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Mailbag: Playing Well

Q: I’m a member of Poker Savvy Plus and have been watching your High Stakes Review series videos. I enjoy them and find them helpful. One stupid question I have is when you say a particular hand “plays very well” in a particular spot or “doesn’t play very well” what exactly does that mean. I know it’s situational, but does “play very well” simply mean you’ll know where you stand pretty accurately where as “not playing very well” means you’ll often be in the dark as to the strength of your hand? Thanks in advance!

A: You’re on the right track. The question I’m asking myself is “What kind of hand will I be looking to make on a future street?” and that’s a function of a few things: stack depth, position, opponent type, etc. With 30BB, KTo is generally a better hand than T7s. This is because in a raised pot, top pair with a good kicker is usually a good enough hand to get all in. With 200BB, I’ll take the T7s. When I play for stacks I’m mostly going to have straights, flushes, or draws to these hands. The T7s does a better job of making those kinds of hands than does KTo.

With 500BB, neither of these is a good choice for playing out of position. With such depth you must in general be much more careful about playing out of position but more liberal about playing in position. When I’m out of position with stacks that deep, I need to make NUT straights and flushes, or at least draws to those hands. So I’ll take A2s over AKo.

Of course there are other factors to consider as well but that’s a good example of how stack depth can influence whether a hand plays well.

Do you have a question for the Thinking Poker Mailbag? Please leave it as a comment below!

I Just won $160,000

I started to title this blog something about getting eliminated or finishing in 53rd place but that’s an awfully pessimistic way of looking at it. I just won $160,000. I cashed in the Main Event of the World Series of Poker for the fifth time in six years, a feat that I’m told is unmatched in poker history. Perhaps more impressively, I’ve been in the top 100 three times in the last four years. I suppose that was an easy feat in the early days of the WSOP, but the average field size in the years I did it was over 6000.

On Day 1, I bet third pair for value on the river and got paid off. On Day 2, I called a turn check-raise all-in with an underpair to the board in a 3-bet pot, and I was right… until the river. On Day 3, I rode out a day-long run of bad cards without getting frustrated and doing anything (too) stupid. On Day 4 I induced a player to 5-bet his A9o all-in against my QQ. On Day 5, I had one of the best tournament players in the world on my left but even from out of position I kept him on his toes all day. On Day 6, I called three bets with Ace-high, and I was right. I almost called a flop check-raise all-in with Ace-high, and that would have been right too. On Day 7, I flipped a coin for hundreds of thousands of dollars in equity, lost, felt virtually no disappointment, and displayed even less.

And I did it all without ever speaking (never mind what I was thinking- I’m still working on that part) an unkind word to any of my opponents. There was no mockery, no muttering under my breath, and certainly no table slamming or card throwing or chair overturning. There was also no celebration, no gloating, hooting, whooping, or barking. I’m awfully damn proud of all of those things.

I’m awfully proud too to have so many great friends, many of whom I’ve never met in person, rooting for me from all around the globe. I had texts, tweets, emails, and blog comments pouring in from six continents, often from fans I didn’t even know I had. My only regret was that I wasn’t able to distract you all from your work for another two days, but I very much look forward to trying again next year. I wonder if anyone’s ever cashed four times in four years?

Interesting Day 2 Happenings

Ethics for Sale

Some of you may have heard that Phil Hellmuth overslept yesterday morning and was getting blinded off in the tournament. Apparently Mike Matusow called security at Phil’s hotel and got them to enter his room and wake him up. I didn’t know any of this at the time, but I was still at my starting table with Russel Rosenblum and Sorel Mizzi when Phil came dashing into the Amazon room, with a floorman shouting after him about whether he knew which table he was going to.

Russel: I wonder if the floor is going to scurry to get me to my seat if I show up late.
Me: I don’t understand why Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke aren’t getting the kind of shit that the Full Tilt guys are getting.
Russel: I don’t want to say too much here, but Phil and Annie are just paid spokespeople, whereas the Full Tilt guys may have been somewhat more that that.
Sorel: That’s… putting it very carefully.
Me: Yes, sorry, I know that. I guess I misspoke. I do understand why they don’t get as much shit as Lederer, but people still put money on UB because Phil and Annie were endorsing them, and those people are never going to see that money. I just don’t think Phil and Annie should be getting invited on stage at the WSOP like they’re the best and brightest in the poker world.
Sorel: But they’re just sponsors. They aren’t on the inside. They don’t know anything more about what’s going on behind the scenes than you do.
Me: Based on what I knew, I wouldn’t have worn a UB patch.
Sorel: But come on, if they are just throwing money at you…

I had to change the subject at this point, because the irony and Sorel’s total lack of self-awareness was getting too much for me, and I nearly said something pretty rude to him.

