Perfect, Perfect, Perfect

First, a description of the players on table 2 Friday night.  Dealing is a "cadgy codger" that has been a nemesis.  He is to my immediate left in seat 9 position.  Oh great, he has position on me.  Next is another nemesis, fairly tight and wary.  Looks like there are no blinds to be stolen here.  Seat 2, I forget.  Seat 3 is the player I was heads up with for the tournament last week.  Very loose, very aggressive.  Seat 4, another loose aggressive player.  More about him later.  Seat 5, crazy man capable of monster bluffs.  Seat 6 the inevitable "stranger off the streets".  No idea how he plays and he chips up big early.  I suspect from the hands he is playing they will all be in motion soon.  Seat 7 is a nice lady who is savvy and tight.  Will not be stealing blinds soon.  Whew.  Seat 8 is our resident "has been poker pro".  Always a problem and will be facing some blind on blind confrontations soon.  Also loves to steal from the button or cut-off so will not be defending many lightly.

Play progresses for almost an hour.  I am just either getting crap cards or small pairs that call raises and miss.  I raise a couple of times and elicit folds.  My tight aggressive reputation preceeds me, or at least I think so.  With blinds now at 60/120 and the first break close, I am down to around 1700 in chips (starting with 2150).  I really have learned in this turbo that at break I need to be 1.5 to 2 x starting chips to survive.  Under the gun I am dealt AK.  I really am not a huge fan of this premium drawing hand but cannot limp, so I raise to $260.  Given my rep and position one would think most hands would fold here.  Not so much.  Seat 4 Loose/Aggressive calls.  Flop comes good for his perceived range, 9/8/3.  As the board is not dry, I fire out $300.  He calls.  Hmmm, thought I would get a fold here.  Turn card is great, another 9 and I bet bigger $600.  He calls.  This is distressing, I am now putting him on a pair, maybe 10's or Jacks.  His two pair is good at this point, so when the river comes an ace, I figure he has now been counterfeited and shove my remaining stack.  He snap calls (has me covered), and turns over his full house A/9.  Literally the only card that would have delivered my stack is the stupid ace.  He has flopped his perfect 3 outer, hit it again perfect on the turn, and hit perfect on the river.  I am home before the break begins.

Winning is Fun

Last Friday's tournament was fun.  Dealing table 2 I managed to survive until the final table with a short but workable stack.  Down to 5 players, this hand came up.  Playing the big blind with 10K in chips, blinds at 1/2 K, it is folded to the small blind who limps in.  I discover QQ and go all-in, while the small blind, a very savvy and tricky player snap calls.  He has pocket kings.  Rut Row!  The flop almost destroys all hope, A/K/10.  The turn is no help but the river is my jack for the gutter ball straight.  Now much healthier a couple of other players are eliminated and I win some more chips. The 3 of us are pretty close in chips, as the chip leader I suggest a 3 way chop of the $1100 total prize pool. One player wants to play it out, but the other suggests we each take $300 (2nd place money), and play it out for the rest.  We agree, one is eliminated and I am heads up against the non-chopper.  I eliminate him within 4 or 5 hands and take home $500.  Nice to win and be on the right side of a gigantic suck out for once.

Now for my topic of the week:  "Risk of Ruin"

Re-reading Annie Duke's book, "Decide to Play Great Poker", the topic of how tight to play in different stages of a tournament is discussed.  Her contention is that at the start of a tournament with blinds very low, your "risk of ruin" is low as well, so you should play very tight.  The reasoning being that it is very difficult to lose your seat so you should wait for premium hands, good position, etc. Later, when the blinds are larger in proportion to your chip stack, you must loosen up your play as your risk of ruin is much higher.  I have had lots of discussion with friends on this topic, and many believe and play like "well, the blinds are so small that I can gamble earlier, and tighten up later if I don't win any chips".  That is true, and early aggression or catching huge with weak cards can create the monster stack that can bully its way to the final table (or just limp there).  I have tried it both ways and am not sure of the best answer.  What say you?

