Foucault Just another PokerSavvy weblog

Level 2 Bet Sizing

This is a blatant example of a guy who is thinking about my hand and what he wants me to do but not about what I will be thinking or what his hand will look like to me:

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em, $20.00 BB (5 handed) - Converter Tool from PokerSavvyPlus.com

MP ($670)
Hero (Button) ($5377)
SB ($2000)
BB ($2030)
UTG ($1813.50)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 7, 7
2 folds, Hero bets $50, 1 fold, BB raises to $185, Hero calls $135

Flop: ($380) 6, Q, 7 (2 players)
BB bets $240, Hero calls $240

Turn: ($860) 9 (2 players)
BB bets $480, Hero raises to $4952 (All-In), BB calls $1125 (All-In)

River: ($4070) J (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $4070 | Rake: $3

Results:
Hero had 7, 7 (three of a kind, sevens).
BB had A, A (one pair, Aces).
Outcome: Hero won $4067

This isn’t a spot where he’s likely to fire a second barrel on a pure bluff, so his range for betting turn is going to be semi-bluffs and value hands. With a value hand here, he chooses a bet size that presumably gives me room to shove draws of my own. Trouble is, it’s pretty obvious here that that’s what he’s trying to do, and therefore I should not shove my draws but rather just call with them and hope either to get there or river a good card to bluff. With his draws, I imagine he bets a lot more, making clear that he is pot committed so that I don’t have room to rebluff him with a draw when he’d rather I fold.

Biggest Suckout of My Career

At a cash table, anyway. I’m sure I’ve sucked out a few times at the WSOP in pots that were worth a lot more than this in equity.

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em, $80.00 BB (5 handed) - Converter Tool from PokerSavvyPlus.com

Button ($10690)
Hero (SB) ($14549)
BB ($25279)
UTG ($12963.50)
MP ($53395.50)

Preflop: Hero is SB with K, K
UTG bets $240, 2 folds, Hero raises to $960, 1 fold, UTG raises to $2400, Hero raises to $14549 (All-In), UTG calls $10563.50 (All-In)

Flop: ($26007) K, 4, 8 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Turn: ($26007) 5 (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: ($26007) 7 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $26007 | Rake: $3

Results:
Hero had K, K (three of a kind, Kings).
UTG had A, A (one pair, Aces).
Outcome: Hero won $26004

Guy was a crazy aggressive Russian, playing like 45/32 at a 5-handed table with 22% 3-bet. In other words, I can’t fault myself for getting it in pre-flop against him with KK.

I commented a few days ago that I don’t think of myself as a gambler, don’t experience too much in the way of emotional highs and lows as a result of winning or losing money at the poker table. Big pots at 40/80 are something of an exception to that. I definitely experienced a sinking feeling in my stomach when I saw those Aces, followed quickly by a deep sense of relief and gratitude for the K on the flop, and then a few seconds of nervous anticipation, refusing to allow myself too much of an emotional high until I saw that there was no Ace coming on the turn or river.

Villain left the table immediately, which was a very good thing. It would have looked pretty bad for me to sit out and leave otherwise (though I’m not categorically unwilling to hit and run), but I really didn’t want to sit 300BB’s deep with several good and aggressive players at stakes that, to be honest, are still a little intimidating to me.

I did play around to my blinds on both tables, though, and managed to lose this hand in the meantime:

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em, $80.00 BB (4 handed) - Converter Tool from PokerSavvyPlus.com

SB ($16047)
BB ($17223)
UTG ($24799)
Hero (Button) ($9150)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 8, K
1 fold, Hero bets $199, SB calls $159, BB calls $119

Flop: ($597) 8, 4, 10 (3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $411, SB calls $411, 1 fold

Turn: ($1419) 8 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

River: ($1419) 3 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $999, SB raises to $3440, Hero calls $2441

Total pot: $8299 | Rake: $2

Results:
Hero had 8, K (three of a kind, eights).
SB had 4, 4 (full house, fours over eights).
Outcome: SB won $8297

Don’t suppose I have any room to complain, though. I’m actually pretty lucky I didn’t lose more given the situation.

