Posts Tagged ‘Uncategorized’

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Psychological Comfort at the WSOP

Professional poker player Amir Vahedi, who final tabled the main event in 2003, famously stated, “In order to live, you must be willing to die.” If you believe you will be unwilling to bet or even call all-in in marginal situations for fear of being eliminated, then it would probably be best if you did not play the tournament at all. That being said, however, no one wants to be eliminated after two hours or on the money bubble, especially if you are playing the tournament in part for the experience.

What I recommend, then, is that you do what you can to avoid close situations where you may have to put your tournament life at stake without sacrificing any meaningful edge. I’ll give you an example from my own tournament last year: blinds were still 25/50, and everyone at the table had roughly the 10,000 chips with which he started. Several players limped in, and an aggressive player raised to 350 from his button. I was in the big blind with a pair of Tens.  Read the complete post...

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Physical Comfort at the WSOP

The WSOP main event is a grind, mentally and physically. Should you be lucky enough to survive an entire day of play, you could easily end up in the same seat for six two-hour levels, punctuated only by short breaks. Get plenty of rest in the time leading up to the tournament, and bring some snacks and water with you, as you may need to spend nearly your entire break waiting in line for the restroom.

If you are relatively new to playing live poker, feel free to play a tight, straight-forward game for the first hour or so as you get your bearings. Practice handling your chips, looking at your cards without giving off any physical tells, vocalizing your actions, and studying your opponents. This may not be optimal poker strategy, but it is better than making a costly mistake as a result of your inexperience.

If you find yourself mentally exhausted towards the end of the day, it is similarly better to tighten up and avoid putting yourself in situations where you may have to make a tough decision. Again, you may be passing on some marginally profitable opportunities, but you do not want to risk mistakenly calling a big bet because you failed to see that the river had paired the board.  Read the complete post...

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Final Thoughts

The WSOP main event has the potential to be fun, educational, and profitable. In fact, only the combination of all three of these factors can really justify the decision to spend a large chunk of one’s bankroll on a single tournament. Once you make the decision to play, you must be honest about your potential weaknesses and the adaptations you must make to maximize your pleasure and your profit.

Best of luck, and I’ll see you at the Rio!

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Introduction

The main event of the World Series of Poker is more than just a poker tournament.

It is an adventure, a marathon, a challenge, a thrill, a learning experience, a game, a gamble, and so much more. Making the most of the experience, by which I mean the most profit but also the most enjoyment and the most educational value, requires coming into it with the proper mind set. I’m about to play my second main event, so while I’m hardly a wizened veteran, I remember my first vividly, and I hope I can offer some helpful insight to those who will play for the first time this year and those who just want to learn more about the experience.

Next: Should you even play the Main Event?

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To Play or Not to Play

The first thing you’ll have to consider is whether to enter the tournament at all. In past years, this was generally not a question, if you won a seat through an online poker site. But a change in policy this year means that third-parties may not register you for the tournament. Thus, the online sites are simply providing you with the cash value of the seat and “requiring” you to buy-in for yourself.

I will be very blunt: many people who won a seat this way should probably take the $10,000 and not play the tournament. You need to consider what the totality of the WSOP experience is worth to you versus what else you could do with the money.

If you are a winning player at higher buy-in online tournaments, events with $100+ buy-ins, and/or at mid-stakes online cash games, probably 3/6 NL and above, you will likely have a positive expectation in the WSOP. But that doesn’t mean you should play, since your bankroll will likely be woefully insufficient to absorb the variance. Even the best players will have no more than a 25% chance of making the money and a significantly less than 1% chance of reaching the final table. This means you must enter the tournament prepared to leave without your $10,000.  Read the complete post...

by Andrew Brokos

You are playing a 6-max no-limit hold-em (NLHE) game with $1/$2 blinds and $200 effective stacks. One player folds, and you are next to act holding Kc Tc. You open the pot with a raise to $7, the player to your left calls, and everyone else folds. The flop comes Kh 9h 5d, you bet $11, and your opponent raises to $30.

Now what? Does he have a pair of Kings, too? If so, is his kicker better than yours? Did he flop something huge like two-pair or a set? Or is he semi-bluffing with a flush draw or a gutshot straight draw? Could he even have a worse pair or a pure bluff?

This is one of the most difficult commonly encountered situations in NLHE. You have a relatively strong hand, but not a monster. You are out of position with a lot of money behind, facing a raise that probably represents either a bluff or a hand that has you drawing to three outs or less.

I wish I could tell you that there were a simple, one-word solution to this problem. If there were nothing more to say than “Fold”, “Call”, or “Raise”, though, this wouldn’t be such a tricky situation. To find the solution, you will need more information and a whole new way of thinking about poker problems. The remainder of this article will outline a thought process and general approach to the game that will improve your results when faced with this and other tough decisions.  Read the complete post...

WSOP Deep Stack Mistake #9 Slowplaying

This is closely related to the concept above. When only one or two bets remain in the effective stacks, the potential downside to slowplaying the flop or turn is limited. Often, you can get the money in anyway.

But because pot size grows exponentially, missing a bet on the flop translates into huge losses on future streets when stacks are deep enough for that to matter. Earlier, I demonstrated that a half-pot bet into an 8 BB pot on the flop would only enable you to win 68 BB total by the river. But look what happens when you don’t bet the flop at all and then pot the turn and river: you get 8 BB on the turn and then 24 BB on the river, for a total of 32 BB. Betting even half the pot on the flop would have enabled you to win more than twice as much.

This isn’t to say that slowplaying is never correct. However, the potential downside is huge, so you should have a very good reason if you check a monster on the flop.

Next: Don’t be overprotective

WSOP Deep Stack Mistake #10: Protecting Hands

When the pot constitutes an appreciable percentage of your stack, it’s often worth putting everything at risk to protect a likely best hand. Even when you think you’ll get action only from hands that beat you, there is substantial value in folding out hands with 15-25% equity. This is much less true in deep-stacked NLHE. You’ll often need to exercise some pot control with your marginal hands, giving the occasional free card so that you can take your hand to showdown.

When I say “take your hand to showdown”, what I really mean is taking it there profitably, ie against a range of hands you can beat. Obviously you could get to showdown every hand if you just shoved all in at the first opportunity. But this would ensure that you only went to showdown with hands that crush you.

You might check top pair on the flop so that you can profitably put money in on the turn and/or river. That is, you create some deception about your hand so that your opponent will feel comfortable bluffing or calling with weaker portions of his range. When you have the nuts, you can get away with fastplaying because you don’t mind narrowing your opponent’s range to only his strongest holdings- you beat those hands and they can pay off big. Similarly, when you are bluffing, you don’t mind narrowing his range in exactly the same way because you are folding out a lot of better hands.  Read the complete post...