Reraising Warz

How often do 3-bets, 4-bets and 5-bet shoves need to be successful to show a profit when 100 BBs deep?

It's easy to determine how often a reraise needs to get a fold to show a profit by calculating bet/(bet+pot). Note that this equation ignores hand values entirely because it only measures risk vs. reward.

1. 3-bet
CO raises to 3 BB, Button raises to 11 BB. Blinds are 1.5 BB.
11/15.5=71 percent

2. 4-bet.
CO raises to 3 BB, Button raises to 11 BB, CO raises to 25 BB. Blinds are 1.5 BB.
25/40.5=62 percent

3. 5-bet shove
Button raises to 3 BB, SB raises to 11 BB, Button raises to 25 BB, SB raises to 100 BB. Blinds are 1.5 BB.
100/137.5=73 percent

Poker Nugs

Let's have a reporter's notebook style post, with a bunch of unrelated tidbits:

_ Bart Hanson is back on the podcast scene with his new show, Deuce Plays, which replaces Cash Plays. The third episode just came out Tuesday.

_ When in doubt, usually choose an aggressive line rather than a passive line, Krantz says in the first episode of Deuce Plays. It's simple yet solid advice.

_ Listening to Phil Galfond in this week's episode of the 2+2 Pokercast reminded me to refocus on hand ranges. It's too easy to make assumptions about opponents' hand ranges rather than slowing down and thinking hard about them. Galfond also recommends pondering how you would represent the opposite hand of what you have when deciding how deceptive you want to be.

_ When you want to bluff with a naked Ace of a flush draw's suit on a twotone flop, you need to be raising a bettor rather than being the initial bettor yourself, says Vanessa Selbst in Ms. PLO. If you keep betting out, it's too likely you'll be called down.

_ Selbst also suggests playing your opponent's hand first, before playing your own hand. This advice works for both no limit hold'em and PLO.

_ If you open under the gun and get 3-bet by an aggressive button, you can 4-bet lightly because your position represents so much strength, says Whitelime in the second episode of Deuce Plays.

Formula for Success

The Formula for Success is: Amount risked/ (Current Pot + Amount Risked)

Like many poker concepts, the Formula for Success is really just common sense given a name. But the naming of it helps solidify the idea, making it easier to understand much like "semibluffing," "stack to pot ratio" and a thousand other terms.

One of the most practical uses of the Formula for Success is to determine the percentage of the time a bluff needs to work to show a profit, as discussed in CardRunners' "Heads Up: Zero to Sixty in 15,5650 Seconds, Part 1 of 6."

For example, you can figure how often a continuation bet needs to get a fold to be successful, assuming you have 0 equity otherwise.

A pot-sized continuation bet needs to work: 50 percent of the time
3/4 pot c-bet: 42.86 percent
2/3 pot c-bet: 40 percent
1/2 pot c-bet: 33.33 percent

The formula works equally well when figuring how often a 4-bet needs to work, as discussed in DeucesCracked's Spaceman in a Cowboy Suit: Ep. 6.

In the DC example, a $93 raise/4-bet needs to get a fold about 64 percent of the time if there's $53 already in the pot.

Another way to use the formula is to figure out whether how often a call in an all-in pot needs to be profitable, which I referenced in my last post.

In that usage, calculating the amount of a call relative to the total pot size will determine how often you need to win the pot when you call. From there, you can do additional math to account for hand ranges, outs or other factors.

Warning: I make math mistakes sometimes. Please point out any errors if you see them.

Beating on shorty

Edits to correct. See comments for details. Apologies for errors. Thanks spritpot.

Short stackers are annoying, but they don't have to be unprofitable.

You can beat them if you fold and call their 20 BB 3-bet all-ins accurately. You can pin down their range using the 3-bet percentage statistic in either Holdem Manager or PokerTracker3.

