by and struck up a conversation. It felt forced to me, like he was trying to act relaxed.”You have ten seconds remaining.” Is this really how I wanted to kick off my WSOP? What the fuck does that have to do with anything? “Four, three, two…” I pushed my stack into the pot and looked at him inquiringly. He flipped 84s, and I mucked without waiting for a river card.

I’m well aware that in writing this looks like a terrible call even before you see the results. And try as I might, it’s impossible for me to recount the details of the hand without probably skewing them a bit in favor of my mistaken read. All I can in my own defense is that rarely deviate so far from what seems like the correct play based on a read, but the feeling I got during this hand was something I’ve rarely experienced at the poker table, and I’ve been right more often than not when I’ve acted on it in the past. Had he shown me a bare 8, I would have felt like a genius, but as it is, I feel like a schlub.

Welcome to the World Series of Poker.

A lot of people, in the wake of the Boston bombing, seem deeply troubled by the question of “How could someone do something like this?” One thing I’ve learned from poker is that pain makes people do crazy, irrational, sometimes hurtful things, and that doing crazy, irrational, hurtful things is a sure a sign that someone is in pain.

That’s absolutely not to excuse such an atrocity, nor to create any sort of equivalence between the pain that caused the bombing and the pain caused by the bombing. Quite the opposite: what I’ve learned from poker is that you can learn to control the severity of your pain, and that you can learn not to take it out on others or on yourself. For me, “pain” is an answer to the question of “How could someone do this?” that helps me come to terms with the tragedy.

Moreso than usual, I’m curious to hear your thoughts!

Timestamps

0:36 Hello and Welcome
23:30 Strategy
50:15 Jussi Palomäki
1:49:10 Outro

Bookclub

Overview of two important concepts from Jared Tendler’s The Mental Game of Poker. Next week, we’ll discuss  Chapters 1 and 2, pages 1 – 57, of The Mental Game of Poker 2.

Strategy

Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 No Limit Hold’em – 10 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

SB: $200.00
BB: $200.00
UTG: $80.00
UTG+1: $80.00
UTG+2: $200.00
MP1: $80.00
MP2: $80.00
Hero (MP3): $300.00
CO: $80.00
BTN: $80.00

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is MP3 with 5 3
2 folds, UTG+2 calls $2, 2 folds, Hero raises to $8, 2 folds, SB calls $7, BB raises to $20, 1 fold, Hero calls $12, SB calls $12

Flop: ($62.00) A 4 2 (3 players)
SB checks, BB bets $40, UTG+2 folds, Hero raises to $130, SB calls $130, BB raises to $180, Hero calls $50, SB folds

Turn: ($552.00) T (1 players)

River: ($552.00) 8 (1 players)

Final Pot: $552.00

Hero shows 5 3

BB shows K K

Shoutout

Thanks to my friend Jennifer, a brain scientist of a different sort who was nevertheless very helpful in preparing for this interview.

It was a $10/$10 NLHE game, and the action folded to the small blind, who opened to $40. I called with KQo in my BB, and we saw a TT8 rainbow flop.

This is one of the best hands I’d call rather than 3-bet in this spot pre-flop, so I wasn’t inclined to give up on it too easily on such a dry flop. However, his somewhat large continuation bet of $60 conveyed enough strength that I thought I was probably slightly behind Ax or a small/medium pair. As I contemplated my options, he observed, “Haha, two tens and an eight, you know that flop is all over me,” which I took as an indication that he probably wasn’t stronger than a pair 8s, so I called.

The turn was a 7, and he checked. I bet $75, and then he totally confused me by raising to $275. Was my (and Zach’s) read wrong? Did he actually flop a monster? Or was he going for some sort of weird protection raise with a weak hand because he didn’t believe me? A part of me was severely tempted to float him again, but this was an awfully strong line. Finally my good sense got the better of me, and I gave it up.

He was kind enough to flash me his 77.

Strategy

This week’s hand has actually been on the blog before, in Sylvain’s WSOP Trip Report. Here’s Sylvain’s description of the hand and relevant history:

The day started out pretty well. The table was not easy, as it would be expected early on in the series in a 6 max tournament, but also was not impossible to navigate. I promptly established a very aggressive image and was able to work my stack up from 4500 chips to 14k by the 3rd level when poker pro and amazing player Justin Bonomo sits down two seats to my left. At that point, it is me against 5 pros and I admittedly get a bit nervous and decide to nit up and tighten up my game. That plan quickly goes out of the window when I notice that Justin is running over the table. I decide it is only fair that I give him a bit of resistance and the following few hands happen:

Blinds are 75/150 and Justin opens UTG to 350, btn flats and I decide to 3bet KQo to 950 from the SB. With 8k behind, Justin asks if I have him covered then shoves after looking at my stack and realizing that I don’t. I fold. I really didn’t like the idea of playing KQo with him OOP. So either I take it down pre or fold to his 4bet like I did.