Security is Called

The table broke not too long after, which was very welcome, though my new table was still pretty tough. I went on a nice little tear and chipped up to 170K while acquiring a relatively aggressive table image. Blinds were 400/800/100.

I opened to 2200 with 33 in the CO. A loose French player called me on the BTN, the SB folded, and the BB, who’d been quietly chipping up with very few showdowns and seemed pretty table aware re-raised to 6800 with about 45K behind.

I wasn’t getting the right odds to setmine, and online I’d just fold this even though I suspect the guy is light. I don’t want to get it in pre, and it’s just going to be too hard to figure out where I stand post-flop. In live play, however, the added information available through tells makes it a little more feasible and call and evaluate, and that’s what I did. The BTN quickly folded behind me.

The flop came 742r. BB bet 7500, and I called. The turn was another 4, and he checked. At this point he had barely a pot-sized bet left in his stack, and I think there are a lot of hands he wouldn’t check, including big draws and vulnerable hands like medium pairs. This was either an elaborate trap with like QQ+ or he was giving up.

I had no delusions of getting him to fold a hand better than mine, but I didn’t want to give him a free card or a shot at bluffing a scary river, so I bet 9000. After a bit of thought, he moved all in for 24,500. Now I had to think.

This is another spot I simply wouldn’t get myself in online. Before I bet the flop I’d have a plan for whether I was going to call a check-raise. Live, though, there is more room to figure out exactly which part of his range he has and what he’s up to. I let him sweat for about 3 minutes and then counted out the chips for a call. He looked uncomfortable. I placed them gently in the pot. He tapped the table. I tabled my treys. He whistled. “Very nice call, sir.” He showed AQ. Q on the river.

Where it gets really crazy is that while he’s still stacking his chips, three guys from security walk up to him. Two of them stand back, flanking a third who taps him on the shoulder. “Finish stacking your chips and then we need to ask you a few questions, sir.”

Naturally the whole table is staring at this scene trying to figure out what’s going on. The player in question looks totally nonplussed. He stacks his chips and then leaves the table with them. “That beat was so bad it was criminal!” I quip after he’s gone, earning me a few groans from my tablemates.

The guy returned after just two hands and seemed unperturbed. Curious about what was going on, I said to him, “I wish they’d come a hand earlier.” He laughed. I heard the player next to him asking him what happened, and he said it was something to do with a friend of his and that everything was fine. He remained at the table until late in the day, when he shoved AJ over one of my raises. I called with 99 to eliminate him and win back about a quarter of what I’d lost to him in that earlier hand.

French Fish

As I previously mentioned, the guy on my left was a loose and generally bad French player. Blinds were 500/1000/100. A tightish player in the HJ opened to 2500, and I called with 77 in the SB. The poisson re-raised to 11,000 with 15K behind. I was pretty sure I was going to fold but gave him the old stare down first.

He’d been watching a movie on his iPad, and when he saw me looking for a read, he pressed play and turned his attention to his screen. I could see perfectly well that he wasn’t cheating, but I wanted to get a reaction from him, so I told him to put the computer away during the hand.

He removed his headphones and looked up at me. “What?”

“You can’t be on your computer during the hand.”

He sneered. “Whatchu going to do? Time.”

“You’re calling time on me?”

“Yes. Time.”

“OK. Put the computer away.” He made a point of putting his headphones back on and pressing play. I looked over at the dealer, who was doing nothing. She hadn’t even called the floor to clock me. Of course by this point I had all the information I needed to fold, but now I was upset that the dealer wasn’t enforcing the rules.

“Player has called time,” I informed her.

She turned to another dealer who was waiting to push her after this hand. “Am I supposed to call the floor if a player has asked for time?”

The floor finally got called and came over. I informed her that I twice asked this player to stop using his computer during the hand. She ignored me and started telling him that he would have 70 seconds to act.

“Time was called on me,” I told her.

“OK then you have 70 seconds to act.”

“Are you going to do anything about the computer?”

“First you need to act on your hand.” I folded without a second’s thought.

