In my recent poker strategy article, Slowplaying, I emphasize how much a failure to build the pot can cost you when you slowplay a huge hand in NLHE. One of the exceptions I discuss is when you have an aggressive opponent who may help you to build the pot:… Read full post
My latest poker strategy article, Slowplaying, is a meditation on a variety of topics related to slowplaying: what it costs you, when to do it, which types of boards and opponents are best, etc. Here’s an excerpt from the introduction:
“[Y]ou must weigh the advantages of slowplaying against what … Read full post
At the end of 2010, I urged poker players to send me write-ups about their favorite charities in order to encourage year-end giving and paint a broader picture of just what the non-profit sector looks like and how many diverse opportunities there are for charitable giving. Quite a few well-known … Read full post
PokerStars Pot-Limit Omaha High, $1.00 BB (6 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com
MP ($263.80)
CO ($250)
Button ($362.30)
SB ($264.20)
Hero ($250)
UTG ($166.90)
Preflop: Hero is BB with Ah, 4c, Ac, Tc.
UTG calls $1, 1 fold, CO raises to $5.2, Button calls $5.20, SB … Read full post
This is an update concerning a post I made a few weeks ago about some strange goings on in my old UB account.
I requested a security audit as several people on 2+2 suggested. To their credit, UB support was quick to respond with the results and also to answer … Read full post
The field in the $1050 PokerStars Super Tuesday had been whittled down from 394 to 28. With 10 BB’s, I wasn’t in great shape, but I had a fighting chance. And then the internet at my apartment went out. I tried the usual disconnecting and reconnecting, but it didn’t fix … Read full post
Yet another Home Game Fail, as I apparently did not set the tournament up correctly to be a shootout as advertised. It’s a shame, too, because 34 players is a near-perfect size for a 6-max shootout. We ended up playing a plain old $5.50 6-Max NLHE tournament, which Birchum took … Read full post
BTN and SB both seem fishy, not just because of their stacks but because they are respectively 100/20 and 55/9, albeit over small samples. I felt like they’d both have a lot of random crap and I could drive them out of the pot and get it heads up with … Read full post
…so overbet-overbet it is:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $2 BB (5 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com
UTG ($518.95)
MP ($500)
Button ($538.90)
SB ($211.55)
Hero ($1162.75)
Preflop: Hero is BB with 7s, 7d.
2 folds, Button raises to $6, SB calls $5, Hero calls $4.
Flop: ($18.80) … Read full post
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $6 BB (2 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com
Hero ($1078.40)
BB ($2126.95)
Preflop: Hero is Button with 7s, 9c.
Hero raises to $18, BB calls $12.
Flop: ($36) 2c, 2d, 6h (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks.
Turn: ($36) 7h (2 players)
BB bets … Read full post
Villain’s hand looks so much like a busted draw that I was afraid I was getting leveled. I had to double-check the board to confirm that it really made no sense for him to play any value hand this way before snapping him off:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $2 BB (4 … Read full post
Also, fold the river:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em Tourney, Big Blind is t80 (6 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com
UTG (t1560)
MP (t3290)
CO (t6660)
Hero (t4198)
SB (t3839)
BB (t1453)
Preflop: Hero is Button with 7h, 9h.
3 folds, Hero raises to t160, SB raises to … Read full post
First off, congratulations to Home Game newcomer Gellybooty, who bested a field of 26 to win the 8-Game Freeroll (in under 4 hours, I might add- structure was perfect IMO).
The runner-up, despite mis-reading his hand at least twice, was I. In triple draw, I drew four to an Ace, … Read full post
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $10 BB (2 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com
Hero ($1000)
BB ($3855.15)
Preflop: Hero is Button with 8s, Ts.
Hero raises to $30, BB calls $20.
Flop: ($60) 8c, 5d, Qd (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $44.6, BB calls $44.60.
Turn: ($149.20) … Read full post
First hand is a very relevant bit of recent history:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $6 BB (2 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com
Hero ($1153.70)
Button ($752.10)
Preflop: Hero is BB with Th, Jh.
Button raises to $12, Hero raises to $42, Button calls $30.
