Overjamming for value

Hand played on Pokerstars
Seat 2 is the button

Seat 1: Bowl 1 ( $1314.00 USD )

Seat 2: Bowl 2 ( $783.00 USD )

Seat 3: Player 1 ( $2996.00 USD )

Seat 4: Hero ( $1560.00 USD )

Seat 5: Player 2 ( $1047.00 USD )

Seat 6: Player 3 ( $1300.00 USD )

Player 1 posts small blind [$10.00 USD].

Hero posts big blind [$20.00 USD].

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to Hero [  Ac 7d ]

Player 2 folds

Player 3 folds

Bowl 1 calls [$20.00 USD]

Bowl 2 raises [$40.00 USD]

Player 1 folds

Hero calls [$20.00 USD]

Bowl 1 calls [$20.00 USD]

** Dealing Flop ** [ 9d, 2c, 3c ]

Hero checks

Bowl 1 checks

Bowl 2 checks

** Dealing Turn ** [ Jc ]

Hero bets [$75.00 USD]

Bowl 1 calls [$75.00 USD]

Bowl 2 calls [$75.00 USD]

** Dealing River ** [ 5c ]

Hero bets [$1445.00 USD]

Bowl 1 calls [$1199.00 USD]

Bowl 2 calls [$668.00 USD]

Hero wins $246.00 USD

Hero shows [Ac, 7d ]

Bowl 1 shows [Ts, Kc ]

Hero wins $1062.00 USD from main pot

Bowl 2 shows [Qc, Ad ]

Hero wins $2359.00 USD from main pot

So I found myself in a rather sweet looking $200 game with 3 very fishy looking players. Fortunately for me, two of them decide to get involved in a big pot that develops early on in the tournament.

PRE-FLOP

So I’m dealt A-7o in the BB and facing a limp and a min-raise. I’m getting 4.5 to 1 immediate odds which are pretty good but there’s close to 0 chance the limper will be folding when the action is back on him since he’ll be getting even better odds than he was before entering the pot, so giving effective pot odds of 5.5 to 1, I feel this is a mandatory call. I will just have to proceed with caution upon hitting an A and realise it definitely may be no good. In the 8 hands of this tournament the limper’s VPIP is 75% with a PR of 13% so I’m not worried about him pumping it up when the action’s back on him since he seems the passive type. It costs me very little to play, and on the chance of hitting something good I can potentially gain an excellent return on my 20 chip investment. Oh, and I also have both opponent’s marked a “red” colour which in my system means “HUGE FISH”, so my implied odds could be pretty devastating too.

FLOP:  9d—2c—3c

There’s really not much to talk about in this street, I’ve got a backdoor flush and straight draw but still only a fairly weak A high which could easily be behind. Given this and the fact I’m OOP my plan will be to check-fold to any bet from any opponent. The action checks round.

TURN:  Jc

I’ve now turned the nut flush draw, and given there was no interest from either player on the flop, I figure this is a good semi-bluffing spot. This is preferred to check-calling a bet since it offers me the chance at winning the pot immediately and if I’m called I still have the chance to improve on the river. So I fire a bet of 75 into 130, just over half the pot, and not really surprisingly both players call.

RIVER:  5c

BoOoOooOm, I’ve backed into the nut flush, so the question now is how to play it? How can I maximise my $EV with the nuts OOP? For the record, it’s not strictly the nuts, 4c-6c is a straight flush but quite frankly I’m more worried about being hit by lightning than running into that hand. So I considered the fact that both opponent’s called my bet on the turn – this makes it reasonably likely one of them was holding the K or Q high flush draw, and a quick peak at their red rings reminding me they’re both huge fish I decide to make an uncharacteristic bet of 1445 into a 355 pot. I figure it’s unlikely either player will be able to fold the 2^nd or 3^rd nuts to any bet, so if I’m going for value, I might as well go all out – it would be pretty tragic to pot 355 and only receive a flat from a Q high flush which may well have called an all-in. I did mention Bowl 1’s VPIP was 75% in the short span of the game didn’t I?

