Timestamps

0:30 Hello and welcome
3:05 Interview

For more information on our event with Just Hands Poker in NYC, March 25 and 26, click here.

Timestamps

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

Congratulations to Vanessa Selbst for winning the $25K PCA High Roller. As Nate mentioned, you can watch her performance online. Nate’s top pick for best free strategy material on the internet is the final table of the 2011 $50K WSOP Players’ Championship. If you’re more interested in Minecraft strategy videos, check out xXidol’s YouTube channel.

Timestamps

0:23 — Hello! Brick-and-mortar game dynamics. The ethics of playing with drunks.
26:02 — Nate and Andrew discuss a 10-25 NL hand from the PCA.
50:04 — Derek talks about founding, running, and protecting the intellectual property of a poker training site.
1:40:44 — Good-bye!

Strategy Segment Hand

$10/$25 NLHE game, Hero straddles for $50 on button so action starts with SB. SB folds, BB calls $25 more, early position TAG raises to $150, drunk player calls, amateurish player calls, Hero calls $100 more with 9h 3h, BB calls $100 more.

Flop ($750) Jh 7c 4h Checks to amateur who bets $300, Hero calls, tough player in BB calls

Turn ($1650) Jh 7c 4h 2h BB checks, amateur bets $600, Hero raises to $1400, BB shoves $5400, amateur folds, Hero folds

Villain seems youngish and decentish but not a prodigy. We’ve been playing together less than an hour, so that’s not a strong read, but the sense I get is that he’s more of a live pro than an internet guy dabbling in live poker.

Effective stacks are $6000. The weakest, loosest player at the table is in the big blind. Villain opens to $75 in middle position, and I 3-bet to $225 on the button with Kh 2h. This isn’t exactly a standard 3-bet, but a lot of things favor it: we’re deep, I have position, and his raise size suggests he is trying to play a pot in position against the big blind moreso than build a pot with a really good hand, because that player was prone to overdefending his blind and would often be willing to call a larger raise.

Anyway, action quickly folds back to Villain who calls without much thought.

Flop comes Th 5h 3h. He checks, I bet $350, and he calls.

Turn Qs. Villain checks and calls $750.

River 7h. Villain checks. There’s now $2485 in the pot and $4675 in the effective stacks.

What’s your play and why? Leave your thoughts, questions, and comments below. I’ll respond as able and be back on Friday with the results.

You can assume in cases where I don’t give information about his timing and demeanor that I detected nothing noteworthy about them one way or another.

But not I! As usual, I loaded my bag with my own food to limit my enslavement to the Atlantis’ establishments. I don’t mind going to an expensive restaurant occasionally when the food and company are both good, but I’m not looking to get gouged on every meal. This time I brought five just-add-hot-water rice bowls, peanut butter, jelly, bread, two boxes of granola, coffee (which is actually available free in the rooms, I just wanted better coffee), my new Aeropress, plastic utensils, two boxes of granola bars, and several other snacks.

To save space in the bag, I took the bags of granola out of their boxes before packing them. Somehow one managed to split open in my bag, so there was granola all over everything, but cleaning that up was still less of a hassle than trying to find a quick and decent meal in this place at any price. Miklos went to a grocery store yesterday and brought back some milk that we’re now storing in our ice bucket (can’t risk displacing anything in the mini bar since they use those sensors that charge you automatically).

Of course that cut my cereal supplies in half, but thankfully PokerStars is hosting a series of seminars that include free breakfast! Yesterday morning Vanessa Selbst and Barry Greenstein talked about learning mixed games, and today Shaun Deeb and Jason Mercier explained the basics of Open-Faced Chinese Poker. The presenters only get half an hour, so there’s not a lot of depth, but it was interesting to hear a long-time veteran of the game like Barry talk about how he survived so long as a pro and why he thought being able to play many games well was important. The food wasn’t bad either.

After yesterday’s seminar I stopped by the tournament room to wish well to Miklos and a few others playing today. The first guy besides Miklos to arrive at his table was enough for me to say that his table was already better than mine, and they just kept coming. That was all based on stereotyping, but Miklos has since confirmed that it is indeed a very good table, so I was pretty jealous of that. He finished Day 1 with a stack just shy of average and as of now is still in the hunt on Day 2.

On the plus side, I got to spend the better part of the last two days outdoors. The first thing I did was lie on the beach and listen to the vendors harass the tourists: “Hello honey. Want hair braids? Jewelry? Be a real Bahama Mama?”

“Jet ski! Are you ready?”

“Real Cuban cigars! Smoke them now or later.”

I must have had a good don’t-fuck-with-me face, because none of the vendors approached me. I did, however, overhear a woman falling hook, line, and sinker for a story about a very popular catamaran tour. Tickets were $60, and though it was sold out for today, she could put down a $10-per-ticket deposit to reserve a seat for tomorrow’s tour. It occurred to me that perhaps I should point out the foolhardiness of handing $20 to a stranger on the beach in exchange for this supposed reservation, but then I thought about how I would feel if someone walked over to my poker table and told a fishy opponent to fold to my value bet.

Time to go check out the cash games…

If these guys had any faults, it was that they were too aggressive. That made it impossible (for me anyway) to ride out the run of bad cards I encountered.

In the first level, I avoided playing big pots out of position, as is my wont. I called late position raises with AJs and TT in my big blind only to end up folding them by the river.

With the AJs, I checked and called a half-pot bet on a K94r flop, checked a 7 turn, and checked and folded to half pot on a 9 river.

With the TT, I called a bet on a Qd 8d 5c flop and folded a 7d turn even though I had a flush draw. I consider both folds to be close, but I don’t regret either. Little did I know they would be among the best hands I’d see all day.

At the 75/150 level, I got JJ on the button facing an UTG raise to 300 from the high-stakes PLO/NLHE guy. I made it 900, and he folded.

Between the bad cards and the tough table, I mostly nitted it up for the first three hours, opening my game up slightly with the introduction of antes at the 100/200/25 level. For example, I opened to 525 with AJo UTG+1, and the same guy called. I bet about half-pot on a Q94r, and he called. We both checked a 3 turn, I bet 1800 into 2800 on a 6 river and folded and felt pretty owned when he raised to 5200.