Flop: ($84) Qc, … Read full post
I have no idea what to make of his flop min-check-raise as the pre-flop raiser, but I seriously doubt he can stand a turn raise. I just don’t see him doing this with either 2 pair+ or a good draw. My intention was to raise just about any card. Be … Read full post
After three tournaments, here are the standings in the Thinking Poker Home Game:
As you can see, winning a tournament is not essential to win the contest. Bond2King has never taken 1st, but he’s got a 2nd, a 3rd, and a 4th to his name, which is a pretty impressive … Read full post
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em Tourney, Big Blind is t600 (6 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com
Hero (t14702)
UTG (t30344)
MP (t15991)
CO (t16405)
Button (t34712)
SB (t61552)
Preflop: Hero is BB with Ks, 9s.
3 folds, Button raises to t1200, 1 fold, Hero calls t600.
Flop:… Read full post
This was the first and only hand I played with Villain, he just sat with a random amount that was probably all he had in his account:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $10 BB (2 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com
Hero ($1000)
Button ($573.55)
Preflop: Hero is BB with Jh, … Read full post
I’m posting three hands tonight, all of them against the same Villain. I’d just stacked him for the second time, and after that he bought in for just 30 BB’s, won a sizable pot, and then started donking a lot of flops. In the first two, I made some biggish … Read full post
I know where I’ll be May 8-22: PokerStars is guaranteeing $45 million in prizes over the course of two weeks in the third annual Spring Championship of Online Poker. They’ve released the schedule, and just looking at it gets my adrenaline rushing. There are so many tournaments that will … Read full post
I didn’t realize it at the time or I would have raised the flop, but this is one of those interesting PLO situations where my draw is a pretty solid favorite against the nuts:
PokerStars Pot-Limit Omaha High, $1.00 BB (6 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com
UTG ($339.20)… Read full post
I figured Villain’s river range was nuts/bluffs, and given that this was a backdoor draw and the flop draws missed, there’d be enough bluffs to warrant a call. I hadn’t counted on this:
PokerStars Pot-Limit Omaha High, $1.00 BB (5 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com
Button ($655.40)
SB … Read full post
Edit: Support tells me that they are “experiencing some delays” but that points should be awarded appropriately within 24 hours.
My thanks and apologies to everyone who played in last night’s Triple Stud event. I’ll start on a positive note: I had a great time, and it seemed like many … Read full post
I’m all out of Tales from a 7-11, but I’ve had a few requests for more stories, so I’m going to reach back to another job that I once held for a new series called “Tales From a Summer Camp.”
One summer during college I worked at a day … Read full post
We’ll be playing $.05/$.10 Pot-Limit Omaha today starting at 13:00 ET.
If you aren’t yet a member of the Thinking Poker League, you can find us in the PokerStars Home Games tab by searching for Club ID# 312467. The Invitation Code is “foucault”.
Also don’t forget that our next tournament … Read full post
I’ve never really been a grinder, one of those online poker players who plays 10+ tables at once, cursor and attention whizzing from monitor to monitor so quickly that they have only seconds to think about they want to play any given hand. For me, 4 tables is common, and … Read full post
Thanks to everyone who played in the inaugural Thinking Poker cash game last night. We had our share of technical difficulties:
1. When I set the stakes at $.10/$.25 and 100-250BB buy-in, I somehow thought that would mean a $2.50-$6.25 buy-in range. Of course it’s actually 10x that, so we … Read full post
My latest poker strategy article, Out of Position Against a LAG, has just been published in the March 2011 issue of 2+2 Magazine. It’s a street-by-street analysis of a single hand, highlighting a lesson that can be learned from each. Here’s an example:
Lesson: Against an opponent who is … Read full post
Villain was pretty disbelieving of me and wasn’t making a lot of what I call “disciplined folds”, meaning that in small- to medium-sized pots he usually called any time his hand was defined as medium-strength rather than trying to figure out my value bet vs. bluffing frequency. I also think … Read full post
Edit: Meant to add that there’s still room for a few more people in the league. You can join by searching Club ID # 312467 in the PokerStars Home Games lobby and entering “foucault” when prompted for an Invitation Code.
Thanks to everyone who played in yesterday’s inaugural Thinking Poker … Read full post
After my other adventures on Friday night, I decided to read for a while. I’m currently working on Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, but I didn’t want to exacerbate my already bad mood by immersing myself in a world of flea-ridden “soldiers” graphically scalping and getting scalped by Apaches, so … Read full post
I let a guy get under my skin and tilt me tonight, which I almost never do. We were at a $2/$4 deep-stacked table, and he was just relentlessly aggressive pre-flop, both in and out of position. He was cold 4-betting me, he was 3-betting me, he was 5-betting me, … Read full post
Edit: The buy-in for the tournament will be $5+$.50.