The Result

Bowl 1 calls…and then bowl 2 calls, oh-oh, time to get worried by that 4c-6c? Nope, bowl 1 shows the Kc and bowl 2 just couldn’t resist donating the rest of his stack with the Qc with two stacks all-in before him in a 4x overbet pot. Sometimes against fish who aren’t folding #1’s biggest fan, the best play is just to shove it. Needless to say, such a bet doesn't need to get called a high % of the time to show decent profit; if I were to have bet around the size of the pot I would need to get called around four times more often than the overbet to show an identical profit in the long run. My 20 chip investment before the flop allowed me to take down a pot worth 3421 in chips, yielding a nice stack which would later help me go on to win the tournament.

I told you my implied odds pre-flop were pretty devastating.

Live long and prosper

The Post-Oak Bluff – An insight into post-flop play

STARRING: FLOPZILLA!!!!!!!

The post-oak bluff was first introduced in poker legend Doyle Brunson’s Super System back in 1979. It is defined as “a very small bet relative to the size of the already-existing pot and may be employed as an attempt at using reverse psychology to steal the pot”.

In his book, the legend brands this as a “gutless” and “weak” play insisting it’s one he would never make. I may be no legend but I beg to differ with the godfather of poker on this one and think this is a great weapon to have in your arsenal. I had a hand come up recently I thought was a legitimate spot to execute this play so hopefully the following example with my analysis is enough to prove the big man wrong!

Hand played on Pokerstars

Seat 5 is the button

Seat 1: Player 2 ( $2140.00 USD )

Seat 2: Hero ( $1635.00 USD )

Seat 3: Player 3 ( $1760.00 USD )

Seat 4: Villain ( $1435.00 USD )

Seat 5: Player 4 ( $650.00 USD )

Seat 6: Player 5 ( $1380.00 USD )

Player 5 posts small blind [$10.00 USD].

Player 2 posts big blind [$20.00 USD].

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to Hero [  Jd Td ]

Hero raises [$60.00 USD]

Player 3 folds

Villain calls [$60.00 USD]

Player 4 calls [$60.00 USD]

Player 5 folds

Player 2 folds

** Dealing Flop ** [ 6s, 3d, 4d ]

Hero bets [$125.00 USD]

Villain calls [$125.00 USD]

Player 4 folds

** Dealing Turn ** [ 2s ]

Hero bets [$280.00 USD]

Villain calls [$280.00 USD]

** Dealing River ** [ 2h ]

Hero bets [$262.00 USD]

Villain folds

Hero wins $262.00 USD

Hero wins $1020.00 USD from main pot

Before discussing the merit of the post-oak bluff which is on the river in this hand, I’ll talk through each betting round as they occurred.

PRE-FLOP

So I’m dealt 10-J suited UTG 6 handed and it’s early on in the SNG. A lot of good players will fold and I definitely couldn’t fault that. However, occasionally I like to open hands like these from EP to balance my range – if I’m only opening around the top 5% of hands or so from EP I can never expect to get paid off with my big hands against a good player who is observant and looking at opening %s from various positions. J-10 suited is the kind of hand you want to balance your range with since it plays so well post-flop, unlike something like A-8o/A-7o which is dominated so much more of the time when called and doesn’t flop as well.

So I have two callers and it looks like I’ll be playing out of position post-flop.

FLOP: 6s-3d-4d

So it’s a pretty good flop for me, I’ve got two overcards and a flush draw giving me a total of 15 outs with two cards to come. This will give me around 55% equity in the hand assuming all of my outs are good. My overcards of course may not be good but betting will make them good in some instances where A-J/K-J/A-10 may fold as I'm blocking those potential flush draws. Since this is a pretty innocent flop and has likely missed both opponent’s ranges along with the fact I have the initiative in the hand having raised pre-flop it’s definitely a spot to lead. Besides, check-calling would typically look like a draw since I’m the one that opened the hand pre-flop and the norm is to c-bet. I lead for a little over half pot at 125 into 210 and receive one caller. I’m not really in tears about this given how much equity I have and if the caller is a fish then I’m just building my own implied odds with the bet and ensuring maximum value in the final betting round if I hit.

Villain has a VPIP of 61% and AF of 1.0 – granted over only 18 hands these numbers are pretty meaningless but they do suggest he will be a loose-passive player. This means it won’t be as tough playing out of position in future rounds since we won’t expect villain to utilise his positional advantage and aggress all that much. It also means we can expect his calling range on this innocent board to be pretty wide.

What kind of range am I assigning villain?