1) Against a shortstacker who 3-bets all-in 13 percent of the time, for a range of 55+,A8+,KQ, and I raise to 3 BB preflop and my shortstacking villain 3-bets all-in for 20 BB:

I have to call 17 BB to win 24.5 BB (including the blinds). That means I need to win the hand 41 percent of the time when I call [bet/(bet + pot)=17/(17+24.5)=.41].

So using PokerStove to find hands that wins more than 41 percent of the time, I would call with only:

44+, A9s+, ATo+, KQs

*Checking my work: (.41)(24.5) + (.59)(-17)=~0

2) Against a shortstacker who 3-bets all in 10 percent of the time, for a range of 99+,A9+,KQ:

I should call with 22+, ATs+,AJo+

3) Against a shortstacker who 3-bets all in only 8 percent of the time, for a range of 88+,AJ+,KQ:

I should call with 88+, AJs+, AQo+.

In general, the cutoff for calling is around AT and mid-pocket pairs.

Please read the comments and follow-up spritpot post on this topic.

Cash stats

Tableratings.com has added many new features that allow you to search players' screennames to see how they have done in cash games on Full Tilt. (Thanks Bone Daddy for pointing it out).

This is an incredible tool cash players can use as they select the best games and the juiciest fish to play against. And even if you don't play cash games, it's fun to see how friends, poker bloggers and pros have been running.

As far as I can tell, the database is still young, dating back to March. Its data will grow more reliable in time. In addition, the site still has table selection tools to help you find the loosest and most passive games. It's still free for now, although I wonder if it will become a pay site in the future. The figures appear to fairly accurate, although some hands are missing.

Here's a sampling:

smizmiatch (me): $8,293 0.95 BB/100.
Phil Ivey: $416,863.50, 9.6 BB/100
Cole South: $-542,310.20, -2.35 BB/100
Brian Townsend: $-80,876.70, -6.93 BB/100
Mike Matusow: $-17,920.15, -1.4 BB/100

Simple/System

I was thinking about how I used to play no limit hold'em when I first started beating the .10/.25 games. I played a simple, tight style that managed to turn a profit.

1) I loved set mining. I would call a raise or open for a raise myself with any pocket pair from any position. Then I would bet strongly and watch the cash flow.

2) Only get all-in preflop with AA or KK. There were so many donks out there willing to go all-in with far less, and my equity advantage in those situations was enormous. They weren't paying attention to my range. They were thinking, "I've got QQ or AK. Push!"

3) Bet pot and only make high percentage bluffs. By betting large amounts and bluffing rarely, I got good value for my made hands while reducing the risk of being outplayed by opponents with more experience than me.

Maybe this playing style was weakish. I'm not even sure if it would still work in today's lower-limit games. But it was a reliable way to make money, learn patience and get the most money in with the widest equity edge.

Balancing Your Range

The key element of hand reading is putting your opponent on a range of hands and determining the best line against that range as a whole. Once you can read ranges, programs like PokerStove can help determine how your hand performs against your opponents' likely holdings.

As difficult as hand reading is, it isn't enough. You also need to think about your opponents' perception of your hand range. An article in this month's Two Plus Two Magazine put it well: "Too many people think of playing their hand against their opponent’s range, as opposed to playing their range against their opponents range."

Therefore, the challenge is to "balance your range" to create a strategy that's difficult to exploit. By playing your strong, medium and weak hands on certain flop textures in a similar manner, you attempt to disguise your actual holding while extracting the most value overall from each hand type.

For example, if you only limp-raise with AA under the gun and no other hands, your hand range is "polarized" or "unbalanced" because you can only have one hand type in this situation. That's never a good thing because it enables your opponents to play perfectly against you.

Here's the technical definition of balancing your range: to merge your range so that you're not exploitable pursuing a certain line.

Balancing your range is a fascinating and practical topic that can be applied to any hand in any situation. Because I only have a passing familiarity with its specifics, I'll leave this post with a few thought-provoking links:

Shania, balancing, and what you really need to know: In this 2+2 thread, BobboFitos argues that it is unnecessary to balance your range against people who won't adjust to your standard betting lines.