Owned Again

I posted the other day about a sexy river check-raise that resulted in my opponent abruptly quitting on me, up about a buyin and a half. He found me Sunday and we played two tables of heads up for 4-5 hours. Initially, I was owning him. He was opening 100% of his buttons for a min-raise but had folded to 100% of 3-bets for the first hour or so. Naturally I ramped up the aggression, won every small pot, and got some big hands paid off. At my peak, I was up 7 buy-ins on him. I felt like I had the better grasp on the gameflow and was adjusting to him faster than he was adjusting to me, which is exactly what you need in a heads up game. Here are a few hands where I owned him:

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em, $20.00 BB (2 handed) - Converter Tool from PokerSavvy Plus.com

SB ($3042.50)
Hero (BB) ($4911.50)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 2, 7
SB bets $40, Hero calls $20

Flop: ($80) 3, 9, K (2 players)
Hero checks, SB bets $60, Hero raises to $166, SB raises to $400, Hero raises to $777, 1 fold

Total pot: $880 | Rake: $0.50

Results:
Hero didn’t show 2, 7.
Outcome: Hero won $879.50

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em, $20.00 BB (2 handed) -Converter Tool from PokerSavvy Plus.com

Hero (SB) ($10051.75)
BB ($2135.75)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 5, 7
Hero bets $60, BB calls $40

Flop: ($120) 8, 6, 2 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $77, BB raises to $240, Hero calls $163

Turn: ($600) 8 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $222, BB raises to $560, Hero calls $338

River: ($1720) J (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $9191.75 (All-In), 1 fold

Total pot: $1720 | Rake: $0.50

Results:
Hero didn’t show 5, 7 (nothing).
Outcome: Hero won $1719.50

This was actually a shove for like $1200, everything he had left. I maybe could have gotten away with an even smaller bet, but I didn’t want him to talk himself into a call with Ace-high.

As the night wore on, I got both tired and cocky. It was a bad combination, and I launched a few big bluffs trying to push him off of pretty strong hands:

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em, $20.00 BB (2 handed) -  Converter Tool from PokerSavvy Plus.com

Hero (SB) ($9509.25)
BB ($3670)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 10, 10
Hero bets $60, BB raises to $180, Hero calls $120

Flop: ($360) Q, 2, 3 (2 players)
BB bets $200, Hero calls $200

Turn: ($760) A (2 players)
BB bets $500, Hero calls $500

River: ($1760) A (2 players)
BB bets $500, Hero raises to $8629.25 (All-In), BB calls $2290 (All-In)

Total pot: $7340 | Rake: $0.50

Results:
Hero had 10, 10 (flush, Ace high).
BB had A, K (flush, Ace high).
Outcome: BB won $7339.50

He has the Jc or the Kc almost always here and a full house basically never (he wouldn’t bet turn). This should be an easier call for him to make with an Ace in his hand, since there are fewew full house combos for me to have, but I don’t think that factored into his decision. I imagine he does fold the Jc, but I don’t think he has that often enough to make this a good bluff.

So naturally I try again to represent a full house, and he again snap-calls with an irrelevantly strong hand:
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em, $20.00 BB (2 handed)  Converter Tool from PokerSavvy Plus.com

Hero (BB) ($10814.25)
SB ($2373)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 8, 6
SB bets $40, Hero calls $20

Flop: ($80) 7, A, 3 (2 players)
Hero checks, SB bets $60, Hero calls $60

Turn: ($200) 9 (2 players)
Hero checks, SB bets $140, Hero raises to $469, SB calls $329

River: ($1138) 3 (2 players)
Hero bets $10245.25 (All-In), SB calls $1804 (All-In)

Total pot: $4746 | Rake: $0.50

Results:
SB had A, 9 (two pair, Aces and nines).
Hero had 8, 6 (one pair, threes).
Outcome: SB won $4745.50

Not a lot to say about this one, it’s just bad.