“You can’t be on your computer or phone while you have a live hand,” she informed him and walked away.

I thought there was some chance that his reaction was also an act and that he was trying to make me angry to get a call. He said something to me after the hand, though, which made me think he was legitimately upset.

The very next hand I got black Queens in the CO and opened to 2600. I was 110% sure that the poisson would at least call. He angrily threw 7500 chips into the pot. The blinds folded, and after a cursory glance at his stack (he had about 35K behind), I shoved a stack of orange into the pot. He snap-called and turned over TT like it was the nuts, which it pretty much was in that spot. I think there’s a legitimate chance that his angry chip tossing was an act and that he thought he was baiting me. I got no reaction when I showed the QQ.

The dealer went to deal the flop, and there was the Tc in the door. The other two cards were also clubs, so I had a lot of outs, but none of them got there. I calmly counted out an appropriate number of chips and passed them to him.

He finished the day with over 300K. I’ve got 135K, though, so no complaints here.

The Poker Ethicist: WSOP Ladies’ Event

As “The Poker Philosopher”, and in honor of one of my favorite non-poker blogs, I occasionally consider the ethical dimensions of a high-profile controversy in the poker community. Today, I consider the WSOP Ladies’ Event, which began yesterday and is scheduled to conclude tomorrow. Older editions of The Poker Ethicist are available in the archives.

Once again this year, a handful of men have entered the WSOP Ladies’ Event, citing a belief that a women-only event is discriminatory and a Nevada Gaming Commission policy that prevents the WSOP from actually excluding, rather than just discouraging, male players. Critics of these men say that they are only playing because they expect the field to be softer (no pun intended) than open events of comparable buy-in.

Do these men have a case for discrimination? Is it ethical for the WSOP to offer an event that excludes (or at least attempts to exclude) players based on their gender?

Shaun Deeb in the 2010 WSOP Ladies' Event

It is. This event serves not to exclude but to include.

Segregation is reprehensible when it carries with it a “badge of inferiority” or assigns privileges and opportunities to people based on factors beyond their control. This is not the case here, where men have 50+ other WSOP events, including numerous other $1000 buy-in events, to play. Significantly, every single one of these is a male-dominated affair. Any male player would be hard-pressed to demonstrate how the existence of a single Ladies’ Event harms him personally. The purpose of this tournament is not to push men away from the game but to draw women in.

Historically, only about 3% of players in the main event have been women. Walk into any poker room at any hour of the day and it’s easy to see that women are in the distinct minority. There may be reasons why poker is intrinsically more appealing to men than to women, but surely it is not thirty times more appealing. There must be other reasons for women’s underrepresentation at the poker tables.

Granted, as a man, I am not the best spokesperson for this cause, and it is not my intent to speak for female players or to claim that my observations are perfectly consistent with their experiences. In my experience, though, a female poker player is virtually guaranteed to get comments at the table. These range from relatively innocuous banter (“That’s a big raise for a little lady”) to outright sexual harassment. Casinos may be empowered to stop the worst of it, though they generally don’t, but on the whole there seems to be no avoiding the fact that a female poker player must deal with comments and attention directed at her because of her gender.

Granted, needling and table talk can be part of the game. I don’t mean to argue that women are necessarily entitled to a poker game free of such talk or that males who “fold to the pretty lady” ought to be penalized in anyway. I do think, however, that a desire to avoid such situations keeps many women from playing live poker, and that’s an unfortunate outcome.

Having more women playing poker is valuable in a number of ways. For one, it’s generally good for the game when more people, whoever they are, play. There are a wider selection of games available and more money in the poker economy. Women represent a tremendous, largely untapped market into which the game could expand. This is a worthy goal for the WSOP to pursue, and if they believe that a Ladies’ Event will help them to accomplish it, then they are justified in hosting such an event.

Second, appealing to a broader pool of players is a good thing. Our game is embattled in many parts of the world right now, and winning hearts and minds will require demonstrating that poker is a game with mass appeal, not an unhealthy fixation for criminals and degenerates. There’s a reason that the Poker Players Alliance repeatedly chose Annie Duke to testify before Congress, and it’s because as a mother of four she portrays a wholesome image.

