Timestamps

0:30 hello
3:07 danny sprung (featuring strategy)

Strategy

1st hand after 1st break, I have Red Kings. I raise UTG, and am 3 bet by a straightforward player. We are 100BB deep at this point. I call.

Flop T63 Rainbow, we both check.

Turn is Jd, bringing backdoor diamond draw. I bet 1/2 pot and Villain raised.

_________

I open EP, Villain 3-bets, and I flat call AKdd.

The flop was a spectacular Kh4d2d, I checked, Villain continued, and I made a very big check raise.

Matt Glassman is a poker and bridge enthusiast and a senior fellow at the Government Affairs Institute. He has his own podcast, Congress, Two Beers In, that provides a fun insider’s perspective on the the latest political happenings. His previous Thinking Poker appearances are Episode 191, Episode 195, Episode 200, Episode 217, and Episode 235. We highly recommend that you follow Matt on Twitter.

We interviewed Danny Sprung on Episode 194.

Bloch discussed Full Tilt Poker and Black Friday at length with Diamond Flush Poker. We discussed the subject, and The Lederer Files, with Matt Parvis on Episode 7.

Timestamps

0:30 – Hello & Welcome
11:48 – Strategy
34:40 – Andy Bloch

Timestamps

0:30 hello
23:50 strat
45:32 interview

Strategy

Our strategy discussion is a follow-up to Nate’s analysis of Phil Ivey’s bustout hand from the 2018 WSOP Main Event on Episode 264.

Timestamps

0:30 – Hello & Welcome
34:50 – Strategy

0:30 Hello & Welcome
54:53 Strategy

Timestamps

0:30 Hello
8:24 strat
34:35 – dick pt 1

Strategy

Winning Poker Network Game #1128438874: No Limit Holdem ($0.05/$0.10) [2018/02/20 01:29:56 UTC]

Table: (PRR) Dilong – 4
Seats: 9
Seat 2: kingsilence ($17.70)
Seat 3: eko4gg ($4)
Seat 4: BigGigantic ($17.83)
Seat 6: golfboyseven ($19.02)
Seat 7: SecretSquirrel ($12.21)
Seat 8: riffjax ($17.30)
Seat 9: gazayute ($12.74)
Button is seat 6
SecretSquirrel: posts small blind $0.05
riffjax: posts big blind $0.10

*** HOLE CARDS ***
riffjax: dealt [Ah Kc]
gazayute: folds
kingsilence: folds
eko4gg: folds
BigGigantic: folds
golfboyseven: folds
SecretSquirrel: raises $0.15
riffjax: raises $0.50
SecretSquirrel: calls $0.40

*** FLOP *** [3d 4c 5h]
SecretSquirrel: checks
riffjax: bets $0.57
SecretSquirrel: raises $1.14
riffjax: calls $0.57

*** TURN *** [3d 4c 5h] [As]
SecretSquirrel: checks
riffjax: bets $1.65
SecretSquirrel: calls $1.65

*** RIVER *** [3d 4c 5h] [As] [9c]
SecretSquirrel: raises all-in $8.82
riffjax ??

Tommy Angelo and Carlos Welch are among my all-time favorite guests, so getting them together on one show would have already had the makings of greatness. But what made it all the greater is that we got to record this in person, from Tommy’s suite at the Rio, which always makes for better on-air rapport. Tommy told stories from the pre-boom WSOP era and even engaged in a bit of honest-to-goodness poker strategy talk. The only thing that could have been better is if Nate had been able to join us in person rather than via Skype. I definitely missed seeing him in Las Vegas this summer.

Links

Twitch
Twitter
Joe Ingram Interview

Timestamps

0:30 – hello
4:45 – KL
62:49 – strat

Timestamps

0:30 – hello
8:29 – strat
46:20 – etay

Strategy

NLHE tournament, 2000/4000 with a 400 ante. I had the big stack at the table, at about 280k or so. The villain in this hand was second in chips with 235k. There were roughly 36 players left, with 32 getting paid.

Action folds to him in the hijack, he makes it 11,500, I have JJ, and make it 30k. All fold back to him, he calls quickly.

Pot is ~69k . He checks blind (he did this a lot). Flop comes 467r. I bet 45K, Villain calls.

Pot ~159k. He checks blind again (less common for him to do this on the turn). Turn is a 2. I check behind.

~159k. River is a 3. He thinks for a couple seconds and shoves for 161k.

The trickiest problem of all is that you can only collect bounties if you have more chips than your opponents, which means that there must be some disjuncture in chip value. To understand this, consider that everyone else has 7,500 chips and you have 7,499. How much would you pay to be able to add a single chip to your stack? I don’t know to put an exact number on that, but considering that that chip would give you a shot at collecting $500 bounties, it must be a good deal more than $0.1133. Losing a single chip, however, would cost you less than that, because that chip would be nowhere near your last.

Let’s consider another hypothetical. At 50/100, you are in the big blind. You and the player on your right both have exactly the 7,500 starting stack. The action folds to the small blind, who moves all in without looking at his cards. Assuming that you are of exactly average skill in this tournament, what should your calling range be?

Please give it a look and let me know what you think!

Plus, a big announcement from Nate, and Andrew discusses a big call down he made in the WSOP Main Event.

Timestamps

0:30 – hello & welcome
16:30 – strategy
50:30 – Benny Glaser

Strategy

Beginning of Level 2, 150/300. I open to 750 UTG2 with ATo (while noting that the very active Euro on my left is doing the fold hold). CO, BN, and BB call. CO and BN are among the weaker players at the table, BB seems quite good.

Flop T66cc, check to me, I bet 1200 into 3000ish, only BB calls (he called pretty quickly, though I put less stock in timing tells for better players).

Turn 4o. He checks, I bet 2200, he raises to 8000, and I take a long time calling.

River 3o. He bets 16K into 25K.

Timestamps

0:25 Hello and Welcome
16:00 Strategy

Timestamps
0:30 – hello and welcome
34:43 – strategy

For the first time in a while, my girlfriend is here with me. Understandably she wasn’t interested in spending the summer in some sad, low-end studio apartment of the sort I’ve rented for past WSOP trips. But she also wasn’t interested in some luxury one-bedroom condo – she wouldn’t be my girlfriend if she were! #nitcast

Her suggestion was that we rent a house instead. I was a bit reluctant, because I didn’t have any clear idea of who would occupy the other bedrooms, but it looks like it’s going to work out well. Dara O’Kearney will be here for most of the summer, and then a variety of friends and students will rotate through the third bedroom over the course of the series. I’ve often said that one of my biggest regrets is that I never did the whole “rent a house with a bunch of other players and spend the summer immersed in poker and learning from each other” thing, and this is the closest I’m likely to get.

It’s what I think of as a typical Las Vegas house: newly built, blandly functional, and fundamentally cheap beneath a facade of luxury. I’ve always said that Las Vegas is a microcosm of everything that’s wrong with America.

Speaking of which, the house is in a little gated community that, judging by the packet of rules that was waiting for us when we arrived, seems to be governed by an aggressive Homeowner’s Association. Though ridiculous (No fake plants of any kind on exterior property! No decorations except for American flags or appropriate holiday decorations that are promptly removed!), none of these seems likely to affect us except for aggressive street parking restrictions which could be an issue because the house has a two-car garage but we’re likely to have three cars here at various times (returning again to the theme of everything that’s wrong with America). In all likelihood we’ll just be able to get a visitor parking permit and it will all be fine, but I’ll feel better once that’s sorted out with the landlord.

Anyway, on our first night here, I dreamt that a high school friend of mine, his family, and his dog (I don’t know where that last part came from, as he doesn’t have a dog and never has) came to stay with us. Also my boyhood dog, Paul, was alive and with us. My friend’s dog ran away, and while we were out look looking for it, Paul made a mess of the living room carpet.

We found my friend’s dog, but it escaped again while we were cleaning up Paul’s mess. This time a community security guard brought the dog back to us with a stern warning and also a referral code for a doggie daycare, in the style of the “Girls Direct to Your Hotel Room!” cards that are omnipresent on The Strip, because of course this is Las Vegas and even in your dreams everyone is getting a kickback.

I woke up enough to realize that my pounding heart was just the result of the dream. “None of that really happened,” I reassured myself. “The dogs haven’t gotten out.” Then I woke up a bit further and remembered that there are no dogs here and Paul has been dead for 15 years.

Happy WSOP everyone!

Flop ($205) Jc 8h 6h. Checks to me, I bet $100, folds back to good pro in HJ who calls.

Turn ($405) 5d. Both check.

River ($405) 2s. Villain bets $600. Hero?

Post your thoughts and preferred play in the comments, and I’ll do my best to respond and post results as well as my own thoughts at the end of the week.

Timestamps

0:30 – hello and welcome
2:52 – hello and welcome again
9:34 – strategy
35:38 – Patrick Leonard

Timestamps

0:30 – hello
2:25 – strategy
24:48 – danny

Strategy

1/2 NLHE, 9-handed.