This post resounded with me because I find myself playing to my opponent's perceived individual weaknesses, even though if he knew what I was doing he could play back at me. For example, I'll always fire a continuation bet against a player who will usually fold to a continuation bet because it doesn't matter what my range is if he'll fold to my bluff at a high frequency.

As one poster put it, "You should strive infinitely to balance your game, but heavily skew your play to each specific opponent."

I also agree with the sentiment that range balancing becomes far more important against observant opponents.

I found the 2+2 link from the Poker Log blog, which outlines some examples, such as raising junk hands preflop as semibluffs, continuation betting with air and double-barrelling scare cards. The author writes, "Your range is highly polarized when you perform action X when you only have Y. This makes your game highly exploitable and probably less profitable."

Foucalt presents a couple of other examples in this post with hands like TT and AK.

I have a lot of questions that I'll be thinking about in the coming days about how to apply range balancing:

How much of my 3-betting range should be made up of non-premium hands in order to disguise my premium hands? At what point does 3-betting non-premium hands become more expensive than it's worth?

Should I play KK on Axy flops in the same manner that I would play weak Aces on the same flop?

How should my check-raising distribution look between between monsters, pairs, draws and bluffs?

How often should I fire a second or third bullet? How strong of a "real" hand do I need to fire a second or third bullet? With what hand and flop types should I check the turn and extract value on the river?

Because my perceived hand range is based on my preflop betting actions and the flop texture, how relevant is my actual hand, knowing that I'll only reach showdown a small amount of the time?

Kinds of bets

I can think of seven types of bets.

Most bets fall under the broad category of value bets or bluffs. In general, you want to either be betting because you have the best hand and you think a worse hand will call, or you think a bet might get a better hand to fold. Some players believe every bet they make should either be for value or a bluff.

Semibluffs fall somewhere between the two. Semibluffing hands have some equity, but they may not be the best hand at the time.

Blocking bets fall under the category of value bets. Players make blocking bets when they want to see a showdown for cheap. They're appropriate especially when you think you have enough equity in the pot to get to showdown, but you don't want to pay off an opponent's expected larger river bet, and you think your opponent won't raise, and you have the discipline to fold on the end when you think you're beat.

Suckbets are blocking bets' evil twin. They're smallish bets on the river meant to look like blocking or weak value bets. A suckbet wants its opponent to raise so then you can call in a larger pot or come over the top.

With information/probe bets, we're starting to get into murky waters. Information bets aren't necessarily value bets or bluffs, and they often return incorrect information. I'm not even certain bets for information have a place in a a solid player's arsenal.

Finally, there are bets to protect your hand. I don't know what to make of these kinds of bets, but I use them all the time.

I usually use them when I'm out of position with a hand like middle pair or a weak top pair. If I were playing my hand purely for value, shouldn't I cold call because my one pair figures to be best against a standard button's steal range, and a raise would only get him to fold worse hands? Or should I donkbet or check-raise the flop, hoping that my opponent will fold or call with a worse hand? If I'm hoping my opponent will fold, then I've essentially turned my hand into a bluff because it no longer has much showdown value in what's getting to be a mid- to large-sized pot. If I'm hoping my opponent calls, I'll probably find myself in a tough situation when my opponent bets, raises or calls on the turn or river. If my opponent calls my flop check-raise and I have a weak pair, usually the best outcome is that my opponent will check it down, but that's fairly unlikely to happen.

It seems like most times when I check-call the flop out of position, I either win a small pot or lose a medium-sized one. I lean more toward betting out or check-raising with these kinds of hands, although I'm not sure how right that is.

What's that new poker game all the kids are playing?

I never knew that Texas hold'em was originally called "Hold Me, Darlin'."

Its origin seems to be a bit hazy, but somehow this new poker variant eventually got twisted around to become hold'em, according to a recent CardPlayer article my Jim McManus.

Hold'em wasn't played until early in the 20th (century) and didn't overtake draw and seven-stud as the most popular game until about 1990. By then, its original name, Hold Me Darling, had long since been abbreviated to Hold Me, and then, via the twanging vicissitudes of cowboy enunciation, to hold'em.