Duke actually argues that,

the Ladies event is not bringing more women into the WSOP. If that were the case we would expect the % of women playing in open WSOP events to have grown over the years and that is just not the case. The % of women entering open WSOP events has remained pretty steady at 3 to 5% of the field

Over 1000 women played in the Ladies’ Event last year. Of course some of these women probably would have played a different event has this one not been available, but many of them surely would not have played at all. Whether they go on to play open events in the future or not, they are still playing at a higher level and stepping up their involvement in the game. They may be more likely to host home games, to play at their local casinos, and to talk about and share the game with friends. When people learn that respectable folk like their friends and neighbors play poker, the stigma that the game still faces in some circles will be broken down.

Duke also asks,

“Why is there a Ladies Event if poker is measuring mental acumen? Are we saying there is a difference between the intellect of men and women that means that somehow we need a separate championship event just for the women? What is that really saying about how we view women in comparison to men on the mental playing field?”

To my knowledge, no one has said this. It’s possible that the event had its origins in some patronizing thinking, but these days I’m not aware of any proponent who argues that women need their own tournament because of some mental deficit relative to their male counterparts. The Ladies’ Event is a marketing tactic designed to draw women into the game, not to demean them or to marginalize male players in any way. If the argument is not that women can’t compete with men but rather that many choose not to for reasons that have nothing to do with a perceived inferiority, then it makes no statement about the skills or capabilities of female players.

The World Series of Poker is about a lot more than crowning the best of the best these days. The WSOP is now the world’s largest poker festival and the dream destination for millions of recreational players. The smaller buy-in tournaments are where amateurs get a chance to play for life-changing money and rub elbows with their heroes from TV. If a Ladies’ Event can encourage more women to have these experiences, then that’s good for the game and everyone who plays it.

Game Theory at the Gate

CNN reports that,

The Transportation Security Administration stood by its security officers Sunday after a Florida woman complained that her cancer-stricken, 95-year-old mother was patted down and forced to remove her adult diaper while going through security.

At least from what I can tell from this article, the entirety of the woman’s complaint is that an elderly woman should not be searched so thoroughly at airport security.It sounds like the search was conducted appropriately and in private, and there’s nothing to indicate that officials were rude, forceful, or needlessly degrading.

I remember that this was a standard trope in the post-9/11 debates surrounding racial profiling. Those in favor of profiling would say things like, “It’s absurd to assume that a young Arab man and an elderly Chinese woman are equally likely to be threats.”

While I do believe that there ethical and public policy arguments against racial profiling that go beyond its efficacy as a crime prevention tool, I also believe that short of searching everyone, true randomization is the only unexploitable method of searching passengers. In other words, what if al Qaeda predicts that an elderly woman is less likely to get searched and therefore recruits one to carry a bomb onto a plane? Frankly, I don’t think this would be a bad strategy on their part, and consequently the TSA should not pursue a counter-strategy that could be exploited in this way.

You could argue that even if al Qaeda wanted to pursue such a strategy, there are logistical barriers to their doing so. For instance, they have a much larger pool of young Arab men to recruit from than they do elderly white women. Because so much of their senior leadership is Arabic, they may have an easier time recruiting people similar to themselves. Statistically, an Arab man is more likely to be a Moslem than is an elderly white woman, and al Qaeda is obviously an organization that appeals primarily to Moslems. So, perhaps it makes sense for the US to pursue an exploitable searching strategy simply because they believe their opponents do not have the means to exploit it even if they wanted to.

I see quite a few problems with this line of thinking:

1. Al Qaeda and other Moslem organizations are not the only terrorist threats. The Oklahoma City bombing, for instance, was carried out by White American citizens.

2. Al Qaeda has show some ability to recruit and deploy individuals who do not fit the profile of “brown-skinned male citizen of a Middle Eastern country”. Jose Padilla, accused of trying to smuggle a “dirty bomb” into the US, was a Latino and an American citizen. Richard Reed, the alleged “shoe bomber”, was a British citizen. It isn’t clear that these men were chosen because they didn’t fit the profile, or even that they were chosen at all, but neither of those points is relevant with regard to the exploitability of US counter-terrorism policy.

3. Other opponents in the “airport security game” have been known to attempt to exploit security strategy in this way. Drug smugglers, the original targets of airport racial profiling, have used all sorts of people, from children to old women, to bring drugs into the country. Presumably this is because they were aware of what security officials were looking for and whom they were targeting.

4. It may be possible for an organization such as al Qaeda to employ an unwitting passenger as the carrier of a bomb. There’s a reason an airport official always ask you whether anyone tried to get you to carry anything for them.

