I'm a donkey. Just look at the numbers!

I went to Donkeytest.com a couple of months ago when I first heard about it, and I didn't do too well.

So I thought, "Well, maybe if I give it another try, I'll do better."

Nope. After taking the 52-question test a second time, my poker IQ came in at a pathetic 109. My first response was to blame the test for my poor score, but then I decided it would be better if I could find out what I did wrong and try to learn from it.

I went out searching and found a 2+2 thread that provides an answer key! Just what I wanted, although the test has been changed a little bit from the time when the key was made. Needless to say, it was very easy to improve my score once I knew the correct answers. :)

Here are a couple of the questions I got wrong the first time I took the test:

18. Tournament. Blinds are 100-200. A novice call station raises UTG to $500. Unknown player flat calls in middle. You all have about 20,000 chips.

You are in the cutoff seat with:
Ah Ad

What should you do?

a) Call
b) Raise to $1,000
c) Raise to $1,600
d) Raise to $800
e) Raise to $2,300.

Initially I chose "raise to $1,600," but upon review I agree that the correct answer is "raise to $2,300." I fell into the common trap of trying to milk AA a little too much when a large raise will help define your hand and reduce your opponents' implied odds.

43. Tournament. Blinds are 300-600 with 75 antes. 9 handed.

SB is a well known tourney pro and has 60,000 chips. A weak tight player UTG with 100,000 chips limps and SB completes. Big blind with 12,000 chips checks.

Flop: 8s 6s 3d

Blinds fold to UTG who bets 3,000. SB calls and the BB min check raises to 6,000. UTG min re-raises to 12,000. After long consideration SB calls, and the big blind calls all-in.

Turn: Kh

SB checks. UTG checks.

River: 3s

SB bets 10,000 into the 40,000 chip pot. UTG quickly calls. What did all three players hold?

a) SB had AA, UTG has a flush draw, and BB holds a set.
b) SB had a draw, BB had two pair on the flop, and UTG has AA
c) SB had a set, BB has 99+, and UTG has a flush draw
d) SB had two pair on the flop, BB has a draw, UTG has A8.

The correct answer is b, which I failed to get right because I just couldn't see the UTG player limping with AA. I mean, I know it happens all the time, but it's still pretty rare, in large part because it's usually a bad move.

Then all that minraising breaks out, and I don't know what to think about this hand anymore. When I found out the answer, it was easy to understand the rationale. But so many times, minraises are a sign of weakness rather than strength.

Many of the other questions I missed involved folding strong hands or making read-based decisions, which are hard to judge when seen on a Web site rather than at the table.

In general, the test is OK. I dispute a few of the answers, and I try hard to avoid tricky out of position situations where I would be forced to make a tough fold or call. The test would be more effective if it were longer, but I still don't think it would be an accurate measure of a poker player.

Like all IQ tests, I wonder: What is this thing supposed to be evaluating again? If it's supposed to test poker aptitude, I don't think it does a good job. For me and I'm sure many other players, the toughest situations used in the test come up rarely and can be such close calls that their answers don't necessarily reflect on the test-taker's underlying skills. That said, I understand the correlation between high scores and solid players. At least I feel like I learned something.

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I've been wanting to post a couple of links from recent editions of Card Player magazine. Despite its flaws, I still enjoy reading it. Both of these columns come from Matt Matros:

_ Can I get away from this?

_ It's bad to be a space alien