No one knows for sure where and when the first hand of hold'em was dealt. One plausible guess is that a dozen or so Texas ranch hands wanted to play a little stud, but found they had only one deck. The most creative cowboy must've got to thinking: If five cards were shared by all players, as many as 23 of them could be dealt two-card hands. Though every poker variant has roots in the French game of poque, he probably did not drawl, "Voila!"

I also found it fascinating that the powers that be have decided the name of the game is "no-limit hold'em" -- that's with a hyphen and without a space before the apostrophe, according to Short-Stacked Shamus at Hard-Boiled Poker.

The meeting concluded with a “style guide” discussion led by Haley. Some people find such discussions of usage and mechanics at best boring and at worst useless. Not this crowd. These are writers, people who care about words and how they are employed. Have to admit I had a little “I’m-in-the-right-place” moment there as we debated whether hyphens have a place in words like “preflop” (no) or “no-limit” (yes). Haley convinced me, actually, that “hold’em” is in fact a contraction (I have always typed it as two separate words).

Who knew?

Check-raising

There's no doubt that check-raising is fun.

It puts pressure on your opponents and can signal a broad range of hands. It can be used to build a pot or end it immediately. It can be used as a bluff or with the nuts. It can be a draw or an overpair.

With so many options and potential outcomes, you have to wonder: What exactly am I trying to accomplish with this check-raise again? Do I want a call or a fold? Is it for value or a bluff?

Spritpot wrote a couple of recent posts on the check-raise, in which he argued that the check-raise is often a bad play. If your opponent folds to your check-raise, that means he usually had a worse hand and you missed out on some value. If he raises or calls, he probably has the best hand and position. In these cases, it's often better to bet out rather than risk a potentially awkward situation later.

For example, I'm reminded of a hand I played skidoo's house over Christmas. In a multway limped pot, I completed from the small blind with A4o. I flopped top pair on an Axx board. It checked around to skidoo, who bet in position. I check-raised and took down the pot. While my check-raise "worked," I may have been able to get more money in with the best hand if I had bet out instead. I could have taken down the pot just as easily with any two cards in that spot.


"If you ARE going to check-raise, should it be done as a bluff or for value (?)," he asks. "I think there the answer is pretty obvious, it has to be both to balance your range."

There's a lot more discussion in those posts about when check-raises may be appropriate and when they're overvalued, so give them a look. I don't think there are many absolutes about when a check-raise is better than betting out.

I'm convinced that check-raising is a powerful move, if only because you don't have many weapons out of position. You can either bet or check-raise (calling and folding can't really be called "weapons"). The check-raise is the riskier move because it costs more, but it's also more likely to get your opponent to fold or gain accurate information about where you stand in the hand.

Absent many solid answers, I'd like to make a few more points:

_ Bets don't always have to be clearly defined as being for value or a bluff. They can be a mixture of both. That said, you should know what you hope to accomplish -- gain information, get a fold, stack your opponent, set up a turn push -- with the check-raise rather than using the move arbitrarily.

_ Check-raising or donkbetting at some point in the hand is almost always better than calling down three streets. Simply calling down out of position allows your opponent to accurately value bet and bluff. Throwing in a check-raise is more likely to end the hand while you're still ahead, although it turns your hand into a bluff with all but strong holdings with which you want to see a showdown.

_ A lot of posters in this thread seem to think Taylor Caby's flop check-raise "for value" with 2nd pair is a poor move, but it worked for him when he tripped up on the river. The discussion is very interesting, and I'll have to spend more time going through the whole thread.

Keep it simple

I want to always remember the significant improvements I made to my game before moving up to 5/10 a year-and-a-half ago. They're simple, but they always help me play my A-game, which is harder to do than I would have thought back then.

1) Never play on autopilot.

