Practice Ideas

I am sometimes accused of "practicing" too much poker.  The low limit play tournaments provide me countless hours of fun, and I sometimes learn something while playing them although they are sometimes not practical lessons, more like how to be a donk and win type.  But, as I was thinking today about how to best improve my game I had some ideas that seemed like they would be fun to try.  Here they are:

1.  Play a game of RF (Raise Fold).  You are not allowed to ever limp.  You must either raise or fold from every position with every hand.  Many years ago I used to play a limit game online that had that rule.  I think it taught me to be more aggressive.  Incidentally did very well in the game.

2. Only min-raise, and always on the button.  This is probably a very donkey play as it allows many hands that would fold to a larger bet to call.  The positive side of this is that it teaches you to play aggressively but excercise more "pot control".  You can evaluate the flop and go from there.

3.  Trap.  Basically never raise pre-flop.  Limp in with those aces, ace/king, etc. and see what happens.  Flop a set but there are draws?  Trap and let them have their free cards.  Most of the time they are calling and hit surprisingly often.  You can save some money here.

4.  Play every unraised hand.  Yes, play "limpede".  Some folks seem to play this way naturally, we call them "calling stations".  If you are running good you will nail some flops with unexpected hands.

5. Suited card game:  This has several components.  First, call with any suited cards or raise with big suited connectors.  You can vary this by allowing yourself to call raises or not. Another variation is to only play suited cards.  Tough.

6.  Shove with any pair.

7.  Raise with any ace, including weak ones.

8.  Play only face cards and pairs.

9.  Play "all in or fold".  Those are your only two options.  It will probably be a short tournament for you but it really is fun.  They had a game of this at the Crazy Moose casino a few years ago and it played pretty well, better than you would think.  It teaches you aggression and making good hand decisions.

So, trying one these this morning I had mixed results.  My choice was only playing suited cards.  This did not work out well as I quickly lost my discipline when dealt AA.  Decided to modify my strategy and incorporate the fold shove pocket pairs.  This worked out well as doubled up through the AA and later QQ.  Lost a good chunk of chips by calling two shoves (separate hands) with KJ suited.  Also lost a good bit with KQ suited despite turning the royal flush draw.  Some tables it seems like the flushes just roll in regularly but not this time.  It is worth another try.

Guess in summary these sessions teach you that your game must be varied as sometimes all of the strategies work but sometimes they are inappropriate.  This is just a fun way to play around and see what happens.           

A Couple of Thoughts

Some random thoughts have strolled through my head (as they are wont to do).  Help!  I must let them out!!!  First I have been thinking about AQ.  It has really run through the gamut of my feelings.  I still consider it a "top 10 hand", but really consider it a problem hand.  It is basically a hand that we all love to hate. Found this screen shot from 4 years ago, typical of the stuff you run into with this hand.  That said, I was eliminated from 2 tournaments this week against AQ.  Go figure.

Why does AQ suck so badly?  Got me, ask Joe Sullivan who hates it with a passion.  He keeps some detailed records of it and claims that it costs him more than any other hand.  Of course, Joe plays every hand (no winners thrown away!!) and if he claims AQ is the "biggest loser", well then I must concur.

So, how badly am I running these days?  Glad you asked.  I can barely run at all as my knees seem to be becoming arthritic.  Ha Ha!  Oh, in poker.  Here is an example from this morning.  I raise with AK suited and am re-raised all-in by A10 off.  Call.  There is a QJ on the flop so you know very well what the turn is:  the king.  But, a better example is the first tournament of the day.  I limp in with A/4 of clubs.  The flop is 10/J/x with the 10 and jack both clubs.  A player shoves, I call with the nut flush draw and hit it on the turn with the king.  The board fails to pair and I lose, Q/9 of clubs has hit a straight flush.  Now that is ugly.  Like I say, running very bad.