So it was with a slightly more aggressive image that I opened AKo to 450 on my button. The aggressive Spaniard in the SB three-bet to 1425, and I made it 3425 intending to reluctantly shove over a four-bet.

Instead he called, and we saw a JJ2 flop. Thinking there was a decent chance I was good and that I couldn’t get him off of a better hand on the flop, I bet just 2200 when he checked to me, which he called without too much hesitation.

He checked a J turn, and I checked behind intending to pick off a river bluff. He surprised me, though, by shoving about 20K into an 11.5K pot. I went into the tank for a while and folded, deciding he wouldn’t feel compelled to bluff so big with his air hands, since I could easily have a weak hand myself, and also that if he was bluffing it could be with better hands than mine.

The next time I got AK, Dani opened UTG+1, one of the most aggressive players three-bet him, the tightest of my opponents (which isn’t saying very much) cold four-bet to 4400, and the action was on me with AKo and about 20K on the button. I actually don’t think shoving would be the worst play in the world, but I folded.

The only real move I made was against a guy was probably the weakest and most aggressive at the table. At 200/400/50, he opened to 800 UTG+1, and I made it 2000 with Qs 8s on the CO. He looked annoyed and called. The flop came Jc 9d 3c, he check-called 2400, which I took to be pretty strong. With 10K in the pot and 10K in my stack, I checked back blank turn and river cards and lost to his Ks Js which was surely not going anywhere. It seems like this was a good spot and just unlucky that he managed to connect well with the flop.

Dinner break came shortly after that, so I left a meager 10K in my stack when I went to eat. On the first hand back, we were playing 250/500/50, and I shoved QQ over an early position raise from Dani. He folded. Two orbits later, I shoved AJ over one of his raises, and he folded again. Then I shoved 55 in my BB over a HJ raise form the most aggressive player, and he folded.

Blinds went up to 300/600/75, and I posted one of my 16 remaining BBs. The second most aggressive player at the table opened the CO, I shoved ATo, he gleefully (and correctly) called with A8o, spiked a 874 flop, and that was the end of a tough and boring day of poker.

After that I was in New York for a few short but great days visiting two good friends who are also among my oldest poker friends from my first home game. It’s funny, Logan and his wife Jen were two of my best friends in college, and I used to stay at their apartment on the Upper West Side when I visited New York and just visit for an evening with Darren, whom I met through the aforementioned home game and knew much less well. Then Logan and Jen moved into a smaller apartment, while Darren bought a house in Westchester and had kids, so now I end up staying at Darren’s house when I go to New York and only get to visit with Logan for usually one day of my trip. It was nice that this time Logan and Jen spent a night at Darren’s house as well, so we had ourselves a little slumber party.

It was also nice that there was a direct flight from the Westchester County Airport to Nassau this morning, so although I had to wake up at 5AM I didn’t have to deal with any JFK craziness. Thankfully the flight was largely empty, because what passengers there were proved exactly what I expected from the Westchester Country Airport. This one family, whose members were straight out of central casting for The Sopranos and Jersey Shore, more or less turned the middle of the plane into their private lounge.

Other than that the flight was fine, and because Miklos was a supernova when he won his satellite, I got to take a PokerStars limo to the Atlantis, which was far nicer than the cabs bearing the scars of multiple collisions that I’ve taken in past years. I shared the limo with two Russians and a Venezualan, evidence of how international this game and especially this particular tournament have become.

Since checking in, I’ve already caught up with two of my favorite PokerStars employees and received a special emeritus invite to the Team Online social hour tonight. In a big improvement over past years, PokerStars is setting up its own wireless hotspots, which though not a lot better in quality than the hotel internet will save me about $100.

While sitting in the PokerStars lounge writing this very blog post, I told a German satellite qualifier that no, the seat next to me was not taken. A moment later he took his headphones off and told me that he thought he recognized me voice. Turned out he was listening to the latest Thinking Poker Podcast at that very moment!

He wondered off to watch the High Roller, and I’d just returned to writing when two drunk blokes sat down and asked what I was writing. I got to talking with them and they encouraged me to come drinking with them, but I had to turn them down so I can go eat and then catch up with my friends from Team Online. It was probably for the best, because even though they were a few drinks ahead of me, I still doubt I could have kept up with them!

I got off to a good start, calling a raise to 2,200 from a seemingly tight-aggressive player in middle position with AJo in the CO. The big blind called as well, and we saw a K82 rainbow flop.

The pre-flop raiser bet 4,500. Against some players this would be a snap-call with a good Ace-high, but his TAG image gave me pause. I ultimately called because the board was so good for a continuation bet and the odds so tempting, but I didn’t feel great about it. The third player folded.

We both checked an 8 on the turn. The river brought a Q, and he checked again. AJ has considerable showdown value here, but I decided to turn it into a bluff by betting 7,500….

Give it a read and let me know what you think!

I also said that, in the absence of such tells, I still thought that check-raising all-in on the turn was the best play. Now, a few very good comments on that post have me re-evaluating that opinion. Here, thanks to commenter Todd, is the short version of the argument for betting the turn, planning to fold to a raise but to bluff most rivers if called:

I think the reasons you list, specifically the lack of planning and the value of survival make bet turn bet river a better plan than check shove. I don’t think you are going to get bluff raised virtually ever on your turn bet, and you stand to get the same folds you get by the c/r by barreling all the way – but for a cheaper price. Yes, if he raises the turn bet you have to fold, but if we believe he only raises with the strongest portion of his range such as sets, the alternative is having him call our c/r with that same range and us playing a big pot with one card to come… so bet fold isn’t the worst thing in the world here, and as long as we are correct about our other assumptions (he gets to the turn with a fairly wide range, he is less likely to have a multi-street plan than other players, and he has some value on his tourney life, double barelling the turn and river gets the same folds as c/r) then it seems to be the better line to me.

