A Good Beat Because I'm Stupid

I got a mysterious check in the mail from the Hawaii Tax Department on Friday giving me a refund of more than $4,000 on my taxes. I didn't get my hopes up -- surely this was a mistake. The same kind of mistake happened to a family member a few years ago.

The funny thing is that I was the one who made the error, not the tax department! I had miscalculated my state income taxes by more than $4,000. I thought I owed $7,300, but instead I owed a lot less.

I re-checked my math against a letter the state tax department sent me, and indeed I had made two significant mistakes. I like to think I'm good at math, but I guess I'd make a pretty damn shitty accountant.

So I'm a dumbass, but I'm very happy about it! Obviously, this won't happen next year now that I have a tax accountant. And I still ended up paying about $18,000 in federal and state income taxes this year, which is nothing to laugh at.

But getting that money back is a good beat. I'm thankful the tax department caught my mistakes because I know I never would have. Now I have the pleasure of spending this money on my estimated quarterly taxes, which are already way overdue.

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I'd like to thank all the people who leave comments on this blog. Your insight makes me a better poker player, and I appreciate it that you care enough to say something. It makes me feel like this blog is worthwhile.

Here's a list of this month's commenters. Thanks, and keep 'em coming!

Schaubs
Raveen
Phish Hooks
Hoyazo
JL514
Poker Cats
Sham
CC
StB
Wwonka
MeanHappyGuy
Miami Don
Wes
TripJax
Fuel55
SpeakEasy
Jamyhawk
HighOnPoker
James
Mark
Alan aka RecessRampage
Grinder

WSOP: What went wrong

I rarely wear sunglasses or listen to music when playing live poker. But if there's any place for it, I decided that place was the World Series of Poker, where players would be looking at my eye movements and I would need to stay focused.

I didn't care if I looked like some fanboy online player. I thought I could gain a small advantage because I might be harder to read.

Using that same reasoning, I also brought my black leather notebook (courtesy of Kuro) so I could take notes on people, just like I do on the Internet. I feel like I'm pretty good at reading people, but sometimes my memory sucks. So what if my opponents didn't like me taking notes on them.

Everything worked well at first. I got some respect. I started building up my stack. Eventually, I would reach a high-water mark over 18,000 chips.

But I failed to consider how the table was responding to this image I had created.

After the second hour, I fired two bullets after raising preflop and finally got my opponent to fold. I don't remember what I had exactly -- I think it was two high cards that didn't connect with the board.

I got out my notebook to write down something like: "6 seat folded to second bullet on low-card board."

He saw me taking the note and made some remark about how I was writing down my bluff. He was absolutely right. I didn't know what to say, so I didn't say anything.

It wasn't long after that when I sucked out to win that huge pot with KJ vs. JJ on a J88KK board. That's still awesome.

At that point, I should have realized the table dynamic had changed. I noticed that people weren't very friendly with me, and they were playing back at me more often.

I should have changed gears and tightened up for a few hours. Instead, I thought, "Wow, I have a stack now! I need to keep running over this table until someone tries to stop me."

From then on, only one of my steal attempts was successful. Every pot I tried to win ended up contested. I got card dead and couldn't make a hand. No one would fold to me, which would have been great if I actually had some cards. Instead, I bled off chips until I had to push all-in with A5.

I don't think it was wrong to use the notebook, sunglasses and mp3 player, but I wish I had realized sooner how quickly it made my opponents label me a donk. I guess I proved them right.

Trying to take down a big limped pot

At a 9-handed 2/4 table on PokerStars, every single player limps. The action is on me in the big blind with AK.

I raise it to $40, a large raise designed to take down the pot right there. I figure most everyone will fold, and if they don't, they'll likely cave to my continuation bet on most flops.

A middle position player calls. The pot is now about $108.

The flop comes Ah 6s 8h. I bet out $85. The middle position player raises $95 more to $180 -- slightly more than a minraise. I have about $235 left, and my opponent has me covered. Calling isn't much of an option in this hand. I believe I need to decide right now whether to push all in or fold.

I figure my opponent has to assume I have a big Ace, unless he thought I was trying to steal the pot preflop. If he knows I likely have a big Ace, then he would only raise with hands that can beat me, including a set of 6s, set of 8s or a big combo draw. Unless, of course, he knows I can't simply call this bet unless I'm convinced I'm winning. In which case, if he is bluffing or has a weaker Ace, he could safely fold if I moved all in.

It's a tricky spot, and my opponent has me by the balls. The only way I think I can come out ahead in this situation is if I have an indication of what my opponent holds. But all I know is that he limped preflop, cold called my raise, and then raised my flop bet after an Ace fell. My read is that he seems like an average player who doesn't get out of line too much but certainly could put in a raise like this with anything from AJ to the nuts.

What should I do in this situation?

