Advanced Bluff Induction
This isn't going to work against a lot of opponents, but against very tough opponents, it's essential:
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $20.00 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
Hero (MP) ($4429.50)
CO ($7120)
Button ($2587)
SB ($4449.30)
BB ($4169)
UTG ($712.40)
Preflop: Hero is MP with 4
, 4
UTG calls $20, Hero bets $90, 1 fold, Button calls $90, 2 folds, UTG calls $70
Flop: ($300) 3, 4
, 6 (3 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $187, Button calls $187, 1 fold
Turn: ($674) J (2 players)
Hero bets $444, Button calls $444
River: ($1562) Q (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $1225, Hero calls $1225
Total pot: $4012 | Rake: $3
Results:
Button had 6, 7 (one pair, sixes).
Hero had 4, 4 (three of a kind, fours).
Outcome: Hero won $4009
This guy isn't calling the turn with a bare draw, so I'm not too concerned about him having the flush. He could have a big draw, something like Ah5h, that he chose to "slowplay", or maybe a flush with the Jh, but I don't think he has a flush too often. His most likely hand is something marginal with showdown value, either a bare pair that was bluff catching or a pair plus draw.
A less sophisticated opponent is just going to check back the river very often and be happy to show down his pair. A player of this guy's caliber, though, will realize that it may be better to turn a weak pair into a bluff. Especially when I don't bet at a good bluff card on the river, I no longer have a lot of the bluffy part of my range that he was beating on the turn. He may get real heroic on the river, but overall I think he turns a pair into a bluff (or very occasionally
value bets worse) more often than he calls with worse. Though bet-calling here might be even sexier, come to think of it...
Brown V Board Monument
Driving through Topeka this morning, we stopped at the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Landmark. Unlike the iconic Central High School in Little Rock, which we visited on a previous road trip, the physical location of the Brown landmark was not particularly significant. It was
simply on the first floor of what was once an all-black elementary school that the eponymous plaintiff's daughter was required to attend.
An aggressively friendly, if defensive and apologist, ranger explained that the all-black schools in mid-twentieth century Topeka actually provided an education on par with, if not superior to, that available at the all-white schools. I'm a little skeptical of that claim, for obvious reasons, but he did cite the fact that the black teachers were on the whole more highly educated than their white counterparts.
Apparently this was part of the reason that Topeka was chosen as one of the five cities in which the NAACP challenged segregation laws. Because there wasn't a material inequality argument to be made (the NAACP's own lawyers determined as much), Topeka enabled them to focus their suit on the very principle of separate schools, even when a seemingly equal education was available, which of course in many places it was not.
It was good that we met such an informative ranger, as the exhibit itself spoke broadly about segregation in America, its history, and the ongoing impact of the Brown decision, but not very much about the Brown case itself or its local context. Personally, the political and legal strategy that goes into such a campaign is what I'm most interested in.
Brown did not arise from a spontaneous incident, as the Montgomery bus boycott did from Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her seat. Rather, the cities and plaintiffs in the suit were carefully chosen by the NAACP for strategic reasons. Brown was an aspiring minister and an upstanding member of the community. He was also a unionized employee of a national railroad company, meaning he was less vulnerable to pressure from an employer unhappy with his participation in the suit. The twelve other plaintiffs in Topeka were all housewives, mothers of children in the public school system, with no jobs to lose.
According to one of the Supreme Court justices who decided the case, it was named for Topeka not because it was the first of the five cases appealed, as would be tradition, but because it was the only non-southern city in which the NAACP had brought litigation. He claimed
that the Court wanted to avoid the perception of hostility towards the South, which already viewed civil rights as an imposition from the North, and so titled the case in the least alienating way possible.
I asked a few questions about how the Court's decision was received in Topeka and what the school system looks like now, which is when the (white, though not necessarily local) ranger started to get defensive. We had introduced ourselves as being from Boston, though if the guy really knew his desegregation history, he'd know that that wouldn't give us any room to look down our noses on Topeka (nor would our actual hometown of Baltimore, for that matter). He explained that although de facto segregation did continue to a considerable degree, Topeka did not take active efforts to encourage it. Whereas other cities closed schools or gerrymandered districts, Topeka apparently accepted the decision and what minimal integration its residential patterns produced.
From the exhibit, I later learned that black parents in Topeka had brought two more suits against the Board of Education since Brown, and that Topeka hadn't been found to be in compliance with the decision until 1996. On the way out, I asked the ranger about this. He admitted as much but qualified that those cases were based on de facto segregation, which he didn't seem to consider particularly significant. (Actually, he claimed he wasn't going to give his opinion, only present the arguments made, but he'd already made his own stance pretty apparent.) Unlike when discussing the quality of education in
segregated schools, he couldn't point to any hard facts about the schools today and claimed only that "some are more integrated than others" and that "test scores are pretty good".
The exhibit itself was small and fairly generic, but well-presented. The most innovative part was a dark, narrow corridor whose walls were comprised of four large television screens. The screens displayed old footage of white protesters waving racist signs and shouting insults and threats. Thus, walking through the corridor evoked, in some minor way, what it may have felt like to brave such crowds in a sit-in or
freedom march, or even as a child just trying to go to school.
The Flop Squeeze Play
$5/$10 NLHE 6-handed game. Villains have about $1000 each, I cover. MP opens to $35, BTN calls, I call 9h 7h in the BB.