I'm a big fan of PokerTracker and PokerAce, but I got to a point where I was overreliant on their statistics. There's no substitute for paying close attention to every street on every table, taking constant notes on your opponents and deducing your opponent's hand range. I'll always use PT and PokerAce (which are being combined in the new PokerTracker 3), but these tools are not substitutes for observation of the action.

2) Don't spew.

Yes, there are many times when I need to get in preflop with AK or commit with a drawing hand postflop. However, that never means I have to play AK and combo draws the same way every time. Sometimes my AK is against AA, and sometimes my combo draw is against the nuts.

3) Play position.

No one ever forces me to play a hand out of position. It's a choice based on the strength of my hand, and often my ability to play it postflop. What that means is that I'll usually 3-bet hands like JJ and AQ, but there are occasions when I'll just throw them away preflop and forfeit the three big blinds I spent to open the pot. These spots come up in situations where I get 3-bet and I'm out of position.

Blind defense

I feel like I fold my blinds too much to steal-happy players on the button, and I'm not going to take it anymore.

In an effort to stop these over-aggressive players always try to rob my blinds, I'm going to attempt to construct a blind defense range. I'll want 55 percent equity against my opponent's range in order to neutralize his positional advantage.

One difficulty is that it's difficult to determine what an opponent who steals X percent of the time is like based on PokerTracker statistics. PT calculates Attempt to Steal percentage using raises from the cutoff or from the button when everyone else in the hand has folded before them. The problem with this calculation is that it results in a lower number than you might expect. I think that's because it takes your steal percentage out of all hands played, not just those where everyone in early positions has folded to you. I still think this exercise might be worthwhile; it's just that these steal figures won't correspond with PT's.

1. Against someone who steals with any two cards:

If I want 55 percent equity against that range, I can defend with my top 65 percent of hands:
22+,A2s+,K2s+,Q2s+,J2s+,T2s+,94s+,84s+,74s+,64s+,54s,A2o+,K2o+,Q4o+,J6o+,T7o+,97o+,86o+,76o

Damn, that's a lot of hands. Any Kx and most Qxo hands, as well as 54s and up.

2. Against someone who steals 50 percent of the time:
22+,A2s+,K2s+,Q2s+,J4s+,T6s+,96s+,86s+,76s,65s,A2o+,K5o+,Q7o+,J7o+,T8o+,98o

I can defend with the top 30 percent of hands:
55+,A2s+,K5s+,Q7s+,J8s+,T8s+,98s,A7o+,A5o,K9o+,Q9o+,J9o+,T9o

3. Against someone who steals 33 percent of the time:
22+,A2s+,K5s+,Q7s+,J8s+,T8s+,98s,A5o+,K8o+,Q9o+,J9o+,T9o

I can defend with the top 20 percent of hands:
66+,A4s+,K8s+,Q9s+,J9s+,T9s,A9o+,KTo+,QTo+,JTo

4. Against someone who steals 20 percent of the time:
66+,A4s+,K8s+,Q9s+,J9s+,T9s,A9o+,KTo+,QTo+,JTo

I can defend with the top 12 percent of hands:
77+,A9s+,KTs+,QTs+,JTs,ATo+,KJo+

All data from PokerStove

Stupid Betting Tricks

I've picked up several small adjustments over the last couple of days that I've already incorporated into my game. They've all resulted in profits.

1. In heads-up games, you can start to narrow your opponent's range because you know the button is opening looser than he's calling. This topic was brought up in a Two Plus Two Magazine article titled "Responding to frequent continuation bets in heads up play."

The essence of the article can be summed up from this paragraph:

"There's a fairly easy way to think about this. When a flop comes with two or more cards above eight, you, the caller, are more likely to have hit a pair or good draw than the raiser is. When the flop comes two or more cards below eight, the raiser is more likely to have hit a pair or good draw than you are."

This general guideline makes it easy to evaluate flop textures and incorporate more check-raise bluffs and value plays.

2. CardRunners' pro CTS points out in his latest 10/20 6-max video that he's returned to 3X raises preflop rather than 3.5X on PokerStars. He says it gives him more room to fold against short stacks while also allowing a little more postflop play. It's a small thing, but I'm finding that I also like 3X raises preflop.