Now let's consider a different scenario. This time, the preflop action was the same except for that I held 95o instead of AK. In fact, I actually did hold 95o in this hand and flopped a gutshot straight draw. I made the continuation bet on the Ace-high flop and again had a decision to make.

If I'm trying to represent AK or even AA, I could go all in, and my opponent couldn't call except with his very best hands.

This hand was interesting because it didn't matter much what cards I actually held in the hand. I knew my opponent could only call an all-in bet with a set or a monster draw, but whether I held AK or 95, I was probably behind either way.

Maybe I'm making too much out of this hand, and it's an easy fold regardless of whether I had nothing or top pair.

What would you do?

Here's the hand history:

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to smizmiatch [9s 5c] in the big blind
8 players limp
smizmiatch: raises $36 to $40
5 folds
Villain calls $36
2 folds
*** FLOP *** [8s Ah 6h]
smizmiatch: bets $85
Villain raises $95 to $180
smizmiatch: folds
Villain collected $275 from pot
Villain doesn't show hand

Break over

Well, that time off from poker felt good. I hadn't played in four days, which isn't that long, but it was enough time for me to get my head on straight and feel refreshed when I came back to the tables tonight, where I won nearly two buy-ins.

I thought a lot about what went wrong in the last few weeks. The primary problem was that I got bad cards and lost a lot of pots in which I was favored. But there several issues with my game that don't show up in hand histories or PokerTracker stats.

This bad run started with my $22,000 income tax bill, created and paid for almost entirely from my bankroll. Then I started pressing way too hard as I put in long sessions and woke up early in the morning to put in more hours. During that time, I was still winning, but all that play wore on me.

From there, I ran into Perfect Donkey and then suffered a ton of beats. I started every session with a good attitude, but it was never long before I was yelling at the computer screen over some horrible suckout.

Everyone has a breaking point, and I reached mine last Sunday, when I played heads-up games and called $500 turn bets with nothing but a flush draw and river all-ins with dominated top pair hands like QT. It was ugly. If there's any silver lining, it was that I could no longer blame anyone buy myself for the losses.

A few weeks ago, I complained to a photographer friend of mine about the downturn. He doesn't know much about poker, but he loves to hear about it, and I like talking about it.

"What are you learning from these losses?" he asked.

"Nothing," I told him, "Except how to deal with them."

That wasn't the right answer. I should have been learning when to quit.

With any luck, I'll now go on an insanely good run like I did the last time I took a few days off.

Break Time

The last thing I want to do when running bad is take a break.

But it's the right thing to do. Even though I still feel like I'm playing well, I'm too easily tilted right now.

I like to think I've gotten better at handling downswings, but it's hard to lose 20 5/10 buyins over six weeks, most of them due to bad beats that I won't recount here. Before this, I had never lost more than 10 buy-ins in a row in no limit play.

Once again, I'm thankful for the cushion of my bankroll.

Bleh. Stupid poker.

Where does all this money come from?

Sitting in late position in a 1/3 NL game at Caesar's Palace, I picked up 56s and was up against a raise from a skinny college kid. I read him for a strong hand that he wouldn't be able to get away from.

The flop came 66x. He bet. I raised all in. Knowing he was beat, the kid said, "Well, I have to call." He turned over KK and I raked in a $500 pot (he had a halfstack).

Then my name was called for the 2/5 game a couple of tables away. After a couple of hours, a pot was limped about six ways to me in the big blind. I had TT, and I bumped it up to $60. Everyone folded, including the European dude who mucked, saying, "That's just an insane raise. I don't know why people make such obvious raises preflop with middle pocket pairs."

Without showing my cards, I told him different opponents might interpret such a raise in different ways. But I knew that was my queue to get up from that table. It wasn't as profitable anymore.

In the first hand, I called with suited connectors knowing that I had implied odds to get paid off on an all-in bet if I hit hard. At the second table, I got a clear signal that my opponents were watching my game and may start to play back at me.

Whether evaluating a hand or choosing a seat, the most important factors are judging your hand, your skills, your position, your image compared to your opponents'. Put simply, you need an edge.

It isn't enough to play marginally better than the other donks at your table. When you're sitting at a table full of formulaic Internet players, it doesn't matter too much if you can make a move at a pot every hour or two. Among moderately competent opposition, profits will tend to be smaller because their leaks aren't as obvious.

No, you don't want to be at tables like that.

Most of the money doesn't come from tight, average players. The money comes from the maniacs, the crazies, the calling stations, the limpers, the chronic folders, the fish who can't ever lay down QQ or the monkey who never raises his Aces because he's afraid he won't get action.

Profits come from fools who rarely attempt to steal from the button, who let people in for cheap with minimum raises. They come from suicidal bluffs and hopeless crying calls. They come from weak players who raise preflop less than 5 percent of the time or call too many bets cold.