When he calls I’m expecting a lot of overcards that have missed entirely, he may even have some flush draws (better or worse) too and pairs that have hit sets on this board as well as A-x pairs on the board. Again, granted his VPIP % is only based on a very small sample so is by no means a true reflection but it’s all the information we have so it’s all we can go by. So it’s off to the turn…

TURN: 2s

Shit, the straight’s came, time to check and hopefully get to a free river? No…A lot of people will check here and I think it’s a mistake. His VPIP is 61% so we’re expecting him to have a shit load of hands he’s called with on the flop; hands that have a 5 in it only constitute a very small part of that range – 5s/A-5o/A-5s so I’m not overly worried. You might also think with his high VPIP why bet the turn if he’s loose and likely to call again? With the equity our hand still has we would be able to check-call most bets up to pot, so if your hand is worth check-calling a bet it’s usually best betting yourself since it offers the opportunity of winning immediately which check-calling doesn’t. And again, if he calls we are continuing to build our own implied odds and giving ourselves the best chance of maximum payoff on the river should we hit.

So, I opt for a bet of little over half pot again, 280 into 460, and he calls. There’s now 1020 chips in the middle and it’s off to the river.

RIVER: 2h

So the river pairs the board and we have missed our hand. The 2 makes it much less likely 2s/A-2 is in his range. Nonetheless, I’m expecting him to call the turn with the majority of hands he called the flop with – he may toss some overcards on the turn like K-Q/Q-J/J-10 but it’s really tough to know. More importantly, I’ve missed my hand, I’m OOP and the action is on me…Spot to give up and check or spot to bluff, and if so, how much?

Flopzilla analysis

Firstly, to look into the merits of whether this is a legitimate spot to bluff or not, I’ve looked at the situation in a piece of software called Flopzilla. This allows you to develop insight into how certain ranges hit certain boards and will show you in what ways and how often that range hits that board. Obviously the reliability of its data is entirely dependent on your subjective estimation of your opponent’s hand range, but hey, thinking about ranges is better than not thinking about ranges even if you’re completely wrong and is a skill that can be developed over time.

In this hand, I have assigned villain a subjective range of hands which constitute 24.7% of cards – this includes: 2s-7s/A-2o-A-Ko/A-2s-Aks and some middle ranked suited hands and some overcards like K-Qo/K-Jo. So, when comparing this range to the board and this is where flopzilla comes in, 39.4% of the time he will have A high and 29.5% of the time he will have complete air – combined that’s 68.9%. If we stick in a bet of 262 into the pot of 1020, we’ll only have to win the pot around 1 in 6 times to show immediate profit. Basically, we only need him to be folding as little as 16.66% of the time or more to win money and with the fact he’ll have a nothing-hand 68.9% of the time based on our subjective assignment of his hand range, then it clearly makes it a profitable spot to lead for a post-oak bluff. Okay, he may call with A high meaning we might only win at 29.5% at worst (and even then it’s still a profitable bet) but it’s also our fourth barrel in the hand so I wouldn’t count on it. To some opponent’s it will really look like a luring bet as well that’s crying out “call me” so folding A high definitely wouldn’t be unreasonable.

So, 262 into 1020 I lead and villain folds, BoOooOOooOoMmm – profit!!
Notice that my river bet was smaller than the turn bet.

So what’s so good about the post-oak bluff? Why is a small bet the best in this example?

Aside from the fact we have to win the pot so little of the time to profit (and infact, we could afford to lose our next 5 bluffs in this exact same spot and still break-even) I am not expecting villain to fold any of his range that has connected with this board to ANY bet size (hands such as sets, overpairs, straights and one pair A-x hands). if this is true and along with the fact that the times he has complete air and can’t call any bet whether it’s full pot or 1/5^th of pot then it only makes sense to bet a tiny amount so you are losing less chips the times you are called when you run into those made hands in his range. Besides, with this guy’s high VPIP I’m not expecting him to fold even A-3 or A-4 so there’s no incentive to increase the size of our bluff if simply all his made hands will call and all his air hands will fold. It may sound fairly contradictory talking about building our own implied odds on the turn for a potentially big river pay-off against a player with a high VPIP and then going on to bluff him, but given that he will still have a shit load of nothing a high % of the time it actually makes perfect sense.

You often see player’s betting 80%/90% of pot because it “looks stronger” or is “more likely to induce folds” or because they don’t really know and aren’t thinking about ranges, but if your bet is targeted at folding out a portion of your opponent’s range that can’t call any bet then you should be thinking about risking the minimum and saving yourself some chips and $ in the long run.  