Second edit: The invite code is “foucault”, I’m told you need that join. Sorry for the confusion.
Third edit: Invite code is all lowercase.
I’m pleased to announce that I’m starting a Thinking Poker League on the new PokerStars Home Game … Read full post
A Hungarian poker site picked up on my recent post about money disappearing from my old UB account. Curious to see what they said, our Esteemed Webmistress ran it through Google Translate. Playing around with GT is always fun, and I especially like seeing what happens when you translate … Read full post
I’ve posted a lot lately about overbetting, so here’s a spot where overbetting with (functionally) the nuts would be a bad idea:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $6 BB (8 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com
SB ($696)
BB ($645)
UTG ($785.70)
UTG+1 ($493)
MP1 ($368.50)
MP2 ($201)
CO ($109.30)
Hero … Read full post
I had a deep run but ultimately a disappointing 15th place finish in last night’s $1000 Super Tuesday tournament on PokerStars, which performance they chronicled on their blog. I say “disappointing” not only because I went from 2/18 to out in 15th but also because I felt like I … Read full post
I recently had an experience with Ultimate Bet that can best be described as “shady”. I don’t feel that the evidence warrants accusing them of outright theft, so I’m just going to post a factual account of what happened and let people make up their own minds:
In 2007 and … Read full post
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em Tourney, Big Blind is t50 (9 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com
MP2 (t2650)
MP3 (t3048)
CO (t2775)
Button (t4909)
SB (t2070)
BB (t2715)
Hero (t2646)
UTG+1 (t3952)
MP1 (t6300)
Preflop: Hero is UTG with Kd, Ac.
Hero raises to t150, 4 folds, CO … Read full post
I folded the second nuts to a raise like this a few days ago, because there was no chance he didn’t have it, and got me thinking how cool it would be to do that as a bluff. Based on sizing, it’s unlikely Villain has the nuts here, so it … Read full post
Thanks to Short-Stacked Shamus for calling my attention to this fascinating article from a 1967 issue of Sports Illustrated. The writing is spectacular and evokes the atmosphere of the California cardrooms of half a century ago, doing justice to the article’s title, “Lowball in a Time Capsule”:
… Read full postIn Gardena, unlike
I’m going to be hosting (and hopefully playing! fingers crossed…) the final table of the $215 Poker Stars Sunday Warm-Up today. They tell me the final table should start somewhere around 20:00 server time (which is also US Eastern Standard Time). I’ll be hamming it up in the chat box, … Read full post
I know I’m late to the party on this one, but I just started using Table Ninja about two weeks ago, and I love it. I just published a full review, but here’s the bottom line:
… Read full post“Table Ninja is one of the very best poker tools I’ve found. Though
My girlfriend was kind enough to let me plan our Valentine’s Day around an interview with Mike and Adam. We spoke for a little over half an hour about all kinds of stuff: blogging, coaching, traveling, and of course strategy.
My only regret is with regard to the last question … Read full post
Sucks to check-fold rockets getting 3.5:1 but there’s just nothing I beat. Any worse hand has showdown value and checks back river, methinks
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $4 BB (6 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com
BB ($142)
UTG ($268)
MP ($173.50)
CO ($463.25)
Button ($406)
Hero ($402)
Preflop: Hero … Read full post
Villain was unknown to me and had pretty crazy stats for a 6-max game, like 57/32 or something. He floated a lot of flops and would fire the turn when in position, so I was originally looking to check-raise. The overbet threw me off, as I’d never seen him do … Read full post
Hi all sorry for the short notice but I’m going to be recording an interview for the 2+2 Pokercast tonight and I’d really appreciate any suggestions you have for topics we ought to discuss. Obviously we’ve got a lot of ideas already, but I’ve never gone wrong asking you all … Read full post
Sorry that I was slow in posting results and lax about responding to comments. Not only was I moving over the weekend (got a place in Boston for a few months- more on this soon), but I also took ill. In retrospect eating a pre-made tuna sandwich from a rest … Read full post
This hand is a good example of being aware of your own range and what your hand will look like to Villain. I had recently folded to a triple barrel from this same Villain, who generally exhibits very aggressive tendencies. I had no idea whether that history would make him … Read full post
Today I’ve got another variation on the “What’s Your Play?” theme. I’m going to give you the play, and you have to give me the range with which you would make it. Of course for the sake of discussion, please give us your reasoning as well.