Winning at poker isn't a matter of outplaying everyone else at your table. Instead it's about finding the biggest idiot you can, sitting directly to his left and making high percentage plays such as consistent value bets.

Where does all this money come from? It isn't from being the best player at the table, nor from gambling above your bankroll at higher limits.

The easy money in poker is held by those most willing to give it away. Pick on them to be a winner.

Vegas: I miss it already

As usual, Vegas did not disappoint.

My trip got off to a rough start after I missed my plane flight out of Honolulu to Vegas. Even though I arrived at the Honolulu airport 50 minutes early, which is usually plenty of time, ATA airlines wouldn't let me on the freaking plane. They told me my only option was to try to fly standby on the same flight the next day, but that really wasn't much of a possibility in my mind. I had a tournament to catch.

After dealing with the idiots at ATA and getting some friendly advice from customer service at Hawaiian Airlines, I came up with a solution that involved a one-way ticket to L.A. followed by a commuter flight on Southwest Airlines to Vegas. It worked perfectly, but put me about $850 in the hole before I even arrived in the desert.

I got there about three hours before my WSOP event started, so it was all good.

After the WSOP event, I headed over to the Venetian to meet up with Fuel, Iakaris and Kuro to eat dinner at Tao. It was good, and I was ready to sleep afterward.

I won't go into every detail of the trip, but here are some highlights:

_ Mixed games with the bloggers were awesome! The first mixed game was 3/6 H.O.R.S.E. at the MGM, which was a lot of fun. Players in the game included Faltstaff, Metsfan, MeanHappyGuy, Gadzooks, Columbo and a few others that I'm a little vague on. I blame the alcohol.

Then we got an even crazier mixed game going Sunday night at the Imperial Palace. I have to give them a lot of credit -- they let us play any game we wanted. So we decided on razz, triple draw, stud8, five-card draw, badugi, Omaha8 and whatever else we could think of. We also used a rock (which plays as a mandatory live straddle UTG) and screwed around.

_ The cash games were OK, but not as juicy as I remembered. Maybe it was because of all the players in town for the WSOP, maybe it was an effect of the uncapped buy-ins at most 2/5 games, or maybe fish (god forbid) are learning how to play. That's not to say the games weren't good; it's just that it seemed like the proportion of fish was smaller than I remembered.

I was struck by how many of the live players seemed to personify the avatars I see at online sites. These are the real faces of the players I compete against nightly on the Internet.

There's the crazy European who doesn't play optimally but has a method to his madness. There's the fat L.A. asshole who thinks every pot is a dick-swinging contest. There's the old guy who limp-calls with JJ UTG and busts me when he flops a set. There's the sunglasses dude who thinks he can outplay anyone postflop after straddling from late position.

It's good to put faces with avatars.

_ Table games were fun. I learned how to play Pai Gow Poker, which isn't exactly a game of skill but it served its purpose as a way to drink, play and pass the time. I also won a little bit on roulette by doubling my bets every spin I lost until I came out ahead. I started at $25 and never had to bet more than $100. I bet on black every time, and I walked away a $100 winner after a few minutes.

House games are ridiculous, unprofitable entertainment. They're a silly way to spend money, but I guess that didn't stop me.

_ Live play is good for the soul. During these slower paced games, I got to thinking about where my profits come from, which is the topic for another day.

Vegas didn't let me down. It's always the same strange, dirty, exciting, neon-filled city I remember. And a big part of Vegas' charm comes from the old friends I got to hang out with and the new ones I met for the first time. I hope to see everyone there again in December!

Here are links to other bloggers I met who weren't previously mentioned in this post. Check them out:

Mattazuma
Grubby and Grubette
Smokkee
Dr. Pauly
STB
Iron Girl
Carmen
StatikKling
Zeem
Penneriii
Brdweb
Bayne
Waffles
BrainMc
Blinders
CC
Astin
MiamiDon
Cracknaces
Weak Player
Spaceman
Hoyazo
Bad Blood

WSOP: Building a stack and dropping like flies

This is a good beat story:

I raised with KJs from middle position, and only the big blind called. The flop came J88. The big blind checked, and I saw no reason to think he had an eight or a higher J, so I fired a continuation bet. The big blind called.

The turn brought a King, giving me top two pair. The big blind checked again, and I didn't think he would have played trip eights like that. Many players would, but my read on the blind was that he didn't have an eight.

So I bet.

Of course, this is when the big blind check-raised me all in for a couple of thousand more chips. I had him covered and would be down to about 2,000 chips if I called and lost. Even though it seemed obvious he had the eight, I didn't believe it. I called.

He turned over JJ, for a flopped full house!

A quick King on the river made me a better full house to bust him, and my stack soared to 18,000 chips!

I had accomplished my initial goal -- I had six times my original 3,000 chip buy-in, and I was now in a position to use my big stack to make some real progress. I could play poker, rather than wait for the blinds to force me into push-or-fold situations.