3. Mixing up bet sizing can be an effective way to encourage your opponents to make mistakes. I've seen pros use strange bet sizes, like $147 or $52 or whatever, but I never knew when to use those odd-looking bets.

A recent CardRunners article titled "Advancing Past Fundamental Poker: Manipulation Theory," explains the benefit of marketing your bet sizes to look like you're either trying to extract value or push your opponent out of a hand.

While each opponent will react differently to bet sizes, I find that I often benefit when my bet sizes cause my opponents to make moves they wouldn't make against a normal bet. It's amazing how quickly I've been able to pick on player reactions to varying sizes and then later take advantage of them.

Poker Boom Stats

The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was signed into law Oct. 13, 2006.

Peak cash players at U.S.-facing sites on Oct. 7, 2006 (from It's Always an Off Deuce and billrini):

Party Poker: 10263
Poker Stars: 8128
iPoker: 5927
Ongame: 4804
Microgaming: 3561
Full Tilt Poker: 3334
Paradise: 2917
Crypto: 2286
UB: 2013
Pacific: 1992
Bodog: 1763
IPN: 1707
Absolute: 1241
World Poker Exchange: 635

Total: 50,571

Peak cash players at U.S.-facing sites on Dec. 27, 2007 (from PokerScout.com):

PokerStars: 20386
Full Tilt Poker: 8605
UB: 2986
Absolute: 2287
Bodog: 2013
Microgaming: 1861
Cake: 1319
Merge Gaming: 472
World Poker Exchange: 134

Total: 40,063

Total including sites listed above that have since closed to U.S. players (Party Poker, iPoker, Ongame, Microgaming, Crypto, Pacific, IPN): 73,089

Comparison of peak cash players on current top three sites (PokerStars, Full Tilt and Party Poker) before UIGEA and today:

Oct. 7, 2006: 21,725
Dec. 27, 2007: 38,435

Note: Paradise Poker joined IPN (Boss Media) in February.

More Heads-up Basics

The quest to improve my heads-up game is slowly progressing, as I continue to make mistakes and learn from them. I've been watching videos, reading forums and practicing as I try to get better.

I wanted to write down a few points about better heads-up play while they're still fresh and I won't forget them.

Above all, it's important to remember that heads-up poker is still poker, and the same guidelines apply despite the necessary additional aggression. Solid play beats fishy play every time. Analysis and logic trumps formulaic play. Observation is essential.

I jotted down a few simple phrases on my laptop's notepad so I won't forget them as I play:

Take your time -- The pace of heads-up games is faster than other forms of poker because you see and play many more hands per hour. Smart opponents will take advantage of you if you fall into a pattern.

Read hands -- People often ask, "How do you accurately narrow hand ranges down so you can figure out how to play correctly?" That's an important question; unfortunately, it's also difficult to answer. A better approach is to attempt to make reads every time rather than fear the unknown. In my experience, there's no secret about how to make accurate reads. It's more a matter of using deductive reasoning to go step-by-step through an opponent's likely holdings, consider which of those cards are most probable, and decide on the best action given what you think you know.

Use pot control -- Strong opponents make frequent bets with a wide range of hands. There's nothing wrong with calling down a weak top pair or middle pair, or folding in a small pot when a scare card comes. Trying to take a stand at the wrong time with few outs has cost me a lot of money. Instead, it's often less costly to give a free card than to raise for information.

I'm still getting used to assigning values to various hands relative to the board. All hands go up in value compared to shorthanded or full-ring games, meaning there are times when top pair is a good hand to go broke with or slowplay. I'm not used to slowplaying top pair, but it becomes a powerful hand against a wide range.

I'm also working on my continuation bet frequency. Different opponents show varying responses, from frequent check-raises to folds to cold calls. I've run into people who will drain my stack by calling my bets down with bottom pair, while against others I've been able to catch their bluff-raises. I want to keep making strong continuation bets, but I've spewed a lot of money away when I keep making them but never seem to get any folds. The key is to play the player and adjust appropriately for the circumstances at hand.