Villain 1 raises UTG1 to $12, Villain 2 calls, Villain 3 ($105) in the CO calls. Hero ($220) calls with Ad Tc in the SB.

Flop ($50) Jh Qh Ks. Hero checks, V1 bets $40, V2 calls, and V3 goes all in for $93. Hero?

Be sure to check out Tommy’s new and improved website and follow him on Twitter. His earlier appearances on the podcast are here and here.

Timestamps

Intro 0:30
Strategy 4:17
Interview 33:27

Strategy

1/1/2 NLHE effective stacks $300

Here raises to $6 in the CO with 7h8h, Button calls, makes it $22 from the big blind. Hero calls and the button folds.

Flop ($49) 10c 8c 6c. Villain bets $20, Hero raises to $85, Villain calls

Turn ($219) 2d. Villain checks, Hero checks.

River 8d. Villain checks, Hero?

You can visit Chris Moorman’s website and follow him on Twitter.

Timestamps

0:30 hello & strategy
22:44 chris moorman

Strategy

2/5 table at the rio. I’m in the sb with AsQc. UTG limps for 5, UTG +1 raises to 15. Folds around to a pretty tight player on the button who makes it $45. I call, the limper calls, and UTG +1 calls.

Flop ($180): Ah9s8h

I bet $135. The UTG limper folds and the UTG +1 ships it all in pretty quickly so it’s $455 total – $320 more. Button folds….

In the meantime, my latest poker strategy article, “They’re More Afraid of You,” is now appearing in 2+2 Magazine. It’s about using fear to your advantage in poker, but with a particular focus on the WSOP Tag Team event that Nate and I played:

no player wants to be the one to lose all of the team’s chips, especially not in a “boneheaded” way. I mean, if you get Aces cracked, your teammates will understand, but if you call off all of your chips hoping to catch a bluff and get shown a set, how do you explain that to the rest of the team?

Enjoy!

Timestamps

There was such a great mix of types of teams! Of course in some cases it was just a few great players who happened to be friends playing together, but lots of people were playing with family members (George Danzer, his girlfriend, and his father were at our table for a while!), and in perhaps my favorite story from the event, Niall Farell, who lost heads up to Safiya Umerova in the $1500 no-limit shootout, tweeted “If you can’t beat them…” along with a picture of a registration receipt for a Niall/Safiya team for this event!

I wouldn’t be surprised if, for many of these teams, this was the only WSOP event they played, which means that the event was also successful in bringing in new players. There was a lot of joking and speculation about whether the event wouldn’t ruin friendships or even marriages (someone tweeted that he hoped it wouldn’t be the end of the podcast!), but from what I observed, everyone, from the most recreational players to the most serious pros, seemed to be having fun.

My girlfriend raised an interesting point that hadn’t really occurred to me: this event gives recreational players the opportunity to enter a WSOP event for less even than the $500 Colossus. Ordinarily, if four friends wanted to pool their money to enter a $1000 WSOP event, only one of them could actually play, and although this does happen, it’s surely a bit disappointing for the other three. The team event enabled all four to get a taste of the WSOP experience for a cheaper price than they could anywhere else.

You might think that because it’s a bracelet event and there are also a lot of grinders taking it very seriously, that might ruin the fun for the amateurs, but that doesn’t seem right to me. I don’t imagine those folks enter an event like this thinking they are favorites to win it. In many cases, I imagine they want the full WSOP experience, they want a taste of the competitiveness and the famous pros as well as the kids in sunglasses and hoodies, etc.

All in all, it seemed a resounding success to me, and I can’t wait to play it again next year. My only regret relates to Tommy Angelo’s famous proclamation that the pleasure:pain ratio is all out of whack in a poker tournament. I misplayed two hands that resulted in our elimination, and I can say that it hurts a LOT more knowing that your mistakes brought an end to the fun for you and your friend.

Sorry Nate! Thanks for playing with me, and we’ll get them next year!

The other fun thing about my starting table was that Ian Simpson was there. If you don’t know Ian, you will soon. We’ve already recorded an interview with him and will publish it perhaps as early as this coming Monday, if it doesn’t get pre-empted by WSOP content (will depend on how much time we find to record in the next few days).

Nate and I had high hopes of getting dinner with Ian and Ryan Hall, but it turned out that the break was only 30 minutes, which caused Ryan to drop out, and Ian had already busted and left, so it was just Nate and me. And in fact, if Nate hadn’t busted shortly before dinner break and volunteered to get a table and place an order in advance, we wouldn’t even have managed that. I really don’t understand the point of a 30 minute dinner break.

Overall I think I played perhaps the best tournament poker I have yet in this event. I got moved away from my awesome starting table and spent the rest of the day tangling (or trying not to tangle) with some tough young Europeans. Unfortunately I just kept losing pre-flop all ins after chipping up.

There was one other hand I was proud of. At 400/800/100, I opened to 2000 with Jc 9c in the CO, and the BB, one of aforementioned Europeans, re-raised to 6000. There are some people who will be quite strong when they three-bet from the big blind, preferring to call most hands that they might use as “light” three-bets, and although I did expect this player to be polarized, I would expect him to have a more good/balanced three-betting strategy even from the big blind. So, I called with about 31K behind.

The flop came Qc 9hs 8c, and he bet 6K. I think a lot of people will just jam here because they know they have a lot of equity and they aren’t comfortable playing future streets. With a slightly weaker hand, say Kc Tc, I think shoving is correct – you’d rather get all in on the flop, ideally with some fold equity, than call and get forced off your equity on a blank turn.

However, I think my hand is strong enough to get all in no matter the turn card, and I don’t think Villain will fold many hands with substantial equity. It’s important to consider all of your options rather than just defaulting to a shove any time you have enough equity to get all in, and here I think there’s more value in calling than shoving.

The turn was a Q, and we both checked. The river was the 3s, we both checked again, and he showed Aces to win the pot. To be clear, although this was a nice side benefit of just calling the flop, avoiding a stack off to overpairs on a few specific runouts is really not the main reason to call the flop. I’m going to be stacking off on most turns, this was just the rare card that neither of us particularly wanted to bet, and that happened to work to my advantage.

I had a weirder spot with the most obviously recreational player at the table, an older woman who was quite friendly and whom I’m sure I’ve seen around before and perhaps even played with. She opened from middle position to 1700 (BB was still 800), and I called with 52s in my BB.

The flop came 877r, and we both checked.

The turn was a 2, I bet 3000, and she called.

The river was a 3, and I was a bit unsure how to proceed. I expected to have the best hand quite often, as I think she’d bet pairs on the flop almost always. Was she really going to call me down twice with Ace-high though? On this board, it seemed plausible. I’ve actually coached a few people who are roughly in her demographic and quite aware of their image and accustomed to people who look like me firing spewy bluffs at people who look like them. So, I bet 6000, and she called with K7s for trips, which it actually surprised me a bit that she would have that based on her pre-flop position (not that she couldn’t have other 7x) and doesn’t really tell me anything one way or the other about the river bet.

A few orbits later, with the BB at 1000, she opened my big blind again, to 2200. This time, I held 22. I decided to jam for my last 18K, based on the fact that she’d showed down the K7s and also A6o from a similar position. I also thought that she might fold a bit too much, perhaps something as strong as AJo. Frankly, though, this is probably a little spewy, and if we’re being honest, I caught a whiff of strength when she looked at her cards.

Sure enough, she called with 88 to bust me. The only consolation was that even if I had called with the 22, I would have flopped a set and lost to a turned 8, so in this case the mistake didn’t actually cost me anything, but it was a mistake nonetheless.

Nate and I are going to play the Team Event at the WSOP today, which should be fun.

I got off to a good start in the $1500 but ran into some annoying spots. At 150/300, the CO, the weakest player at the table, opened to 1000, and I had KJs on the button. Based on the size of his raise, I figured he was strong, which means calling at all here is borderline, but I was trying to get into pots with him, I had position and a reasonable hand, and we were about 80BBs deep, so I hopped in there.

Then the SB, a player who’d mostly been quite passive, suddenly got it into his head to squeeze. Maybe I was just salty, but just the way he looked at us and gathered his chips, I really didn’t think he had anything. He made it 3500, the CO happily shoved, I folded, and the SB quickly folded as well. I have no idea what prompted him to do that,

The very next hand, a tilted player in early position opened to 875, the HJ (the CO from the previous hand) called, and I called QTs on the CO. The flop came KJ6 with one of my suit, the original raiser checked, and the HJ made a big bet, like 80% pot. Obviously I wasn’t getting immediate odds to draw, but I figured my implied odds would be very good if I hit, so I called. Then the original raiser went into the tank, and it was instantly obvious he was strong and looking to check-raise. He drew the process out for over a minute, stacking and restacking chips and trying to act torn about his decision, which only made it more obvious that he was strong. He raised, the HJ instantly folded, and I eyed his stack but had no choice to fold myself, as he was going to have less than a pot-sized bet behind.