Before that big hand, I had built up to about 10,000 chips through several hands. My AA held up against QJ that flopped an open-ended straight draw and missed on the turn and river after we got it in on a KTx flop. I also won a smaller pot by busting a short stack with TT that made a set vs. AK.

At some point, my stack had dwindled to around 2,500 chips when I called a limper from the small blind with T7o. The flop came 98x, and it got checked around. The turn brought a 6 to complete my straight. I checked it to the first player, who bet. The button raised, and I re-raised all in with the nuts. They both called. The both showed two pair that got there on the turn -- one with 86, and another with 6x (I don't remember what the other card was). That was nice.

The starting field of around 1,450 players dropped off very quickly. By the 150/300/25 level, there were fewer than 400 players left. The top 126 paid.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get much going. I got a short stack all in three times, and he won each of those hands. In the final one, I had a set of 8s against his rivered straight. I still had about 11,000 chips left though.

I wasn't getting any cards at all, and I went into steal mode. I knew my stack wouldn't stay at a reasonable level by just folding around until I was back in short-stacked territory. I don't think the general idea of stealing a lot was bad, but perhaps I grew a bit impatient.

Any time I raised, the big-stacked blinds would call. The flop always missed me horribly, usually with crappy coordinated low cards that I felt I would have a hard time bluffing, since the blinds had demonstrated a willingness to call a flop bet and try to steal on the turn. That would have been OK if I ever made at least a pair. Instead, I found myself repeatedly check-folding.

Eventually, I was the short stack at the table and had to push. My first push with something like K8s got everyone to fold. But it didn't take long for me to get desperate again. I open raised all-in with A5o from the cutoff, and one of the blinds had QQ. That was the end of my WSOP, somewhere between 300th and 400th place.

I played well early, but I think I tried to make too many moves in the mid-game with no cards to back them up. I'm left with the feeling that I spewed away my stack, although the alternative was to have it blinded away. Congrats to hoyazo for his cash and 107th place finish!

I had a fun time in my first WSOP. Now I'm going back to my comfort zone at the cash tables. They look very profitable.

Shuffle up and deal!

Cards are about to fly. They say the event is sold out with about 2000 players.

My starting table looks decent. This is awesome.

The chess master on the plane ride over said he had a good feeling about my chances. I think he's right.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Counting the minutes

It's a funny picture. Full thread.

---

I'm so ready for Vegas. I feel like I can't lose.

If I bust out of WSOP Event No. 12 early, I'll feel terrible for a little while, but then I'll have more time to chill out and play cash games.

If I go farther, I'll at least have accomplished something.

If I win, I don't know what I'll do! I'm sure I'll manage.

It'll be a really fun event. Shorthanded games are pretty rare in casinos, and I'll have an edge because of all my online practice.

Aggression will be very important because the blinds will come around so fast. I'm OK with that. I wouldn't mind winding up at a table of tight players who I can run over early. But a table of LAGs would suit me fine too because it would give me more opportunities to double. Whatever.

If I wind up at the same table as this guy, I'll have to be sure to bust him so I can add to my small collection of pros I've stacked.

I was also reading about Brian Townsend's heads-up PLO match with Sammy Farha in Bobby's Room. It sounds like one hell of a match. I know PLO is Farha's game, but I still wouldn't want to be in his place.

OK ... Eight hours of work to go, and then I'll be on the redeye to Vegas!

WSOP, that's where I want to be

Finally, my first World Series of Poker approaches.

I have three impatient days of work before I fly out Wednesday night and arrive in Vegas on Thursday morning. WSOP Event No. 12, $1,500 shorthanded NL, will begin about five hours later.

I'm ready to go. I want to win. I'm going to play strong poker.

All I need is a plan.

Because the blinds will increase fairly quickly, I'm going to look for opportunities to double up before the tournament turns into a pushfest. Sure, everyone is going to want to double. But perhaps I'll have a better chance of doing so if I have go in with a specific strategy.

Here's my idea:

Even though we'll start with 3,000 chips, those stacks aren't deep enough to last far beyond the second or third hour (blinds double every hour, from 25/50 to 50/100 to 100/200). I'll have to be aggressive if I want to build up.

But how can I be aggressive without risking a high percentage of my stack preflop on hands that might not turn out to be good once the flop comes?

I'm considering mixing up my play a good deal. With strongish hands like AK, AQ and middle pocket pairs, I'll be more likely to smooth call raises preflop and try to outplay my opponents postflop. With stronger and weaker hands, I'll be more inclined to raise preflop.

After the flop, I'm going to be a bit more cautious with my continuation bets. I'll make continuation bets less often than usual because I want to only use them when they have a high chance of succeeding. I don't think I can afford to throw chips at every pot just in hopes of buying it with nothing.

Especially with drawing hands in position, I see no reason not to apply pressure with semibluffs in order to elicit folds or to hit on later streets.