Still at 75/150 He opens UTG to 350, it folds around to me and I 3bet AQo from the SB to 925. He folds.

At this point, I would say we have a little bit of history, and Justin and I are both sitting on 14k. Still at 75/150 It folds around to me on the btn and I open KJo to 300. Justin 3bets to 950. His 3 betting range here is very wide imo. He’s seen me be pretty aggressive even against other players at the table so could really do this with lots of different things. I also have blockers to his value range so decide for a small 4bet to 2025. Obviously ready to fold if he 5bets. He flats. Flop comes J107r and he checks to me. Given the flop texture decide for a rather large bet and cbet to 3625. He jams with A10 for middle pair, we hold and double up and bust him in the process.

Book Club

We discuss Part 1 of Elements of Poker, from page 1 to 84. A few people sent questions and comments after we’d recorded – we’ll discuss those next week, along with pages 85 – 174 (Parts II – V). For more of Andrew’s thoughts on how to read the book, check out Idealistic Extremes.

Timestamps

1:02 Hello and Welcome. Andrew is still in the WRGPT.
5:22 Strategy: WSOP 6-Max hand
38:22 Book Club: Part I of Elements of Poker

You can follow John on Twitter at @JohnAWray. If and when there’s news about the Micros, you can get it @TheMicros and on Facebook. More of John’s work, including , is available from his YouTube channel. I especially recommend The R4v3n and Seiborg. John recommends watching the Stars Wars films in Machete Order.

In this week’s strategy segment, we continue a discussion of two hands that began on my blog.

00:38 Hello and welcome
01:36 Mailbag: follow-up e-mails concerning Jesse Sylvia’s sponsorship and cheating dealers
07:32 Strategy: stacking off with bottom set, getting it in with 500 BBs preflop with 88
55:00 Interview: John Wray
1:45:03 Other great stuff by John; rate and review us on iTunes; have a great week!

There were a lot of younger guys I didn’t recognize in the game, and while it was still decent, it was much more aggressive than usual. On my second hand at the table, I overcalled a raise with TT in the SB and flopped AQT. Everyone including the pre-flop raiser checked to an older, heavyset player I also did not recognize, who had me covered by a few hundred dollars. He potted it for 125, I called, and everyone else folded.

The turn was an offsuit 5, I checked and he quickly bet 350. I usually assume that players of his description are nitty when it comes to playing big pots, and that was bad for me. They also tend to overvalue/overprotect hands certain types of non-nut hands, though, and slowplay nutted hands in bad spots. I figured AA was very unlikely for him, and QQ and KJ could surely be in his range for seeing the flop though I wasn’t sure he would play them this way. Then there was AQ, perhaps the most likely candidate, and even AT/QT to consider, though I wasn’t sure which of those would call a raise. I shoved, he called with KJ, and I binked a 5 on the river.

A few hands later, I opened to 25 with AA in early position. I got one call, then one of the young guys three-bet to 125, then the guy who took my seat to watch the game cold 4-bet to 330 out of a stack of 1200. I figured the weakest thing I could do would be to make it 660, which could maybe give impression of leaving myself room to fold to a shove from the 3-better. The 3-better folded, but the 4-better guy shoved so fast I thought he probably had the other two Aces. He showed Ks, and in my first ten minutes at the table I was up more than 400 BBs.

The next few hours were a lot less eventful, and I lost one sizeable pot that was straddled three times, with the final $40 straddler waking up with KK, which was a lot better than my 54s. Eventually I was moved to the main game, where the Heat guy had already been seated. The game didn’t look nearly as good as the must-move, and I was getting tired anyway, so I decided just to play around to my blind and then call it a night.

On my second-to-last hand, the UTG player straddled to $10. I limped next to act with 88, there were a couple more limpers, Miami Heat completed from the BB, and the straddle raised $35 more. That’s unlikely to be a monster, and I should probably just 3-bet now. I wasn’t eager to play a big pot, though, and I also expect my implied odds with a set to be pretty good, so I just called.

Everyone else called back to Heat, who put $500 on top. The straddle tanked a bit before folding, and in that time I realized that I was going to have to shove. Nines or Tens weren’t completely out of the question for him, but his line really made no sense. Not that I was going to look terribly strong, but he might fold to a shove, and even if he didn’t we were probably flipping. I moved in for $1700 more on top of his $535, and he agonized for a bit before correctly deciding he was priced in.