A while later, at a different table, at the 250/500 level, I opened to 1100 with K6o in the CO. Not exactly standard, but the BB seemed very amateurish. Only he called.

The flop came Q63 with two clubs, and I held the Kc. He checked, I bet 1100, and he raised to 5000. My plan, after betting so small on the flop, was to call a check-raise, but I wasn’t expecting such a large one. I think I should have just folded right there, but I called.

The turn was another Q, and he jammed for a pot-sized bet. It seemed crazy not to call him when the only hand I was worried about just got less likely, but I took my time and tried to get a read. Based on his body language, he seemed quite comfortable, and I ultimately folded.

Part of me definitely feels like if I’m not calling a shove on that turn then there’s really no point in calling the flop. Then the other part of me argues that what my flop call bought me was the opportunity to make a read-based decision on the turn, and I (hopefully) made the right one.

The very next hand, I had about 28BB, and the action folded to me in the SB with 77. I’ve been experimenting with open limping a lot from the SB, and I think this is a good spot for it. There aren’t hands I want to open jam for this amount, and there are a lot of hands I don’t really want to raise-call or raise-fold for this amount, which means there’s a lot of merit to a limping strategy. With 77 specifically, raising and getting called doesn’t even produce that great of a situation, as most flops will be difficult to play.

My plan was to shove over a raise, but the BB took that play away from me by shipping his stack. Although I wasn’t eager to race for such a large pot, I thought he would rarely jam hands that dominated me but jam some hands I dominated, including smaller pairs and Ax, which makes calling pretty profitable if high-variance. I called and lost a race to T9s.

Gonna play the $1000 Turbo NLHE today.

My Personal History with Full Tilt Poker

I had more than $60,000 on Full Tilt Poker on Black Friday, and although I eventually (after more than two years) got it all back, for a long time I had no idea what was going to happen to it. And I was one of the lucky ones: there were people with a lot more than that jammed up, and there were people with less who needed it more. Although I would have rather had that money earning interest somewhere, neither my life nor my bankroll were badly affected by not having access to it.

That’s absolutely not to say that it wasn’t a lot of money to me. It was and is a significant chunk of my net worth. As many of you know, though, I try to live well within my means (#nitcast), so it wasn’t money that I needed to pay my rent nor even to be adequately bankrolled for the games I wanted to play.

What upset me most was the gall of the whole thing, how they stonewalled and lied to us after Black Friday, even as it slowly became clear that Full Tilt did not have our money, and that the reason they did not have our money was that they had mismanaged it, making reckless loans and paying out huge disbursements to shareholders. As far as I’m concerned, getting my money back after two years didn’t make any of that go away, and it didn’t make us square. I’m holding my breath for any further compensation, but I’m not eager to welcome Ferguson and Lederer back into the good graces of the poker world, either.

I’ll admit that I don’t know Ferguson’s exact role in what went wrong before and after Black Friday. That’s not willful ignorance: there’s just not a lot of hard information available. According to Mike Sexton, whom I do consider to be a broadly reliable source, Ferguson actually did more than any of the other principals at FTP to help protect and restore player balances.

That’s to his credit, but it doesn’t change my opinion that he played a role in screwing me and took home millions of dollars in the process. As a member of the Board of Directors, he had an obligation to ensure the safety of player deposits, and he didn’t do it, and although he may have lost or given back some of it, I believe that there is to this day there’s money in his bank account that isn’t rightfully his.

I’d more or less put all of this behind me, until Lederer and Ferguson summoned up a new batch of gall and decided to start making noise in the poker world again. Lederer recently claimed “full responsibility” for Full Tilt’s failure, though that doesn’t seem to entail any monetary sacrifice on his part.

Ferguson Arrives

As far as I know, Ferguson has never made any kind of public statement about Full Tilt and certainly hasn’t offered a public apology. I knew that he would be been around the Rio, and I even passed him in the men’s room once, but it never occurred to me that he would land at my table. I assumed he only planned to play a few of the higher buy-in events. What he was doing in an $888 tournament is beyond me.

When he arrived at the table, it was a shock. I couldn’t believe it was happening. I had no idea what to do. No real good could come from confronting him: what did I think, that he was going to cut me a check on the spot? That he was going to break down in tears and confess to everything? I knew that it would only upset me and distract me from the game. Besides, was I just going to attack him out of nowhere? How do you start that conversation?

Still, it irked me that he was able to pony up to the table like it was no big deal, like bygones were bygones, like he was just another poker player. I’d been vocal on the internet about how Full Tilt players were never made whole – was I just going to sit there quietly when I finally had the chance to confront one of the owners directly?

My hands were shaking and my mind was spinning. I could hardly pay attention to what else was going on at the table. Thankfully, my stack was short enough that all of my decisions were binary and didn’t require much thought.

I remembered some wisdom I picked up from Tommy Angelo, though I’m sure it’s not unique to him: forgiveness isn’t something you do for the person you’ve forgiving, it’s something you do for yourself, because anger and bitterness are poison and you shouldn’t keep them inside of you.

What did I really know about Ferguson’s side of the story? I was rushing to a judgment that, though I had a high degree of confidence in it, was not 100%. Maybe he really was some hero operating behind the scenes. It wasn’t likely, but it was possible.

The nice way to put it would be that I decided to take the high road. Maybe I just chickened out. But I decided not to say anything to him and just focus on playing cards.

That peace lasted for a few minutes, until another player at our table was eliminated. After gathering his things, the young man reached out to shake Ferguson’s hand. “It’s an honor”,  he said. “Glad to have you back.”

That was the final straw, but it was also the icebreaker I needed. “I don’t agree with that, for what it’s worth,” I declared to the table at large. “Anyone else here have money on Full Tilt Poker?”

No one responded. I didn’t know whether the answer was no, or whether I was just speaking so agitatedly that they couldn’t understand me. I locked eyes with the guy who looked most like a former online player. “Did you have money on Full Tilt?”

He removed his headphones. I asked him again. “No,” he told me. I could feel my face reddening. Ferguson still hadn’t said anything, but I certainly had his attention.

“I had $60,000 locked up for over two years,” I said.

“And did you get it back?” Ferguson asked me, as though that would make everything OK.

“That was $60,000 I couldn’t access for two years. No interest.”

“Sorry about that. But you got it back?”

Finally, someone else chimed in. “I had over $9000 in bonuses that I never received,” he said.

“But you got the balance back?” Chris asked.

“No,” I interrupted. “You asked whether we got paid back. The answer is, we got some of what we were owed.”

We just stared at each other for a few seconds after that. There was nothing more to say. I sat back down. My hands were still shaking, and my face was burning, but it was a relief to say something to him.

I’m relieved that I didn’t say anything nasty, and I truly don’t wish him harm or misfortune. But for him just to return to the poker world like nothing happened feels like a denial of all of the harm that Full Tilt did to so many individuals and to our community in general. When I saw him literally being welcomed back, I felt compelled to offer a counterweight to that sentiment.

Ferguson Departs

Ferguson had late registered, so he was playing a short stack. The first time he shoved, it was for about 8BBs in middle position. I was holding A4s in the CO and briefly considered calling him, but I realized my emotions were getting the best of me and folded.

A few orbits later, he jammed 6BBs UTG, and I was in middle position with ATo. This, I decided, was a call. Not a spite call, just a good call. I called.

The Ace came right on the flop, and it was still good on the river. I’d busted Chris Ferguson. He tapped the table, looked me in the eye, and nodded at me. “Good luck.”

I nodded in acknowledgment and quietly stacked my chips.

This episode is sponsored by Shark Clock and Tournament Poker Edge.

Timestamps

0:30 hello
5:05 strategy with nate
24:33 ed miller

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.

Blinds were still 25/50, and I opened to 150 with Kc Qc in the HJ. The CO, SB, and BB all called.

The flop came 975 with two clubs, and the blinds checked. I certainly wouldn’t just c-bet arbitrarily into three opponents here, but with two overs and a flush draw, it’s an easy bet. I bet 450, and only the CO called.

The 2h turned, and on such a blank card, I think he’s more or less capped out at one pair, maybe TT or JJ at best and almost always weaker than that, so it’s a great spot for me to bombs away. I bet 1500, and he quickly called. The fact that he didn’t even consider raising made me even more certain that the didn’t have two-pair or a set.

So, I didn’t have to sweat a full house on the 9c river. I also didn’t think he’d call the turn with bare flush draws, at least not so quickly, so the only better hands in his range figured to bet Ac 8c and Ac 6c. I expected him to have T9 and 98 more frequently, and be unable to fold trips. I bet 4000, and he called with Ac 8c.

Nothing of great interest happened after that. I got a double up with AQ by convincing my opponent to spaz with 77 on a Q9xxx board.

