Tuesday, May 29, 2007
The Purpose of Poker
I made an enormous break-through this weekend.
As you have probably figured out by now, I spend a fair amount of time/effort on this hobby of mine – poker. Until this weekend, I though I understood, fairly well, my purpose for playing poker. First, I really like the competitiveness and camaraderie. Second, I like to make a little money at it.
I had 2 events happen this weekend that made me realize my new purpose for playing poker.
First, my family had the good fortune of being invited to spend Monday with some friends at their parent’s house on a lake up by Fenton. Their place was fantastic. They had a nice shaded backyard on a lake. They had a pontoon boat and a speed boat. The kids went fishing, swimming, tubing. The food was great. We drank some beer. I tried water skiing. Note to self: to avoid risk of serious injury and severe hamstring pulls, warm up a little before engaging in strenuous muscular activity like water skiing. Anyway, I digress. The day was great. On the way home, I started trying to figure a financial plan that would allow me to purchase a lake property like this. How great would it be to spend every other weekend on the lake? How much could it cost? House prices are really depressed right now, right?
Second, I had a good weekend of poker. Instead of playing home games, I made my way to the casino for a couple of sessions.
Session 1:
The first session took place on Friday afternoon. I took off work at noon, headed to Motor City, met some friends, had lunch and settled in for a nice 4 hour session of $1/$2/$2 blinds NL Hold’Em with a $50-$200 buy in. I won $350. Whooo Hoooo! I guess I shouldn’t count $50 of that as winnings. You see, as we were standing in line to sign up, a really jumpy, hyped-up, young guy lined up behind us. As our names were being called, he offered me $50 to take my seat. I accepted immediately. Little did he know that they were opening a new table and we’d all be seated pretty much immediately. So, with my $50 in profit, I took a seat at the new table – 2 seats to the left of the action junkie kid who just gave me the $50. When he saw me, he kind of shrugged and said, “Oh well”.
As you have probably figured out by now, I spend a fair amount of time/effort on this hobby of mine – poker. Until this weekend, I though I understood, fairly well, my purpose for playing poker. First, I really like the competitiveness and camaraderie. Second, I like to make a little money at it.
I had 2 events happen this weekend that made me realize my new purpose for playing poker.
First, my family had the good fortune of being invited to spend Monday with some friends at their parent’s house on a lake up by Fenton. Their place was fantastic. They had a nice shaded backyard on a lake. They had a pontoon boat and a speed boat. The kids went fishing, swimming, tubing. The food was great. We drank some beer. I tried water skiing. Note to self: to avoid risk of serious injury and severe hamstring pulls, warm up a little before engaging in strenuous muscular activity like water skiing. Anyway, I digress. The day was great. On the way home, I started trying to figure a financial plan that would allow me to purchase a lake property like this. How great would it be to spend every other weekend on the lake? How much could it cost? House prices are really depressed right now, right?
Second, I had a good weekend of poker. Instead of playing home games, I made my way to the casino for a couple of sessions.
Session 1:
The first session took place on Friday afternoon. I took off work at noon, headed to Motor City, met some friends, had lunch and settled in for a nice 4 hour session of $1/$2/$2 blinds NL Hold’Em with a $50-$200 buy in. I won $350. Whooo Hoooo! I guess I shouldn’t count $50 of that as winnings. You see, as we were standing in line to sign up, a really jumpy, hyped-up, young guy lined up behind us. As our names were being called, he offered me $50 to take my seat. I accepted immediately. Little did he know that they were opening a new table and we’d all be seated pretty much immediately. So, with my $50 in profit, I took a seat at the new table – 2 seats to the left of the action junkie kid who just gave me the $50. When he saw me, he kind of shrugged and said, “Oh well”.
I bought in for $200. The poker was pretty good. The table featured about 6 solid players, 2 or 3 weak players, and the action junkie. I played really tight. I figured I could beat this table for a few big pots even if that meant conceding a few small pots with tight folds. I got lucky and was able to bust the action junkie for a few big pots. I won a couple of other multi-way pots. That pretty much sums up the session.