I also happen to think that the US is overly concerned about security and wasting huge amounts of money on some of their anti-terrorism measures, but that’s a separate discussion. To the extent that we’re going to employ selective searching as an airport security measure, then randomization is the only unexploitable strategy. If your number is up, then you get searched, no matter what you look like. That means that sometimes Grandma’s diaper is going to need to come off.

Edit: Meant to add that, to the extent that the TSA is pursuing an exploitable strategy that is biased against searching elderly women in wheelchairs, it is great for this case to get a lot of publicity.

The Poker Ethicist: Playing With Stolen Money

As “The Poker Philosopher”, and in honor of one of my favorite non-poker blogs, I occasionally consider the ethical dimensions of a high-profile controversy in the poker community. Today, I consider a lawsuit brought on behalf of Ponzi scheme victims against players who allegedly won the fraudulently obtained money from the thief in a high-stakes poker game. Older editions of The Poker Ethicist are available in the archives.

CNN reports that,

“Celebrities who won big money in secret high-stakes poker games at Beverly Hills luxury hotels were paid with funds stolen from investors who had been lured into an illegal Ponzi scheme, a series of federal lawsuits contends.

Actors Tobey Maguire, Nick Cassavetes and Gabe Kaplan, along with professional poker player Dan Bilzerian, two nightclub owners and a Los Angeles lawyer are among at least 11 people being sued by a bankruptcy trustee.”

The lawsuit alleges that Bradley Ruderman fraudulently solicited millions of dollars in investments from at least 22 individuals and lost some of that money in an underground poker game played with the afore-mentioned celebrities as well as Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and others. It seeks to recoup funds lost to these players so that they can be returned to Ruderman’s victims. Are the investor-victims ethically entitled to the return of these funds?

They are not. If the players who won money from Ruderman had no reason to believe that he was gambling with other people’s money, then they are entitled to their winnings. The simple proof of this is that had Ruderman won money in the game, losing players would not be entitled to collect their losses as part of the fund’s bankruptcy proceedings even if it became apparent that Ruderman had been playing with money that was not his own. A rule like this would enable the investors to freeroll Ruderman’s opponents in the game, entitling them pay nothing if Ruderman loses but to keep anything he wins. The fact that Ruderman probably would have never have returned any winnings to his investors is immaterial. The crime is his, and his victims are entitled to recompense from him, not from others who later received that money through no fault of their own.

We can draw an important distinction between this case and the attempts to repay investors who lost money to Bernie Madoff from the funds of those who unwittingly profited from the scheme. In that case, there is a reciprocal relationship between the “winners” and the “losers” in that both were investors with Madoff. Had the timing been different, the “winners” could easily have been “losers” themselves and entitled to recompense from beneficiaries of the scheme. There is no freeroll in this instance, no group that can win but never lose.

The lawsuit alleges that because the game was illegal under California law, “the player[s] had no legally enforceable contractual right to receive payment.” This may create a legal entitlement on the part of the investors, but it does not create an ethical one.

The only way in which the recipients of the funds could be ethically implicated is if they knew the money was fraudulently obtained. In that case, permitting them to keep the money would enable thieves to launder stolen money through poker games with friends, claiming that it is unrecoverable because lost fair and square. If the winners are not in on the impropriety, however, then there is no danger of this and thus no additional harm is done to Ruderman’s investors as a result of his playing poker with their stolen money. If he wins, they win (at least until he finds another way to squander their money), and if he loses, they lose. This time, they lost.

The real winner here is Gabe Kaplan, who is probably thrilled to see his name appearing in Hollywood gossip magazines alongside those of A-listers like Toby Maguire and Matt Damon.

On Not Protecting

Happy 40th Anniversary, War on Drugs!

Today marks the 40th anniversary of President Nixon’s declaration of “war on drugs”, a quagmire that has proven far more expensive and deadly than the Vietnam War that he inherited. Put simply, the war on drugs is an ongoing decision to address America’s drug problem as a fundamentally criminal, rather than for example a medical, one. This means that low-level distribution and even possession of certain drugs can land you in prison for surprisingly long periods of time, particularly if you happen to be poor and/or non-White.