Overall, I'm going to concentrate on postflop play and operate under the assumption that many of my opponents are familiar with push-or-fold tactics frequently seen in the midgame of online turbo sit-n-gos.

If my opponents think they'll be able to play tight for the first two blind levels and then go into push mode once the blinds reach 100/200, they'll be giving up some chips to me early on. Then, when they start to get desperate, hopefully I won't be because I will have accumulated a larger stack already.

That said, I'm well aware that I can't force good things to happen without some quality starting hands and a little luck. But perhaps this strategy will put me in a better position to go beyond the third hour.

Let me know if these ideas sound stupid, and wish me luck! See you in Vegas.

Screw you, May

Well, May sucked. I'm glad it's over. I lost about $12,000, but at least it wasn't worse.

I've been looking through my hand histories to figure out how I can improve. Am I playing poorly, or should I expect to have losing months on a more regular basis than previously?

These hand histories are pretty sick. Those two hands -- my biggest pots of the month -- against Perfect Donkey represented a nearly $20,000 swing. If I had won even one of those two hands, that's a $10,000 swing. My feelings about that game haven't changed. I would play it the same way if I had to do it over again.

My next biggest loss came when someone called my all-in with a naked flush draw and hit. After that came my failed bluff into a set with AK. Then I ran two pair into a set when I was tilting, ran top pair into a set, semibluffed all-in vs. a turned flush and didn't make it on the river, pushed two pair into a turned gutshot straight and lost an all-in confrontation between my flush draw against my opponent's straight draw.

If there's any common theme, it's that bad beats perpetuated themselves by putting me into a desperate mindset. I pushed so hard to try to take down pots that I dug myself into a deeper hole.

The interesting thing to me is that there weren't many absolutes in any of these hands. Given the circumstances, my reads and the board texture, most of these plays can be justified. These losing plays weren't necessarily wrong, but some of them weren't optimal.

My biggest leak doesn't show up in the hand histories. That leak is that I often played while my judgment was impaired by tilt, alcohol or pride.

This is a game of small edges, and my advantage goes way up when I'm playing with a clear head. I'll work on that.

I feel good though. I won about $3,000 tonight, and I cheered myself up earlier by reveling in others' pain over at the Beats, Brags and Variance forum on 2+2.

Up next: Vegas baby!

Confusion over Variance

Variance as it relates to poker is difficult to understand, both because the element of luck is hard to quantify and the mathematical function for variance doesn't provide many answers.

What does variance mean exactly?

In my mind, the term variance is used in poker to describe the amount of luck in any given game -- not the amount of swings. So when you say a game is high variance, that means the game's results are more likely to be determined by the cards that are dealt than by players' decisions.

Here are some definitions of variance:

1. Variance is the statistical measure of dispersion, or just how widely your results will be distributed. When variance is high enough, a small advantage may be of no use during your lifetime. When variance is low enough, a small sample will be much more likely to reflect your real advantage (or disadvantage). In other words, variance describes just how long the long haul is. In poker terms, high variance means that a small number of hands will not be very representative of your long-term expectation.
--Seriouspoker.com

2. The distribution of your results over a a set of hands or sessions, or the swings in a positive or negative direction of cash flow.
--Mike Caro University.

3. If operatorname{E}(X)"> is the expected value (mean) of the random variable X, then the variance is This definition and equation is meaningless to me, but I like weird-looking variables.
--Wikipedia

As a poker player, I want to know which games maximize my skill edge over my opposition.

I asked the question, "what type of game has 'more' variance between no limit, limit and tournament hold 'em?" in the 2+2 Beginners forum. The responses to that thread, Variance: NL vs. Limit vs. MTT, back up my beliefs.

I only got three responses, but they were in agreement. Multi-table tournament hold 'em seems to have the highest variance, followed by limit hold 'em and no limit hold 'em.

While no limit seems to be "high variance" because you may have to put your entire stack at risk at any time, in reality the ups and downs aren't too extreme. No limit provides the best opportunity to get the most money in with the best odds. It's the game that will separate a fish from his money the quickest. It has fewer suckouts than limit or MTTs.

For a closer look at how to attempt a poker calculation of your variance, I found this article titled, "How much bankroll do you need?" in a search.

I also enjoyed a Mike Caro article published in Bluff magazine a few months ago, in which he argued that your luck may not even out in the long run, contrary to popular belief. Check it out here: "The importance of luck in poker."

The Perfect Donkey

After a long road of busting fish, taking small edges and building bankroll, you hope for that golden opportunity in which you'll be able to make a big score.

I stumbled upon that chance at a 10/20 table last night. I can't imagine there was more dead money at any other online table at the time. And it all came from one player, who I will call the Perfect Donkey. I got a seat directly to his left.