He insisted on quitting the table where we were 300BB deep and starting a new 100BB table. I was pissed at the time, but he may have done me a favor. In any event, I picked up a few hands towards the end and got paid to finish slightly ahead on him. In fact, I’m beating him for 9 BB/100 between our two sessions, but I’m still very frustrated with myself for my blatantly poor play.

January

One month into 2010, it’s time to review my progress towards my Yearly Resolutions.

Goal 1: Average 15 Hours/Week Playing My “Regular” Games

I’ve found that 15 hours/week enables me to earn a pretty healthy income, far more than I could make at any real job I could get, without impeding too much on my lifestyle.

I consider my regular games to be anywhere from 2/4 NL to 50/100 NL as well as big tournaments like the Sunday Majors, the FTOPS, and the WCOOP; time spent playing any of these will count towards my goal.

Slightly ahead of pace: I played about 70 hours this month, not counting a few hours spent in smaller stakes games and the PLO8 tournament at the PCA.

Goal 2: Earn $X in NLHE Cash Games

It’s very tough to predict or control what I will earn playing tournaments. With cash games, though, it’s mostly a question of game selection and putting in hours. It’s not something I’m going to announce publicly, but I am going to set a target, and I am going to put in extra hours towards the end of year if I’m on pace to come up short.

Ahead of pace. Running good at 40/80 and 25/50 helps. A few more months like this one, and I’ll be a happy boy.

Goal 3: Earn Supernova status on PokerStars

My plan for this is to table select as usual in the beginning of each month, and then assess my progress towards the end of each month. If I’m on pace to come up short, I’m going to put in extra hours above and beyond my weekly goal just grinding 9 tables of $1/2 NLHE (or smaller) until I hit my VPP target for the month. Hopefully this is something I can do relatively stress-free, just an hour or two at a time, when I’m not in the mood to put in a proper session in higher stakes games. To be honest, my hourly rate should still be quite good multi-tabling SSNL, so hopefully this will incentivize me to make a little money in what would otherwise be downtime.

On pace, barely. I picked up Silver Star with barely and hour to spare last night, but even 7500 FPP/month isn’t going to be enough. Then again, I spent 8 days playing live in the Caribbean without so much as signing into Poker Stars, so I still think is doable.

Goal 4: Monetize This Blog

I know I keep saying it, but sooner or later I really am going to look into making money a little more directly from this blog. I feel like it’s right on the cusp of being pretty profitable. That doesn’t have to mean ads, though it might. Maybe I’ll…

Under discussion.

Goal 5: Write a Book

I’ve talked about this before, but this is the first time it’s ever been an explicit goal. I’ve already got some downtime sketched out in the next few months to work on this and have been kicking around some ideas in my head. Rather than trying to write one big, expensive e-book as a lot of people have done, I’m thinking of doing a series of smaller, modular works that could be purchased separately or as a set. Those of you who read this blog regularly are going to be a big chunk of the target audience, so keep an eye out for posts in the next few weeks soliciting your input about what you’d like to see in a poker book authored by yours truly.

I’ve got about 15 single-spaced pages in a Word document so far, but it’s pretty directionless. I just decided if I was ever going to do this, I was just going to have to start writing and do some severe editing later. A lot of it will probably be used for articles or blog posts rather than a book, but I’ve found the only way to get myself motivated for a big project is just to start working and figure the big picture out later.

Goal 6: Average One Blog Post Per Day

I know it’s been a little quiet on here of late. Part of that is the holidays, and part of it is just laziness. I want to get back to posting once a day. There will probably be more non-poker content, and not all of the poker stuff will be equally in-depth, but overall you can expect to see more and better content here.

Close. I made 28 posts versus 31 days in January. That means I owe you a few.