Needless to say, mass incarceration has done little to stem the tide of drug use and distribution. Many argue that it has in fact made the problem worse in many ways:

1. Connecting Criminals: One plausible explanation for the globalization of the drug trade was the war on drugs’ simultaneous imprisonment of large numbers of African-American and Latino-American gang members. The connections they made in prison gave the African-American gangs access to suppliers in Latin America and the Latin American gangs access to a distribution network in the inner cities. In other words, more effective criminals were created.

2. Destroying Employment: It is extremely difficult for ex-convicts to find well-paying jobs. Drug dealers are often the only people willing to hire them, making it difficult to leave the trade even for those who would prefer to do so.

3. Destroying Families and Communities: A staggering percentage of men in certain neighborhoods are imprisoned on drug related charges. This means more single-parent households and more children growing up without adequate supervision and without positive male role models.

Michel Foucault, French philosopher and namesake for this blog, considers the problem of prisons in Discipline and Punish. He argues that even at the inception of the prison system there were people who knew that they would not prevent crime. Why, then, were they built anyway, and why do we continue to rely upon them? Why does the US spend $40 billion a year on a “war” it cannot win?

The most immediate answer is that politicians are cowards. They are, perhaps not without reason, afraid of being branded “soft on crime” if they suggest a different approach to dealing with drugs. There are some former politicians who have spoken out against the war on drugs, but few candidates or current leaders.

We should ask who benefits from this war, though. One possible answer is law enforcement agencies whose budgets are bolstered by anti-drug funds, but even many of them are calling for an end.

The whole thing made no sense to me until I realized what a big business prisons are. Many prisons in the US are operated by private, for-profit contractors who are paid by the head. More prisoners equal more money for them, and they spend millions on lobbying every year.

Interestingly, the towns that house prisons can also benefit. In addition to jobs in construction and prison operation, they are sometimes allowed to count prisoners towards their population for the purpose of allocating seats in legislative bodies and receiving state and federal funds.

Many people in the American poker community are outraged by recent Department of Justice actions that adversely affect our interests. I have seen many argue that prosecuting poker sites is a waste of government resources. That may be true, but there are many more government resources being spent to even greater harm in this disastrous War on Drugs. Let’s not get so caught up in our own problems that we lose all sense of perspective.

The harm inflicted upon our country by this failed policy is incalculable. I’m not pro-drug use, but I am convinced that this “war” is only making the problem worse. It has gone on for far too long, and it’s time for a new approach.

Dealing With a Bad Table Draw

Now that the WSOP is in full-swing, many players will be taking a shot or two at events well above their usual buy-in levels. This can be a great opportunity, because the $1000 and $1500 NLHE events attract hundreds of players weaker than what you’d see in an average $20 MTT on PokerStars.

What sets these tournaments apart is that, unlike the $20 donkament, they also attract some of the best tournament players in the world. This means that if you run bad at table drawing, you could end up with David Baker or Tony Dunst on your left. Understandably, this is a stressful thought for less experienced players considering these events. I have a couple of pieces of advice for these players:

1. Take Advantage of the Opportunity. Presumably part of the reason you are playing this tournament is for the experience of playing at the WSOP. Well, part of that experience is butting heads with the best of the world. Of course you’d rather watch them from afar than from their immediate right, but you can’t control that now. Observe them closely and try to pick up a few things that you can add to your own game. Even if they end up taking your chips, at least you’ll have learned something in the process.

2. Don’t Freak Out. Not even the best pros are gods. Their cards are dealt from the same deck that yours are, and when the action is on them, they have the same three choices: raise, call, or fold. Don’t assume that they are capable of feats of superhuman card skill. In fact, the correct strategy for them is generally to play a relatively straightforward game when stacks are shallowish and the table is full of amateurs. If you make the effort to study them and think through what they are doing, you may be surprised at how much you can figure out.

3. Don’t Be a Hero. Any type of poker play that could be preceded by the adjective “hero”, as in “hero call”, “hero fold”, etc., is generally not going to be a good idea against a player who is better than you. As I understand it, this terms generally refers to making a play with the opposite extreme of your range, so a hero fold means folding one of the best hands you could have in a given spot, where a hero call is calling with one of the worst hands you could have. By definition, these are exploitive plays that seek to take advantage of a perceived glaring imbalance in an opponent’s range, ie that it will be either extremely bluff-heavy or extremely value-heavy. Also by definition, you will have trouble identifying such holes in the game of a superior player, if he even has them in the first place. Better not to get into a leveling war against such a player in the first place.