Reads:
MP2 … Read full post
I’ve had an account at PokerStars for more than five years now, and though I don’t remember exactly when I created my avatar, Mr. Bananagrabber has been with me almost since the very beginning. Sadly, Arrested Development has been off the air for a few years now, and just as … Read full post
My latest poker strategy article in the 2+2 Magazine, entitled “Bluff Cooler“, introduces a new term to the poker lexicon:
… Read full postA “bluff cooler” would mean that a hand in your bluffing range runs into a hand in your opponent’s bluff-catching range. In other words, you have a hand
PokerStars Pot-Limit Omaha High, $1.00 BB (5 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com
Hero ($288.45)
BB ($99.70)
UTG ($238.20)
MP ($110.80)
Button ($250)
Preflop: Hero is SB with Qh, Kh, Jc, Ts.
2 folds, Button raises to $2.5, Hero raises to $9.5, 1 fold, Button … Read full post
Villain is an excellent NLHE player and surely competent enough to read my hand and play well in this spot. I feel like there are no just good options with my hand on a flop like this because it’s essentially face up.
PokerStars Pot-Limit Omaha High, $2 BB (5 handed) … Read full post
I think my line looks pretty damn strong here. Obviously it’s not going to work when Villain has trips himself, but I feel like he has a lot of TT-AA here as well (not to mention AK before he calls turn).
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $4 BB (6 handed) Hand History … Read full post
First introduced in Harrington on Hold ‘Em, this play is an oldie but a goodie:
Full Tilt Poker No-Limit Hold’em Tourney, Big Blind is t50 (6 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com
BB (t3000)
UTG (t840)
Hero (t3359)
CO (t5965)
Button (t2950)
SB (t3205)
Preflop: Hero is MP … Read full post
In NLHE, I pretty much always choose to call rather than re-raise-get-it-in when I have position and suspect some sort of coinflip situation (overs vs. pair pre-flop, top pair vs. big draw on the flop, etc.). I figure that between position and superior skill, I ought to be able to … Read full post
I was looking to check-raise flop. When he checked it back and the turn is a brick, he’s got a wide range but a narrow value range so it’s check-call, check-call.
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $6 BB (2 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com
Button ($691.50)
Hero ($605.50)
Preflop: Hero … Read full post
Villain is clearly bluffing on the river- his line makes no sense with any strong hand except 44, and even that may not call a river shove (it’s a lot more plausible for me to check a set on the river than for him to do so, given that I … Read full post
My post from last night flubbed a simple equation badly enough that I felt the need to scrap it and start over from scratch. I’ve left the old post up for posterity’s sake and so people can see what not to do. Here’s what I should have said:
Blinds are … Read full post
Edit: As several commenters pointed out, I screwed this up in multiple ways. I’m getting ready to start up a session, but I’ll be making a new post with a corrected equation soon. In the meantime, you can disregard this post unless you’re curious to see whether you can spot … Read full post
In response to my recent The Poker Ethicist: HUDs post, Piefarmer left an interesting comment that got me thinking about a few more of the ethical dimensions surrounding HUDs and other technology that helps people play better poker:
… Read full postTechnology always pushes the boundaries, especially ethical boundaries. The primary way to
Thanks to everyone who sounded off on the special HUD edition of “What’s Your Play?”. As always your comments were thought-provoking, and I was actually led to conclude that the answer isn’t as open-and-shut as I thought.
I’ll start by giving you the results, and then I’ll let you … Read full post
As “The Poker Philosopher”, and in honor of one of my favorite non-poker blogs, I occasionally consider the ethical dimensions of a high-profile controversy in the poker community. In this edition, I address a long-standing controversy in the online poker world, in response to a question about Heads-Up Displays … Read full post
I think this is one of the worst hands I’ve played in a while:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $10.00 BB (6 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
Button ($646.60)
SB ($1000)
Hero (BB) ($1000)
UTG ($458)
MP ($2288.55)
CO ($1148)
Preflop: Hero is BB with K
, Q
2 … Read full post
A reader recently asked me about a hand, presumably in response to a comment I made about bet sizing on the river when your opponent’s range is defined as a bluff-catcher:
“What do you think would be optimal sizing on this river? I feel like this is a spot … Read full post