2 observations from this session: (1) Playing at the casino is much better than playing at the home game if your primary purpose is profit. The casino offers a much better ratio of bad players. In the home game, almost all of the players are at least decent players who, by in large, avoid making big mistakes. At the casino, there are usually a few bad players that are willing to continue to make mistake after mistake. And, the fish at the casino seem to have no qualms about reloading 2 or 3 times or more, so the money is much more ‘available’ at the casino. (2) It only takes 1 or 2 bad players at a table to make for a positive situation. It can be very frustrating playing at a table of 6 or 7 bad players. Someone always seems to pick off your big hands or freeze you out with a ridiculous play (betting $150 all in, into an $18 pot). But playing at a table with 3 or 4 bad players seems to be just the right mix of “Juicy” plus “safe” – at least for me.
Anyway, I’m starting to develop what I think may be the optimal strategy for playing in this “lower limit” NLHE game at the casino. I’ll share my thoughts on this in a future post and invite the critique of others.
One of my keys is to “KEEP THE POTS SMALL PREFLOP”. It seems like bad players are real big fans of shouting “I’m all in”. It doesn’t really take much provocation for them to use this weapon. They might have a hand, or they might not. There may be a big pot at stake – or maybe not. They may overbet the pot or they may just be putting in their last few chips so that they can reload. Anyway, the point is that when a bad player goes all in, he really takes away all of the advantages that a better player has. This move completely neutralized the better player. This move tends to reduce the poker game to not much more than guessing and flipping coins. I really try to avoid situations where I feel “committed” to a situation where I have to guess or flip coins.
In keeping with this strategy, I decided to limp with As-Qs under the gun on a particular hand. I figured my raise would do nothing more than create a $70 pot pre-flop that I’d be out of position playing. In addition, after the flop, one of the bad players would most certainly just shout “I’m all in” no matter what hits the board. If I limp, I might get a bunch of limpers, but the pot would only be worth $16 before the flop. I was kind of hoping that action junkie would not miss an opportunity to attack a limped pot and would raise from the SB. Then, I could re-raise for isolation, be in position, with what figured to be the best hand. I was not disappointed. After 6 limpers, the action junkie raised it to $16.
This created a pot of $30. The BB folds. Action to me. I make it $50. Everyone folds to action junkie. I’m pretty sure I’ll get called. I do. The pot has $130 and I’m heads-up with a better hand (most likely) and in position against a bad player before we’ve even seen the flop. Perfect.
2 observations from this session: (1) Playing at the casino is much better than playing at the home game if your primary purpose is profit. The casino offers a much better ratio of bad players. In the home game, almost all of the players are at least decent players who, by in large, avoid making big mistakes. At the casino, there are usually a few bad players that are willing to continue to make mistake after mistake. And, the fish at the casino seem to have no qualms about reloading 2 or 3 times or more, so the money is much more ‘available’ at the casino. (2) It only takes 1 or 2 bad players at a table to make for a positive situation. It can be very frustrating playing at a table of 6 or 7 bad players. Someone always seems to pick off your big hands or freeze you out with a ridiculous play (betting $150 all in, into an $18 pot). But playing at a table with 3 or 4 bad players seems to be just the right mix of “Juicy” plus “safe” – at least for me.
Anyway, I’m starting to develop what I think may be the optimal strategy for playing in this “lower limit” NLHE game at the casino. I’ll share my thoughts on this in a future post and invite the critique of others.
One of my keys is to “KEEP THE POTS SMALL PREFLOP”. It seems like bad players are real big fans of shouting “I’m all in”. It doesn’t really take much provocation for them to use this weapon. They might have a hand, or they might not. There may be a big pot at stake – or maybe not. They may overbet the pot or they may just be putting in their last few chips so that they can reload. Anyway, the point is that when a bad player goes all in, he really takes away all of the advantages that a better player has. This move completely neutralized the better player. This move tends to reduce the poker game to not much more than guessing and flipping coins. I really try to avoid situations where I feel “committed” to a situation where I have to guess or flip coins.
In keeping with this strategy, I decided to limp with As-Qs under the gun on a particular hand. I figured my raise would do nothing more than create a $70 pot pre-flop that I’d be out of position playing. In addition, after the flop, one of the bad players would most certainly just shout “I’m all in” no matter what hits the board. If I limp, I might get a bunch of limpers, but the pot would only be worth $16 before the flop. I was kind of hoping that action junkie would not miss an opportunity to attack a limped pot and would raise from the SB. Then, I could re-raise for isolation, be in position, with what figured to be the best hand. I was not disappointed. After 6 limpers, the action junkie raised it to $16.
This created a pot of $30. The BB folds. Action to me. I make it $50. Everyone folds to action junkie. I’m pretty sure I’ll get called. I do. The pot has $130 and I’m heads-up with a better hand (most likely) and in position against a bad player before we’ve even seen the flop. Perfect.
