“But the 26-year-old Brokos’ real passion isn’t poker. It’s coaching inner-city schoolkids in the art of debate. When he couldn’t get a paying job in education pursuing his interest in forensics, he used his poker winnings to support himself while he started the Boston Debate League, which has grown from three schools in 2005 to eight. Impressed with Brokos’ bootstrap work, the city school system provided funding for a full-time executive director to run the league, but Brokos continues to donate his time several days a week — with poker remaining as his means of support.”

I should clarify that technically, the Boston Public Schools (BPS) is not providing the full-time executive director. He’s solely an employee of the Boston Debate League (BDL), which is an independent 501(c)3 non-profit organization that raises funds from individuals and public foundations (no poker tournaments yet). BPS does, however, provide stipends for teachers who coach debate, food and supplies for participating students, and train fare to help low-income students attend BDL events. Still pretty sweet to get this kind of national attention though!

When you talk about approaches to poker, there are two extremes. At one end you’ll find players who are guided almost entirely by instinct and don’t spend a lot of time articulating their processes. At the other end you’ll find players like Andrew ‘Foucault’ Brokos, who spend so much time articulating their process that one wonders – when do they actually find time to play? All kidding aside, Brokos is an excellent player with a focus on mid stakes no limit cash and some interesting insights into what it takes to make both a good poker player and industry alike.

Suppose that when your opponent bets, you think there is a 30% chance that he has a hand strong enough to continue and a 70% chance that his hand is too weak to stand a raise. If you raise his bet, you will win the pot 70% of the time and lose the amount of your bluff 30% of the time. As long as you choose an appropriate raise size, that’s a very profitable proposition for you.If your opponent will play predictably on the turn, though, and many will, then it may be even more profitable just to call his bet and see what he does on the turn. The 70% of the time that he does not have anything, he will check, and you can now wager the same amount that you would have with a raise, or maybe even a little less, but steal the pot 100% of the time. The 30% of the time that he does have a hand, he’ll bet again and you can fold, saving yourself the amount that a bluff-raise would have cost you.

I’m also featured in Kristy Arnett’s new Run It Twice series on Cardplayer:

People want to be able to play a lot of hands from late position, which makes sense because that’s where you make most of your money. If you are getting three-bet a whole lot from the blinds, you have to fold some of the weaker hands that you are raising with, so some people have started making these small raises so that they can call more three-bets preflop and also lose less money if they fold when they get three-bet. It’s an adaptation some people have made to enable themselves to play more hands from late position.

The BDL also got its first mention, and a fairly substantial one at that, in the Boston Globe, the city’s most prominent daily paper. The reporter did a nice job speaking with a variety of students, coaches, and administrators, and ultimately presented two of our most important themes: that debate is a rigorous academic activity that students nonetheless enjoy, and that it attracts all types of students, not only those who are already high achievers.

The credit for this goes to my girlfriend, who diligently reached out to nearly one hundred contacts at a wide variety of news outlets. Thanks, Em!

“In other words, in two nearly identical situations, featuring two players in the same positions with the same pre-flop ranges and the same community cards and the same number of bets going into the pot, one of those situations is +EV for the Hero and one for the Villain depending on how the betting goes. If Hero bets flop, checks turn, and bets river, he is in a profitable situation. His opponent has given him information and also given up control over when and how money goes into the pot.

However, if Hero checks flop, calls turn, and finds himself facing a bet on the river, then he is the one who has given up information and control and now faces an unprofitable situation. This is a choice not about how to play top pair with a medium kicker but about how Hero ought to play most of his range most of the time.”

Enjoy!

I was impressed, by the way, with the producer who called me. He asked for my online screenname, and when I told him Foucault, he said, “Oh, like the philosopher?” It’s not a reference that a lot of people in the poker world get, and arrogant ivory tower denizen that I am, I didn’t expect an ESPN producer to be on the short list.

Interview with Poker Stars

O By the Way Blog 1

O By the Way Blog 2

PokerNews Photos

Poker Savvy/Cardplayer Round Table

And honorable mention goes to the Hendon Mob, who reported that:

“Only five players — Andrew Brokos, Pat Dattilo, Marc Friedman, Vinod Jadav, and Stefan Mattsson — cashed in both the 2006 and 2007 Main Events. All were going for their third consecutive cash this year. However, only one player survived (and is guaranteed to cash). He is Stefan Mattsson, from Stockholm, Sweden – currently in 308th place).”

Really, 308th place? Sick run, Stefan. I’m really surprised there were only five of us who cashed in ’06 and ’07.

Also according to Hendon Mob, the record for consecutive cashes is held by Bo Sehlstedt, who cashed in 2004-2007 but failed to cash this year. C’mon, Stefan, we can take him.

The first one, I opened for $100 with AJo in the CO, and both blinds called. The flop came Jd 7d 4d, and unfortunately, I did not have the Ad. They checked to me, I bet $200, and the SB called. I hadn’t been in the table long, but I’d already seen him make one very loose call for a pretty big bet on the turn. He checked a 4c on the turn, I bet $500, and moved all in for $1600 total. I hadn’t realized he was that short, and while I didn’t feel great about my hand, I felt priced in. It was definitely borderline, though- I would have folded KJ. He flipped 77 and I was drawing to 2 outs, which I didn’t hit. Kind of a cooler, though I don’t think stacking off was mandatory. Maybe a smaller turn bet and folding to a raise would have been better.