Flop Ks 6h 2d. I check, MP bets $70 into $105 pot, BTN calls, I raise to $190, both fold. Why?
The logic here is very similar to the pre-flop squeeze play, particularly at the time that Harrington was writing his first book (ie before most people knew what a squeeze play was). The original better has a very wide range, and consequently so does the caller, especially since he didn't 3-bet preflop. My raise into both of them represents strength in a spot where they don't commonly see a bluff, not to
mention that there is extra pressure on the original better since he still has someone left to act behind him.
I expect MP to fold unless he has a pair of K's or better. While all of those hands are in his range, all he's done so far is raise pre-flop (something this particular player did often) and then bet a pretty ideal flop. His range is plenty wide, and he probably folds 80% of the time or more.
The BTN's range is wider but less likely to contain very strong hands. Since he didn't reraise, he will rarely have AK, KK, or AA. Thus, while he can have KQ, 66, or 22, he can also have weaker pocket pairs or even floats like AQ/AJ. My rough guess is that he folds about 60% of the time.
That's enough to make the play immediately profitable, as I'm risking just $190 to win $245. Notice here, though, that I also have several back door draws. If either player calls me, I'm shoving any heart and any 8 on the turn. Since I expect BTN's range to be weaker, I'll also shove 9's, 8's, and 7's against him as a semi-bluff, trying to get him off of stuff like KT or a stubborn TT. Against MP, though, I'd check-fold those same cards, as he needs a stronger hand to call the flop and thus will not fold the turn as often.
Playing One Good Pair to a Raise
I got a very good comment/question from Christoph on a recent post about a huge bluff that I averted when I rivered a pair:
"I've been thinking a bit about this hand and I'm wondering about how you'd play it if you were the player holding the aces. It sure depends a lot on reads, but let's just say that you're playing a good thinking player that is able to make big bluffs. I tried to come up with a way to defend against such a bluff, but I don't really see any. I mean, you can start check/calling on the turn and river, but that way you might loose some value from 7x, 8x and overpairs. On the other hand if you bet and get raised, I don't like any option. You can fold, but AA is still pretty strong considered your whole range you could be double barreling, so b/fing seems exploitable. However if you b/c, then I can't see how you can not stack off on almost any river, if you think villain is capable of a big bluff. But that way you'll loose 300BB with one pair pretty often as well."
The key here, as with many of the trickiest situations in poker, is to realize that what you do with other hands in your range is at least as important as how you play this one. Many of the stickiest spots you can get yourself into in a poker game involve playing the middle of your range out of position when deep stacked.
I'll start by saying that against a lot of opponents, I'm folding AA here on the turn. I'm guessing that many people's first reaction to this will be, "But that's such a strong hand! Isn't it exploitable to fold something so close to the top of your range?"
But let's unpack what a "strong hand" really is. Yes, if you listed all of my possible holdings in order from strongest poker hand to weakest poker hand, AA would be towards the top. But there's no magical prize for having a hand at the top of a hand rankings chart. In this context, a strong hand is one with good equity against my opponent's range. It would take a pretty aggressive dynamic for someone to be raise-calling worse than AA for value in this spot. Against a pot-sized raise on this turn, AA is a bluff catcher, and not a good one. It has little chance of improving on the river, few outs against my opponent value range, no blockers, and a lot of vulnerability to semi-bluffs.
The bottom line is that there are a lot of hands I'd call or shove on this turn before I'd continue with AA. I'm thinking of stuff like T9 and Ahxh. If I thought a guy's range was wide enough that I needed more hands to continue with on the turn after I exhausted legitimate value hands and draws, AA might make it into my range, but most people aren't bluffing often enough to warrant that.
The stacks aren't as deep, but here's a hand I played today that illustrates this point. Think about how you'd play a marginal overpair with no draw, something like Jc Js here, especially if you were deeper. When I'm calling this flop and especially when I'm shoving this turn, I'd much rather have AQ with a flush draw than bare Jacks, even though the latter is the "better" hand.
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (8 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
Hero (MP2) ($2242)
CO ($1000)
Button ($1015)
SB ($1005)
BB ($2103)
UTG ($1137)
UTG+1 ($582)
MP1 ($1386.50)
Preflop: Hero is MP2 with A, Q
3 folds, Hero bets $35, CO calls $35, 3 folds
Flop: ($85) 9, 2, 9 (2 players)
Hero bets $66, CO raises to $150, Hero calls $84
Turn: ($385) 3 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $240, Hero raises to $2057 (All-In), 1 fold
Total pot: $865 | Rake: $3
Results:
Hero didn't show A, Q (nothing).
Outcome: Hero won $862
I 6-Outed Myself
If I don't pick up showdown value on this river, I shove it. I doubt he calls 250BB on the river, but I've been wrong about such things before:
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (2 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
Hero (SB) ($8365.25)
BB ($3787.25)
Preflop: Hero is SB with K, Q
Hero bets $30, BB raises to $120, Hero calls $90
Flop: ($240) 7
, 4, 2 (2 players)
BB bets $160, Hero calls $160
Turn: ($560) 8 (2 players)
BB bets $300, Hero raises to $999, BB calls $699
River: ($2558) Q (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks
Total pot: $2558 | Rake: $0.50
Results:
Hero had K, Q (one pair, Queens).
BB had A, A (one pair, Aces).
Outcome: BB won $2557.50
I'm pretty sure that catching a pair on the river cost me a $2500 pot, though there's certainly a chance that it saved me $2500.