The flop comes rags 7x-4x-2x. Why can’t I ever catch a friggn’ flop in this game? Wait, did I say that out loud? Anyway, I have to take one stab at this juicy pot. So after it’s checked to me, I bet $50 and I’m called. $50 is a pretty big bet – but not compared to the size of the pot. This was kind of a continuation bluff bet and blocking bet. The pot now has $230.
The turn is a little scary – a 10 comes off. The board reads 7x-4x-2x-10x. Action junkie checks. Now, I know that if I check here, in all likelihood, he’ll say “all-in” no matter what hits the river. I just can’t force myself to bet here. I’ve only got Ace high. My choices are a ridiculously small blocking bet – say around $30 or a check. I check but only after I goad the action junkie to go all in on the river. The river offers no help to me. It pairs the board 7x-4x-2x-4x. I can’t really call a bet here. I’m praying for a check from the action junkie. He checks. I check and drag the pot. He mucks his hand without showing. I’m sure he had something like A-J, K-Q, A-8s, etc…
Anyway, I guess the point is that if I would have raised to say $10 pre-flop with a good hand (As-Qs), I would have probably been called in 6 or 7 spots. Someone may just go all in pre-flop and freeze me out. If not, the pot would have $70 bucks with 7 players going to the flop. I’m going to need to get lucky to get any value from my AQ here. I think limping even with a pretty big hand in EP is the better play here.
Session 2:
So on Sunday night I’m bored. I’ve worked around the house all day. I need a break. I need some “me time”. So I head down to Motor City around 8p. Surprisingly, it only takes about 30 minutes to get there when there’s no traffic. After about a 30 minute wait, I take a seat right in front of the big screen TV (featuring the Pistons Game 3 – they lost) and 2 seats to the left of semi-pro poker player Boone. The table featured about the same mix as session #1 – 6 or 7 good players and 2 or 3 bad ones. I had a good session. I won $440. Whooo Hoooo!
You know how I know they were bad players? Example one – on this one hand, 4 of us made it to the river where the board read 2h-3c-4c-5d-6c. The bad player was first to act, and she bet $20 into a $20 pot. I fold. The 6 of clubs on the river made a flush possible. Plus a 7 would beat me as I was playing the board. I just didn’t want to call a bet when my expectation was to possibly win 25% of a $20 pot. The next guy calls. The last guy folds. The lady flips over A-5 and proclaims that she has a straight. The other guy flips over A-10 and says ‘me too – chop it up’. The lady acts surprised and asks, “Why?”. The dealer had to tell her that she should play the board. She just cost me $5.
Example 2: A pretty solid player sits down to my right. He takes a couple of early beats and is down $50 in about 15 minutes. Then, on this one hand, he opens for a raise and is called. The flop comes 10c-4h-6c. Solid player bets and is called. The turn is a 9d (10c-4h-6c-9d). Solid player bets again and is called. The river is a somewhat meaningless 2 (10c-4h-6c-9d-2x). The solid player bets one more time (a pot sized bet of around $75) and is called. Solid player raps the table and proclaims “good call”. The bad player calling station tables a Jc-4c for a pair of 4s and wins a $200 the pot. That’s rough. That brings up another one of my keys to beating this low limit NLHE game (DON’T BLUFF BAD PLAYERS; take their money the old fashion way – with huge value bets).
A couple of pretty basic observations from this session:
First, I really like to see bad players collect chips from good players – especially if they lay a bad beat on the better player. I kind of feel sorry for them….but happy for me. You see, it’s much easier to win the chips from bad players. Plus, the bad decisions made by bad players are rewarded when the suck out, so hopefully they’ll keep making those mistakes. Finally, great suckouts can tend to put good players on tilt. This is helpful as well. So, when a bad player wins chips from a good player, I try to reinforce their play by saying something like, “nice hand, good job”.
Second observation, bad players occasionally wake up with powerhouse hands. It’s real important to not be the person who doubles up a bad player or goes broke when a bad player wakes up with a powerhouse.
One particular hand came up in this session to illustrate both of these points.
There was this one bad player in seat 9. He spoke with a foreign accent. He was taking a beating. He was down to his last $27 and was pushing it all in about every other hand. Anyway, things changed and he caught fire. He was catching cards like know one’s business. He was bluffing people off of hands. He had the whole table on tilt. Before long, he had built that $27 into more than $1200. That’s a little better than a double-up or triple-up. That’s called the old “forty-four up.” Thankfully, I stayed out of his way for the most part.