Goal 7: Average Five Hours of Coaching Per Week

Coaching was extremely fun and rewarding for me last year. So far, except for my group seminars, I haven’t done much to market myself as a coach or actively solicit students. I’ve mostly just worked with students as they’ve come to me, and so so far that’s kept me just about as busy as I’d like to be with coaching. I want to ramp it up a bit this year by setting a monthly goal and actively soliciting students if necessary to ensure that I’ve got a regular stream of students.

I thought I was way ahead on this until I added it up. I’ve got three great students right now, all very good players who I feel like are in just the right place to be working with me and learning very quickly. Even counting the time I spend preparing for each session, I’m still not hitting five hours/week. I may not end up making this one, as I’m pretty happy with the amount of coaching I’ve been doing this month.

I probably will be taking on some new students soon, so if you’re interested, check out my poker coaching information.

Goal 7: Average an Hour a Day of Dedicated Studying and Improvement

I’m going to be very broad about what this can include: reading books, watching videos, reviewing hands in Hold ‘Em Manager, talking poker with a friend, and even blogging (when it’s related to reviewing my play).

Not even close. I came in at about 10 hours for the month, though I was pretty conservative about how much blogging I counted. Also, I tend to study more when I’m running bad, as I try to play a lot when things are going well for me and I’m feeling confident. Still, I think I’m going to have step up my efforts here.

Goal 8: Use Hold ‘Em Manager

I switched from Poker Tracker to Hold ‘Em Manager last year. PT2 is great, but HEM is just better. For the last part of the year, I was playing without it on my laptop. It does get in my way sometimes, but I’d rather learn how to work with it than insist on playing without it.

So far, so good. I’ve accustomed myself to using the HUD on my laptop, and it’s definitely helped me with some decisions. Even just checking out how tight the blinds are, how often the Button three-bets, and how often the guy on my right folds to three-bets has probably increased my win-rate by 10%.  I know there’s a lot more I could be doing, too.

Goal 9: Finish the Year with a 4BB/100 Win-Rate at 5/10 NL and/or Higher

Same goal as last year, since I didn’t achieve it but still think it’s very viable. It might be cheating a little, but I’m going to allow myself to count my results from bigger games towards this goal or not depending on whether I do better in them than I do in 5/10 (this was the cast last year). Basically, if I am at 4 BB/100 over a big sample at 5/10, then I don’t care how I’m doing in bigger games. If I’m not doing quite that well at 5/10 but am at 4 BB/100 if I also count bigger games, then that’s certainly a fine result as well.

Killing it, baby! I’m running better than 17 BB/100 for my last 10K hands. Sustainable?

Goal 10: Play 50,000 Hands of Heads Up NLHE at 5/10 and Higher

Last year, my win rate at heads up was twice what it was at ring games. Plus, it’s a great way to improve poker skills in general, and at stakes above 10/20, it’s often the only way to get action.

Ahead of schedule, I’ve got 5500 hands under my belt. I’m down $1000, which of course is virtually nothing at these stakes, and I’m $3000 below EV. Still, I’m not happy with how it’s going, particularly after I made some bad bluffs last night (I’ll post those hands soon).

All in all, so far so good. I’m putting in hours, having fun (for the most part), and making money. Can’t beat that!

How did January treat you?

Book Review: The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King by Michael Craig

Michael Craig’s The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King takes readers on a behind-the-scenes tour of (at the time) the highest stakes poker game ever played. In search of a new challenge, banking prodigy Andy Beal challenges the best poker players in the world to play for stakes so high that millions of dollars change hands in a session and even these seasoned veterans can barely handle the swings.

As a poker player, I found PBSK fascinating for a number of reasons. For one thing, there were a lot of little details about Bobby’s Room (the high-stakes section of the Bellagio poker room, named for Bobby Baldwin) and the people who play there that I didn’t know. Craig writes for a broad audience, but even as someone who is relatively in-the-know about the poker world, I came away with a much better sense of the culture and traditions of that game. There were even a few regulars I hadn’t heard of, which I suppose is in itself a statement about the nature of the game.