Once I was down to 20 blinds, I wasn’t getting any shoving spots. Mostly my cards were bad, but also there was a guy with a big stack on my right who’d decided that he should play more than half the hands he was dealt. I’m honestly not sure he was joking/posturing when he wondered out loud whether he should call my 11BB UTG shove blind (I had AJo, and he folded).

A few hands later he opened to 1100 on the button, which it was really hard for me to imagine him folding a button, so I had a pretty easy shove for 5K or so with 22 in the SB. He called with A4o to bust me.

After the tournament I went and hung out with Carlos for a bit at the Tournament Poker Edge booth, then decided to check out the cash game scene at the Rio.

It truly does seem to get worse there every year. Now there are no chip runners (which, I realize, may not be their fault, but it sucks either way), which means that when they open a new game it takes a long time to start because people have to go wait in line at the cage, buy chips, then take them to the table, and of course no one wants to sit at the table waiting for others to show up, and certainly not come over from an already-running game to get the new one started, so it’s just a slow process and I can only imagine that the most impulsive (ie most desirable to have at your table) players are not sticking around for all that.

My first table was pretty boring, everyone seemed decent enough and the average stack was less than $2K, which is quite small for an uncapped $5/$10.

I was about to quit when my table change came through and I landed at a new table where my $6500 made me just the third largest stack! Had there been chip runners, I would have added on, but as it was I decided just to make do with 650 big blinds.

It was a fun game, nobody spewing but nobody playing particularly good deep-stacked poker, and I was winning solidly. Then, literally the hand before I was going to quit:

I open 22 to $40 UTG (believe we were 7-handed at the time), and four people call. The flop comes K72r. I bet $150, and only the button called. I had about $7500 at the time, and she covered me.

The turn was another K. I checked, figuring a check-raise could get more money in against a K and also give her a chance to bluff/protection bet weaker hands. She checked behind.

The river card was something small (not a 2!), and with $500 in the pot, I threw out a $1K chip. Overbetting was not unprecedented for me, and none of those hands had yet gone to showdown.

She asked if that was a $500 chip, the dealer told her it was $1000, and then she nodded and said, “All in.” Faced with calling $6K to win $8500, I really don’t think is a tough fold at all. I’m uncapped, which means I have both nut hands and better bluff-catchers, not that I would expect to see many bluffs here anyway.

Even though that basically wiped out my profit for the night, I quit feeling pretty good about myself. Among other things, I probably would have lost my ass if she’d bet the turn!

For some crazy reason the Monster Stack is not a re-entry, so I’m just going to play cash tonight, probably at Bellagio, and then hit up the $1K Turbo WSOP event tomorrow morning.

Timestamps

0:30 hello and welcome
5:45 strategy
46:24 christian

Strategy

$5/10 at Bellagio

Pre-flop:
UTG+1 raised to $15 (sic). I was hijack $800 stack holding AcQs. I called. Cutoff $2500 stack called. Button $1500 stack called. Small blind folded. Big blind $7000 stack called.

4 callers $75 pot

Flop:
AsKsQx
Checked to me, I bet $50. Villain called. Big blind called. Original raiser folded.

$225 pot

Turn: 7x
big blind checked, I bet $150, villain called and big blind folded.

$525 pot

River Tx:
I checked. Villain shoved.

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.

Timestamps

0:30 – hello & welcome
10:59 – strat
32:05 – andrew moreno

Strategy

MP limps, the button makes it $5, and I raise to $16.5. MP calls and the button folds.

Flop is A79 with the 7 and 9 of spades. I bet $22 and he calls. The pot is $82, and he has $80 behind.

The turn is a blank (low non-spade) and I shove.

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?!

Edit: How did I forget to link Matt’s excellent blog? He writes a lot about poker and his life at thevoicewithin.me.

Timestamps

0:30 – hello & welcome
6:49 – strategy
25:21 – matt berkey

Strategy

This hand is from a WSOPc Main Event and takes place at the 300/600/75 level. I have a stack of about 55,000 and Anthony Gregg covers me.

In this hand we are in the big blind We are holding the ace of spades 10 of diamonds. Anthony great opens with a raise to 1200 utg1 it folds back around to me and I decided to call.

The flop comes 4104 with two spades. I check, he bets 2000, I call.

The turn is the 6d. He bets 3300 and I call.

The river is the 7 of spades, for a final board of 410467. I bet 5500, and to my surprise he shoves!

You can follow @CeeGeePoker on Twitter and, if you’re really lucky, catch him streaming high stakes mixed game action. More reliably, you’ll find his training videos on Deuces Cracked.

Timestamps

0:30 – Hello & Welcome
6:53 – Strategy
31:40 – Christopher George

Strategy

$400 tournament at the Wynn, blinds 300/600/75, effective stacks 30K. Hero opens to 1500 with QJs (blinds were 300-600, and I believe antes were 50). CO, Button, and Villain in BB call.

Flop (6700) 984r rainbow. Checks around.

Turn (6700) T. BB bets big blind bet 2100 , Hero raises to 5100, two folds, BB calls.

River (16900) A. Villain checks, Hero bets 12k, Villain folds

Timestamps

0:30 – Hello and Welcome plus WRGPT strat
21:35 – Carlos

Timestamps

0:30 – Hello & Welcome
7:47 – Strategy:
21:28 – Interview: Gags30

Strategy

$1/$3 NLHE

UTG limps, Hero ($600) raises to $16 with KsJs, V1 ($300) calls, V2 ($500) calls on the button, everyone else folds.

Flop ($51 in pot) Jd 3h 3c. Hero bets $20, V1 calls, V2 raises to $50, Hero calls, V1 calls.

Turn ($200 in pot) 6s. Hero checks, V1 checks, V2 bets $90, Hero?

Timestamps

:30 – hello & welcome
4:22 – strategy
33:56 – dannyn13

Strategy

Horseshoe Southern Indiana, 1/2NL, 8-handed, $270 effective stacks vs villain, hero has AdKs in MP1
-UTG+2 limps with $600 behind
-hero raises AdKs to $10 in MP1 with $260 behind
-MP2 calls with $180 behind
-villain calls in bb with $300 behind

-$41 in the middle and we see a flop of Kc4h5h
-villain in bb checks, UTG+2 checks, hero bets $30, MP2 folds, villain check/raises to $75, MP1 folds, hero calls

-ignoring rake, there is $191 in the middle and the turn is the 4s
-villain checks and hero checks

-the river is (the beautiful) Kd, villain checks, hero?

The book is available from the Amazon Kindle Store or in EPUB, Kindle, and PDF formats at Nitcast.com.

Timestamps

:30 – hello & welcome
5:06 – strategy: getting paid with quads
34:47 – interview: neil blumenfield

Strategy

$1/$3 NLHE $800 effective stacks

Villain opens to $15 from utg +2.
Hero is next to act holding 5c5h and calls the 15.
The button calls the 15 (stack 300 ish)
The limper calls the 15 (stack 150 ish)

flop ($59) is Kd 9d 5d
limper checks, Villain bets 45, Hero calls, everyone else folds.

turn ($149) is the 4c

Villain bets $55 into the now 149. Hero raises to $150 total and villain calls

River ($450) 5s. Villain checks. Hero?

Timestamps

0:30 – hello
8:30 – quads in the WSOP ME
46:40 – brad

Strategy

Day 3 of WSOP Main Event, 1000/2000/200 UTG opens to 4k off a stack of 130k. Folds to Hero (43k) in BB with two black aces. I decided to flat. Pot was 10.8k.

Flop came down A83hhh. Both check.

Turn was the 6h. Both check.

River is the case A. Hero?

Links

Nate put together a playlist of Brad’s recommendations, as well as an additional note about Ellix Powers

Bust by Brad Willis

The Boy They Couldn’t Kill by Thomas Lake

Homicide: Life on the Street. Please, if you liked The Wire, watch the first season at least

Support the Bay Area Urban Debate League!

Follow Clayton on Twitter@claytoncomic and learn more about his upcoming shows from his website. His podcast is Broadway Comedy Club Radio.

Timestamps

0:30 Hello and Welcome
34:44 Main Event Strategy

Strategy

Hand 1

Blinds 800/1600/200 effective stack 80K
Hero opens to 3500 with Qd Jd in 3rd position, Button 3bets to 8500, Hero calls

Flop QT7 with one diamond.
Hero checks, Button bets 9500, Hero calls

Turn Ks. Hero checks, Button bets 11,500 into 40,200, Hero calls.

River 9s. Hero checks, Button shoves

Hand 2

Blinds 100/200 effective stack 30K.

Villain opens to 450, one call, Hero raises to 1300 with Jc 8c on the Button, Villain calls, other player folds.

Flop (3200) Ac Jh 7c. Villain checks, Hero bets 1500, Villain raises to 4000, Hero calls.

Turn (11K) 9d. Villain bets 5000, Hero calls.

Rivers (21,300) 8s. Villain bets 7000 into 21000.