So now he was just plain out of control. He played about 95% of his hands. He raised about 95% of the hands he played. He bet the flop about 95% of the time no matter what hit. He was actually playing pretty good, loose-aggressive type poker.
But like I said, even bad players get good hands occasionally. On one hand, he busted 3 players when his pocket Qs made the top set and busted someone’s top pair, someone’s flush draw, another player’s 2 pair.
On a hand I was involved with, this manic raised to $12 pre-flop. 4 players call as do I with 4h-5h. The flop is 9x-5x-5x. I flopped a beauty and was on a mission to double through this guy. He bets $20. I smooth call. We’re heads-up. The turn is a 10 (9x-5x-5x-10x). He bets $30. I raise to $90. He might have a hand that he can’t get away from. Who knows? Plus there are 2 hearts on the board. He puts me all in for my last $40. Bingo! I call. He shows pocket Aces! Whoa! I was in bad shape preflop. I humbly table the winner with my lowly 4-5. I double through. How lucky. I feel a little dirty, but stacking his chips made me start feeling better.
One last hand to recap: This is an almost identical hand to the one I recapped from session 1. I’m sitting with As-Ks right behind a guy that straddled for $4. (Side note: This may be the most attractive hand in hold'em poker. It's a think of beauty to look at). I’m thinking I can do the limp-huge re-raise thing here and take a nice pot with this premium hand. So, I limp. This time, after 2 more players call the $4 straddle, another player makes it $27. Unbelievably, 3 players call him including the straddler. Is it possible that 5 players have premium hands? I think not! My decision was much tougher though. I have $150 left to bet. The raiser was a solid player, but the 3 callers were weak. The only guy I could give credit for holding a decent hand was the original raiser. Finally, my decision came down to the fact that the original raiser was probably capable of laying down a hand like 9-9 or even A-K. Also, his unusually large pre-flop raise made me think he had a somewhat vulnerable hand like J-J, 10-10, A-K, or A-Q. So, I went all in for $150. It seemed like forever, but eventually everyone complied and mucked their hands. The original raiser agonized the longest before he mucked two tens.
I won a nice $120 pot without a contest. Nice. Man, did I take some grief about this play from the table though. They were not happy at all. I still think the play is pretty good. There was a chance (50%?) that I might win a $120 pot without a show down. That’s worth $60. There’s a chance (40%?) that I could be 47% to win vs. a smaller pair (i.e., 10s) – you know, the classic all in coin flip situation. That’s worth around $25. There’s a chance (10%?) I could get called by a worse hand (i.e., A-Qs) where I’m more like a 3:1 favorite. That’s worth $10. So my play is worth around $90 I guess. I’m OK with it. To me the limp re-raise seems like a decent way to protect a good hand in a loose game.
Anyway, back to my opening paragraph. What was this breakthrough from the weekend you might ask? We’ll, my new purpose in playing poker is so that I can spend it all on leisure time (like a summer home on the lake with the family). I can’t think of a much better use of money than this.
It might not happen this year, or next. It may take me a while, but once I get to the point where I can make about $1000 a month playing poker, you can bet your ass I’ll be spending summer weekends out at the Lake.
You can also bet that I’ll do a few warm-up exercises before I try water skiing again.
I’m out!
The turn is a little scary – a 10 comes off. The board reads 7x-4x-2x-10x. Action junkie checks. Now, I know that if I check here, in all likelihood, he’ll say “all-in” no matter what hits the river. I just can’t force myself to bet here. I’ve only got Ace high. My choices are a ridiculously small blocking bet – say around $30 or a check. I check but only after I goad the action junkie to go all in on the river. The river offers no help to me. It pairs the board 7x-4x-2x-4x. I can’t really call a bet here. I’m praying for a check from the action junkie. He checks. I check and drag the pot. He mucks his hand without showing. I’m sure he had something like A-J, K-Q, A-8s, etc…
Anyway, I guess the point is that if I would have raised to say $10 pre-flop with a good hand (As-Qs), I would have probably been called in 6 or 7 spots. Someone may just go all in pre-flop and freeze me out. If not, the pot would have $70 bucks with 7 players going to the flop. I’m going to need to get lucky to get any value from my AQ here. I think limping even with a pretty big hand in EP is the better play here.