The board ran out KQ7J5, and he showed J9s. I suppose losing a 1000 BB coin flip was an appropriate end to the night. I’m going to an independent regional professional wrestling match tonight, so that should make for an interesting night of a different sort…

If these guys had any faults, it was that they were too aggressive. That made it impossible (for me anyway) to ride out the run of bad cards I encountered.

In the first level, I avoided playing big pots out of position, as is my wont. I called late position raises with AJs and TT in my big blind only to end up folding them by the river.

With the AJs, I checked and called a half-pot bet on a K94r flop, checked a 7 turn, and checked and folded to half pot on a 9 river.

With the TT, I called a bet on a Qd 8d 5c flop and folded a 7d turn even though I had a flush draw. I consider both folds to be close, but I don’t regret either. Little did I know they would be among the best hands I’d see all day.

At the 75/150 level, I got JJ on the button facing an UTG raise to 300 from the high-stakes PLO/NLHE guy. I made it 900, and he folded.

Between the bad cards and the tough table, I mostly nitted it up for the first three hours, opening my game up slightly with the introduction of antes at the 100/200/25 level. For example, I opened to 525 with AJo UTG+1, and the same guy called. I bet about half-pot on a Q94r, and he called. We both checked a 3 turn, I bet 1800 into 2800 on a 6 river and folded and felt pretty owned when he raised to 5200.

So it was with a slightly more aggressive image that I opened AKo to 450 on my button. The aggressive Spaniard in the SB three-bet to 1425, and I made it 3425 intending to reluctantly shove over a four-bet.

Instead he called, and we saw a JJ2 flop. Thinking there was a decent chance I was good and that I couldn’t get him off of a better hand on the flop, I bet just 2200 when he checked to me, which he called without too much hesitation.

He checked a J turn, and I checked behind intending to pick off a river bluff. He surprised me, though, by shoving about 20K into an 11.5K pot. I went into the tank for a while and folded, deciding he wouldn’t feel compelled to bluff so big with his air hands, since I could easily have a weak hand myself, and also that if he was bluffing it could be with better hands than mine.

The next time I got AK, Dani opened UTG+1, one of the most aggressive players three-bet him, the tightest of my opponents (which isn’t saying very much) cold four-bet to 4400, and the action was on me with AKo and about 20K on the button. I actually don’t think shoving would be the worst play in the world, but I folded.

The only real move I made was against a guy was probably the weakest and most aggressive at the table. At 200/400/50, he opened to 800 UTG+1, and I made it 2000 with Qs 8s on the CO. He looked annoyed and called. The flop came Jc 9d 3c, he check-called 2400, which I took to be pretty strong. With 10K in the pot and 10K in my stack, I checked back blank turn and river cards and lost to his Ks Js which was surely not going anywhere. It seems like this was a good spot and just unlucky that he managed to connect well with the flop.

Dinner break came shortly after that, so I left a meager 10K in my stack when I went to eat. On the first hand back, we were playing 250/500/50, and I shoved QQ over an early position raise from Dani. He folded. Two orbits later, I shoved AJ over one of his raises, and he folded again. Then I shoved 55 in my BB over a HJ raise form the most aggressive player, and he folded.

Blinds went up to 300/600/75, and I posted one of my 16 remaining BBs. The second most aggressive player at the table opened the CO, I shoved ATo, he gleefully (and correctly) called with A8o, spiked a 874 flop, and that was the end of a tough and boring day of poker.

action is limped by1 player(B) to Button that raises to $25, folds to BB and he re pops it for $85 total… now here is the question, given a hero read of extremely strong ranges on at the very least the BB and quite possibly the Button, isn’t this in fact a call as opposed to a fold even though we know we are probably behind?

let me lay out some thoughts… if we perceive a squeeze by a single player, this is certainly a raise in position… however, we’re playing against an initial raiser that is still left to act behind us after we potentially make the call.

Here is where I diverge from my fellow players… I submit that I can logically make this call at times because given my read, I am fairly certain that these two players have potentially very strong hands… strong enough to carry on with the action post flop given a non threatening board. I think this is extremely important component because in order to carry on in this hand, we’re going to need to impose very strong implied odds to make this call profitable given a set’s roughly 8:1 odds. We’ve already dropped $5 on this pot and we’re going to need implied odds of at least +8:1 in order to make this mathematically break even… so roughly another $640 behind(which we have as there is a total of 890 effective left in A/C stacks). I realize that most players use a 10:1 ratio in order to comfortably make a set mine profitable, but I had said to my friends, that I might even be willing to go to $100 in this situation(or perhaps even $125 if the SB had re-popped for the initial raise-$25 and a stack of red-$100).