The next one, I opened to $100 with 97s in MP3, the SB called, and the BB, a Finn who was new to the table, made it $410. He covered me, and I had well over $5000, so I called, again not realizing how short the other player in the pot was. The BTN shoved for $675 total, and thankfully the Finn just called, so I called as well. I was pretty shocked the Finn didn’t reraise there, because it was pretty obvious I didn’t have a monster. The flop came J98, he checked, and I opted to check behind. Scandinavians are known to be aggressive in weird spots, so I wanted to see what developed. The turn brought 5, giving me a double bellybuster. He checked again, so I bet $1100, and he folded. The river 6 gave me a straight and won me the pot to put me pretty much even on the night.

Sean was one of the best speakers I’ve seen, and I’ve seen thousands. When Sean won top speaker at the tournament, I was not surprised. When a reporter from the Kansas City Star called me about an article he was writing on Sean, I was not surprised. (Well, I wasn’t surprised that a reporter would do want to write an article about Sean. I was surprised that he had bothered to track down Sean’s judges from the national championship).

I had trouble putting into words what exactly it was that I liked about Sean, which is rare for me, but the reporter did a nice job of turning my rambling into a coherent thought:

Thirty-four teams from 19 debate leagues across the nation battled it out in Chicago last weekend at the Chase Urban Debate National Championship. [Sean] earned a $2,500 scholarship for snaring the top individual award.

And he did it while attacking some of the hectic, rapid-fire tactics of debate even as he showed he could dominate that style, said judge Andrew Brokos.

“He was charismatic and principled,” Brokos said. “He had all the skills … to play within the game while getting the judges to acknowledge his criticism of the game.”

Judging Sean was also exciting for me because he debates for Kansas City Central, the debate team that was the subject of one of my favorite books, Cross-Ex. Even if I weren’t deeply immersed in the world of urban debate leagues, I would have loved this white journalist’s account of following, and eventually coaching, the largely black team as they “challenge[d] the debate community on race, power, and education.”

Jane Rinehart, who coaches at Central and was one of the “stars” of the book, has apparently taken Sean into her home as well and is now his legal guardian. The article is pretty vague regarding what happened, but it sounds like his family just up and took off on him while he was away at a debate tournament:

That’s how, at 17, you bear the weight of having walked up the steps to your home after returning from another out-of-town tournament and finding the window blinds gone, the furniture gone…

This is my favorite thing about the urban debate league scene, and what makes it so different from poker. Virtually everyone I meet, both students and coaches/administrators, are extraordinary and inspiring people who have done, are doing, or surely will do great things. It’s incredibly uplifting to spend time in their company. Compare that to the usual lineup at a 2/5 NL table at Foxwoods, and you’ll understand why I don’t enjoy live poker.

A local radio station, WJMN 94.5, is also going to air an interview with a few of our debaters and me between 7 and 8 PM tonight.

“The message resonated with some of the dozens of students and poker players who came to hear Addington speak. Andrew Brokos, 25, who makes money playing poker online 25 to 30 hours each week and teaches debate to Boston public school students, said that while he never hands out cards and chips to his students, the skills he teaches are similar to “no limit hold ’em.”

Debaters must watch their opponents closely, play each argument strategically, and use “crystallized aggression” to win a debate – the same way they would try to win a high-stakes hand, he said.”

“The only other Maryland player who appeared to cash-in at the main event who was listed as from Baltimore but actually went to high school in Catonsville and is currently living in Boston. Brokos was a late round three bust-out at 384th and had a $34,664 payday. This is his second cash in a row at the main event. Last year, he finished 279th and collected almost $39,000.”

I actually placed 361st, but other than that he’s got it all right. I’ve since spoken with Bill on the phone (he seemed like a cool guy, and rather knowledgeable about poker), so hopefully he’ll have a little more to say about me in his next post!

There are actually some audio clips also, though they’re hard to find. After the second paragraph, there’s a drop-down box that says “related articles, multimedia, and images.” From there you can select three different audio clips of students debating.

In case you missed it, here’s my March article: Attacking and Defending Dead Money in Tournament Poker.

The editor has indicated that he would like me to keep contributing regularly, so I’m starting to think about my next article. Ideas I’m currently considering:

-Tournament Selection. This would be a discussion of the factors that go into choosing which tournaments you will play regularly: structure, field size, skill level, the strengths and weaknesses of your game, your bankroll, taking shots, satellites, etc.

-Reverse Implied Odds. I don’t see these discussed much in the MTT forum, but they are very important. Their influence on late game play seems particularly under-theorized.

-Stack sizes and moves available. How to evaluate a situation or a particular bet based on the size of your stack and those around you. Some of the material I had in mind for this already appears in “The Last Bet.”

Feedback on these ideas and any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.