Perfect Donkey was loose (55 percent VP$IP), and he spewed chips at every opportunity and in a predictable manner. If he raised preflop and was reraised, he would go all in. If he bet out postflop and was raised, he would go all in with any Ace-high, pair or drawing hand. With made hands, he would minraise.

By sheer luck, he was building a monster stack. In 255 hands, I saw Perfect Donkey win a more than $5,000 pot with King-high, no draw against another player's flush draw with overcards. He got in with a flush draw on the turn and hit on the river against KK. He pushed with A6o on a 579 flop and hit his gutshot on the turn against JJ. He pushed an open-ended straight draw on the flop against QQ and hit on the turn.

I knew I would have a chance soon to pick a spot in a large pot.

It's funny -- after learning and playing day after day, the situation that I've been waiting for is to the left of an idiot with money. Everyone else at the table is a shark, but they didn't even bother to play against each other most of the time as they salivated over the thought of getting it in against Perfect Donkey. If Perfect Donkey wasn't in a hand, no one was.

Against this guy, I would happily take a potential coinflip because I could also have him completely dominated.

So when I was dealt AK, I reraised Perfect Donkey's $80 bet to $240, knowing he would push and I would call.

That's exactly what happened. He turned over KQ, missed a Queen, and I had doubled up!

Now with my double-sized stack, I would have a chance to make some serious money off Perfect Donkey, who somehow kept growing his chips upwards of $10,000 -- five times his initial buy-in of $2,000.

I didn't have to wait long.

I raised from under the gun with A9s. Perfect Donkey called in the big blind. The flop came a beautiful 8d, 9c, 5d to give me top pair with a nut flush draw. My only goal was to get all my money in the middle as soon as possible, and I knew it wouldn't be hard against this guy.

He bet out $60, and I raised him all in to $4,100. He called and turned over J8o for second pair, no draw.

http://twodimes.net/h/?z=2725493
pokenum  -h ad 9d  - 8h jd  -- 8d 9c 5d
Holdem Hi: 990 enumerated boards containing 9c 8d 5d
cards  win   %win  lose  %lose  tie  %tie     EV
Ad 9d  812  82.02   169  17.07    9  0.91  0.825
Jd 8h  169  17.07   812  82.02    9  0.91  0.175

The Jack on the river cost me that $8,500 pot when he made two pair. Damn! I would have to rebuy and start over.

Only a few hands later, Perfect Donkey minraised to $40, and I cold called from the button with KQ. The flop was nice, if a little dangerous: Ts, 7h, Kh. My top pair, middle kicker, no-draw hand was probably good here.

Perfect Donkey bet out $100, I raised to $300, he pushed and I called. He turned over Ah 5d, failed to improve, and I was back in business.

I chipped up to over $5,000 with the hopes of one more strong hand against this guy. One more hand to win the biggest pot of my life. One more hand to erase this month's losses. One more hand to make everything right, put a bad player in his place and feel good until I sit down at the World Series of Poker in less than two weeks.

Perfect Donkey raised to $80, and I found AK again. I know how to play this hand against this guy. I re-raised to $300, and he went all in for his entire $11,000 stack.

Did I have a decision to make here? Was there any doubt about calling another $4,700 and taking a potential coinflip?

No, there was no question. I know full well what this guy is capable of. If I fold a premium hand like AK preflop against Perfect Donkey, I might as well put my bankroll in low-risk bonds and never take another chance again in my life.

This is what I had been waiting for. I knew what I had to do. I called.

I got my coinflip. Perfect Donkey had JJ, I failed to improve, and I had lost my biggest pot. So be it.

I rebought a third time, prepared to stay up all night if that's what it took to bust this guy. But it was no use. He quit shortly afterward, leaving the table with more than $20,000. I went on to a 5/10 table where I made top set of Aces and got it all in on the turn, but an 8 on the river gave my opponent his one-outer for quads. Flopped set over set no good.

Time to rebuild. Time to grind it out. Time to get ready for the next Perfect Donkey, in hopes that I can take those same bets for thousands of dollars but perhaps with different outcomes.

Squeeze play river bluff

One of the things I've quickly noticed at 5/10 NL and above is that the squeeze play becomes a common and important move. It isn't just for tournaments anymore.

I've always sucked at running the squeeze play, mostly because I prefer to bluff postflop. But I've learned that I can't ignore it anymore, and it can be very profitable.

I like to run the squeeze play from the big blind against a button steal raise and a cold call by the small blinds. There are many other situations when you can put in that third raise as a bluff when trying to trap dead money in the middle, but this one is pretty efficient. The button's hand range is pretty wide, and the small blind is likely to fold against a big re-raise. They both usually conclude that you have a monster.

The squeeze worked well against the small blind in the following hand. He was a loose-passive calling station, and I wasn't sure that I would be able to move him off any hand that had at least one pair. But a "value bet" river bluff won the pot for me when the small blind timed out before folding.