To the man, they say there is no way I should be making this play and this is a pure fold, no questions asked.

Certainly, I would NOT make this play 100% of the time in my personal game as the implied odds are very close to break even and not sustainable/positive expectation… however, I contest that I can make this Pre-Flop Float at times given my read of V(s)strength, and very close to even implied odds.

A. Hi, thanks for the question dealing with the often-tricky problem of calculating implied odds and set mining. Your instinct about generally being more inclined to call given strong ranges for your opponents is correct. Nonetheless, I would fold here.

The single biggest reason is that you are not closing the action. If you believe SB has a very strong range, strong enough to count on stacking him with any regularity when you flop a set, then you must also fear the possibility that he will raise again. So you may not get to see the flop for $80.

Even if you were closing the action, though, some problems remain. One reason that many players, including myself, use a rule of thumb of needing a 10-to-1 average return (which is not the same as merely having ten times your investment between the pot and the remaining stacks) is that a set will not win 100% of the time, particularly not against two players.

I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying in the final paragraph. If the call isn’t positive expectation, then you shouldn’t make it ever. If it is, then you should always make it. I don’t see any cause for a mixed strategy in this situation.

In short, it’s important to recognize that the 10-to-1 rule already represents extremely generous assumptions. You can’ t discount it further on the grounds that your opponents have strong ranges, particularly when you aren’t closing the action. In fact I just posted a similar hand where I folded TT pre-flop despite putting my opponent on an extremely strong range.

Do you have a question for the Thinking Poker Mailbag? Please leave it as a comment below!

“The more time I spend on the internet, the more disdainful I become of the physical world. I work online, I play online, I shop online, and I meet people online. Owning physical things is mostly a nuisance to me. They have to be stored, carried, cared for, and packed or discarded every time I move, which is often, thanks to the freedom that online poker provides me.”

Not only was my trip to Montreal for the purpose of playing poker online, but it was arranged entirely online. I comparison priced flights online. I found and booked an apartment on AirBnB. Trip Advisor helped me figure out the best way to get from the Montreal airport to my apartment. I used Yelp to find places to eat and things to do during my time off. I used Google Maps to find the best bike routes around the city. And of course I chronicled the whole trip on my blog.

When I was comparing apartments, the reliability of the internet was naturally my primary concern. I ruled out a few otherwise good places because they had a connection shared by an entire building rather than their own modem. The owner of the apartment I ultimately chose assured me that the connection was quick and reliable, and until now it always had been. He did warn me that there was a monthly limit of 50 GBs, but I’d forgotten about that because I didn’t think there was any chance of running into it.

I’m still not sure that that’s what happened, but it’s my best guess. As I mentioned in my Day 1 post, I’d been listening to Spotify near-continuously during the WCOOP. I streamed The Lederer Files and downloaded the 2+2 Pokercast. I unwound after stressful days with Aziz Ansari, YouTube clips, and The Colbert Report (also available in Canada). And I just may have shot myself in the foot during the most important part of the series.

In a way, the timing was fortuitous. At least my disconnection occurred after the end of Day 1 of the Main Event and before the start of Day 2. So while it was harrowing to find a new internet connection while deep in the 1K, it would have been infinitely worse on the bubble of the 5K.

As it happened, I woke up on Monday morning, still without internet in the apartment. Among other things, that meant that I couldn’t actually look up the coffee shop where I was the night before or exactly how to get there. It was a pretty ideal work space, though, so I left myself plenty of time to find it and hopped on a trusty old Bixi.

I impressed myself by beelining straight to it. That gave me nearly an hour to have a coffee and a sandwich and get settled in. The only downside was that the bathroom, which I’m usually eager to use at every break, required a key, so I had to go request that every hour.

I started the tournament with a somewhat short stack, and it got even shorter when I lost a flip to a really short stack with KQs to his JJ. After that, all I could do was nit it up until we were in the money.

That’s not the way I’d prefer to play the bubble, but the payout structure mandated it. A min-cash was worth more than $12,000, and the next few payjumps were roughly $400 each. The implication of that is that sneaking into the money with a very short stack is preferable to risking elimination in order to accumulate chips, because making it into the money with twice as many chips might win you only a few thousand more dollars or less.