Hand  3

Blinds 1K/2K/300 effective stacks 160K. Villain opens to 4K, Hero has QQ in the SB and raises 11K, V raises to 33K.

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).

Timestamps

0:30  Hello and welcome
14:24  Strategy

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

The books mentioned on the show are Poetic Meter & Poetic Form, How to Rap, and Decoded. Alex contributed a chapter to Excelling at No-Limit Hold ‘Em.

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!

Nate folded to Queens to two shoves that turned out to be from AK and JJ; the story he’s sticking to is that both players were at the bottoms of their ranges and he would make the same fold again. Then he lost QQ to AA to get pretty short and then lost AQ < 87s if memory serves.

Leo jammed the nut flush draw into a made full house. He claims it was a punt but he’s harder on himself than any poker player I know, so probably it was just a cooler.

Although cashing the Main Event was clearly going to be a very significant notch in his belt, Carlos had the stones to stick his stack in twice near the bubble, once jamming KJ over a raise and once open jamming KK for 15 BBs very close to the money. Thankfully neither was called. Interesting question whether turning the Kings face up and eating a one-round penalty would be the most +EV play, but that’s neither here nor there. Ultimately he was busted after shoving 77 into a raise from a “mangy” Russian woman who slowrolled him with Aces. It was a poetic exit, at least!

Former podcast guest Clayton Fletcher is still in the hunt with nearly 600K chips and a top 10% stack! Follow him on Twitter @claytoncomic.

As for myself, it’s tempting just to tell you I lost with Kings vs Aces and let you assume it was an unavoidable cooler, but the sad truth is that 5-bet jamming the Kings was probably the worst option available to me. Here was the situation:

It was early on Day 2, my stack was slightly above average, and the table was generally pretty decent, though not amazing. There was one really tough player (Jonathan “driverseati” Tamayo) on my immediate left. He’d been flatting a lot of my opens, running and playing well, and generally making life difficult for me.

He opened for 1200 UTG at 250/500/50. UTG2 called. I began the hand with about 58K, and both opponents covered. I made it 4800 with KK, which I think is already a mistake. I don’t mind squeezing Kings (though it isn’t as automatic as it may seem), but think my range should be very narrow here, probably just QQ+ and some big suited Aces, because of how strong both opponents’ ranges are and often I’ll be called and end up playing OOP with a lot of money behind. Neither of these players is very likely at all to 4-bet, so I should use bigger sizing, probably 6K.

Anyway, Jonathan threw out two more orange without much hesitation, making it 11,200, and I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t think too hard before I shipped my stack.

In retrospect, there’s little doubt that his range for calling a shove will be exactly AA, which means that no matter how light he might be on this 4bet (and to be honest, because of how profitably he can flat call and how quickly he raised, I suspect he isn’t that light to begin with), jamming can’t be better than either calling or 5-betting small and calling it off (the latter only being good if he has a very 4betting range, which again I doubt). Nate pointed out, and I agree, that even folding would be better than jamming.

So… I dunno what else to say. It was an unlucky spot, and I know a lot of people would have gone broke there, and it’s possible I would have lost most or all of my chips even if I’d called, but the more I think about it, the more I think my play was pretty clearly suboptimal.

Maybe next year!

The 2015 Nitcast Las Vegas Meetup will take place on July 6th, which is Day 1b of the WSOP Main Event. Don’t worry, though! The meetup will start at 10AM, so even if you’re playing that day, you can start off on the right foot by stopping in to say hello. We’ll meet at the Gold Coast bowling alley and will be there until at least Noon, possibly later. If you’re in town, please stop in and see us!

Strategy

I opened 2.5x from the CO with As Tc, a good player in the small blind called, and the big blind folded. Flop came 7s 9h Js. Villan donked about half pot, I raised 3.5x, he folded.

Blinds 100/200 button opened to 450 SB called and I called Ks Ts in the BB. Flop Qs 9d 8d SB checked I bet 900 button folded SB called. Turn 5, SB checks, I bet 1800 with 4500 behind, he folded. Plan was to jam most rivers if he called.

I opened 44 UTG, Button made a small 3bet, I called. Flop K94r I bet 4500 into 6700 he called. Turn was an T, I checked, he jammed his last 15K, I called and beat his KQ.

I open to $30 with Kd Jd in EP. Two players in EP call, and the BB calls.

Flop ($120 in pot) Td 3s 2s BB bets $40, everyone calls

Turn ($280 in pot) 9c BB bets $60, I call, one more call

River ($460 in pot) 6h BB checks, I bet $300, both fold

So I bust the PH 200K and at the last minute, a friend from back home hits me up to late reg the Monster. I rush over and get in with 15 mins left in the 200/400 level. I have 16.5K at dinner.

AA to AK takes me to 26K.

Stolen blinds take me to 31K.

99 to KJo shorty shove takes me to 39K.

Last hand of the night, I defend 54s against aggro guy with 20bbs. Flop TT7 with a flush draw for me. I check shove and end the night with 47.5K

Didn’t see many flops at all.

While we were bagging, a guy got excited and says “it’s after midnight, I cannot believe I bagged on my birthday!” At this point, I break my silence for the first time and reveal the fact that I am also a fish on a heater and that we share a birthday. There was a bracelet winner on my right (Greg Ostrander) bragging about how he took down a 3K three years ago for $750K. I cut him off mid sentence all like yadda yadda yadda. It’s my birthday, take my picture and he did.

My own play in the Monster Stack was not so exciting. I had to fold good pairs to bad rivers in a couple of medium sized pots, and that took me down to about 9K. In one of my first hands at a new table, a competent-looking player limped UTG at the 100/200 level. I was UTG2 and chose to limp behind with 99.

I raise here more often than not, and always against a weaker limper, but I think calling is a viable option when a good player has limped UTG. I didn’t want to face a limp-raise, and with so many players behind me, there’s a good chance that at least one player who has position is going to call me anyway, in which case the value of going to the flop in a raised pot is not so high. Limping makes it harder to win the pot, but it also makes the pot less important, conceals my hand, and sometimes gives me the option to limp-raise myself.

Sure enough, another capable-looking player limped the CO, and then a young European on the button raised to 1000. The blinds and the first limper folded, and I think at this point I have an easy shove. I gain a lot from his folds, I won’t be in terrible shape when called, and I don’t particularly want to induce a shove by 3-betting less than all-in. To my surprise, the CO jammed as well, and the button folded. This seemed like an even better outcome for me, because I thought he was more likely to have a smaller pair than a larger one, but he actually had AKo and won the flip.

It was a weird hand, but it did in fact turn into the good spot that I hoped it would.

Edit: Carlos asked me to add a shoutout to PokerJunkey.com for providing him with the Eat Sleep Poker t-shirt he’s wearing in this picture. Yet another milestone in CW’s career: free endorsement SWAG!

My original table was awesome, and I got off to a great start, chipping up from 7500 to over 10K in the first hour. Probably the most interesting hand from that level began with UTG, one of the better of my opponents, opening to 125. The CO and SB called, and I had an easy call with 88 in the BB.

The flop came K77r. We checked to the pre-flop raiser, who bet 250, about half of the pot. I again had an easy call.

The turn was another K, I bet 250, or about 1/4 pot, and he folded.

Think about our respective ranges at this point. Neither of us is particularly likely to have a full house, which means that while UTG will occasionally bluff or value bet this turn, he’s going to check behind very often. I can make a little bet like this with my relatively strong range. When I have a hand like 88, I don’t gain much from Villain’s calls, but I do keep him from cheaply realizing his equity when he has unpaired overcards. My stronger pairs do a little better when called but still gain when Villain folds QJ or whatever. And my full houses profit by not allowing Villain to pot control his big pairs.

Just before antes were introduced, my table broke. The next one was still pretty good, but I ended up having to make some big folds. I’m pretty sure they were correct, but they were costly.

At 100/200/25, I opened to 500 with AQo UTG, and only the BB, a recreational player, called. The flop came A65 with two hearts (I had no hearts in my hand). He checked, I bet 750, and he called.

The turn was the 9h. I know a lot of people like to pot control here, but I really don’t think that accomplishes much. If I check back here, it’s because I think I’m in such bad shape that I can’t profitably put another bet in. If I’m going to call or bet river anyway, I’d rather make that bet on the turn, when I can still either get value or at least fold equity from draws. I don’t think there’s much danger of getting check-raise bluffed, so the only thing you lose when raised is one bet, which you were going to put in on the river anyway. I bet 1600, he raised to 3500, and I folded.

Then at 150/300/50, I picked up AA on the Button. I opened to 600, and the BB called. He checked and called 800 on J87dd (I had the Ad). The turn was a K. He checked, I bet 1800, and he raised to 3800 with about 4000 behind. There’s a bit more of a case for pot controlling this turn, as there are a lot of runouts where I either won’t be able to value bet river at all or it will be very thin, but I think that even if you’re going to get just one more bet from this hand, the turn might well be the better time to do it. Anyway, I folded, and Villain showed a J. He approached me when the table broke and excitedly told me he had JJ there, which I believe (he was the sort who might not 3-bet it, and I didn’t ask him to show or anything, so he really had no incentive to just come up to me out of the blue and lie).