4. Re-read Rule #1. The bottom line is that you should just relax, play your best, and make the most of the experience no matter what happens.

Backing and Bad Deals

Although I’ve occasionally sold action, I’ve never had a long-term backing deal, and I’ve never wanted one. I have a few horses but I’m generally very reluctant to stake anyone else. My thinking on this is as follows:

To the extent that the backer has an edge on a deal, it comes at the expense of the horse, ie the backer’s share of the profits is money that would otherwise belong to the horse were he playing for himself. Of course the horse derives other advantages from this, namely greatly reduced risk and bankroll requirements. These can certainly be mutually beneficial arrangements, but there is a narrow margin in which the backer is appropriately compensated for his risk and the horse is giving up not too much of his profit.

The catch is that, in most cases, there is also an invisible “trust tax” cutting into one or both sides of the deal. Anyone who reads Two Plus Two knows the kinds of things that happen: horses conceal winnings, play games they aren’t supposed to play, sell more than 100% of themselves, etc. Those are all examples of dishonesty but problems can arise without any bad intention as well: misunderstandings about the terms of the agreement, burnout, a sudden loss of bankroll, etc. No matter how well you know someone, but especially when dealing with relative strangers, you have to factor a substantial risk of something going wrong, intentionally or not.

Because neither party can fully trust the other, both must make some allowance in their edge for the possibility of problems arising. When dealing with narrow margins, this additional risk can theoretically turn a backing arrangement into a bad deal for both sides. This is why I’m very particular about my horses and only enter deals with people who have established reputations and “trust taxes” that are about as low as I can make them.

I’m going to include here some recent correspondence with a reader, slightly edited for clarity and anonymity. I believe his story illustrates my point quite well:

Hello Andrew,

I am 24 years old and I live in Henderson, NV. Following the shut down of service to US players on Pokerstars I decided to play a few live tournaments.  I instantly final tabled two Bellagio WPT $540′s back to back.  During one of those deep runs I was offered, by another player in the tournament, to join his team of players that are backed.  I had made out plans and set out a schedule of tournaments over the course of the summer only to find out that the backer of their team just went on $400k downswing and they are not adding any new players.

Now I am stuck in a bad spot, I am scrambling to find any sort of staking/coaching deal for the summer and I do not know anyone in the poker world.  I am a very intelligent player, and I work very hard at poker.  I have results to prove that I am a profitable player to stake and I will always play until all make up is recovered.  My back up plan to playing live here in vegas is to move out of the country and continue grinding for Supernova Elite.  I would be willing to grind online for bonuses to recover any makeup if needed.  It’s an absolute freeroll for anyone willing to back me.  I have no idea if you even do this sort of thing, but if not perhaps you know someone who does and could put us in contact.  If you or anyone you know might be interested at all please let me know and I will send you a resume of my accomplishments in poker and tell you more about myself as a player.  Any help you could offer, even if just some words of advice, would be greatly appreciated.

Sounds like a shitty situation, and I wish there were something more helpful or reassuring that I could tell you. What happened to you is a good example of why I’ve always avoided entering into relationships like these with relative strangers. There are just too many ways for someone to screw you, intentionally or unintentionally. If you have other options, I would actually encourage you not to rush into another backing arrangement with someone you don’t know well and trust.Leaving one of the gambling capitals of the world to play poker seems a bit silly as well. I’d say just play what you can afford on your own bankroll. Stay away from the high rakes on small stakes tournaments and grind up your roll at 1/2 and 2/5 NLHE games or whatever. Keep an eye out for tournaments that are a part of a series like the Venetian deep stack that provide a better structure or rake for smaller buy-ins.

Hey Andrew, thanks for getting back to me. I decided to just forget about finding a stake and grind the small Venetians.  And wouldn’t you know it I insta make a final table in event #1.  If I can finish top three it will be worth more than the stake that I was supposed to have anyways Looks like I’ll be alright for the summer.

Hey Andrew, I finished 9th at that final table, I lost AK v K2 for a 2nd place stack.  I followed that up with an 11th place finish in the next VDS that I played.  That one was rough I was chip leader with 15 left and bluffed away my chips.  A few days after that I got 2nd in a daily $235 tournament at the Rio for a nice little score of almost 14k, I got 3 outted heads up, 1st was 22k.  No luck in any of the WSOP events yet,  but I really like my chances in the shootout event tomorrow.