I even ended up folding AKo pre-flop when we were 2 or 3 places from the money. I was in the BB with 25 BBs. The chipleader, who’d been bullying the bubble quite successfully, opened for a min-raise from early position. I was ready to shove on him, but then the SB shoved 60 BBs, the second-biggest stack at the table, into the only guy who could bust him. Even if we weren’t on the bubble, this would probably be a fold, so I didn’t have to think too long about it.

The next time I got AK, we were in the money and there was a raise and re-raise in front of me, so it was an easy shove. They both folded and I scooped a good sized pot.

Blinds went up again, though, and I was still too short to make much happen. Finally I reshoved about 13 BBs over a middle position 9.5 BB shove with ATo and lost to AQo. Unfortunate outcome but the right play I think.

Just a few hands later I put my last 4 BBs into the pot with KK and more than doubled through QQ. I thought getting up to 9 BBs would generate some fold equity for me, but when I open shoved A8o from the CO, the button reshoved A6s. The flop came off Q22 with a flush draw for him, then another 2 on the turn to all but lock up at least a chop for him. The river, however, completed his flush and brought my 2012 World Championship of Online Poker to an end.

Thanks for following along! I suppose the last somewhat interesting tidbit was my conversation with the US Customs agent before my return flight. My strategy for dealing with this sort of authority figure is generally to speak only when spoken to and to be extremely literal and limited in my responses. It tends to get on their nerves, but not in a way that they can do very much about. So here’s roughly how our conversation went:

First off, it was early in the morning and there was no one ahead of me in line or at the agent’s window, but I made a point of stopping behind the red line and waiting for her to summon me over, which she did with a subtle nod of her head. I noticed that her name was Canaba, which is funny since she worked in Canada, but I figured I wouldn’t be the first one to point that out so I didn’t mention it.

I greeted Canaba with a cheery, “Good morning!” and handed her my passport and customs declaration, on which I’d declared $3 worth of Canadian-purchased goods crossing the border with me.

She ignored my greeting with a scowl. “You bought $3 worth of something?”

“Yes.”

“What did you buy?’

“Granola bars.” She snorted.

“What were you doing in Canada?”

“Playing poker.”

“How much cash do you have with you?”

“Not very much.”

“What does that mean? Not very much. How much?”

“Like $40.”

“So you didn’t win.”

“I was playing online.”

“What does that mean? Did you win or not?”

“Like, I was playing on the internet. Not at a casino. So I wasn’t playing with cash, and I don’t have cash with me.”

“Ok but did you win or lose?”

“I won.”

“How much did you win?”

“About $15,000.” I probably shouldn’t have answered this. I’m 99% sure I shouldn’t have to, but I guess I’m the sort of guy who’s willing to allow his liberties to be trampled in order to spare himself some discomfort and inconvenience.

“You can’t play online poker from the United States?”

“Correct.”

“Correct you can?”

“No, you cannot play online in the United States.” It might have been more fun to give her an answer like “not on this particular site” or “not without a VPN”, but I decided against trying to confuse her further.

Nonetheless, she suddenly got very defensive. “OK, well I don’t know. I don’t know the rules of poker. Or any kind of gambling.”

“…”

With that she handed my papers back to me. I left her with a breezy, “Have a nice day!” but I didn’t expect an answer, and I didn’t get one.

I’m kind of embarrassed to post this, because it’s pretty hokey, but I do think it helped, so maybe it can help you too:

“This is a long and profitable tournament. You are lucky to be playing it. It deserves your best effort and full attention. There is nothing else you would rather be doing than playing this tournament.

There will be many good opportunities. Wait for them. Conserve your chips. Do not invest in questionable situations, and do not wade into murky waters. Do not bet on guesses when there will be time to form better reads.

Take your time. Think before you act, even, especially, when the decision seems trivial. Pay attention to bet timing and sizing. What does he have? When you bluff, what do want him to fold? When you raise, what do you want him to call? Have you considered all of your options?

This is a long and profitable tournament. You are lucky to be playing it. It deserves your best effort and full attention. There is nothing else you would rather be doing than playing this tournament. Play your best.”

I read this to myself before I started playing and during every break. Later in the evening, when the only tables I still had open were the $5K Main Event and the $1K Second Chance, I had this up on my screen as a constant reminder.