Bemoaning Our Luck

Yes, I know that telling bad beat stories is very tiresome work, yet when you get them heaped upon you time after time it helps to have a friend to commiserate with.  So, Mike and I have been trading bad beats via email and text this week.  Americas Cardroom seems to specialize in handing them out like candy at Halloween.  We have both had our aces cracked by basically junk hands.  There have been more WTF moments than I can count.  Some of the beats make me think about changing my basic strategy which is essentially get my money in with the best hand.  This does not always work out as the guy playing J/5 suited will tell you.  I understand shoving with crap.  That is something we all are sometimes forced to do because of chip stack, position, etc.  What I do not understand is the players who insist on calling big raises with essentially junk hands in the hopes I suppose of flopping big, or maybe catching a piece figuring you have nothing, etc.  It just seems like stupid play to calculate that your cards are probably live if you have junk, and the raiser probably doesn't have a big pair.  I understand a lot better the guy who limps on the button with his trash hand after a ton of limps.  He is probably playing correctly and getting great odds with position.  It is the guy who re-raises with junk after calling a tight utg player's big raise with a caller.  I "get" the squeeze play idea, and sometimes it works, but really, UTG, Tight????

So, faced with multiple losses today in the AC games and a righteous win in Pokerstars (playing my normal game), I am considering how to play in tonight's Wheeler game.  As it is basically a turbo game I am thinking that the early chip up is the only way to go.  Hitting the final table short stacked is not a viable option.  In order to do this, unless I get monster cards early, I must therefore gamble more and widen my calling options.  We'll see how that works out providing I don't fall back to my default position of tight aggressive.

Pictured below is a great hand I saw (fortunately not involved in) playing some Omaha this morning. I bought in for $400 and ultimately cashed out for $1040.  The cards were running really good for me in this game, filling up my 2 pair on the river, etc.

Demetrius

This is definitely a non-poker blog entry.  I heard today that Demetrius passed away.  When we purchased the building that was to become our ice cream/espresso store, one of the first people we met was our neighbor from across the street.  His first words to us were, "You paid too much for the building".  How he knew what we paid is still a mystery to me, but as I was to find out, there was little that happened in our small town that he did not know about first.  He owned a very small motel, I think maybe 6 rooms, plus a condemned motel which the fire department later burned as a training excercise.  When the property next door, a convenience store with apartments above, became available he quickly made an offer to the widow of the owner.  Later he would sell both the burned hotel property and his other motel to a local lodging conglomerate who would build a quality motel and time-share properties on the land.

My most memorable experiences were the summer and fall that he "ran" the convenience store.  He had purchased it lock stock and barrel and despite having no retail experience attempted to operate it. We had bought the nicer, bigger convenience store directly across the street but had some issues with the operation that summer involving our liquor license.  Demetrius reaped a bounty as we basically forfeited all beer sales to him until after Labor Day.  Once my license was in place I proceeded to build a huge wine business as I felt that was a great opportunity.  Our store included a small contract post office (my obituary will include "postmaster of zip code 97145, Tolovana Park, Oregon"), and Demetrius came over every day to check for mail and mostly to check out what I was doing.  They say that imitatation is the most sincere form of flattery, so I was extremely flattered when he copied literally anything that I did, including bringing in a huge wine selection.  My favorite wine story is when I read that Greek Independence Day was approaching I put in a huge stock of Greek wines, then put a big sign in front of my store celebrating it!  Poor Demetrius, the Greek native had zero Greek wines in stock.  Score one for me!

I called him the "iron man".  My normal closing time was 10 p.m. during the week, and 11:00 or so on the weekends.  When I would lock the door, there he was, still open.  I watched this for a long time and one night decided that I would stay open until I saw his lights go out.  I would teach him a lesson about staying power!!!  So, 10 o'clock came and went, then 11:00, finally around midnight I saw him leave.  The only problem was, the next day I was toast.  And of course when I closed, he was still open.  Like I said, he was the iron man.

Anyway, after selling his motel and finally closing the store, he moved back to Portland.  I saw him a couple of times over the next few years but his visits to Cannon Beach were few and far between. The convenience store was rented out to the buyers of my store and later to a succession of other tenants.  His kids now are running the operation and I have heard rumors of some new business coming.  I miss the old days and watching Demetrius running back and forth between his motel and store.  He was one of a kind.     

How To (Not) Play Aces

What a glorious feeling it is to squeeze that first look at your hole cards and see American Airlines! Hallelujah!!!! The skies just opened up and the sun is shining brightly!  You are king of the universe, Superman and Batman rolled into one.  But wait, is it possible to play aces badly?  So badly, that you manage to lose the hand and perhaps your seat in the tournament?  Well, sadly, yes.  Truth be told it is much easier to play small pairs (in my humble opinion) than those pocket rockets.  Yes, oftentimes they "play themselves", you raise, pocket kings re-raises, and you shove.  Easy peasy.  I had a recent conversation with a poker friend about this and how he had lost by trapping.  Then just a few days later I watched him get busted again with the same trap.  But let's take a closer look at the positional and action situations.