Gareth elaborates and adds some further arguments for bet-betting:

If his flop calling range is so wide (and we think it might be capped… though it wasn’t… maybe it just excludes or discounts AJ/QQ type hands that would see where they were at with a flop raise), check-raising all in on the turn makes sense if we can get him to bet/fold weak to strong show down hands like JT or TT or KJ. But the main advantage I see of it is that we get to see the river versus his nutted hands (with all the money in no less) whereas bet/bet we might not, depending on how big he makes his turn raise. The problem with this being a big advantage over bet/bet is the fact that you, and I, and most people, thought his flop call range was often capped, so we don’t expect to be raised very often, and we expect to be battling a wide, capped range going into the turn on this texture. That’s what makes bet/bet so great here, it let’s us manipulate his range so thoroughly because we can make excellent estimations about what his range is. In fact we know almost his exact range to raise, to call, and to fold the turn should we bet 7300 — and consequently we know how to best exploit that range, say if he calls, by bluffing the cards that scare him and by value betting the cards that don’t (but actually make our monster).

With check-raise all in we risk the turn checking through often and having severely diminished river fold equity. We often won’t be able to fold out those holdings on the river that we could of on the turn. Moreover those holdings that we couldn’t fold out on the turn with bet/bet we own often on the river in a larger pot, now with turn x/x they never fold in a smaller pot. You mention that he should be able to bet draws because of previous play, therefore he will bet/fold these draws often on the turn in addition to his strong showdown hands? What draws exactly? The diamond draws that turned top pair? The diamond draws that are gutted or double gutted… with an over or two?! Most of the draws that we can fold with a turn check-raise, it seems to me, will call a turn barrel and lose to us at showdown, like 89, T8, 86 (he already showed that he wouldn’t bluff missed draws). The other draws will talk themselves into crying calls often because they are combination draws.

Now I am not saying that we should worry about our river fold equity being diminished (in the turn x/x case) for the sake of trying to win every pot we play, but rather that why would we turn down a +cEV turn barrel that happens to have the benefit of setting up excellent river play versus this villains range and capacities?

Thanks for the great comments, guys, and for your persistence in arguing with me! There are a lot of things I enjoy about blogging, but I wouldn’t still be doing it if it didn’t continue to teach me new things!

Important Details

The first important thing to notice is that Villain’s range for getting to the turn is likely very wide. We’ve seen him make a loose pre-flop call, and there’s a lot of ways that he could have a small piece of this flop. I also happen to agree with BlueDuck that “He’s a middle-aged recreational player so I’d expect he’d play a straightforward in-position style – his call of the CB suggests a small pair or picked up a pair on the flop. If he had AJ, KJ, or QJ – I’d expect he’d have raised your CB.”

The second important detail is that Hero has a hand with a lot of equity but no showdown value. These two factors add up to a great spot for bluffing, as virtually everyone advocated. I think check-calling is the only really big mistake you could make with this hand – it’s simply too good of a spot to give up on winning without showdown.

Check-Raising

What surprised me is how few people suggested check-raising all-in on the turn, which is what I did. No one on Thinking Poker mentioned it, while Cardplayer commenter Blueduck mentioned it in passing. Nyy214 said a bit more than most, and I liked his other suggestion as well:

Check shove. If he gives you a free card then fine. Or what about a bet of like 3500 (I know its very odd), but if he calls either way you get make a bet of like 17k on the river. If he raises to like 11k then you can ship. I feel like these two plays give you the most fold equity.

I dont like betting 12k on the turn because if he shoves you have to fold and if he calls, he probably isnt folding a ton of rivers

With a draw this big, you really want to make the last bet, and nyy214 had some good suggestions for how to structure the betting to ensure that. Against a player of this type, I like the check-raise line because he’s less likely than a professional to bet the turn without thinking about the possibility of a check-raise. In other words, whereas a professional might say, “I’d like to protect my TT, but I don’t want to open myself up to a check-raise bluff I can’t call, so I better check behind,” this player is more likely to see how vulnerable his hand is, bet, and then realize after he gets check-raised that he doesn’t want to call it.

We’ve also seen that he’s willing to bet draws when checked to on the turn, so I feel comfortable concluding that he’ll have a wide bet-folding range. Thus, check-raising gives Hero a very good chance to get in the last bet and win a large pot without showdown.

Bet-Betting

This is my next preferred line. As cbeak says, “After calling flop and turn, I think a relative unknown’s river range is on the wide side, consisting of things like diamond draws, pair plus diamonds, second pair or top pair or better. Therefore, we might want to bet.” If we don’t get raised on the turn, then Villain’s hand can’t be that strong, which sets up a good river bluffing opportunity.

The problem, as many of you pointed out, is that if we do get raised on the turn, we probably have to fold away a lot of equity. This line prevents us from getting in the last bet (unless we bet very small with the intention of 3-bet-shoving, as nyy214 suggests, although this player probably doesn’t raise even an underbet on the turn without a very good hand).

If Hero does bet the turn, I agree with Gareth that, “we shouldn’t have to bet large to fold the hands we want to fold with a turn barrel. Those hands are basically pairs worse than a jack. So TT-88, A7s, 76s, 66. I think this is a card that coordinates well with his flop calling range, non of his diamond draws are folding, some paired up, the others added a gutshot. No Jx is folding and neither is a set or an overpair etc. So anyways I think we only need to make a smaller bet at this point in relation to the pot, I would go with 7300 into 15600.”

Results

I checked the turn, intending to shove over a bet. My opponent gave a little shrug and casually – a little too casually – tossed two 5K chips into the pot. I moved all-in, and he snap-called with a set of 7s. I didn’t get there on the river.

I was surprised that he didn’t raise the set on the flop, but mostly I was disappointed in myself for not paying more attention to his body language. I should have been more open to taking in new information and re-evaluating my plan, because in retrospect his little “Whatever, guess I’ll bet 10K” act screams strength.

I still like planning to check-shove in the absence of a tell like this. It just goes to show you how important it is always to be looking and listening for new information, even when you think your mind is already made up.