Any Two Suited Cards

"I don't play any two suited cards.  I play any two unsuited cards.  That way I am drawing to two different flushes"  Amarillo Slim

Lately I have been surprised by the number of people who will play any two suited cards even against big raises and also put all their chips in on a draw despite horrible odds.  They are sometimes successful, but one important poker lesson (and maybe a "life" lesson as well), is that bad decisions are bad decisions despite sometimes having good or desirable outcomes.  Personally, my quest is to keep trying to make good decisions and separate the outcomes.

Poker is a game of incomplete information.  Sometimes our decisions are driven by purely mathematical odds.  Do I limp in from the small blind with my 7/2 because the entire table has limped in?  Do I call a shove with 2/2 for my tournament life?  Do I chase a gutshot straight draw to a pot sized bet?  Most of these decisions are fairly easy.  We look at our situation and go for the math, go for the gamble, or live to fight another hand.  Based on what I see, many people are going for the gamble on a regular basis.  At some point, we are forced to do this.  Many players, however, go for the gamble much too early in a tournament.  As a regular in turbo tourneys there is definitely a sweet spot where you must gamble and many others when you do not need to.

Getting back to the two unsuited cards topic, we all know that being suited only adds a small percentage to your odds.  So, what makes those 9/3 suited hands so attractive?  The higher the rank of your largest cards does add value as a J/3, Q/3, K/3 and definitely A/3 all are much better than our 9/3 example.  Why are they better?  Well, a pair of 9's does not win as often as a pair of jacks, queens, kings or aces!!!  But here is the rub.  Say you are lucky enough to flop top pair.  You bet, it is raised, what do you do now?  Call and hope that you hit your kicker?  This horrible predicament was caused by a poor decision at the start, to play your miserable hand.  Sometimes an even worse thing happens. You flop or turn your desired flush and get big action, and maybe that person is just like you and plays any two suited, except his includes a queen or king.

I remember a low limit game played many years ago at Spirit Mountain Casino.  A player at my table could not lose a hand.  He had accumulated a massive pile of chips, around 400-500 as I recall in this lowly 3/6 limit game.  He was crushing it.  I got into a hand against him with a suited ace.  We both hit the flush and in this particular game when you are heads up, there was no limit on raises.  We both just kept going until I was out of chips and won the hand.  It was a good lesson to me.

I am currently re-reading "Decide To Play Great Poker" by Annie Duke.  One of her early points is that we always want to make good decisions.  Much of poker is putting ourselves in position to make those and having our opponents make bad ones.  Playing "any two suited cards" often puts us in a spot where we are having to make tough decisions and often bad ones.

According to my friend google (and I'm sure that he is nice enough to answer you as well if you ask him), the odds of being dealt any 2 suited cards are 3.3 - 1 (or 24%), if you have 2 suited cards the odds of flopping a flush are 118 - 1 (or 0.84%), and with 2 suited cards the odds of making a flush by the river are 15 - 1 (or 6.4%).

Weak Aces and Small Pairs

    

Noticing a trend on my latest last tournament hands, have been knocked out with either a weak ace against a slightly stronger ace, or a strong ace against a small or medium pocket pair.  It is probably "my bad" for losing with a weak ace, but the circumstances were such that any ace was probably the best hand (as in heads up play) and it was just my bad luck to run into a weak ace with a slightly higher kicker.  In general, I really do despise weak aces and my definition of such is a kicker less than a jack.  Weak suited aces are not much better, but definitely playable in the right position.  What astounds me is people not only playing them, but raising out of position with crap like A/5 off under the gun (saw this last week)....and he won a big pot with it.

The other problem for me lately has been losing coin flips when all in.  I have had QJ suited busted by 9/9 (I raised in late position, called, small flop), AK suited busted by both 5/5 and 2/2.  Really did not understand either player's actions.  The first time I went all in on the button with QJ suited and figured the very loose big blind would call with his big stack.  Surprised by the small blind calling with 2/2 having the loose action behind him.

The second hand was also crazy action.  Early position (maybe utg plus 1) raises big with his 5/5.  I am running a fairly short stack and pick up AK suited.  I shove, he calls a little more than his raise.  5's hold up.  What I did not understand was raising big with such a weak hand.  It usually signifies exactly the hand he had, one that did not want to see a flop or a call or a re-raise.  It is basically playing your hand face up.  How much better (not based on the results) would it have been to min-raise, not getting all pot committed but signalling a very strong holding, then based on the action either calling a re-raise or folding to a big bet.  I probably would have either folded or limped in his position with 5's although a min-raise or min plus a little more would have been a great move.