And Doyle branded this a "weak" and "gutless" play...*tut tut*...Back to school methinks!

MikeyMcD45

Still money left yet in SNGs?

It’s early, there’s not many games going and I’m just sitting here with some free time so thought what else better to do than to blog update. I thought I’d try to mix it up a bit in this post, so let me start by talking a bit about the state of the games. I’ll post a couple of random thoughts at the end.

As I said in my first post, there’s not one ounce of denying that even just a few years back you’d really be able to take the games for a lot more money than now. And that’s not just the case with specifically 6max SNGs, every form of poker – every game/every format has toughened and it’s rare to find an exploitable niche that’s not saturated with regs these days. The golden age of poker was considered to be early to mid-2000s. However, a couple of hands I played within the last 2 days which I’ll post in a moment came as a reminder that there may still be some money left yet to make in poker. The bottom line is, yes it may be the case of working harder for a lower hourly rate now, but it doesn’t change the fact it’s a game where those who work harder on and off the tables and do it right will gain a skill edge and be able to make more money (even if that edge is small) than those who aren’t.

The so-called “poker boom” was almost 10 years ago and the games have been growing and competition has been getting fiercer ever since – people are learning/improving like nothing else and there’s so many ways of going about this from reading books to watching videos or getting professional coaching online. But who says we won’t see a second poker boom? Black Friday was the day that the authorities seized control over three of the major online sites and consequently led to US players being banned – one of the darkest days in poker. The likelihood is it’s not a matter of if but a matter of when the Americans will be allowed to join us again. Having been starved from online poker for a year and a half now and counting, I’m pretty sure there will be a fair share of hungry gamblers looking to splash some money around when regulation passes, whilst the publicity of it all certainly can’t do any harm either.

Obviously ways to combat the competitiveness of the games is to table select and fit your schedule around to play in the most profitable games. This is fine if you’re just playing poker on the side to make an extra buck or two. If you’re playing professionally though you’ll be playing with regs day in day out and will have to accept that your skill edge may be very negligible in some games which will in turn increase variance/the amount of money you’re swinging. This can obviously be made easier by having a good mentality and being realistic and disciplined – but I’ll leave discussions for the mental aspect in poker for a future post!

Anyway, let the following two hands act as a swift reminder that there is still money left yet to be made in poker J. I will refer to the villain in each hand as “champion” because well, it’s what they are. Each "champion" is a different player from a different game.

Hand one

Hand played on Pokerstars

Seat 1: Player 2 ( $1500.00 USD )

Seat 2: Player 3( $1500.00 USD )

Seat 3: MikeyMcD45 ( $1500.00 USD )

Seat 4: Champion ( $1500.00 USD )

Seat 5: Player 4 ( $1500.00 USD )

Seat 6: Player 5 ( $1500.00 USD )

Player 3 posts small blind [$10.00 USD].

MikeyMcD45 posts big blind [$20.00 USD].

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to MikeyMcD45 [  9s Qh ]

Champion calls [$20.00 USD]

Player 4 calls [$20.00 USD]

Player 5 folds

Player 2 folds

Player 3 calls [$10.00 USD]

MikeyMcD45 checks

** Dealing Flop ** [ Jh, Qc, 2h ]

Player 3 checks

MikeyMcD45 bets [$67.00 USD]

Champion calls [$67.00 USD]

Player 4 calls [$67.00 USD]

Player 3 calls [$67.00 USD]

** Dealing Turn ** [ Td ]

Player 3 checks

MikeyMcD45 checks

Champion bets [$20.00 USD]

Player 4 calls [$20.00 USD]

Player 3 calls [$20.00 USD]

MikeyMcD45 calls [$20.00 USD]

** Dealing River ** [ 8d ]

Player 3 checks

MikeyMcD45 bets [$282.00 USD]

Champion calls [$282.00 USD]

Player 4 folds

Player 3 folds

MikeyMcD45 shows [9s, Qh ]

MikeyMcD45 wins $992.00 USD from main pot

Champion shows [3d, 6d ] 

Hand two

Hand played on Pokerstars

Seat 1: Player 2 ( $1650.00 USD )

Seat 2: Player 3 ( $1490.00 USD )

Seat 3: Villain 1 ( $1360.00 USD )

Seat 4: Player 4 ( $1500.00 USD )

Seat 5: MikeyMcD45 ( $1500.00 USD )

Seat 6: Champion ( $1500.00 USD )

Villain 1 posts small blind [$10.00 USD].