Thanks to everyone who participated!

Blinds are 500/1000/100. I open to 2600 with Th 9h in early position. Villain calls in middle position, and everyone else folds.

Flop Jh 7d 5d. I bet 4000, he calls.

Turn Qh gives me open-ended straight flush draw. There’s 16,600 in the pot, Villain has 56K in his stack, and I have about 110K.

Please post your plan for the turn and a bit about how you’d proceed on both blank rivers and rivers that complete one of your draws. I’ll post results and my thoughts on Friday.

Steve Phillips left a comment that sums up the reasons for bluffing with KJ quite nicely and also sets up a few of the other things I wanted to talk about, so I’m going to post it here even though it’s somewhat long:

I think it’s a good spot to bluff-shove for several reasons:
a) Hero’s line is consistent with trips+
b) Hero’s stack size is perfect for it
c) Villain’s range is limited somewhat due to the turn action
d) If Villain holds a strong hand AA/KK and even AQ, it’s a difficult call
e) Hero holds one of the worst hands in his range
f) Given the read (older dude, probably solid/straightforward?), Villain doesn’t expect Hero to be turning JsJc/AdTd type hands into bluffs. Therefore Hero’s perceived range on a river shove is trips+ or wiffed draws, and there aren’t many wiffed draws
g) Villain might get to the river with hands that have no value (AdKs, AhKs, AsKd, AsKc, AcKs, AsJd, AsJh, AsJc) that all beat Hero if he checks but will fold if Hero bets
You might argue with my first point because Hero might have raised the flop with his strongest made hands (QQ/QT/TT/66) and his strongest draws (AsJs/8s7s/KsJs, etc.), but in general when Hero bets or shoves river he will have a strong hand a lot of the time.
I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on betting half-pot (or some other amount) instead of moving all-in.

The essence of a good bluffing situation is one where your opponent’s range is cappedor nearly capped, you can credibly represent many hands that beat all or most of your opponent’s range, and there aren’t a lot of hands in your perceived range that would need to bluff the river. All these factors are present in this hand, though I do think that betting less than all-in on the river will help with the bit about representing many value hands. Particularly given Hero’s identity as a recreational player, shoving would have the undesirable effect of removing hands like AQ and maybe even low flushes from his perceived value range, i.e. the hands I’d expect him to shove for value. I would fold disproportionately more to a smaller bet relative to the odds it was laying me, making it overall a more profitable option for Hero than shoving. As cbeak says, with a smaller bet “we rep a wider value range (Qx and flushes) a bit more credibly compared to a bigger bet”.

Ian makes an interesting point that, “the turn bet should be a bit bigger to set up an easier river ship”. This isn’t always desirable with a draw, since setting up a river shove also means setting up your opponent to check-raise all-in on the turn and blow you off of your draw, but in this case I agree. The key factor is that Hero’s draw isn’t actually all that great, particularly not relative to Villain’s check-shoving range, which probably contains both made flushes and nut flush draws, both of which crush Kx Js. So bet-folding isn’t a disaster, and building a bigger pot for what will be a profitable river spot is otherwise desirable.

A few commenters were very confident in their ability to exploit me. JeanNoel says that, “Villain is Andrew, so I am sure he can call here with AA, so I will give up and check the river” and JD is sure that, “Villain would have folded the turn if he was going to fold”.

I hope I’m not that easy to play against. For one thing, the river isn’t quite a blank. It’s significant that my KK now loses to AQ. Even if the river card changed nothing in terms of hands I could beat, though, the fact that Hero bets again is significant information that should alter my calling range from what it was on the turn. In other words, my range for putting 12K into the pot (just the turn bet) ought to be different than my range for putting something like 40K (turn and river bets) into the pot. If it’s not, I’m easily exploited, as these comments suggest, by never following up a turn bluff with a river barrel.

Dsho does a nice job of discussing balance and how to construct a river betting range. The only addition/correction I’d make is that when choosing hands with which to bluff the river, the key consideration is not “relative equity” that you had on the turn but rather how much showdown value your hand has and whether you have blockers to your opponent’s calling range. In this case, KJ is at the very bottom of what is generally a strong range, so it’s a natural choice for bluffing. Turning JJ into a bluff to get me off KK/AA wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world, but it probably has slightly more showdown value than KJ (though not a lot, really), meaning that Villain should put all his KJ combos into his bluffing range first.

According to Giorgios, “AA, KK, and maybe JJ … are perfect bluff catchers”. I would actually argue that, because KJ is the hand Hero is most likely to bluff, KK and JJ are very poor bluff catchers. If I hold two Ks or two Js in my hand, that significantly reduces the number of bluffing combos in Hero’s range.

So in conclusion, I think that Hero in this hand definitely should have bet the river, and that something like 28K, or slightly over half-pot/half of my stack, would be a better size than all-in. For what it’s worth, I also agree with JeanNoel that “pre flop it is a fold, because utg raises and a good player flat calls, so it will be very difficult to play this hand (even when in position) with a lot of reverse implied odds”.

Thanks to everyone who participated. WYP will be back next week with another hand between the same two players, only this time you’ll be in my shoes, so be sure to check back on Monday!

It’s the first level of Day 2 of the PCA main event. Blinds are 500/1000/100. Villain raises to 2400 UTG, a good young player in early position calls, and Hero calls in the CO with Kh Js. Everyone else folds.

Flop is Qs Ts 6c. Villain bets 5600, the second player folds, and Hero calls.

Turn is the 4s. Villain waits 20-30 seconds before checking. Hero bets 12,000. Villain takes another 20 seconds or so to call.

River Qd. Villain checks relatively quickly. There’s 45K in the pot and 50K in Villain’s stack. Do you bluff? If so, how much do you bet?

Please post your thoughts, comments, and questions here. I’ll respond to comments throughout the week and post my own thoughts about the hand on Friday.