There was one a while later where a woman opened to 1200 at 250/500/50. The SB, who had only about 10BB, called, and I called getting a great price with Th6h in the BB. The flop came J98 with one heart, and the SB jammed for just about pot.

I thought the original raiser was pretty strong, which was sort of a plus and a minus. She only had about 8K, or a little over 2x the preflop pot, behind. If she overjams with KK or AA it barely affects my equity in the main pot, but I do put in another 5K or so in a dry side pot against her. I ultimately decided to fold largely because I thought SB might have hands like AT or JTs in his range. He had AJo, she had AA, and I would have drilled the river. Still not sure what to make of this, but I think folding is OK.

I ended up losing two coin flips in a row to bust. The first was a close call, as I opened 33 UTG to 1300 at 300/600/75, and UTG1 jammed a little over 8K. He had AKo and got there, even though the BB said he folded AK!

The other one I jammed 99 into a late position raise, and the big blind woke up with AJs to bust me.

I took today off and don’t have any more tournaments planned until the Monster Stack this weekend, gonna play cash for the next few days.

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.”

I don’t think any of the Millionaire Maker hands were terribly interesting (though some were humorous), so here’s one from cash. UTG is the spot at the table, which isn’t to say he’s terrible by any means, but he’s got a huge amount of money in front of him and is a little too eager to stick it into the pot. BB seems to be a very talented player, not sure what either of them thinks of me. BB has 9K, I have 10K, UTG covers us both. One player is away, so game is eight-handed.

UTG opens for $75, I call UTG1, and BB calls.

Flop ($235 in pot) Ah 8s 3c. Checks around.

Turn ($235 in pot) Qd. BB bets $150, UTG folds, I raise to $625.

What should my raising range look like? What should BB call with? What should he 3-bet?

My starting table was pretty great, full of the most ideal sort of recreational players. There was one guy who was a little better than the rest but thought he was a lot better and wouldn’t shut up about how unlucky he was getting and how well he was playing. It got so bad that he was bragging to people in the middle of hands about how he was reading them. When one of the Bubbas three-bet him, he said, “Well, I know you don’t have AK, because you just call with that.” The Bubba was clearly rattled by this and said, out loud, that he’d have to change up the way he played.

Other than that kind of thing, random dumb poker talk from bad players doesn’t really tilt me the way it does a lot of pros. I sometimes even find it endearing.

What does bug me is the near-compulsive need to make lame comments and jokes any time a remotely attractive woman walks past or the subject of sex is mentioned. My current theory is that most poker players – most people, really – want nothing more than to fit in, make no waves, and be unobjectionable. Sports and (heterosexual) sex talk are the least controversial subjects you can broach at the poker table, and so making the easy joke or obvious pun is a way to affirm your normality and ensure that you’ll get a chuckle or grunt of agreement. Also most of these guys have no filter or impulse control, which is a big part of what makes them so bad at poker.

After that I got some tough tables. Dan O’Brien was at one along with three guys I didn’t recognize but who all seemed to know him and each other. That had to be one of the worst tables in the room.

Then that table broke and I ended up Calvin Anderson and someone else really good whom I feel like I should’ve been able to identify but couldn’t put my finger on it. Obviously there was still a ton of easy money in the tournament, and although I had access to some of those players, I think I could have run a lot better on table draws.

Anyway, interesting hands:

You Were in the Right Ballpark

Villain open limps the hijack, SB completes, I check 63o in the BB. Flop 9d 5h 4d. Checks to HJ, he bets 100, SB folds, I raise to 400, HJ calls. Turn 8d I bet 600, he says “Well, I put you on the flush draw”, flashes a 9, and folds.

All That For a Chop?

I’d had AK twice before against Villain. Once I raised his limp, checked back the flop, and folded to a turn bet. Once I’d three-bet him, checked back the flop, and folded to a turn bet.

Villain limps UTG for 150. I make it 600 UTG2 with Ah Kc. Action folds back to him, and he calls. Flop 822 with two hearts. We both check. Turn 8, he checks, I bet 400 into 2000, he raises to 1500, I call. River 4 he puts me all in for 4500, I call, he has As Ts which is about the worst hand he could possibly play that way.

More Bluffing

Villain limps UTG1, someone else limps, SB completes, I check 54o. Flop Tc 8c 6h checks around. Turn 3d, SB checks, I pot it for 600, UTG1 calls, others fold. Turn Kd I bet 800 to get him off busted draws, he folds.

Bad Fold

Blinds 150/300/25. Very good players UTG1 opens to 700, folds to me in BB, I call with K2s. Flop AKKr. I check and call 800. Turn Q. I check and call 1600. River T. I check and fold when he puts me all in for about 5500. My thinking at the time was that it would be hard for him to get to the river with enough bluffing hands given that he opened UTG1 at a 10-handed table. However, there are so few nut combos when I block the K (I don’t think he’s jamming a J for value, though I could be wrong about that, and if I am calling is a lot less good) that even just giving him T9s and 98s is probably enough for me to call. He later showed up with K3s after opening middle position, so he was clearly getting out of line pre-flop, which also makes my assumption less good, though I didn’t have that info at the time. This is definitely a good board for him to go three barrels with air, it’s just a question of how often he’ll have it.

Facing a Donk Bet

I opened 2.5x from the CO with As Tc, a good player in the small blind called, and the big blind folded. Flop came 7s 9h Js. Villan donked about half pot, I raised 3.5x, he folded.

Making a Donk Bet

Blinds 100/200 button opened to 450 SB called and I called Ks Ts in the BB. Flop Qs 9d 8d SB checked I bet 900 button folded SB called. Turn 5, SB checks, I bet 1800 with 4500 behind, he folded. Plan was to jam most rivers if he called.

Donking a Set

I opened 44 UTG, Button made a small 3bet, I called. Flop K94r I bet 4500 into 6700 he called. Turn was an T, I checked, he jammed his last 15K, I called and beat his KQ. In this case I doubt it much mattered what I did, but I think this is an interesting spot to donk bet. The thing is that when he doesn’t have K it’s pretty hard for me to get stacks in if I check. I can’t rep a big draw by check-raising, he’ll check behind a lot of turns if I check-call, etc. I think a donk is quite likely to get called or raised by hands like AQ, AJ, QJ, JT, QQ, JJ, TT. Then even if the turn goes check-check I can still jam the river for pot.

River Bluff

Blinds 500/1000/100. Button opens to 2200, I make it 6000 with KQo, he calls. Flop 952r, I bet 6500 which is about half-pot, he min-raises, I call. Turn is a 4 and checks through. River is an 8, I put him all in for 37K (there’s about 52K in the pot), and he calls with TT and not much hesitation. I was actually surprised he was that strong, and I may well be able to get him off of smaller pairs and/or Ace-high (if he takes this line) often enough for this to be profitable even without him folding TT.

Pre-flop is actually the part I’m most ambivalent about. We’re a bit deep (nearly 60bb) for three-betting KQo. Quite possible it’s better to just call. I like the flop bet, and I like calling flop getting 7:1 (easily the right odds when he has underpairs, especially if he lets me see a free river), and I think KQ is close enough to the bottom of my range to jam as a bluff. Value range is going to be JJ+, sets, and perhaps two-pair if I have them in my preflop range.

I Haz Blocker!

Blinds 800/1600/200. Good player UTG (has been talking to Bryn Kenney about playing EPTs etc) opens to 3200. Weak player on CO calls off of a 35K stack. From some players that would be strength, but from him it’s weakness. I was already thinking this was a good spot to squeeze and then I found dem rockets on the button. I made it 11K, UTG eyed my stack and then called without much deliberation. CO folded.

Flop Kc Qc Th. Not exactly ideal for AA, but I had the Ac. He checked, and I checked back.

Turn 4c. He bet half pot, and I called.

River was an offsuit 7. He bet 32K into 57K.

When I put the details down in black and white like this, it looks like a pretty straight-forward call. The thing is that Villain was shaking as he put the money into the pot and seemed pretty amped up generally, not worried but excited. It was a pretty strong physical tell, and of course in retrospect I wish I’d listened to it. It was just so hard to put him on a flush given that I was looking at the A, the K, and Q, and he’d raise-called from UTG. But, he had the 9c 8c.

Busto

Blinds 1000/2000/300. Same Villain opened to 4000 from the button. SB (same weak player who called in the previous hand) called, and I called 8h 7d from a 40K stack. Flop T64 with two hearts. Checks to Villain, he bets 5800, SB folds, and I jam for a little over pot.