Expanding games

Wow, the 3/6 and 2/4 NL games on Full Tilt have been incredibly loose over the last few weeks.

I can't explain it. Maybe it's the holiday season, the cold weather keeping people inside or the ease of making deposits. Whatever the reason, I'm not complaining. I've said this many times before: anyone who tells you the online games are filled with rocks is wrong or lying.

Now is the time to play and make the most of this opportunity. I know the games won't be this good forever.

On a separate topic, I'm impressed with a CardRunners video by CTS that I watched last night. In the vid, he plays three guys in heads-up 5/10 NL games and just demolishes them for 3.5 buy-ins over 225 hands. Sure, he runs pretty good. But he also makes ballsy plays based on reads and experience that are almost always correct.

I like the math he uses to find that a bluff he makes with an open-ended straight draw into a large pot needs to only be successful 17 percent of the time to show a profit:



What really stood out to me was his commentary on the importance of learning to play heads-up. It reminded me a lot of when I heard similar suggestions years ago about switching from full ring to shorthanded games. I struggled with 6-max games for a long time, but now they're my most consistent moneymakers.

The skills acquired from playing shorthanded directly result in higher profits, better hourly winrates and practice playing in tough situations.

I've had mixed results in heads-up cash games and backed off them entirely since I lost several buy-ins last month. I now realize I was playing too tightly preflop and I failed to properly identify and respond to my opponents weaknesses. Most actions can be countered by varying your play appropriately. I need to improve HU to bring my game to where it needs to be.

Specifically, I want to learn more about narrowing my opponents' hand ranges, correctly playing middling hands that gain value in HU situations and effectively increasing my bluffing frequency. I'm excited about the challenge.

New Layout

I had been using the layout below for a while. It had a plain dark background and yellow card backs. On the card fronts, this layout displayed solid four-colored cards, borrowed from the PokerStars Hyper-Simple Theme.

This table background and cards are taken from a very long Full Tilt mods thread on 2+2. The part of the thread linked here contains zip files for avatars, buttons, tables and elements -- more mods than most people will ever need.

But there were a few aesthetic changes that I needed to make.

I found that I preferred a lighter background, like the Stainless Steel used by Kaja. I wanted bigger cards (also included in the 2+2 link above) so I would be able to tell more easily who was in the hand. I decided I felt more comfortable with the traditional white-backed 4-color deck.

I ended up with this. The cards are huge.

Here's a look at the PokerAce layout I'm working with these days:

The left-hand column with white numbers is aggression frequency by street: flop, turn and river.

The green number is VP$IP, and the purple number is Folds to Continuation Bet percentage.

The red figure on the right-hand column is Preflop Raise, the yellow is Went to Showdown and the blue is number of hands.

Absolute cheating

This Absolute Poker scandal is a real mess, huh?

I don't have much to add to the discussion, but I feel like I should mention it after previously highlighting Absolute's interest-bearing accounts.

Obviously, I won't be putting money in there after someone apparently called down a big bet with Ten-high to win a tournament because he could see hole cards.

Tweaking preflop play

For most of this year, I've been pushing all in with premium hands preflop rather than putting in the third raise. For example, if I raised first in with AA and the button reraised, I would go all in rather than reraising him a smaller amount.

This strategy is effective because few people believed I would make such an all-in raise with a premium hand. Opponents immediately thought this was a typical move to make with AK preflop, so many lesser hands -- from TT to QQ -- would call a push.

I only made this move with AA, KK and sometimes AK (if I felt confident I wasn't against a monster), so I got by far the best of it over time. With lesser hands (QQ and below), I would either call or fold.

The problem is that playing this way is way too limiting. Because I would only make this move with premium hands, I couldn't effective 4-bet bluff with lesser hands because an observant opponent might grasp that I was only overbetting my very best holdings. Worse, I felt like I was missing out on value those frequent times when opponents folded their lesser hands to an all-in bet preflop.