Q: I was wondering if you had considered 3b pre? You’re going to have the worst position in the hand going forward. You’ll also have the worst relative position since villain 1 isn’t going to lead the betting to often being passive. I think you get the button to fold a bunch and you get heads up, granted in a bloated pot, but vs a passive player where I’d think you get to show down easier with 1p hands.

A: The short answer is yes, I did consider it. Really, though, if you 3-bet, what are you hoping will happen? You’ll have to fold to a 4-bet, so that’s a bad outcome. Even if you’re called, you won’t be eager to play a big pot if you flop top pair. A passive player’s early position raising range is pretty strong, and it gets stronger once he calls a 3-bet. I think it’s safe to assume neither of these players continues with AJ or KQ, which means that your AQ won’t dominate anything in their calling ranges. If called, you’ll be hoping either to bluff or to flop some value and check it down, maybe squeeze out a value bet. It’s not a disaster, but it’s not a great outcome either.

If I 3-bet, I’d really be hoping for folds. And at that point, it doesn’t much matter that I have AQs. If I thought a 3-bet would get a lot of folds (and I don’t , because again the raiser’s range is strong), then I would rather do it with a hand that has less calling value.

The results of this hand notwithstanding, being up against passive players is actually a reason to prefer calling. You can keep the pot small and wait until they reveal more information about their hands. Plus, calling keeps all those dominated Ax and Qx hands in their ranges, which is what you really want to be up against when you hold AQ. Being suited adds an extra bit of value in a multi-way pot.

This isn’t to say that AQs is never a 3-betting hand. It’s often a very good one. The important thing to see here is that the original raiser has a strong range, so 3-betting serves only to isolate the best part of his range, the part that dominates AQ, while folding out the part that AQ dominates.

Do you have a question for the Thinking Poker Mailbag? Please leave it as a comment below!

Saskatchewan limped UTG again, Belgium limped behind, and I raised to 1,000 with A4o in the CO. This raise really blurs the line between “value” and “making a move”, since I do expect to win often with a continuation bet but I also think A4 is ahead of both of their ranges. Essentially I’ve got position and the best hand, so even though it might be tricky to play post-flop, I don’t see how raising can be bad. Saskatchewan joked about how “you internet guys don’t allow limping” and called, and Belgium called as well. They both checked a K83 rainbow, I bet 1,600, Saskatchewan folded, and Belgium quickly raised to 5,100. I was sure he was making a move, so I considered my options.

This trip report focuses almost exclusively on the poker. If you want to read about the rest of the trip, check out Hello, Goodbye, Team Online.

As always, please let me know what you think!

I say I may be results oriented because I bet 3000, V1 sighed and folded, and V2 called with Jh 8h.

Value Betting

As many of you identified, Hero is very likely to have the best hand on the river. The question, however is not only how but whether he can get value from it. Especially in multi-way pots, where people tend to be more tight and passive, it can be difficult to get value from medium-strength hands.

I agree with Gareth that “we should assume we have the nuts versus V1”. We can’t, however, assume that he calls with worse when we bet again into two people on a card that improves some of the hands his JJ or whatever was beating on the turn.

I don’t agree that we have the nuts versus V2. His range looks more to me like busted draws or trips, meaning he either has us beat or can’t call a bet. In Bond2King’s words, “V2′s range is mostly missed draws or maybe an 8 or a 6, but he’s not calling with a 6 anyway.”

The key consideration behind betting, then, is whether the times V1 calls with worse outweigh the times V2 holds better. I’m still not sure of the answer. I’m also not sure whether Hero can call a river bet, and if so whether doing so is more profitable than value betting.

Scenario A: Villain 1 bets 3000, Villain 2 folds

Although V1 is very unlikely to hold a better hand than ours, I also think he’s very unlikely to bluff or value bet worse. Even with KQ, which would be oddly played to this point, I don’t see what he can expect to be called by. Passive live players suck at thin value betting anyway. Gareth suggests the possibility of a frustration bet, but he didn’t seem frustrated and in any event with something like 99 he may still be thinking he’s got a chance of winning if it checks down. Passive live players like seeing showdowns. I’d be inclined to fold.

Scenario B: Villain 1 checks, Villain 2 bets 3000

I feel better about calling here, but it’s not a lock. The scared money read makes me wonder whether he’d bluff into two people when so many draws obviously missed. He might, though, and I think there’s a good chance a live read could help me decide. Probably I’d call.

Scenario C: Villain 1 bets 3000, Villain 2 calls

I’d fold without thinking too hard about it.

In fact I like cbeak’s comment that, “another aspect of checking that I think is good is that it is lower risk insofar as we can see how things play out before deciding (avoiding, for example, hero bets, v1 calls, v2 raises, hero?).” When a decision is close, especially in live poker, I tend to err towards letting my opponents act, as they often give away information via physical tells or bet sizing. In other words, if it’s close anyway, I like to to create opportunities to collect more information that might help me make a profitable decision. So I kind of wish I’d checked here planning to see what happens and decide.

Thanks for all the comments, and sorry that I don’t have a more definitive answer for you!

I know that there is zero chance of herding fifteen online poker pros into a conference room by 10AM, I tell myself that this is true and that I need not rush, but nevertheless I am there for our PokerStars Team Online meeting at 9:51. I just can’t help being early. This gives me nearly an hour to chat with the other “early” arrivers before we finally begin.

They are a formidable crowd. Shane Schleger was already an online MTT hero six years ago, when I was just starting to grind my way up. Today is January 6th, and he has already final tabled the Sunday Million this year. Mickey Peterson, on the other hand, arrived much later than I to the tournament scene but has already put up results that surpass both Shane’s and mine.

In 2009, Kevin Thurman set a record by earning 3,055,385 VPPs. That same year, I was down to the wire getting the last few VPPs I needed to cross the 100,000 mark and make Supernova. It boggles my mind that people manage to earn 1,000,000 in a year to make Supernova Elite, let alone that Kevin accumulated thirty times as many VPPs as I did.

Bjorn Schneider, sitting to Kevin’s immediate left, broke that record last month. The two of them just met this morning, though apparently they were on the same flight to the Bahamas. Bjorn was sitting immediately behind Kevin and listening to him tell his seatmate about “the guy who just broke my record”.