Player 4 posts big blind [$20.00 USD].

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to MikeyMcD45 [  Ks Kh ]

MikeyMcD45 raises [$60.00 USD]

Champion calls [$60.00 USD]

Player 2 folds

Player 3 folds

Villain 1 raises [$90.00 USD]

Player 4 folds

MikeyMcD45 raises [$340.00 USD]

Champion calls [$340.00 USD]

Villain 1 raises [$1260.00 USD]

MikeyMcD45 raises [$1100.00 USD]

Champion calls [$1100.00 USD]

** Dealing Flop ** [ Kd, Ad, 2d ]

** Dealing Turn ** [ 5d ]

** Dealing River ** [ 6c ]

MikeyMcD45 shows [Ks, Kh ]

Champion shows [4c, 5c ]

MikeyMcD45 wins $280.00 USD from main pot

Villain 1 shows [As, Kc ]

MikeyMcD45 wins $4100.00 USD from main pot

So I know what you’re thinking…Did I read that right? And the answer is yes…yes you did. In the first hand champion called us down with 6 high when we’ve represented such strength and he can’t beat anything. Infact, that’s wrong, he can beat precisely 3-4, 3-5 and 4-5 high – maybe he had a read and went for the hero call even though we’d show up with these hands 0% of the time? Not this time son, but good luck in future!

In the second hand, we have our champion flatting our 3x UTG raise in the H-J. We then get 3bet and against an unknown have a pretty easy 4bet, but champion wants to stick around so elects to flat-call. Villain 1 then sticks it in, and I’m not going anywhere with KK against an unknown, and champion decides he wants to play too. Motherfucker!!!! champion has to have AA – no way he’d call his stack off early on with 2 players all-in before him, bastard, I’m so unlucky!!!! No. Champion has 4-5 suited – you did read that right. I suppose it was suited after all, should we let him off the hook?

I thought I’d finish this update by posting a couple of links I recently came across.

Game Theory 

I stumbled across this on Daleroxxu’s blog. I think it’s pretty cringe and the dialogue/acting sucks and they’re trying to be overly clever by using terms like “triple barrel bluff jam” when they could have just said “triple barrelled” whilst the ending is somewhat bizarre and dramatic. The guy’s reasoning in the hand they show besides being shit is full of flaws and contradictions, although it seems to be generating a good like to dislike ratio on the Tube. What do you think?

Finally, here's an interesting article I recently stumbled across:

New study suggests poker is a game of skill

Wow, what's that, another study suggesting poker is a game of skill?

"Players who are characterized by a tight and aggressive playing style generally perform better than their loose and passive opponents. Performance is also related to the number of hands that subjects have played over the previous period: more frequent or experienced players achieve better results."

Nothing we didn't know already, but it's always nice to see new evidence racking up to satisfy the sceptics.

That's pretty much it for now. Time to hunt down some tables!

MikeyMcD45

Pokes updates, Full Tilt reborn, and volume challenge!

Thought I’d drop in with an update since it’s been a while…

Well, around 1 and a half months in and it’s already been interesting. Things were off to an amusing start on the first day when I accidentally registered in a $500 buy-in game misjudging it for a $100 game from my lobby display messing up. Unfortunately I bubbled in a coin flip scenario! Mehhhhhhhh….At least it wasn’t any higher! A $1k or $2k game would have been devastating.

First month review

All in all though, in spite of my volume sucking I managed decent profits relative to the hours/games I put in. I only managed slightly less than half of the hours and games I had set boasting an ROI of 10.9% at an average stake of around $60 and managing a profit of around $3200 before bonus/rakeback. With such a short sample, these numbers are pretty meaningless in a game with so much short term variance. I did put in way more time than anticipated working on my game off the tables (hard to say how much, maybe somewhere between 10 and 20 hours each week), and whilst it won’t help achieve short term volume goals it should help boost my ROI and expectation in the long run. I did at least meet my exercise goals and put in around 194 miles on the bike for the month so at least that was something.