In addition, 3-betting with a lot of hands is the trendy thing to do these days in the games I play. Solid loose-aggressive players are taking the initiative with a very wide range preflop, and the only way to make them pay is to reraise them.

The obvious answer is to put in that extra raise with a much wider range of hands, both as a bluff and with top-tier hands:

2/4
Dealt to smizmiatch [Ah 3c]
5 folds
smizmiatch raises to $14 from the button
SB folds
chislodc raises to $48 from BB. <-- chislodc is an aggressive player known to 3-bet lightly
smizmiatch raises to $148
chislodc folds
Uncalled bet of $100 returned to smizmiatch
smizmiatch wins the pot ($98)

This works even better when you actually have a good hand and get action:

3/6
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to smizmiatch [Ac Ad]
3 folds
Button calls $6
smizmiatch raises to $34 from SB
sohigh247 raises to $108 from BB
Button folds
smizmiatch raises to $275
sohigh247 raises to $617.10, and is all in
smizmiatch calls $319, and is all in
sohigh247 shows [Qd Qs]
smizmiatch shows [Ac Ad]
*** FLOP *** [6c 8c 6s]
*** TURN *** [6c 8c 6s] [9c]
*** RIVER *** [6c 8c 6s 9c] [2c]
sohigh247 shows two pair, Queens and Sixes
smizmiatch shows a flush, Ace high
smizmiatch wins the pot ($1,191) with a flush, Ace high

Most players know the rule of thumb that the fourth bet/third raise usually means Aces. This kind of reraising can exploit that belief.

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Sometimes though, things get wacky.

I don't have the hand history in front of me, but I was playing a 5/10 game a few days ago in which I found KK in the small blind of a shorthanded game.

The UTG player raised, the loose/wild button reraised, and I reraised again. The small blind, playing with a $500 stack, went all in. The utg player folded, and then the button went all in too!

I can only recall one or two other times when I folded KK preflop, but this seemed like a clear decision. If the fourth bet usually means Aces, then surely the sixth bet always means Aces. So I laid it down, feeling confident that this was one of those times where KK was just no good preflop.

I was wrong. The BB turned up 33, and the Button had 99, which held up to take down the pot.

I didn't make money from them this time, but some of these players are just giving it away.

One more time

I was really bored and couldn't sleep on the flight back from Phoenix to Honolulu, so I ended up doing some lengthy poker math.

Here's what I wanted to find out: When you hold QQ in the big blind against a late position raiser and a small blind re-raiser in a 5/10 shorthanded game, is it better to call or push?

I addressed the first part of this question in a few previous posts, where I estimated the EV of calling with QQ and pushing any flop without an Ace or King. The number I came up with was $180.12, which is a high estimate because it doesn't consider the ~7:1 chance of my opponent flopping a set. But I think it's safe to say that making this play is well in positive figures.

So on the plane, I figured the EV of pushing with QQ in that same situation. The results were much worse: -$40.90.

Pushing with QQ preflop against two raisers is a donkey move. Call and push any undercard flop in this specific situation.

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The Math:

(Chance that both LP and SB will fold * winnings) + (Chance that LP will fold and SB will call with QQ * winnings) + (Chance that LP will fold and SB will call and be ahead * losses) + (Chance of LP or SB calling when ahead but QQ sucking out * winnings) + (Chance of both LP and SB calling when ahead but QQ sucking out * winnings) + (Chance of both LP and SB calling when ahead and QQ losing * losses) + (Chance that SB will fold and LP will call when behind * winnings) + (Chance that SB will fold and LP will call with QQ * equity * winnings) + (Chance that SB will fold and LP will call when ahead * equity * losses) =

(.75 * $145) + (.016 * $17) + (.16175 * -$1,000) + (.03325 * $1,035) + (.0075 * .15 * $2,000) + (.0075 * .85 * -$1,000) + (.0315 * .15 * $1,110) + (.0315 * .04 * $55) + (.0315 * -$1,000 * .81) =

-$40.90