Session 2:
So on Sunday night I’m bored. I’ve worked around the house all day. I need a break. I need some “me time”. So I head down to Motor City around 8p. Surprisingly, it only takes about 30 minutes to get there when there’s no traffic. After about a 30 minute wait, I take a seat right in front of the big screen TV (featuring the Pistons Game 3 – they lost) and 2 seats to the left of semi-pro poker player Boone. The table featured about the same mix as session #1 – 6 or 7 good players and 2 or 3 bad ones. I had a good session. I won $440. Whooo Hoooo!
You know how I know they were bad players? Example one – on this one hand, 4 of us made it to the river where the board read 2h-3c-4c-5d-6c. The bad player was first to act, and she bet $20 into a $20 pot. I fold. The 6 of clubs on the river made a flush possible. Plus a 7 would beat me as I was playing the board. I just didn’t want to call a bet when my expectation was to possibly win 25% of a $20 pot. The next guy calls. The last guy folds. The lady flips over A-5 and proclaims that she has a straight. The other guy flips over A-10 and says ‘me too – chop it up’. The lady acts surprised and asks, “Why?”. The dealer had to tell her that she should play the board. She just cost me $5.
Example 2: A pretty solid player sits down to my right. He takes a couple of early beats and is down $50 in about 15 minutes. Then, on this one hand, he opens for a raise and is called. The flop comes 10c-4h-6c. Solid player bets and is called. The turn is a 9d (10c-4h-6c-9d). Solid player bets again and is called. The river is a somewhat meaningless 2 (10c-4h-6c-9d-2x). The solid player bets one more time (a pot sized bet of around $75) and is called. Solid player raps the table and proclaims “good call”. The bad player calling station tables a Jc-4c for a pair of 4s and wins a $200 the pot. That’s rough. That brings up another one of my keys to beating this low limit NLHE game (DON’T BLUFF BAD PLAYERS; take their money the old fashion way – with huge value bets).
A couple of pretty basic observations from this session:
First, I really like to see bad players collect chips from good players – especially if they lay a bad beat on the better player. I kind of feel sorry for them….but happy for me. You see, it’s much easier to win the chips from bad players. Plus, the bad decisions made by bad players are rewarded when the suck out, so hopefully they’ll keep making those mistakes. Finally, great suckouts can tend to put good players on tilt. This is helpful as well. So, when a bad player wins chips from a good player, I try to reinforce their play by saying something like, “nice hand, good job”.
Second observation, bad players occasionally wake up with powerhouse hands. It’s real important to not be the person who doubles up a bad player or goes broke when a bad player wakes up with a powerhouse.
One particular hand came up in this session to illustrate both of these points.
There was this one bad player in seat 9. He spoke with a foreign accent. He was taking a beating. He was down to his last $27 and was pushing it all in about every other hand. Anyway, things changed and he caught fire. He was catching cards like know one’s business. He was bluffing people off of hands. He had the whole table on tilt. Before long, he had built that $27 into more than $1200. That’s a little better than a double-up or triple-up. That’s called the old “forty-four up.” Thankfully, I stayed out of his way for the most part.
So now he was just plain out of control. He played about 95% of his hands. He raised about 95% of the hands he played. He bet the flop about 95% of the time no matter what hit. He was actually playing pretty good, loose-aggressive type poker.
But like I said, even bad players get good hands occasionally. On one hand, he busted 3 players when his pocket Qs made the top set and busted someone’s top pair, someone’s flush draw, another player’s 2 pair.
On a hand I was involved with, this manic raised to $12 pre-flop. 4 players call as do I with 4h-5h. The flop is 9x-5x-5x. I flopped a beauty and was on a mission to double through this guy. He bets $20. I smooth call. We’re heads-up. The turn is a 10 (9x-5x-5x-10x). He bets $30. I raise to $90. He might have a hand that he can’t get away from. Who knows? Plus there are 2 hearts on the board. He puts me all in for my last $40. Bingo! I call. He shows pocket Aces! Whoa! I was in bad shape preflop. I humbly table the winner with my lowly 4-5. I double through. How lucky. I feel a little dirty, but stacking his chips made me start feeling better.