Remember remember 6^th of November  

The start of last month also brought great news that Pokerstars had purchased Full tilt’s assets with intentions of making full pay-outs to ex-players. It has now been confirmed non-US players will be paid out in full on November 6^th. As a former full tilt player, I had my most profitable month in poker at the time right before it shut down last June and had around a $4k bankroll on there. I had more or less accepted I wouldn’t be seeing this money again when a deal broke through around four or five months ago. However, rumours then surfaced that Pokerstars were in the hunt to buy over and since they seemed like the last hope, it was good news they were able to strike a deal. Whilst this is great for my money and will be an excellent boost to my current bankroll, it’s hard to say how good it will be for online poker in the long run. Pokerstars running the two biggest sites in the industry means a complete monopoly giving them the ability to increase rake/worsen bonuses if they so choose so only time will tell what happens. Hopefully it’s not long before the Americans are allowed back on which would likely create a second poker boom and increase the number of profitable games running.

Volume challenge

Off the table work is essential and there’s always stuff you can do to improve, but the idea is your time becomes focused more towards playing once you have a lot of experience under your belt and have spent plenty of time off the tables. With that in mind, I’ve decided to challenge myself to reach 200k VPPs before the year is up, which means at my current pace (around 76k) I’ll have to grind my ass off and average around 9k per week. For some, this would be a walk in the park but it will be a challenge for me, especially since I’ve only managed 76k for the entire year to this point which really does suck although not really a surprise given I’ve only grinded part-time until now. The reward for reaching 200k pays $2.6k alone along with multiple FPP bonus prizes along the way, so should be a profitable proposition unless I lose everything at the tables which is unlikely but on a horrid run could happen. The other potential downside is I’ll likely have to play in some games that are –EV before rakeback or a breakeven proposition which will reduce my ROI and increase variance/stress levels. If I start losing a lot I’ll just need to make sure I’m exercising good bankroll management and playing within my limits so I’m not affected as much, with perhaps adding in extra lower stakes tables to account for that and make up VPPs. My plan will be to hit supernova before or on October 1^st and unless I do so I’ll be making life difficult for myself in the remaining months and the challenge may not have much merit.

That more or less wraps up everything for now, I’ll be updating in the next day or two with another hand analysis, so until then …Peace out

An Ill advised WTF ICM hand

Hand played on Pokerstars

Seat 3 is the button

Seat 3:Villain ( $3302.00 USD )

Seat 4: Hero ( $5283.00 USD )

Seat 5: Player 3 ( $415.00 USD ) (Sitting out)

Hero posts small blind [$75.00 USD].

Player 3 posts big blind [$150.00 USD].

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to Hero [  As 8h ]

Villain raises [$300.00 USD]

Hero ACTION????

Alright, it wasn’t long since my last post but I hope to post a few strategic hands each month to keep things interesting so here we go. 

So the BB/player 3 has been sitting out the tournament for a solid while now.  He is about to bust and the hero and villain are about to coast into the money once the BB goes through him another round – 5 more hands precisely until it’s guaranteed money for both of us, not bad eh?!

Well, whilst that’s what should be the case, it looks like the villain has other plans. Maybe he had a meeting and was running late?

So, once the villain opens to 400, against anyone not only with good knowledge on ICM but also observing the fact player 3 is sitting out, hero should be able to profitably push back 100% of cards since villains calling range should be non-existent or close to it. The presence of a cripple stack means it would be a disaster for villain to be in an all-in confrontation with hero because of ICM considerations – that’s to say that villain cannot make money as winning an all-in doesn’t burst the bubble and allow him to reach HU play, he can only lose money. Not only this, he is guaranteed a minimum of 2^nd place in a few hands time, which in this $100 turbo is $195.82. Sure winning would see his equity increase in the tournament but does the equity gain justify being all-in with a blinding out cripple and therefore guaranteed equity in a few hands time? Fuck no…

Hero is dealt A-8o, and elects to shove back because of ICM considerations and the fact he is ahead of villain’s button opening range. Like a true champion, villain finds it in himself to “trap” the hero and raise-call his 22bb stack off with J-9s, WTF?!?