Title notwithstanding, the book’s truly central characters are Beal and Doyle Brunson, not Beal and Howard Lederer. Craig chronicles the two men’s parallel struggles, Brunson’s to herd a team of notoriously stubborn and independent poker players into a functioning team with a 10-figure bankroll, and Beal’s to find an edge against the game’s greatest.

For Brunson, there are logistical difficulties and personality conflicts. Few players could afford to take on Beal on their own, and in any event the banker insisted on playing heads up. Nevada gaming law requires any game to be open to any player, meaning that the only way to ensure one-on-one action was to give everyone who could remotely consider playing the option to buy a piece of “The Corporation”. This, in turn, meant getting everyone to put up hundreds of thousands of dollars and agree on who would play Beal when. No one was too keen on either losing his friend’s money or seeing his own money lost, plus Beal insisted on playing at inconvenient times such as during the World Series of Poker or at 8 AM.

This was no accident. Beal quickly realized that his only chance would be to push the pros out of their comfort zone by insisting on astronomical stakes, arriving in Las Vegas with little notice, and otherwise making things as inconvenient as possible for The Corporation. Over time, he also came to take elaborate measures to neutralize their potential advantages over him: sunglasses, headphones (to discourage conversation), a random number generator, a homemade abacus (sorry, you’ll have to read the book to make sense of that one), etc.

I found the insights into both the financial relationships that undergird the poker economy and the psychology of an amateur who would attempt to take on the best of the best to be quite interesting. PBSK isn’t just for poker junkies, though. In fact, the central conflict of amateur vs. professional makes it equally appealing to a casual reader with little or not knowledge of poker. The book is remarkably light on actual hands played or anything else that would require more than a passing familiarity with the game, and Craig does a good job of explaining what little the reader does need to know without ever boring his “insider” audience.

All in all, Michael Craig’s The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King is an interesting and fast-paced introduction to the high-stakes poker world built around an inherently intriguing story. Any poker player would enjoy it, and it would also make a great gift for anyone you’d like to educate about the vagaries of professional poker.

Yeah, I Hit and Run

Review: Rush Poker

Full Tilt Poker recently introduced some new small stakes tables in a format they call “Rush Poker”:

Available exclusively at Full Tilt Poker, Rush Poker* is the ultimate high-speed poker experience.

This new poker format is designed to minimize your wait time between hands and keep you in the action. You’ll join a large player pool and face a different table of opponents every hand you play. When you fold your hand, you’ll be rushed to another table for a new hand right away.

To play even faster, use the Quick Fold button to move to a new table for the next hand immediately.

The basic idea is that you always have a hand to play. The second you decide you want to fold, you are instantly assigned to a random new table, with new opponents, and have a new hand to play.

In my opinion, this is a fantastic idea and a great example of allowing online poker to be its own game rather than just a derivative of live poker. No one enjoys sitting and waiting for others to finish playing a hand so that the next one can be dealt, and now you don’t have to. Just because this is a necessity in a live setting doesn’t mean sites like FTP can’t take advantage of the magic of the interwebs to provide a better (or at least different) experience.

Rush Poker has a couple of implications, the most obvious of which are that you can play dramatically more hands per table-hour (though presumably fewer tables simultaneously) and that you have little opportunity to get reads on your opponents or build up a table dynamic with them.

I underestimated how significant this second factor was going to be. There’s a world of difference between a relative unknown and a complete unknown, and even in a few dozen hands I can get at least a bit of a baseline on how someone will play. Even at $.50/$1, the highest stakes at which Rush Poker is currently offered and where I am presumably far better than the general population, I found myself in surprisingly many spots where I wished I had at least a vague idea of whether someone was loose or tight, passive or aggressive.

That said, you will run into the same player more than once, especially since multi-tabling is possible. Over 444 hands at 6-max tables, the most I ever saw any single player was 8 times. At the time that I quit, there were 200 different players playing, and 355 “entries”, which I assume means that the average player was playing fewer than 2 tables at once.

