Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Let's just chop
So, this weekend provided mixed results at the poker table. An interesting situation came up as well that I’d like to discuss – the “CHOP”.
Misses
(1) This is my 3rd poker session for January which is slightly higher than my stated objective of only playing 2.5 times per month.
(2) I was the first one eliminated in a $50 freezout, NLHE tournament that I hosted. We had 35 entrants. I was really looking forward to doing well this time. I had my strategy all mapped out, but alas, it was not meant to be. My first mistake was making a smallish value bet on the river when I held the nuts and was absolutely dead certain my opponent held AA and would call a much larger bet – missed opportunity. My second mistake was giving this same guy his chips back when I turned a low straight but he was holding a flush from the get.
At that point I was down to 1700 in chips (from 3200 starting chips). I was still in pretty good shape with the blinds at only 50/100 when I found myself holding AQo. After 2 limpers, I raise to 400. Its folded around to the original limper who puts me all in. My read was that this player probably limped with a small pair hoping to get in cheap. He may also hold a hand like A10s or A6s. I, for sure, did not give this player credit for a big pocket pair or a better Ace (AK). So, with $2050 in the pot and being laid a price of 2:1 combined with my estimate that I was about 50% to have this guy dominated or 50% to be in a coin flip situation, I made the easy call. Much to my delight, my opponent held A8 and was a 3:1 dog. But….you can probably guess the rest of the story. Yada yada yada, I’m on the rail!
When I think about, there are only about 6 desirable outcomes in this type of tournament. 1st, you could win the whole thing and make ton of cash and let your ego swell. 2nd, you can get second place and score a pretty good payday. 3rd, you can finish third and make slightly more than you could expect to make had you just played at the cash game all night. 4th, you can eliminate Scott Smith by laying a completely sick bad beat on him and then cackle something like “I just had a feeling my 74o was going to connect and crack your 2 aces. Giggle. Giggle”. 5th you can freeroll in the tournament by winning some prop bets like the first out or last longer bet. Finally, you can be eliminated as the very first person. That way you invest as little time as possible and still make as much money as the other 29 players who did not cash. So I was happy to have accomplished one of the 6 most desirable outcomes possible.
Makes
I won $166 at the cash game. Who Hoo! We played dealers choice round-by-round, $100 max buy in. Player could choose No Limit, Pot Limit, or Limit and any game from HORSE. I won my money be hitting some big hands and I lost most of it by being outplayed. That really sucks.
The Chop
So as the tournament got down to 3 handed, players started negotiating a chop. After an agreement was reached, Ryno was overheard getting scolded by his entourage for making a bad deal. He defended himself, “hey man, I’ve never really been in this situation before”.
That’s understandable. I’m not sure any of us really have enough experience at working out these types of deals to be considered “skilled”. The last thing you want to have happen, after you plow through 95% of the field, is to make a bad deal and give up more prize equity than you should. This isn’t one of those situations where you just try to figure it out “in the moment” – to “wing it” I think you’d be much better served to give this complex topic a little thought before hand….you know, be prepared!
As I started doing a little research on this topic (gambling forums and web sites), I found this is a very complex topic. I’ve not really found anyone that solves this problem accurately and effectively. An accurate solution is one that produces a mathematically precise answer. An effective solution is one that anyone can use, in the moment, while sitting around a pile of chips after a long poker tournament – and one that you can convince others is “fair”.
I think I’ll save the meat of this discussion for the next post.
Misses
(1) This is my 3rd poker session for January which is slightly higher than my stated objective of only playing 2.5 times per month.
(2) I was the first one eliminated in a $50 freezout, NLHE tournament that I hosted. We had 35 entrants. I was really looking forward to doing well this time. I had my strategy all mapped out, but alas, it was not meant to be. My first mistake was making a smallish value bet on the river when I held the nuts and was absolutely dead certain my opponent held AA and would call a much larger bet – missed opportunity. My second mistake was giving this same guy his chips back when I turned a low straight but he was holding a flush from the get.
At that point I was down to 1700 in chips (from 3200 starting chips). I was still in pretty good shape with the blinds at only 50/100 when I found myself holding AQo. After 2 limpers, I raise to 400. Its folded around to the original limper who puts me all in. My read was that this player probably limped with a small pair hoping to get in cheap. He may also hold a hand like A10s or A6s. I, for sure, did not give this player credit for a big pocket pair or a better Ace (AK). So, with $2050 in the pot and being laid a price of 2:1 combined with my estimate that I was about 50% to have this guy dominated or 50% to be in a coin flip situation, I made the easy call. Much to my delight, my opponent held A8 and was a 3:1 dog. But….you can probably guess the rest of the story. Yada yada yada, I’m on the rail!
When I think about, there are only about 6 desirable outcomes in this type of tournament. 1st, you could win the whole thing and make ton of cash and let your ego swell. 2nd, you can get second place and score a pretty good payday. 3rd, you can finish third and make slightly more than you could expect to make had you just played at the cash game all night. 4th, you can eliminate Scott Smith by laying a completely sick bad beat on him and then cackle something like “I just had a feeling my 74o was going to connect and crack your 2 aces. Giggle. Giggle”. 5th you can freeroll in the tournament by winning some prop bets like the first out or last longer bet. Finally, you can be eliminated as the very first person. That way you invest as little time as possible and still make as much money as the other 29 players who did not cash. So I was happy to have accomplished one of the 6 most desirable outcomes possible.
Makes
I won $166 at the cash game. Who Hoo! We played dealers choice round-by-round, $100 max buy in. Player could choose No Limit, Pot Limit, or Limit and any game from HORSE. I won my money be hitting some big hands and I lost most of it by being outplayed. That really sucks.
The Chop
So as the tournament got down to 3 handed, players started negotiating a chop. After an agreement was reached, Ryno was overheard getting scolded by his entourage for making a bad deal. He defended himself, “hey man, I’ve never really been in this situation before”.
That’s understandable. I’m not sure any of us really have enough experience at working out these types of deals to be considered “skilled”. The last thing you want to have happen, after you plow through 95% of the field, is to make a bad deal and give up more prize equity than you should. This isn’t one of those situations where you just try to figure it out “in the moment” – to “wing it” I think you’d be much better served to give this complex topic a little thought before hand….you know, be prepared!
As I started doing a little research on this topic (gambling forums and web sites), I found this is a very complex topic. I’ve not really found anyone that solves this problem accurately and effectively. An accurate solution is one that produces a mathematically precise answer. An effective solution is one that anyone can use, in the moment, while sitting around a pile of chips after a long poker tournament – and one that you can convince others is “fair”.
I think I’ll save the meat of this discussion for the next post.