Remaining part of hand history:

Hero raises [$5208.00 USD]

Player 3folds

Villain calls [$3002.00 USD]

Hero wins $1981.00 USD

** Dealing Flop ** [ 2d, 5d, 8d ]

** Dealing Turn ** [ 8c ]

** Dealing River ** [ 2s ]

Hero shows [As, 8h ]

Villain shows [Js, 9s ]

Hero wins $6754.00 USD from main pot

Okay, so first off, doing this with AK would just be so terrible, so it’s going to be very costly with J-9s. The questions it raises, is how do we adapt in future, and what can we shove back against various opponents in future? Against a good player who knew ICM very well, you could shove back almost any two if they were raising wide although it’s a spot most good players will fold or ship anticipating being exploited unless you’ve no history, so this spot would be fairly rare. However, it wouldn’t necessarily be rare against a fish who can’t help himself from playing hands even when he shouldn’t be. Although some people will be sceptical about shoving back wide in this case if he’s not only raising wide but calling wide, this situation is an exception. The fact is, even if we lose we are going to have guaranteed equity in a few hands time because we are the big stack so the fact he is calling very wide is irrelevant – as long as we know he is opening wide enough - that's all that matters, whilst A-8o isn’t exactly wide and stands to be well ahead of villain’s range. It however would be a terrible proposition if we were the mid-stack since we’re risking our tournament life with soon guaranteed equity and we aren’t a big enough favourite to justify taking this risk, so folding to a raise in that case if the positions were the same would be the most +EV approach. Where you might shove 2-7o against a good player in these similar situations that arise on the bubble so long as you know it isn’t an induce, you certainly wouldn’t want to shove it back against a fish calling as wide as J-9s in this instance. When you observe such a hideous play, take a note on the opponent, colour code him, and adjust in the future and don’t abuse him on the bubble when you have the big stack and tighten up your shoving ranges against him.

Incidentally, assigning a hand range to a fish is a difficult thing to do since their ranges may be fluid, based on ego or what kind of mood they are in that particular day. It’s possible I won the previous couple of hands and this guy’s ego couldn’t cope with having to fold again and respect the situation even though that is the most +EV approach, and so he’s made his stand. He certainly isn’t thinking about his equity in the tournament anyway, that’s for sure.

In a couple of years of playing SNGs, this is one of the worst errors I’ve ever witnessed. His call is definitely a –EV proposition and a significant amount of equity gain goes to the cripple stack here since he has the chance at making money, but he isn’t even here. He literally could be having a nap yet the mid-stacks call is giving him a chance to make money which is exactly what happened – nice life. The question remains: how bad is it?

So, I thought I would plug the hand into an ICM calculator – SNG wizard, to really find out how costly this error was.

The wizard is unable to interpret situations from the original raiser’s perspective where there have been two actions pre-flop such as this one, so I’ve switched the positions of villain and player 3 around in this hand and given player 3 a fold on the button, so we can take a look at the hand from villains POV with hero shoving all-in blind versus blind against him. And as it is….Even if hero is shoving 100% of cards, calling with J-9s costs him 10.75% of the prize pool! That’s the equivalent to just over $60. Shoving 50% costs him 17.40% of the pool, whilst shoving 25% costs him 19.23% - need I go on? Mistakes that cost you anywhere from 0.5% to 1% of the pool are regarded pretty significant so you can grasp just how costly these numbers are. Of course this is from a blind on blind shoving perspective whereas in the initial hand he opened for a raise, so the fact is these figures might not quite be as costly with extra chips/equity in there, although given it was a min-raise and given what he has behind, the overall impact on these figures should be very negligible.  

There is an element of flaw however with these figures. The wizard isn’t able to account for the fact that the cripple stack in this situation is actually “sitting out”. This means as we’ve said already, he is guaranteed equity in a few hands time just by folding. In a standard 6max pay-out structure, 2^nd place pays 35% of the total prize pool. Essentially, this means his mistake wasn’t actually any of those figures we arrived at earlier even though hero wouldn’t be shoving that wide anyway because villain opened the hand and villain is a fish, but more or less equivalent to him pissing away 35% of the pool which in this $100 buy-in is $195.83, and that’s not counting potential future money in the heads up. Even ignoring the fact the player is sitting out and the chance of free equity, calling with J-9s in the example assuming the player is sitting in against an 100% range will cost him 10.75% of the pool as we found out earlier, and only a calling range of Js through to As is recommended. 

It’s amazing. If you were walking down the street and seen an envelope with 195 bucks lying in it, would you pick it up? It doesn't seem this guy would…As PezRez once said, "In SNGs, ICM is king"

Live long and prosper

Going pro: YIIIIIKESSS!!!!!