Fish posts small blind $5
Hero posts big blind $10
*** Dealing down cards ***
Dealt to Hero [ Ts Js ] (JTs is a decent enough hand. I would also attempt this move with many weaker hands as well)
Button raises $35
Fish calls $30
Hero raises $140 (I raise, you should fold!)
Button folds. (Thanks for folding)
Fish calls $115 (You were supposed to fold too)
*** Dealing Flop *** [ 4d, 7c, 9c ]
Fish checks.
Hero bets $250 (A continuation bet is essential after showing such strength preflop)
Fish calls $250 (Dammit. I don't know if I can get this guy off his hand. He could have anything, from overcards to a pocket pair to a flush draw)
*** Dealing Turn *** [ 3h ]
Fish checks.
Hero checks. (I think about pushing all in with my last $600, but I worry he would call with almost any draw and any pair)
*** Dealing River *** [ 6d ]
Fish checks.
Hero bets $300 (I decided to bet half my stack in a last desperate bluff attempt. I know my opponent will call with a wide range of made hands, but he'll finally fold any busted draw)
Fish folds. (It must be my lucky day)
Hero wins $1,133

"Winning in Tough Hold 'em Games"

I don't know what it was exactly that made me think limit hold 'em would be more profitable than no limit. Part of it was the allure of make 2 BB/hr at 15/30, which I thought would be an incredible winrate. It seemed like it would be easy to win one decent pot per hour at those full-ring donkfests back in the Party Poker days, when there were plenty of tables and they all seemed loose.

When I finally got to 15/30, I got smacked. I lost 2/3 of my bankroll and spent five months rebuilding it. Shortly afterward I began focusing on no limit, but I'm glad I spent time learning limit because it made me a stronger, more analytical player.

Two of the biggest leaks in my limit game were that I couldn't figure out how to play well from the blinds, and I didn't know how to handle loose-aggressive players.

"Winning in Tough Hold 'em Games: Short handed and High-Stakes Concepts and Theory for Limit Hold 'em," by Nick "Stoxtrader" Grudzien and Geoff "Zobags" Herzog is the book that I wish I had back then.

This is easily the best limit hold 'em book I've read, better than "Small Stakes Hold 'em," "Winning Low-Limit Hold 'em" and "Hold 'em for Advanced Players." That's saying a lot.

The great thing about this book is that it's practical, and it reflects the reality of today's online limit games. It's written by experts who know what the 6-max tables are like -- often with table VP$IPs around 40 and filled with aggressive players who will see showdowns at a rate that would quickly break no limit players. And the reason the games are filled with those kinds of players is that they're not very wrong to be playing like that.

For example, according to the book:

If you're not seeing showdown near 37 percent of the time you see a flop, you're probably folding too much. If you don't 3-bet preflop from the small blind around 90 percent of the time you're going to play a hand against a steal raise, you're making a big mistake. If you fold Axo or Qxs in the big blind vs. a steal, you're giving away money.

From reading board texture to adjusting for different styles to determining when it's safe to fold for one more bet on the river, this book covers a lot of ground.

It starts out with several hand charts, PokerTracker records and equity values in the first chunk of the book. These form the reference material that the rest of the book is based on, but I didn't spend a lot of time trying to memorize any of these data.

Then the book moves on to stealing, blind defense, semibluffing, betting lines, modernized bankroll advice and hand quizzes. This is great stuff.

I like to evaluate books based on whether they make me a better player when I sit at the tables. Unlike some poker books I've read, I notice the difference in my play on many hands. I've been winning more often and stealing more pots.

Online limit has died down over the last couple of years, but the shorthanded games especially are still wild. I've seen some god-awful play at all limits. Everyone wants to be an aggressive force who can control the action and get in with the best of it. "Winning in Tough Hold 'em Games" tells you how to do it.

A great day for poker

There will be on action aplenty Sunday, and I hope to see a lot of people playing.

There's the Big Game, hosted by MiamiDon!



And we have the FTOPS Main Event at 6 p.m. on Full Tilt. I just barely won an entry by playing in a $100+9 satellite that awarded 98 seats. I already see plenty of bloggers registered: Hoy, Fuel, Cracknaces and oossuuu754. I'm sure I missed a few more in the long list of registered players, and hopefully some more will win satellite entries. Good luck!

At the same time, Fuel and I will settle our heads-up match on PokerStars. He holds a 2-0 lead in the best of 5 series, but I'm not going to go down easy.

When to Bluff

Seldom do you know exactly where you stand in a contentious hand. Most postflop decisions can be characterized as an "either/or" situation. For example:

_ Way ahead-way behind:

You have a good but not great hand, while your opponent either has a lesser hand or a powerhouse that he's slowplaying. This kind of situation could come up when you have AA on a JJ8 board -- you probably have the best hand, but you could be toast against trip Jacks.