The two players at the table who are more my speed are Adrienne Rowsome and Richard Veenman, both of whom are, like me, mere Supernovas who play about twenty hours a week. Unlike me, however, they both have jobs outside of poker. We later learn that they are the only two working stiffs out of the fifteen of us.

Perhaps the most intimidating character at the table, however, is Anders Berg. Anders has a PhD in Pure Mathematics and three WCOOP bracelets. He also finished second in an event in last year’s WCOOP, narrowly missing a record-setting fourth bracelet. Anders is the oldest player in the room, but also one of the most fit. When he introduces himself, he rattles off numerous feats of athleticism alongside his academic qualifications. Though quiet and humble, he gives the distinct impression of having never done anything badly in his life.

Anders is hardly alone in this. The room is full of people who have excelled in other competitive venues besides poker. Andre Coimbra won the Magic: The Gathering world championships in 2009. Randy Lew was a nationally competitive video gamer before taking up poker. Several members of Team Online have a background in high-level chess, and no one is surprised when Anders Berg adds his name to this list.

Despite their geeky interests, these aren’t your stereotypical pasty internet nerds. Shane Schleger, Richard Veenman, Tyler Frost, and Diego Brunelli quickly find a common interest in tennis and arrange a doubles match for the next morning. In what sounds an awful lot like a hustle to me, Richard claims to be a beginner but admits to practicing tennis two and a half hours every day. Jorge Limon races rally cars, which he later tells me entails off-roading with modified street cars and which sounds pretty damn dangerous. Adrienne Rowsome is a serious yoga practitioner and plays slo-pitch softball, though her league seems to emphasize drinking more than any other aspect of the game.

I am struck by what a great job Pokerstars has done of selecting individuals who are serious about online poker but also well-rounded and interesting people. I am looking forward to seeing as much of them as possible during the week we’re about to spend together at the Atlantis resort (though I would have preferred not to have them sitting next to me in the main event, which is where both Bjoern and Jorge end up).

They are good players, to be sure, but they are not necessarily the best or the most famous on the site. This is the moment when the meaning of Team Online crystallizes for me: these folks are workhorses. They are driven, and they log serious volume online without putting the rest of their lives on hold.

Barry Greenstein and Daniel Negreanu fill an entirely different niche. They are superheroes, impossibly successful professionals to whom the average PokerStars player can look up but probably can’t relate. This isn’t to say that Greenstein and his fellow Team Pro members don’t work hard. I’m sure they do. I just think that they also possess some innate talent that separates them qualitatively from the vast majority of poker players, no matter how dedicated.

Every Batman needs a Robin. With a few exceptions (cough, Randy Lew, cough), most Team Online players represent attainable goals. They make good money, to be sure, but for most it has more to do with hard work than superhuman talent. Players who saw the red spade on my avatar sometimes told me, in accusatory fashion, that they’d never heard of me. I’m realizing that was kind of the point. Your average Team Online member is an ordinary person who’s had extraordinary outcomes by taking advantage of the game selection and VIP rewards available on PokerStars.

Spending a week with these extraordinary poker players is both intimidating and inspiring. On the one hand, their passion for poker is contagious. Each of them represents a unique twist on what’s possible with hard work and dedication. Then again, the shear amount of hard work and dedication required by some of their more impressive feats (Kevin Thurman tells me he played 24 tables, 10+ hours a day, 7 days a week for an entire year to set his record) is enough to make you run screaming for the nearest lazy river.

Thankfully the Atlantis has a great one of those, and my teammates do find time to float and enjoy the beautiful weather in the Bahamas. More than a few are anxious about falling behind Supernova Elite pace so early in the year, and swapping intelligence about where to get the best wireless signal during VPP Happy Hour is a popular topic of conversation. You can take the player out of the game, but you can’t take the game out of the player, and this bunch are players through and through. It was an honor to play alongside them, even if I didn’t meet them in person until our time together was nearly up.

Hero: It’s me. Late 20’s, wearing a PokerStars Team Online patch and sunglasses, not saying much but friendly when I do happen my mouth. I’ve been quiet so far and recently showed down KK in a 3-bet pot.

Villain 1: Middle-aged Canadian, recreational player, on the loose-passive side. He limps more than he raises in early position.

Villain 2: Young Spanish kid, maybe 22 at the oldest. This is likely one of the biggest events he’s played, as he’s giving off a bit of a “scared money”-vibe.

Villain 1 opens to 450 in early position, Villain 2 calls in the CO, and Hero calls with As Qs in the SB. The flop came Qd 8c 2h and checks all the way around. Hero bets 900 on a 6c turn, Villain 1 quickly calls, and Villain 2 asks how much, thinks for 15-20 seconds, and calls.

The river is the 8d, making the final board Qd 8c 2h 6c 8d. There’s 4200 in the pot. Do you bet or check? If you bet, how much? If you check, how do you respond to each of the following?

a) Villain 1 bets 3000, Villain 2 folds.

b) Villain 1 bets 3000, Villain 2 colds.

c) Villain 1 checks, Villain 2 bets 3000.

I’ll post results and my thoughts on Friday, as usual.

Q: Though honestly I agree with what you wrote I just wonder since “Villain is a young online MTT wizard: highly ranked on Pocket Fives, tons of success” we know (and he might not know we know) that he knows he can bet anything and probably get a fold tons of the time because he can have AK and it is much harder for other people to (especially when they don’t check raise the flop). As soon as we call I think Villain needs to become super cautious. Against anyone else I insta fold k10. I actually thought this example was how to outplay a wizard but I was wrong. : -) I guess I leveled myself!

A: If I understand you correctly, you’re asking whether Villain couldn’t bluff this flop with a really wide range since he can represent nutted hands (not only AK but sets as well) more easily than we can. This would be more of a consideration in a heads up pot.

The nice thing about multiway pots is that they provide an opportunity to get free information from opponents who are otherwise very good at balancing their ranges and concealing information. This is because your opponent cannot play only against you. If you know what he thinks about other players in the pot, then that provides a framework for interpreting his actions.