So I guess now’s the time I’ve chosen to label myself a professional poker player. It’s taken a while to get here, but I’m pleased I’m finally in the situation where I can dedicate my time to playing full time hours from here on.

For those of you who don’t know, I’m “MikeyMcD45” on Pokerstars. I’m 23 years old and from Glasgow. Having played part-time for a couple of years, the idea of making the jump to full time was something always on my mind. Aside from having no appealing options elsewhere and a degree that looked good if you spat on it (no offence to those who have the same degree/classification as me), I kept replaying the same questions over and over: Can I be a professional poker player?, is it realistic?, what are other pro’s out there doing I’m not?, and probably most importantly, it this the best career choice for me? It all seemed a little bit silly, unrealistic and fantasy like. But then again, the romantic tag “professional poker player” is one that is definitely misleading.

Playing long hours it can be a grind, and being able to deal with swings and maintain your A game through them can be very tough. A lot of people also need to know when their next paycheck is coming and that’s just not something you can count on as a poker pro. Coping with variance and maintaining motivation, especially through long losing/break-even periods definitely don’t come easy, but as a pro it’s your job to remain unfazed and keep confidence during these periods. Being your own boss it’s also incredibly easy to slack from work and not put the right hours in. I also think that with the current state of the games and industry after "Black Friday", playing poker is now definitely a case of working harder for lesser rewards. I’ll try and keep this post fairly positive though and not dwell on the downsides, but it’s important to recognise they are there. I’ll revisit concepts such as swings, variance, state of the games and the mental aspect in greater depths in future posts.

Incidentally, the above is one of the reasons I am creating a blog. During tough spells, I hope to reflect back on blog posts and be able to view the whole picture than get too down and caught up on short term loss. 

So, my reasons for creating the blog:

• To document progress/track goals
• Assure I'm putting the necessary work in upon monthly reviews
• Keeping a straight head during the tough times/negative variance
• Share interesting hands I've analysed

So, what are my goals?

It’s a fairly strange time to announce pro, but I needed my circumstances to be right. My goals for the remaining parts of the year are:

• Focus on 6max SNGs on Stars (primarily turbo's)
• Focus on buy-ins ranging from $30 to $100
• Play at least 30 hours of poker a week
• Log in at least 1000 games per month
• Spend a couple of hours a week working on my game
• Steadily increase the number of tables I'm able to play at once
• Run at least 15 miles a week

Evaluation of goals

6max SNGs are what I have always played, and it’s the niche I aim to specialise in. I have played other formats but none anywhere near as extensive as 6max and it’s where my experience lies. Table selecting above the $100 level is something I aim to do in future whilst remaining risk-averse, but only when the right bankroll is there. There will be times I may not manage 30 hours a week, but there will also be times I hopefully manage to play a lot more than this, so this is certainly the average I’m aiming for to begin with, and the bare minimum at that. With the number of tables I usually average in an hour and the number of hours I’m aiming for, this should see me be able to play a fair bit more than 1k, but this is definitely the minimum to aim for and any less really isn’t acceptable. Creating the blog will allow me to see how I’m meeting these targets, how I manage/improve over time and what areas I’m falling short in, so this can only be a good thing for me in the long run. Exercising good is important too, especially when so much of your time is spent just sitting on a chair so a proper and consistent routine should allow me to exercise well and meet my volume requirements too. Like most sane players IMO, I hope to achieve a healthy balance of work and play – I think I would be pretty miserable just playing 24/7 and not enjoying life outside of poker. A lot of sick dedicated players are able to really annihilate volume and full respect to them, but I feel like many aren’t getting the most of some of the advantages being a poker pro offers. There’s more to life than clicking a mouse and pressing buttons on a keyboard all day long.

What can you expect out of my blog?

As I’ve said above, this should allow me to document my own progress and keep a track of goals, as well as give me time to reflect off the tables. I’ll use it as a part-strategy blog as well and post the occasional hand analysis – alike to md261/pezrez’ and bigstealer’s blogs. I may even make some live sweat videos and upload them in future too, so stay tuned for that!

I will have running monthly updates of hours, no of games and profits.

For now, I think I’ve said all I wanted to. Wrapping up some off the table work in the meantime so first session will be logged in on the 1^st of August. Wish me luck!

Mikey