To be honest this might be a little tilty. I mean, it can’t be too bad, but I don’t think how often Villain is bet-folding this texture, he probably checks back a lot of broadway-type hands and any draws that aren’t strong enough to bet-call. Calling could actually be better for me. Board ran out dry and I lost to a set of 4s.

Leo Wolpert, who also cashed this tournament, convinced me to play the Millionaire Maker tomorrow, so that’s where I’ll be at 10AM.

Timestamps

0:30 Hello & welcome & happiness & poker
18:19 Strategy

Timestamps

0:30 hello and welcome
13:28 strategy
33:12 matt savage

Strategy

Live Holdem NL Level 1 Blinds 25/50
First hand of the tournament so everyone has 15k in chips
Hero is dealt KsKh
SB posts 25
BB posts 50
(Hero) UTG raise to 150
UTG+1 raise to 325
UTG+4 call
SB call
BB fold
(Hero) UTG call

Flop (1350): 9s4h6s
SB check
(Hero) UTG check
UTG+1 check
UTG+4 check

Turn (1350): 4s
SB bets 600
(Hero) UTG call 600
UTG+1 fold
UTG+4 fold

River (2550): Jd
SB bets 1200
(Hero) UTG call 1200

You can follow Jimmy on Twitter @jvfricke. For the best dining in Las Vegas, be sure to check out his blog JimmyEatsVegas.

Timestamps

0:30 – hello and welcome
42:24 – food segment (happened to mark this time stamp, so feel free to include it if you wish)
57:24 – strategy segment

Strategy

The O/8 hand is the one from this thread – we reference some of the discussion in the thread as well.

We don’t have a P Funk playlist from Shane yet, but we’ll update this post when we get it.

Timestamps

0:30 hello & welcome
7:20 – limit HE strategy
18:27 – Slowplaying Aces
31:05 – Interview: Shane Schleger

Strategy
Poker Stars, $0.91 Buy-in (75/150 blinds) No Limit Hold’em Tournament, 7 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager – The Ultimate Poker Software Suite.

CO: 4,083 (27.2 bb)
BTN: 1,375 (9.2 bb)
Hero (SB): 3,290 (21.9 bb)
BB: 5,019 (33.5 bb)
MP1: 2,225 (14.8 bb)
MP2: 2,441 (16.3 bb)
MP3: 3,657 (24.4 bb)

Preflop: Hero is SB with Ad Ac
3 folds, CO raises to 375, BTN folds, Hero raises to 1,000, BB folds, CO calls 625

Flop: (2,150) 4h 3s 3h (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets 1,075, Hero calls 1,075

Turn: (4,300) Qs (2 players)
Hero checks, CO checks

River: (4,300) Ah (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets 2,008 and is all-in, Hero calls 1,215 and is all-in

Timestamps

0:30 hello
6:07 strategy
41:11 Danielle Andersen

Strategy

I have AsKc in SB
Me: $170 in SB
OMR: $500 in MP
Reg: $700 in CO

OMR opens to $15
Reg calls.
I 3B to $45.
Both players call.

Pot $132 (after rake) Flop 2c 4s 8d
I bet $50, OMR folds, Reg calls.

Pot $232. Turn: 2c 4s 8d 3c.

I check, Reg shoves $75

Hot off the virtual presses, my latest e-book chronicling the 2009 WSOP Main Event is now available in the Amazon Kindle Store or from www.nitcast.com.

2009 wasn’t my best year in the Main Event – in fact it was one of my worst – but understanding the agony of defeat is even more important to appreciating the WSOP experience than is understanding the thrill of victory. As always, I take you inside of my head, to see both the strategy and the emotion, the excitement and the disappointment, the great plays and the mistakes and the we’ll-never-knows.

It’ll set you back less than three bucks, so please check it out and let me know what you think, preferably in the form of an Amazon review. Thanks and enjoy!

You can follow Ben on Twitter @professorben and read his articles in Cardplayer.

Timestamps

0:30 hello and welcome
6:00 strategy w Cyrus
43:21 Ben Yu

Strategy

$2/$5 NLHE. Two limps in early position, one limp in late position, Hero makes it $30 with AJo in the BB, all call.

Flop ($115) J86r. Hero bets $70, first limper raises to $210, second limper calls all-in for his last $85, folds back to Hero, Hero calls.

Turn ($620 in pot) 2. Hero checks and folds to $150.

Edit: Corrected flop, should be J86.

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

Ed’s previous appearances on Episode 25 and Episode 71 are among the best strategy discussions the show has seen and are well worth checking out!

Timestamps

:30 hello
3:39 strat
24:53 EM

Strategy

PokerStars – $0.50 Ante $0.10 NL (6 max) – Holdem – 4 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: 202 BB (VPIP: 67.16, PFR: 49.25, 3Bet Preflop: 32.26, Hands: 72)
BB: 214.74 BB (VPIP: 42.27, PFR: 25.71, 3Bet Preflop: 6.80, Hands: 1,191)
CO: 197.16 BB (VPIP: 32.68, PFR: 14.35, 3Bet Preflop: 5.68, Hands: 1,172)
Hero (BTN): 323.84 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB, 4 players post ante of 0.2 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.3 BB) Hero has A 7

fold, Hero raises to 3 BB, SB calls 2.5 BB, fold

Flop: (7.8 BB, 2 players) 7 3 5
SB checks, Hero bets 4.82 BB, SB calls 4.82 BB

Turn: (17.44 BB, 2 players) 7
SB checks, Hero checks

River: (17.44 BB, 2 players) 3
SB bets 48 BB, Hero raises to 108 BB, SB raises to 193.98 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 85.98 BB

“[T]his looks like a textbook example of a “leveling war”, with each player trying to anticipate and stay one step ahead of his opponent’s exploitive strategy. Clearly, Tonking got the upper hand in this case.

That’s not to say that Newhouse was completely misguided to think that a bluff could succeed at an extremely high frequency. It was the final table of poker’s most prestigious tournament, both players had a lot at stake, and he’d already made clear that he did not want to finish in ninth place for a second year in a row. Then again, Tonking may have known and taken all of those factors into consideration.

The point I want to make is that Newhouse did not have to enter into this war at all. When you are genuinely unsure of how your opponent will respond, there are alternatives to taking your best guess. There is more to poker than good reads and “heart”. The fundamental mathematics of the game limit how much you can get away with, at least against a skilled opponent, even when you have the right read and the nerve to act on it.”

I also have an article called “Keep ‘Em Guessing” appearing on Poker News:

“The best guide I’ve found to judging my own play is my opponents’ reactions. If they seem consistently confused about whether to bet or how to respond to my bets, then I’m probably doing something right.”

Hope you enjoy them, please let me know what you think!

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!

“Antonio Esfandiari, who was providing commentary for ESPN while the hand went down, said “He put his opponent on a hand and played accordingly. That’s how you win at no-limit hold ’em.”

I respectfully disagree. What does it mean to “play accordingly” when you have TT and you put your opponent on QQ?  If you know he will fold, then bluffing would be correct. If you know he won’t fold, then giving up and checking and/or folding would be correct. What if you don’t know what he’ll do?

The fact that Newhouse was attempting to bluff Tonking off of hands barely better than his own, and even moreso the fact that Tonking called, indicate that someone made a theoretical mistake at some point in the hand.”

I not only analyze the hand in depth but also make some broader points about how and when to use game theory in tournament situations where ICM considerations have a huge influence on the correct play. Given the scope of the article, it’s going to be spread over two issues, so the one that’s out now is Part 1.

We’ve also got an extra-long strategy segment about playing post-flop in 3-bet pots.

Timestamps

0:30 – Hello & Welcome
6:47 – Strategy: Playing in 3-Bet Pots
47:33 – Interview: David Einhorn

Strategy

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

Hero (Button) ($228.51)
SB ($172.65)
BB ($223.63)
UTG ($215.56)
MP ($206)
CO ($200)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 10, K
2 folds, CO raises to $5, Hero raises to $13, 2 folds, CO calls $8

Flop: ($29) A, 10, Q (2 players)
CO checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($29) J (2 players)
CO bets $18.55, Hero calls $18.55

River: ($66.10) Q (2 players)
CO bets $42.41, Hero raises to $196.96 (All-In), 1 fold

Total pot: $150.92 | Rake: $2.80

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.

“The heads-up battle between Martin Jacobson and Felix Stephensen was perhaps the finest culmination to a World Series of Poker Main Event in recent history. In past years, the final showdown frequently occurred between a professional and an amateur player. In such cases, the professional can generally anticipate a large theoretical advantage and thus has a lot of incentive to keep pots small and pass on high-variance plays in order to maximize his chances of realizing that advantage. Such matches tend to look more like a game of cat-and-mouse, and while playing such a style is a skill unto itself, it doesn’t always prove strategically instructive for heads-up play between more evenly matched opponents. Jacobson and Stephensen, however, are both extremely talented professionals, and as a result their heads-up play exhibited many more thin calls, bluffs, and value bets than were seen in past years.