In this instance, we’ve already said that the other two players in the pot were on the loose side. It’s safe to assume that a smart player will pick up on that quickly. Even if Villain knew that Hero would fold a hand like KT, he still can’t assume that the other two would. Loose players, by definition, don’t make tight folds based on sharp reads. On such a coordinated board, Villain must assume that he’s going to get action more often than not. Thus, we can treat his bet as honest and fold without going down the path of “but he knows that I know that he….”

Do you have a question for the Thinking Poker Mailbag? Please leave it as a comment below!

I would probably fold although the pot odds are enticing and your hand (a pair and a draw) superficially seems very strong. This is a super wet board and a good player should not be leading into three opponents without something very substantial. I put him on KQ, AQ and stronger. If you raise all-in, I don’t think he folds much. I also don’t think you have the full 13 outs that a pair-and-an-OESD normally does.

Assuming you call, if your draw comes in, with an ace or a nine, it’s going to be a super-scary board, and it’s going to be tough to get paid off, especially being out of position. On top of that, your opponent will often also have a king, so you may well chop even if your draw comes in – or lose to AK.

Not all pair + draws are created equally. On a board like this, where so many draws are likely, it matters a lot that you have the worst pair and are drawing exclusively to non-nut hands. Out of position in a multi-way pot with action from a good player in early position, you can’t afford to treat this as a strong hand.

Against a range of {TT+,AQs+,KTs+,QTs+,JTs,T9s,8d7d,AQo+,KJo+), Hero has about 26% equity. Adding in 99 and AJ, which I think Villain is more likely to check, gets us up to 30%.

Moreover, this flop smacks Villain’s range, and it’s not a board he’s betting light into three players. This means we can’t expect much fold equity by check-raising. Kordolius argues that, “the flop hits our range well too, and in his eyes we may represent better hands than we have.” I struggle to think of any high-equity hands Villain would fold to a check-raise. The fact that this flop hits our perceived range well ought to make Villain less likely to bet hands that can’t stand hear in the first place.  I think getting all-in on the flop would be a big money-loser.

Calling is not much more appealing. The immediate pot odds require Hero to have about 28% equity to call, which as we’ve seen is close. However, as Dangerhorse argues, there are significant reverse implied odds attached to drawing out of position to non-nut hands. With such a transparent draw, Hero can’t count on getting money in as a big favorite when he hits. Villain’s range also includes enough flush draws and high-equity made hands that bluffing diamonds won’t prove overly profitable either. In short, calling the flop would be roughly break-even if we were faced with an all-in bet, but on balance we’re likely to lose more than we make on future streets. Best to get out now.

This raises the question Georgios poses: “Preflop the odds to call are great (almost 7 to 1) but you never thought to fold? Isn’t [this] a trouble hand vs three player[s,] one of them early pos raiser tourney pro? Isn’t [this] a reverse implied odds hand?”

Yes, which is why we have to proceed carefully post-flop. The nice thing about getting really good pot odds is that you can afford to cherry-pick only the most profitable spots. As long as you’re disciplined enough to get away from a deceptively pretty hand in a spot like this, I think it’s OK to peel pre-flop with what is admittedly a dangerous hand.

Even with this flop, I can imagine some scenarios where I wouldn’t check-fold. If the flop checked around, I’d feel a lot better about putting money into the pot on the majority of turns. I’d also feel better about calling the flop if the last player to act bet at it, rather than the early position raiser. Then of course there are other flops and other scenarios where Hero’s hand would have better equity. It’s just a matter of knowing how often they will come around and comparing that to the price you’re getting to see the flop.

While I’m amending recent blog posts, I also have to admit to backsliding on my “don’t judge assholes” philosophy. I split a cab with fellow PokerStars Team Online member Andre Coimbra, whose flight was half an hour before mine, so I got to the airport plenty early. That was good, because the customs line was massive and there were only two agents working it. People all around me were just losing their minds with frustration.

When I got to the front of the line after nearly an hour of waiting, I heard someone say “Next!” I looked around but didn’t see an open station. I did see someone stepping up to one of the stations for non-US citizens, so I assumed that was what I heard and went back to waiting. Someone behind me shouted, not gently, “Over there!” I looked around again, saw the open station, and started walking towards it. As I did, someone else shouted, “Get over there, kid!”

My first instinct was to get flustered. I had, after all, made a mistake that slowed the line down by several seconds. But I forced myself to take a deep breath and calm down. I didn’t stop walking, but I did turn my head and slowly scan the line behind me until I saw the person who’d shouted. I could tell it was him because he was still red in the face and waving his arms at me. You could tell he was the sort of guy who shouts at strangers in the airport. I met his eye for a minute, smiled broadly at him, and then went about my business. I know it would have been better to ignore him, but I must admit it felt good to needle him.

Speaking of which the customs agent gave me the needle when I finally found him. Our conversation went something like this:

“Traveling by yourself?”

“Yes.”

“What were you doing down here by yourself?”

“Playing poker at the Atlantis.”

“What place did you finish?”

“Nothing good enough to remember.”

“How much cash do you have with you?”

“About five thousand dollars.”

“How much cash did you come down here with?”

“About eight thousand dollars.”

“So you lost?”

“Thanks for rubbing it in.”

“Go ahead.”

So kind of an unpleasant start to my day, though I had a nice chat with Andre in the cab and he gave me one of the (very expensive) pictures he bought from one of our PSTO dinners. Also I’m playing peek-a-boo with a little girl a few rows down from me in the terminal and I’m returning from what was all in all a great week in the Bahamas, so it’s all good.

There was no way I was going to spend it on food and drink, so I assessed my other options. The snorkeling here is really hokey, because it’s just in one of Atlantis’ fake bodies of water. I’ve heard good things about swimming with the dolphins, but I have some serious ethical objections to keeping dolphins in captivity. Then I remembered Lawrence from Office Space‘s famous answer to the question of what he would do with a million dollars.