The pre-flop action in this tournament was intense from the very beginning. This is an extreme example, but it gives you an idea of how much people were playing back at each other:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 5200 Tournament, 60/120 Blinds 15 Ante (9 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

MP1 (t20391)
MP2 (t19448)
MP3 (t37186)
CO (t18108)
Button (t52811)
SB (t10829)
Hero (BB) (t28608)
UTG (t22249)
UTG+1 (t10452)

Hero’s M: 90.82

Preflop: Hero is BB with J, 3
UTG bets t240, 5 folds, Button raises to t389, 2 folds, UTG calls t149

Flop: (t1093) 4, 10, 7 (2 players)
UTG checks, Button bets t511, UTG calls t511

Turn: (t2115) 5 (2 players)
UTG checks, Button bets t1189, UTG raises to t2880, Button raises to t5289, UTG calls t2409

River: (t12693) 3 (2 players)
UTG checks, Button checks

Total pot: t12693

Results:
Button mucked 7, 2 (one pair, sevens).
UTG had 4, 4 (three of a kind, fours).
Outcome: UTG won t12693

For most of the first day, I operated under the assumption that there was a good chance any of my raises would get 3-bet and that any of my 3-bets would get 4-bet. Consequently, I played a snug, boring game and I don’t have a lot of interesting hands to share with you from this tournament.

What was interesting was a song that came on while I was playing. I listened to Spotify pretty much non-stop while I playing the series, and after exhausting a few of their other playlists, I was listening to Pitchfork‘s Top 500 Tracks of the 2000s during the Main Event. One song fades, there are a few seconds of silence, and then I hear,

“Yeah, I’m losing my edge.
I’m losing my edge.
The kids are coming up from behind.
I’m losing my edge.”

This is actually the opening to a song by LCD Soundsystem, but it’s a hell of a thing to hear when you’ve just turned 30 and you don’t play online poker nearly as much as you used to and there are all these guys you’ve never heard of before who all seem to know what they’re doing and it seems like every time you google an opponent’s name the first hit is either High Stakes Database talking about his wins at 50/100 PLO or the PokerStars blog talking about he dominated the final table of a recent Sunday Million or SCOOP tournament.

So I had a good laugh at that but I kept my head down and plugged away. After a few hours of nitting it up and not catching much, I’d blinded down to about 14 BBs. I picked up AKo and ended up chopping with another AKo. Two hands later I open shoved AQs for 15 BBs from the CO. The SB called with KQo to double me up. Two hands after that I doubled again:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 5200 Tournament, 250/500 Blinds 60 Ante (9 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button (t14879)
SB (t22362)
BB (t23123)
UTG (t22248)
UTG+1 (t96537)
MP1 (t65036)
Hero (MP2) (t15710)
MP3 (t63133)
CO (t18350)

Hero’s M: 12.18

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with K, A
3 folds, Hero bets t1000, 4 folds, BB calls t500

Flop: (t2790) 3, 3, A (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t999, BB calls t999

Turn: (t4788) 7 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t2666, BB calls t2666

River: (t10120) Q (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t10985 (All-In), BB calls t10985

Total pot: t32090

Results:
BB had 5, A (two pair, Aces and threes).
Hero had K, A (two pair, Aces and threes).
Outcome: Hero won t32090

Given the kind of action I was getting despite my nittiness, I felt vindicated in my decision not to get too out of line. Then in the next level:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 5200 Tournament, 300/600 Blinds 70 Ante (9 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

UTG+1 (t59661)
MP1 (t15965)
MP2 (t30852)
MP3 (t13174)
CO (t98427)
Button (t69983)
Hero (SB) (t43714)
BB (t59207)
UTG (t10126)

Hero’s M: 28.57

Preflop: Hero is SB with J, A
5 folds, CO bets t1200, 1 fold, Hero raises to t3600, BB raises to t7800, 1 fold, Hero raises to t43644 (All-In), BB calls t35844

Flop: (t89118) 8, A, 2 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: (t89118) Q (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: (t89118) 4 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: t89118

Results:
Hero had J, A (one pair, Aces).
BB had 10, 10 (one pair, tens).
Outcome: Hero won t89118

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 5200 Tournament, 350/700 Blinds 85 Ante (9 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button (t44286)
SB (t18240)
BB (t32885)
UTG (t11119)
UTG+1 (t110948)
MP1 (t81380)
Hero (MP2) (t83778)
MP3 (t21688)
CO (t14290)

Hero’s M: 46.16

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with K, A
3 folds, Hero bets t1400, MP3 calls t1400, 1 fold, Button calls t1400, 1 fold, BB calls t700

Flop: (t6715) 10, 8, K (4 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t3333, MP3 raises to t20203 (All-In), 2 folds, Hero calls t16870

Turn: (t47121) 7 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: (t47121) 8 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: t47121

Results:
Hero had K, A (two pair, Kings and eights).
MP3 had K, Q (two pair, Kings and eights).
Outcome: Hero won t47121

I won a few more medium pots, then went card dead again towards the end of the night, made a few moves that didn’t work out, and ended the day with 20ish BBs, a healthy but not ideal stack. With the bubble approaching, I knew I was going to have to nit it up again the next day, but I was excited just to be there.