With thanks to Martin Harris of Hard Boiled Poker for compiling a list of the cards held by each player in each hand of the final table, here’s my analysis of some of the trickier decisions faced by Jacobson and Stephensen in the final hands of the 2014 WSOP Main Event”

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!

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

Timestamps

I have 80K and I am on the Cutoff.

I have Ad 2d 4d 10c
Folds to me and I raise to 20K
Fold to BB and he calls.

Flop comes QAA
BB checks. I bet 10K
He raises to 20K. I call.

Turn is 6h
BB bets 20K I call

River is Jc
BB bets 20K

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.

Strategy Segment

Dead cards are Q, Q, 7, and a few I wasn’t able to write down. Other upcards are K and 5, who play with me.

Ante is $1 and we’re playing 8-handed. $3 bring-in. The 5 brings it in. I raise third to act with (Q9)A.

I get called in two places, by the K and the 5, which is unusual for the game.

Fourth street:
(Q9)A9
(xx)K8
(xx)5x

I bet, both call.

Fifth street:
(Q9)A9K
(xx)K88
(xx)5xx

K88 bets, 5xx calls, I call

Sixth street:

(Q9)A9Kx
(xx)K88x
(xx)5xx5

Now the eights check and the fives bet. Hero folds.

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.

Folding Kings for 200 BBs

The first was in a $10/$25 game at the Rio. We were 9-handed, and I opened to $75 UTG1. A seemingly good player in MP 3-bet to $225, and then the CO, a good Maryland Live regular with whom I’d played before, made it $400. With some players, such a small raise could be a sizing tell that they don’t have AA, but in his case I didn’t think such an exploitive read would be appropriate.

It folded back to me, and I raised to $1000. MP folded, and the CO quickly shoved for about $5000 effective. At the time he seemed very confident and I folded without too much fuss, but of course I questioned my play for a while afterwards and eventually crunched some numbers. My conclusion is that if he always shoves AK then folding is a mistake, but if he shoves {KK+,AKs} then folding is correct. (As an aside, if I’m folding KK, then AQs is actually a better shove than AKs for him because it blocks fewer of my 5-bet-fold combos).

As for whether he should 6-bet shove AKo, that comes down to whether I’m 5-bet-folding AKo. If my 5-bet range is just {KK+,AKs}, then it’s best for me to stack off only with AA. If I’m going to throw in 12 more combos of 5-bet-folds, then I need to call with KK as well. Honestly I think I would 5-bet AKo here, for better or for worse, which means that folding this is at least exploitable, if not a mistake in this case. Also I should probably use slightly smaller sizing on the 3-bet. Realistically, even if I make it $925 he probably isn’t calling. I just need to find the smallest size that will induce a shove/fold response.

The biggest factor that makes me even consider folding KK here is that there are three players in this pot, two of whom are in relatively early position. This really constrains everyone’s ranges. After all, when I 5-bet, I have to worry not just about the 4-better but also the guy who 3-bet in MP. Likewise the 4-better has to worry about an UTG1 raiser who will wake up with AA an appreciable amount of the time, etc.

Stacking Off with KK for 275 BBs

In this second hand, the 5-better was the 3-better, which means that he had only one live player behind him when he made the 5th bet.

It was a $5/$10 game at the Venetian, and the player in the HJ had just joined the game and posted a BB in order to get dealt a hand. He was in his mid-20s, looked very comfortable at a poker table, and bought in for $4000.

UTG, an aggressive young European who had recently busted out of the VDS Main Event, opened to $40 and got two calls from players who looked like the sorts of players to call with weak hands. The HJ popped it to $220 in what is generically a pretty good squeeze spot, especially considering he already has $10 invested, although the size is suspiciously large.

I was in the SB with KK and about $2750. I raised to $580, which I think even that is a little large. A raise to $550 or even $520 would enable me to have a slightly wider range here and thus look a bit less strong (though it’s hard not to look strong when cold 4-betting with five players holding live hands behind you).

The action folded back to SB, who agonized a bit and then shoved. Of course I’d decided I was going to call before I 4-bet, but one factor in that decision was that because it was his first hand at the table, HJ might expect to get slightly less credit on his raise and thus be willing to stick it in a bit lighter.

I ended up winning a big pot against QQ, which was a nice capstone to my Las Vegas trip.

Nate and Andrew also discuss a hand they played against one another at Red Rock after they both busted the World Series of Poker Main Event.

Action folds to Villain on the Button, where he opens for his usual 1100. The player in the BB is a pretty soft spot, and between that and the fact that it’s the last hand before break I think Villain may well be opening any two cards. I have Jc 9c in the SB, and already I think I have a few options. Folding can’t be too bad, but I do think it’s a little bad considering how wide I expect him to be. I didn’t want to get into a pre-flop war, so I called. With my hand, I really don’t mind BB coming along, which he does.

Flop (3750 in the pot) Tc 5d 2c. I bet 1800, BB folds, Villain raises to 4500, I shove for about 18500 total, Villain calls with T5o and busts me.

On the one hand, I feel validated about his opening range being any two, and of course part of me wishes I had 3-bet. With his range being that wide, I think I’m right to want to commit on this flop. With a somewhat shorter stack, I’d just check-shove the flop (or shove pre), but my stack is awkward for that so I thought I’d do better inducing a light call or raise this way. So far so good.

It wouldn’t have changed the outcome here, but I think it’s possible that calling and check-shoving the turn or bluffing rivers if he checks behind turn could be better than shoving the flop, because his raising range is probably pretty polarized. He doesn’t seem like the sort to raise-fold 88 or something here, so I think my Jack isn’t live too often if he calls the shove. It may be better to give him more rope with the air part of his range rather than shove. Also if he expects me to shove clubs on the flop then he may try to represent them or pay me off if they come in.

Like I said, wouldn’t have changed the outcome here, but I think it was an interesting hand and I look forward to talking to Nate about it on the next podcast. Of course I mostly hope we won’t have time to record a show this week because he’s still in it!

I got some writing done yesterday, played a short cash session, and met up for dinner with friends Nate, Nico, Soeren, and Breyer, who all played yesterday, and Jeremy, a regular podcast correspondent whom we met at Saturday’s get-together. The cash session went great and put me in a good mindset for today. I made some good value bets, pulled the trigger on some big bluffs (was 50/50 on those, which is actually a fine ratio, and I think the one that didn’t work was nonetheless an uncontroversial spot to three-barrel), and just all around played well.

My phone battery has been a little unreliable of late but hopefully I’ll be able to entertain and inform on Twitter and bring you a happy update here tomorrow. On that note, I’m not sure about the others, but Nate finished Day 1 with over 70K, a well-above-average stack.

The 2014 Nitcast Las Vegas meet-up will be from 10AM – 1 PM on Saturday, July 5 at the Gold Coast bowling alley. Please stop by to meet Andrew, Nate, Carlos, and lots of other Thinking Poker Podcast listeners and guests.

New episodes will no longer appear on the Thinking Poker feed, so please visit http://www.pokernews.com/podcast/ or subscribe to the PokerNews feed to ensure you won’t miss future episodes of the show.

Timestamps

• 0:00 — Intro
• 3:14 — Thinking Poker meet up information
• 11:14 — Breaking down a cash game hand from Maryland Live!
• 44:15 — Interview with Ari Engel

Anyway, first up is Where Do the Weak Hands Go?, a Two Plus Two article that should help you think through situations where your opponent begins with a wide range:

This article will suggest a new way of conceptualizing ranges, one that will be especially useful when dealing with situations where one or more players sees the flop with a very wide range. No matter how coordinated the board, a wide range is going to contain a lot of weak hands. Rather than focusing on the strong hands that this player could hold, ask yourself “What will he do with all of those weak hands?”

This is an important question because in these situations your strategy is likely to revolve around what you think your opponent will do with these weak holdings. When your own hand is weak, you want to find a line that will cause your opponent to fold all of his weak hands. When you have a marginal hand with some showdown value, you want to induce bluffs and be careful that you don’t fold too often, lest you get exploited by a bluffy opponent.

I also had the honor of being the first guest on John Beauprez‘s new podcast Bracelet Hunter. Among other things, we talk about why tournament players should seek understand cash game play and important game theory concepts.

Finally, I was on the Strategy with Kristy podcast talking about slow playing.

If you’re not already a member of Tournament Poker Edge, please use my affiliate link to sign up now!

Looking for more WSOP prep? Look no further than the Thinking Poker Premium podcasts, where you can hear Nate (a far more experienced live player) and I discuss tournament strategy generally and the WSOP specifically.

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

Plus Nate and Andrew talk about the resolution of the Borgata counterfeit chips debacle and how to get what you want with pocket Kings.

Timestamps

0:30 Hello & Welcome; counterfeit chips at Borgata
32:23 Interview: Pauly McGuire
88:14 Strategy: Pre- and post-flop decisions with pocket Kings