One last hand to recap: This is an almost identical hand to the one I recapped from session 1. I’m sitting with As-Ks right behind a guy that straddled for $4. (Side note: This may be the most attractive hand in hold'em poker. It's a think of beauty to look at). I’m thinking I can do the limp-huge re-raise thing here and take a nice pot with this premium hand. So, I limp. This time, after 2 more players call the $4 straddle, another player makes it $27. Unbelievably, 3 players call him including the straddler. Is it possible that 5 players have premium hands? I think not! My decision was much tougher though. I have $150 left to bet. The raiser was a solid player, but the 3 callers were weak. The only guy I could give credit for holding a decent hand was the original raiser. Finally, my decision came down to the fact that the original raiser was probably capable of laying down a hand like 9-9 or even A-K. Also, his unusually large pre-flop raise made me think he had a somewhat vulnerable hand like J-J, 10-10, A-K, or A-Q. So, I went all in for $150. It seemed like forever, but eventually everyone complied and mucked their hands. The original raiser agonized the longest before he mucked two tens.
I won a nice $120 pot without a contest. Nice. Man, did I take some grief about this play from the table though. They were not happy at all. I still think the play is pretty good. There was a chance (50%?) that I might win a $120 pot without a show down. That’s worth $60. There’s a chance (40%?) that I could be 47% to win vs. a smaller pair (i.e., 10s) – you know, the classic all in coin flip situation. That’s worth around $25. There’s a chance (10%?) I could get called by a worse hand (i.e., A-Qs) where I’m more like a 3:1 favorite. That’s worth $10. So my play is worth around $90 I guess. I’m OK with it. To me the limp re-raise seems like a decent way to protect a good hand in a loose game.
Anyway, back to my opening paragraph. What was this breakthrough from the weekend you might ask? We’ll, my new purpose in playing poker is so that I can spend it all on leisure time (like a summer home on the lake with the family). I can’t think of a much better use of money than this.
It might not happen this year, or next. It may take me a while, but once I get to the point where I can make about $1000 a month playing poker, you can bet your ass I’ll be spending summer weekends out at the Lake.
You can also bet that I’ll do a few warm-up exercises before I try water skiing again.
I’m out!
Comments:
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Trying to win $1000 a month through a part time hobby is a lofty goal. Good luck!
ps. I thought almost all of the hands you listed were played fine. Glad you discovered the "limp re-raise" play.
ps. I thought almost all of the hands you listed were played fine. Glad you discovered the "limp re-raise" play.
I was sitting at the next table, and maybe that crazy (foreign) guy from your sunday table was at my Friday table. Anyway, the guy to my left (who was typical conservative) played KK by limping in under the gun. There's about 6 or 7 callers (including me in the BB with 5-4). Flop is Q-5-4. I lead out and he is the only one who flat calls me. I forget what the turn is, but he calls me there, too. The river is a 7. Since he was just calling my bets I worry he made a straight. I check to see what he does. He looks like he might bet, and when he balks I decide I would call him but he checks and I am shocked to see KK. I win about $90 off of him and he shrugs by saying, "If I raise I only win the blinds." He said he was planning the limp-re-raise but nobody raised, lol.
Your play was good, but then there's the potential of seeing an unraised flop, someone flops two pair or trips on an A-9-5 rainbow board and then how do you get away from your hand (A-K) when they bet big? If you can read them well then it's no problem, but just wondering what you do in that case.
(Just like that KK guy). I have limped with A-K usually after I feel I've been raising too much pre-flop, and I shy away from the "aggressive" image and when I look down and see A-K suited I think, my God, why can't I have a rest? Lazily, I'll limp. But that's only about 10% of the time with that hand. Sorry, I've blabbed on your blog. That online bot was h-i-l-a-r-i-o-u-s.
Your play was good, but then there's the potential of seeing an unraised flop, someone flops two pair or trips on an A-9-5 rainbow board and then how do you get away from your hand (A-K) when they bet big? If you can read them well then it's no problem, but just wondering what you do in that case.
(Just like that KK guy). I have limped with A-K usually after I feel I've been raising too much pre-flop, and I shy away from the "aggressive" image and when I look down and see A-K suited I think, my God, why can't I have a rest? Lazily, I'll limp. But that's only about 10% of the time with that hand. Sorry, I've blabbed on your blog. That online bot was h-i-l-a-r-i-o-u-s.
And we wonder why OnStar is in such bad shape??
Focus on your day job, JJ.
Seacrest out!
Focus on your day job, JJ.
Seacrest out!