Conventional wisdom says you should be more likely to control the pot size and try to see a showdown in these situations. Bluffing big is usually a bad idea because you won't get the trips to fold.

_ Way ahead:

If you make a hidden nut straight, the board isn't paired and there's no flush draw out there, you don't have much much to worry about.

Your only guiding principle in this situation should be to try to get as much money into the pot as possible. Whether that's by playing fast or playing slow is circumstantial.

_ Way behind:

Durr. I guess you should fold. Stone-cold bluffs can be an option depending on the board texture and your opponent, but it's often better to have a backup draw.

_ A little ahead-way behind:

This is a bad spot that I find frequently comes up on the flop with two-pair hands or ignorant draws. It can be very dangerous when you hold a hand like JT on a JTQ board with two suited cards. Unless your opponent folds immediately, a conservative (but money-saving) way of playing this kind of two-pair hand is to wait for a safe card on the turn before putting in much more money. You need to be prepared to let go if the action gets too hot.

_ A little ahead-a little behind:

These are the kinds of hands where it seems like you have the best opportunity to make a big bluff. When you have a strong combination draw, you'll be close to even money anyway, and by playing strong you can take down the pot without a showdown. Even a gutshot draw combined with a backdoor flush draw and a pair can give you enough equity to make a legitimate play at the pot.

These kinds of moves are semi-bluffs, which are the best kind because "pure" bluffs can be suicidal if you run into the wrong hand.

I'm not sure how useful this is, but it can't hurt to think about these relative hand strength possibilities when deciding how you want the hand to develop. It makes Level 2 thinking a little easier.

Hawaii Weather

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EasyE left a very useful comment on my post about attempts to make PokerAce HUD work faster when multitabling on Full Tilt (edited to insert updated link):

I have this same problem. With me, running PAHUD with Full Tilt was virtually unusable. But I have found the following helps greatly:

- surprisingly it is much quicker when I set "Flicker Free Drawing" to on. When I have this unchecked, it seems that the screen is forever redrawing, and this takes up a lot of resources. I know it's supposed to work better with this set to off, but on my PC it is SIGNIFICANTLY faster with this set on.
- running a freeware app called "Process Tamer", which you can get at http://tinyurl.com/mdhnp . You mentioned setting priorities for applications in the Windows Task Manager. Well this app let's you set rules and additional settings so that this is automatically taken care of each time FT and PAHUD are run. I've found that my system works well when I set an explicit rule so that Full Tilt is "Forced Realtime" and Poker Tracker is "Forced Below Normal". I actually don't change the settings for PAHUD.

Running it this way makes FT, PT and PAHUD very usable.

Give these a try, you might find it helps.

I tested his suggestions out, and I discovered that I really like Process Tamer. It seems to do the job very well! I didn't open more than four tables at a time tonight, but PokerAce ran much smoother. I also tried adjusting explicit rules for PokerAce, and it seems like "Forced Realtime" worked better than leaving it as the default. Thanks again to easyE.

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I ran a big bluff a few days ago with AK in a 10/20 game, and I wanted to hear what some of you think.

UTG raises $55
VILLAIN calls $55
MP calls $55
HERO raises $250 from LP with Ah Kd (Standard raise here. I want to get money into the pot and thin the field)
UTG folds
VILLAIN calls $195 (OK, so now I know he cold called twice preflop. I put him on a mid pocket pair)
MP folds.
** Dealing Flop ** [ Js, 7h, 2c ]
VILLAIN checks.
HERO bets $400 (Obvious continuation bet that I will make every time in this spot)
VILLAIN calls $400 (Seems consistent with my suspicion that he might have a pocket pair. Maybe 88-TT. Or even 77 for a set, but I'm willing to accept that if he hit it. I also start to think he may have a Jack, but it seems unlikely given the action)
** Dealing Turn ** [ 8d ]
VILLAIN checks.
HERO is all-In for $1,358. (The pot size had grown over $1,400. I trusted my read that he had a pocket pair or a Jack. He couldn't call with many of the hands I put him on, especially since I'm representing AA or KK. Even if he called, I would still have six outs to make a better pair with an Ace or King on the river.)

Thoughts? I'll post the results in the comments soon.

Tax Accountant Z

Man, if you dig on zombie movies, I don't know how you can dislike "28 Weeks Later." It was fantastic.

I read one review that criticized it "for pretty pyrotechnics but defies all logic and human decency" as well as for having "a nasty spirit."

Um...yes. That's what I like in a zombie movie. See it in the theater.

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As I was walking out of the tax accountant's office the other day, she mentioned that she had recently played poker at a CPA party. She said she busted out pretty quickly.

I gave her some easy advice for next time.

"Just fold a lot until you have a really good hand," I said.

She told me the folding was the problem!

"All the accountants played very conservatively," she said. "But the 12-year-olds in the game won it all. They just kept bluffing at every hand."