Mandara, the spa at PCA, offers a treatment called the Four Hands Massage: “Two therapists working on you simultaneously in synchronicity – and serene silence.” There was a realistic chance this was just an excuse to charge twice as much for a massage, but I figured I’d never have another chance to try it, so I made an appointment and came away impressed.

I began lying face-down with four hands pressing motionless into my back. A voice told me to take three deep breaths, and as I exhaled the third time, they were off. The whole thing was clearly choreographed and rehearsed and felt pretty awesome. First, one of the therapists worked on my back and shoulders while the other mirrored her movements on my legs. Later they worked in parallel, one on the left side and one on the right. It almost didn’t feel like hands at all, since there was so much happening at once.

I still can’t say that it was worth the asking price ($288 including the mandatory 20% gratuity), but I took a bottle of water with me when I left, and here at Atlantis that’s like a $5 value right there.

In addition to all the bragging, he had a really condescending attitude towards everyone else at the table. A recreational player sucked out on him in a big pot and apologized. He laughed in the guy’s face for apologizing and sent a clear message: “I don’t care about the $10,000, and you’re a fish if you think a bad beat is something you need to apologize for.” When the same player later lost his stack on a questionable shove, the kid said to him, “That’s how you spend my chips?”

People like this used to really get under my skin, especially when they directed their attitude at me. It made me want to prove something to them, and sometimes it even intimidated me. They and other types of unpleasant people (angry people, whiners, degenerates) were a big part of what I didn’t enjoy about live poker.

This doesn’t really make sense, though, because I know that ego is a leak in poker. The really great players don’t act this way. Anyone who does is insecure about something.

Getting upset about these players is as silly as the guys who get upset because “internet kids raise too much.” If we raise too much, then find a way to exploit that! Ego is a leak, and rather than letting arrogant opponents get under my skin, I am learning to see their behavior for what it is: a weakness, a personal failing on their part, and if anything a possible source of profit for me. Whether or not I wind up exploiting someone’s ego, not get upset about it is already a victory for me and something that helps me to make better decisions.

If an elderly person is walking slowly in front of me, I don’t get angry at him, because I know that he can’t help it. Why get angry when a rude person is rude or an arrogant person is arrogant?

This story doesn’t end in some redemptive moment where I set a bear trap for this kid and stack him. He was tough, he was on my left, and I stayed out of his way and avoided giving him opportunities to outplay me. I suppose his eagerness to broadcast his talent may have saved me a few chips that I otherwise would have lost figuring out what I could and couldn’t get away with with him behind me.

To want that kind of ending is already to stoop to his level. It is to seek some sort of definitive proof that after all I am better than he is! I want to spend my time and mental energy focusing on my own flaws, the ones that are within my power to change. There’s plenty there to keep me busy without worrying about what I don’t like about somebody else.

47 2 Sam Greenwood 90.100

47 3 Eric Mizrachi 58.000

47 4 Andrew Brokos 38.500

47 5 Greg Gokey 31.200

47 6 Corey Burbick 50.000

47 7 Micah Smith 141.100

47 8 Maria Panyak 39.700

47 9 Martin Debruhl 61.500

I think this is a typical PCA table, in that it looks good (i.e. no names I recognize) until I start googling names and realize I’m with a bunch of internet wizards. The three on my immediate left in particular have impressive CVs. I don’t know much about Eric Mizrachi, but I think he’s the one with glasses. We’re a little poor in chips, but that won’t be a barrier to me doubling up ;-).

It’s Level 4 of the PCA. Hero is wearing his PokerStars Team Online patch, which in Villain’s eyes probably makes him a cash game grinder with minimal tournament experience. Villain is a young online MTT wizard: highly ranked on Pocket Fives, tons of success, modest live experience but certainly knows what he’s doing in any tournament situation. He’s new to the table in the last hour and neither he nor Hero has done anything remarkable in that time. With the exception of Villain and one other good but short-stacked player on Hero’s left, the table is reasonably soft, certainly above average for the field.

Blinds 100/200/25. Villain (13K) opens to 500 UTG+2. Two of the looser players (16K and 40K)  at the table call, and Hero (35K) calls Kc Ts in the BB.

Flop Qd Jd Th. Hero checks, Villain bets 1450 into pot of 2300, the other two fold, and the action is back on Hero. What’s your plan?

Just to focus the discussion a bit, let’s assume that if you raise, Villain will shove or fold. If you call, talk about how you’d proceed on each of the following turns:

a) 2s

b) Kh

c) Tc

d) Ah

e) 8d

I’ll post my usual thoughts and results when I’m back from the Bahamas, which will likely be around the 13th. I play Day 2 today, so wish me luck!

I played a funny hand against one of them. Blinds were 400/800/100, and I opened to 2000 with K9s in the HJ. He called in the BB and check-called 2400 on a T55r flop. We both checked an 8 turn, then he bet 5600 on a T river. I wasn’t 100% sure he wouldn’t value bet an A, but I doubted it. I did think he was capable of floating out of position, and this was an ideal spot for it. So I called, and he showed A3 and seemed surprised to win the pot. “I was trying to bluff you off a chop” he told me. Lovely.

I’ve got tomorrow off and am looking forward to finally getting outside after spending my first two days here indoors!

It’s a beautiful morning in the Bahamas. Walking around in the morning is a totally different experience, because they are empty except for some grounds crew and a few early risers such as myself. Later today there will be screaming kids and booming speakers, but right now it’s oddly serene.

I’ve got stuff with PokerStars all day today and then I’ll be playing the tournament hopefully all day tomorrow, which means I won’t be able to take full advantage of the facilities until Sunday. Of course I wouldn’t be here at all if it weren’t for those other things, so I can’t complain. I just hope the weather stays nice. One time!

Anti-Ballin’: I’m bringing a small pantry with me, because it kills me to pay $20 for a sandwich.

So wish me luck, and please be patient if the blog and Twitter feed are quiet. Historically the internet at Atlantis has been atrocious and expensive, so while I’ve pre-written a couple of posts, I may or may not be blogging from the Bahamas.