It was nearly midnight, so I would have welcomed the chance to hit the hay and rest up for Day 2 of the Main Event. That wasn’t an option, though, because I was still in the $1K Second Chance, and we were getting down to it. This was the only notable hand from that tournament so far:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 1050 Tournament, 100/200 Blinds 25 Ante (9 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

CO (t19580)
Button (t14087)
SB (t23987)
BB (t16749)
UTG (t37817)
UTG+1 (t16725)
MP1 (t10047)
MP2 (t17606)
Hero (MP3) (t21136)

Hero’s M: 40.26

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with A, K
2 folds, MP1 bets t400, 1 fold, Hero raises to t999, 4 folds, MP1 calls t599

Flop: (t2523) 6, 2, Q (2 players)
MP1 checks, Hero bets t1212, MP1 calls t1212

Turn: (t4947) 6 (2 players)
MP1 checks, Hero bets t1212, MP1 calls t1212

River: (t7371) Q (2 players)
MP1 checks, Hero bets t17688 (All-In), 1 fold

Total pot: t7371

Results:
Hero didn’t show A, K (nothing).
Outcome: Hero won t7371

So I’m chugging along nicely in that tournament, trying just to play well and not think about how tired I’m going to be tomorrow. There was still a thing or two I wanted to do in Montreal – most notably the Latin Quarter, a student hot spot near the Université du Québec à Montréal. Oh well. This was more important.

It’s 2:30 in the morning, and an aggressive player opens the CO. I 3-bet ATo from the SB. He min-4-bets. I go into the tank. Clock is ticking down. I drag the bet slider all the way to the right, take another second to think, and then click “Raise.”

Nothing happens. Then that “Connecting…” bar appears on the screen, and the wireless icon in the bottom right hand corner of my screen is “Looking for signal…”. I stare helplessly, willing the connection to come back. I’ve been playing on this connection for nearly three weeks without the slightest trouble, and it picks now to go out?!

I get down on my hands and knees, unplug the router, wait 60 seconds, replug it. Nothing. Try again with the router and modem. Nothing.

Shit. What are my options? I’m too tired to think clearly. I’m picking up other connections, but they’re all Secure. Blinding off would cost me ten to fifteen thousand dollars in equity. It’s not an option.

I don’t know any of the neighbors. Do I bang on doors in the middle of the night, try to explain the situation, beg for a wireless password? If I could get someone to open the door and listen to me, I could make it worth their while. Offer them enough cash that they’d be glad I woke them up at 2:30 in the morning. How much to offer? $200? $500? It would easily be worth it. But I don’t have that kind of cash, and there’s no ATM around. So then there would be the added complication of getting them to accept an IOU.

I only know one person in Montreal, and though I have Luis’ phone number, I don’t have any way of calling me. Skype was my only phone.

The apartment is just a few blocks from Avenue du Mont-Royal. There are a lot of restaurants and such on that street. I don’t remember seeing any 24-hour places, but I could probably find something eventually. But how long would that take?

I resolved to walk in that direction but also see if I passed anyone on the street who looked like they could be helpful. I wasn’t sure what to expect at this hour, but if I was really lucky maybe I would meet a student on the way home from a late-night study session or something. I grabbed my laptop and stepped out in the Montreal night.

There weren’t many people out, and the first few didn’t look like they had homes, let alone wireless routers. I saw a young couple approaching, but they were so drunk they could barely walk. From the way they were giggling and leaning in to each other, it also seemed like they weren’t going to be wanting company.

Then a cab drove past, and finally I had a plan I felt good about. I walked to the busiest street in the vicinity and hailed a cab. I asked if he know of any place that would have internet at this hour. I was ready to ask in French if necessary, but he understood me. “Probably somewhere on St. Denis,” he told me. The Latin Quarter. I couldn’t help smiling as I hopped in.

Ten minutes later we hit Rue St. Denis, and I spotted an all-night coffee shop and internet cafe almost immediately. “Perfect!” I told him, left him a generous tip, and dashed inside. I bought a stale muffin, got the wireless code, and was back in action less than forty minutes after my disconnection. For all I know, I might have been about to jam into Aces, so it could even have saved me money.

Of course I was getting short, but I doubled almost immediately with TT > AKo. Looking at the hand again, I see know that it was versus the same player who would eliminate me from the Main Event the next day.