As for getting more hands, I managed 444 on two tables in about an hour and a half. That comes out to 150 hands/table-hour, which is 2-3 times what I get at a normal 6-max table. That seems about right.

I lost three buy-ins in that 444 hands, but I also lost a pre-flop coin flip, flopped a set vs. a straight, flopped top pair and a flush draw vs. a set, rivered two pair vs. a set, and had someone river a straight flush on my full house, so overall I feel like I was in OK shape despite my experience in dealing with the fishies.

If you want some more thoughts on how to adapt to Rush Poker, Michael Craig made some interesting posts on the subject recently on the Full Tilt blog.

Wheeeeeeeeee!

Liv Boeree Pictures in Maxim Magazine

I had the pleasure of playing with Liv Boeree in the 2008 WSOP, spent basically an entire day sitting on her immediate left. Poker media are generally pretty quick to promote anyone who can handle chips and has two X-chromosomes as both ravishing and a competent card player, and it’s a nice change of pace to meet a woman who actually fits the bill. She was certainly easier on the eyes than most of the greasy, overweight slobs I find myself staring down (and yes, I’m aware that I could fairly be described as a greasy, overweight slob myself- thanks for pointing it out, though).

That said, I don’t think this Maxim spread is particularly flattering to her. I bet you’ll look anyway though. Just be warned- I chose a pretty tame one for the blog, but obviously some of the pictures are Not Suitable For Work. Oh, and thanks to Wicked Chops Poker for first bringing my attention to Liv Boeree’s photos. If you weren’t satisfied with these pictures, they’ve got quite a few more of other women, most of whom have no connection whatsoever to poker. You’re welcome.

If Ever There Was a Spot to Fold Bottom Set for 109 BBs…

No-Limit Hold’em, $50.00 BB (9 handed) - Hold’em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

UTG+1 ($3450)
MP1 ($5000)
MP2 ($5422)
MP3 ($4925)
CO ($3521)
Button ($9048)
SB ($4750)
BB ($8768)
Hero (UTG) ($5763)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 8, 8
Hero calls $50, UTG+1 calls $50, 1 fold, MP2 calls $50, 1 fold, CO calls $50, 1 fold, SB calls $25, BB checks

Flop: ($300) A, 8, 4 (6 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $222, UTG+1 calls $222, MP2 calls $222, CO calls $222, 2 folds

Turn: ($1188) 3 (4 players)
Hero bets $899, UTG+1 calls $899, MP2 raises $5150 (All-In), 1 fold, Hero raises $4592 (All-In), 1 fold

River: ($12387) 10 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $12387

Results:
Hero had 8, 8 (three of a kind, eights).
MP2 had 4, 4 (three of a kind, fours).
Outcome: Hero won $12725

This is a pretty unique spot where there’s just no way bottom set is good. I bet into five players on a super-dry Ace-high flop. After getting called in three spots, including by CO, who is a fish who is not going to let go of any Ace without a fight, I bet out again on the turn. Not only that, but UTG+1, who’s a pretty decent player, is showing a ton of strength by calling twice. It’s awfully tough to put all three of us on hands that are losing to 44, and even harder to come up with worse hands that are calling a shove.

There are three Aces, three 8’s, and one 4 unaccounted for (from his perspective). Best case scenario, the fish has a bare Ace, so that leaves two Aces unaccounted for. If neither UTG+1 nor I has a set, then we must both have Aces Up. It’s pretty unlikely for either of us to have A8o or A4o, so there aren’t too many combinations of A8s or A4s for us to have (As4s, Ad8d, As8s). Weigh that against three possible combos of 88 that any of us could have and one combo of AA that I could have (since we’re assuming CO has an Ace in his hand).

On top of that, it would be pretty bad for either of us to call his shove with two pair (except maybe Ad8d, which also a flush draw), and there really aren’t draws to protect against, so while I think he may be able to fold the turn, I definitely think shoving is bad.