# posted by 
: 7:19 PM
: 7:19 PM
p.s. - what I find is that the risk factor in cash games with bad players is lower (for me) - because I can play tight and win with the nuts or having players trying to bluff at pots when I hold the nuts (I say rather facetiously) - but that when I play cash games with skilled players I find myself having to take more chances or forced under pressure to make "plays" that I may get burned on. I am more challenged to play against skilled players (even if it means I may lose overall).
I'm still mad at myself for misplaying two hands really badly on Friday after you left, Jon.
On one, I checked in the BB with Q8o only to make top 2 pair when the flop came Q87 rainbow. The first player made a small bet and I overbet the pot ($20 I think) hoping to drive out the longshots and get called by someone with A7 or some such. Of course, I got two callers, so now the pot has like $75 in it. The turn brings a J and player 1 immediately bets $100. For some reason I actually put him on a made gutshot and folded.
What was I thinking?! Most likely he made a worse 2 pair than me. He was new to the table, so I didn't have a good read on him, but I should have called him immediately. I had him well covered. This was a huge mistake.
My other mistake was not trusting my read. A semi-solid player in early-mid position raised it to $18 preflop and we got heads up when I called with 44. I put him on a decent ace from the get go. The flop was 8-high and I insta-called his $25 flop bet. The turn brought a Q and we both checked. When the river brought a K he made a value-looking bet of $18 and I folded after not much thought. He showed the bluff with his ATo and I said "good play" while bemoaning my own.
There was absolutely NO doubt in my mind that I was ahead on the flop. I should have reraised him there and ended the hand. This is the type of weak play that costs me more money in NL games than any other. You can bet that next time I will trust my read.
Despite having a losing session (after going card dead and missing all draws), I would have to say that game is VERY beatable. When do we go again?
Brent
On one, I checked in the BB with Q8o only to make top 2 pair when the flop came Q87 rainbow. The first player made a small bet and I overbet the pot ($20 I think) hoping to drive out the longshots and get called by someone with A7 or some such. Of course, I got two callers, so now the pot has like $75 in it. The turn brings a J and player 1 immediately bets $100. For some reason I actually put him on a made gutshot and folded.
What was I thinking?! Most likely he made a worse 2 pair than me. He was new to the table, so I didn't have a good read on him, but I should have called him immediately. I had him well covered. This was a huge mistake.
My other mistake was not trusting my read. A semi-solid player in early-mid position raised it to $18 preflop and we got heads up when I called with 44. I put him on a decent ace from the get go. The flop was 8-high and I insta-called his $25 flop bet. The turn brought a Q and we both checked. When the river brought a K he made a value-looking bet of $18 and I folded after not much thought. He showed the bluff with his ATo and I said "good play" while bemoaning my own.
There was absolutely NO doubt in my mind that I was ahead on the flop. I should have reraised him there and ended the hand. This is the type of weak play that costs me more money in NL games than any other. You can bet that next time I will trust my read.
Despite having a losing session (after going card dead and missing all draws), I would have to say that game is VERY beatable. When do we go again?
Brent
Brent, On that first hand you described - he could have 9,10 for the open-ended and then when the J hits he has his straight. Or maybe he has Q-J and made a better two-pair. I don't think your fold was bad (considering what you needed to call to win that pot). If he made his straight, would he have bet so big? Since you re-raised him on the flop you'd think he might check it to you to get an extra bet out of you, instead of driving you away if he puts you just on the queen. If it were me and if there is more than half a doubt, I'd fold and put in my $100 in a better spot (since you did say he was new to the table).
btw, is there some better forum for discussion than typing into this teeny little box, then having to verify over and over again that I'm not some spammer? lol....or maybe this is spam.
btw, is there some better forum for discussion than typing into this teeny little box, then having to verify over and over again that I'm not some spammer? lol....or maybe this is spam.
Thanks for killing my enthusism Brandon with a dose of realitly.
Eileen, I've seen the hand that you descibed (guy who limps with KK) played out the same way several times. I don't think it's too smart. I think you should make a slightly larger than normal raise when UTG with KK.
I think you played it well (you should make alot of money when you flop a a nice hand). He played it well too (check calling with an overpair - no sense in getting out of line) when his plans to limp-reraise where shot.
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Eileen, I've seen the hand that you descibed (guy who limps with KK) played out the same way several times. I don't think it's too smart. I think you should make a slightly larger than normal raise when UTG with KK.
I think you played it well (you should make alot of money when you flop a a nice hand). He played it well too (check calling with an overpair - no sense in getting out of line) when his plans to limp-reraise where shot.
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