Unfortunately I was still frazzled from my little crisis and couldn’t get my head back in the game. I was playing really badly. I made a stupid shove with A7 but sucked out on 77. A few orbits later, we were down to four tables. The button opened for a min-raise. I jammed 20 BBs with T9s in the SB. Assassinato, who was already one of the chip leaders and who went on to chop the tournament, woke up with JJ and that was the end of me. He writes an excellent poker blog, by the way; I suggest you check it out.

I took a cab back home. It was after 4AM, and I was eager to get what rest I could before what I hoped would be another big day. The internet was still out at the apartment, but that was a problem I could solve in the morning.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 530 Tournament, 25/50 Blinds 5 Ante (9 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

CO (t7965)
Button (t7370)
Hero (SB) (t7445)
BB (t7370)
UTG (t14995)
UTG+1 (t7495)
MP1 (t7495)
MP2 (t7370)
MP3 (t14995)

Hero’s M: 62.04

Preflop: Hero is SB with A, A
UTG bets t125, 1 fold, MP1 calls t125, MP2 calls t125, 3 folds, Hero raises to t666, 2 folds, MP1 calls t541, MP2 calls t541

Flop: (t2218) J, 3, 6 (3 players)
Hero bets t1224, MP1 calls t1224, MP2 calls t1224

Turn: (t5890) 9 (3 players)
Hero bets t5550 (All-In), MP1 raises to t5600 (All-In), 1 fold

River: (t16990) 7 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: t16990

Results:
Hero had A, A (one pair, Aces).
MP1 had 10, 8 (straight, Jack high).
Outcome: MP1 won t16990

Rebuy! And then a bit later in the tournament:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 530 Tournament, 125/250 Blinds 30 Ante (8 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (Button) (t21289)
SB (t19553)
BB (t23730)
UTG (t21931)
UTG+1 (t20220)
MP1 (t15720)
MP2 (t26511)
CO (t47258)

Hero’s M: 34.62

Preflop: Hero is Button with 6, 6
3 folds, MP2 bets t500, 1 fold, Hero calls t500, 1 fold, BB calls t250

Flop: (t1865) 6, 8, 8 (3 players)
BB checks, MP2 bets t750, Hero calls t750, 1 fold

Turn: (t3365) 5 (2 players)
MP2 bets t1350, Hero calls t1350

River: (t6065) 9 (2 players)
MP2 bets t3500, Hero raises to t13333, MP2 raises to t23881 (All-In), Hero folds

Total pot: t32731

Results:
MP2 didn’t show
Outcome: MP2 won t32731

It was actually only about 5K more to me to call, but even getting like 7:1 with a full house, this is an easy fold. I actually think raising the river might even be a mistake. I analyze the hand in more depth in my October 2+2 article Telling a Story With Your Value Bets.

My girlfriend didn’t come with me to Montreal, so I was by myself on my birthday proper, though I had plans to take Saturday off before the WCOOP Main Event on Sunday and to hang out with Luis that evening.

In lieu of cake, I did a little research on Yelp and found that one of the most popular dessert places in Montreal was a shop near me that sold macaroons. They’ve never been my favorite, so while these were pretty good, the real excitement for me was that it was by far my most thorough transaction in French. I asked the woman behind the counter which she preferred, but that no I didn’t like raspberries, anything else? Etc. Neither of us ever had to ask the other to repeat anything, though I suspect she was going easy on me in terms of vocabulary and speed. I picked up a few more local brews to try and watched Aziz Ansari’s Dangerously Delicious special.

Saturday was a little more exciting. Luis and I got coffee and then beer and then met up with his lady friend at an all-you-can-eat vegan Chinese restaurant. I chose this place, so I guess I have no one but myself to blame for the fact that it wasn’t very good. Almost all of their offerings had the oily sauciness of a low-end Chinese place, only with fried tofu products in place of meat. Worst of all, they charge you for what you don’t eat, so we even had to choke down the stuff that wasn’t that good.

Luis’ friend, on the other hand, was a pleasure. For one thing, she was beautiful, half-French and half-Cambodian. A little of Luis’ league IMHO, so well-played my friend. She was also very patient with my stilted French, and the three of us spoke mostly in French for about half an hour. We only switched to English when Luis went to the restroom, I guess because although it was better than my French it was a far cry from Luis’ near-perfect English and she was embarrassed speaking in front of him. It was very good practice for me even though (more likely because) I made a ton of mistakes.

The two of them were headed somewhere afterwards, but I turned in early. I wanted to be well-rested for the Main Event on Sunday…