1.  Under the gun
     To me, this is probably the easiest place to play aces.  You of course would seldom limp in to trap, but sometimes that is exactly what you want to do.  If there is a hyper-aggressive button, you may draw other limpers in to see Mr. Maniac raising.  You can then re-raise or better, shove, to watch the "monkeys in the middle" fold to the squeeze and hopefully the loose button folds as well or calls and you can hope he does not get lucky.  This is situational, and you need to know the players' tendencies.  If you limp and everyone else does too your rockets just hit a big problem with you out of position.

I prefer to raise, even a min-raise will do, but better is a standard 2.5x or 3x blind raise for consistency's sake and to provide cover for yourself when you do it with a smaller pair.  If the min-raise is perceived as weak by the later players it may encourage them to re-raise to isolate you. Great! I busted out of a tournament at The Venetian on the bubble with this exact scenario.  My pocket kings were definitely no good.

2.  Middle position with a limper or 2.
     This to me is clearly a raise situation, with a 3x plus 1x for each limper.  You want to elicit folds here, or get the small pair, weak ace, or suited connectors to call out of position in a big pot.  I see no scenario where you would ever limp.

3.  Late position, no limpers
     From any late position, hijack, cutoff or button I would standard raise.  This looks like a steal, and will often get played back at from stronger hands.  Oops, sorry AK.

4.  Late position multiple limpers
     This is pretty much the same as middle position, just a bigger raise due to the number of limpers.

5.  Small Blind, no limpers
     Man, do I ever hate aces here.  If you raise, whoopdedoo, you just got your blind back plus the BB.  If you limp to trap you let 7/2 flop trips and bust your weak ass.  What the heck to do?  I think my preference would be to overbet the pot.  It looks extremely weak and may encourage the big blind to play back at you hard.  How much to overbet?  Depends on your stack vs. the BB.  If you each had 10 BB's or less, I think a shove would be in order.  More blinds, maybe 4 to 5 BB's.  Either way, you look a little weak.

6.  Small Blind, limpers
     O.K., here is where you definitely want to bet.  As the out of position player there is no way you want to see a flop.  The more limpers, the bigger the bet.  Shoving would not be out of the question as you might get a call from that small pair or suited ace.

7.  Big Blind, no limpers except small blind
     Again, I am thinking not to trap here.  A big raise will nearly always get a fold, but a min-raise?  I kind of like the idea of getting more money in the pot with the best hand and best position.

8.  Big Blind, limpers
     I also hate this position.  A big raise is in order except for one scenario which I will describe below.

The "Stop and Go" Play
I remember two distinct hands where I had aces in the big blind.  Both times I had a smallish stack, not big enough to elicit folds with a lot of limpers.  Both times I shoved pre-flop and lost.  Both times, If I had played a stop and go, I would probably have won the hand (and a lot of chips).  So, the basic strategy is this:  You check your option, and shove any flop.  In the two tournaments I mentioned, the first had two jacks on the flop (nobody had one), but it was checked to the river and a player rivered a flush.  The second one, same story, a pair on the flop which nobody had and a rivered 2 outer set of 6's.  I am pretty sure that I would have won both hands with the stop & go.  This is a highly situational scenario, but I have run into it a few times.  It can also work well with a smallish stack if you catch any part of the flop or choose to bluff off your chips. 

Long Time No Blog

O.K., so nobody is pushing me very hard to blog again, but I have had my reasons to stop.  Since my last blog have traveled to Phoenix, had visitors here at the beach, and have been on a non-stop losing streak.  Friday night was pretty typical, on the money bubble final table I shove with middle pair (K/9 on a Q/9/x flop).  I am called by 9/10 who hits his 10 on the river.  That is kind of the way it has been going for me.  I am hard pressed to explain why, but it just seems that I am losing coin flips (previous Friday my 4/4 vs. AK on the final table bubble) and getting drawn out on when I have the dominating hand.  I keep thinking that something has to improve soon as it is getting discouraging.

I had planned to travel to Pasco last week as my wife is out of town, but had early company from my family who had planned to visit with friends (the friends backed out) changed things.  It is a darned long trip and wanted to stay more than 2 or 3 days.  Maybe in September I can work out a visit.