I was trying to calculate the odds of my "coin flips" losing 3 times in a row.  We all know that each one is independently a 54/46 proposition with the pair at a slight advantage, but would you not think that 3 coin flips in a row would make losing 3 much worse odds?

https://www.partypoker.com/how-to-play/school/advanced/danger-hands/pocket-pairs.html

https://betting.betfair.com/poker/poker-strategy/beginner-tips/weak-aces---how-to-play-them-060510.html


Finished 3rd in this tournament for $6.35 win (less 2 $.55 buy ins) yesterday.

May The Fours Be With You

The quarterly $100 buy-in Legion game was held yesterday.  Not planning to deal, I was drafted at the last minute for table 3.  That's o.k., first to break and some rebate on the bigger cost.  A little bit about the tournament.  The blinds are 20 minutes vs. 16 on the regular Friday night game, so not as turbo a turbo.  Also, rather than the 2150 starting stack, we each got 4150.  Good, makes for a little slower less gambling game.  Blind structure the same, 10/20 to start.

My table was insane!!!!  We posted the first high hand, quad 4's early on.  The flop was 4/4/4 and he definitely got paid off from the full house (4's full of aces).  Not long after that, I again dealt quad 4's, this time to a player holding pocket 4's.  And yes, there were 2 fours on the flop, but no she did not make much money on it.  Now do you get the title of this blog?

The quad 4's were erased from the board by quad aces on another table, so when I flopped quad 8's it was a fair pot but not huge.  A very savvy player hit 10's full on the river and only paid off my raise of his bet.  Any other player at the table would have lost all their chips to me.

Unbelievably, I dealt one more quad hand before the first break!!!  Quad were also dealt on table 1, so 6 quads in an hour.  Unreal.  I chipped up big in the un-raised big blind playing K/3 vs. A/A under the gun.  Flop was K/3/5.  I bet, she raised, I called.  Suspecting a big hand, possible a set was really happy to see a king on the turn.  I checked, she bet 1500 and I flat called.  Turn was a 10, check, bet 1500, I called (why did I not shove???).  She proudly tabled her 2 pair hand.  Later would regret not shoving as had her covered and she chipped up again then gave them all away foolishly to the savvy player (he would later hit the final table with a boatload of chips).

After breaking my table, went totally card dead.  Won zero hands and with 5700 chips, blinds at 400/800, 12 players remaining, I raised in late position with QJ of spades.  Pocket 9's called from the button and with a 7/7/2 flop, one spade, I shoved 4000.  Snap call.  The turn brought a great card, spade, giving me 15 outs (QQQJJJ, 9 spades) but the dealer failed to find any of them.  Player down. 

Double Dealing Jack Attack

As shown in the last post, dealing poker is a minimum wage job.  Also, it is distracting when you play, despite some experience.  I can't really explain it, just that you have other things to think about besides your cards and how to best play them.  I was not planning to deal last night but the arrangement I have with the tournament directors is that I will deal if no one else will.  Fair enough. So, one of the regular dealers called to say he would be late I agreed to deal for him.  As it turned out he showed up just as the game was getting underway but was fine with me dealing table 3.  Things went well, chipping up early thanks to some weak players and good calls.  Having almost twice the starting stack before break, sitting just where you should, a player raised about 1/2 his short stack. This was the player who had eliminated me on the final table Wednesday so when I saw J/J in the small blind I re-raised to put him all in and force the big blind out.  Revenge is sweet.  He turned over AK and the race was on.  Looked good until the river when a king came and just like that he was doubled up and I was back to a little over starting stack.  Crap.

Looking forward to ending my dealer duties and focusing on playing, we got down to 2 tables.  Great, now for some card playing.  Rut row, the dealer on 2 was knocked out and he asked me to take over as he wanted to leave.  Oh well, better tip money.  After a bit, we are now down to 10 players, and the blinds are 400/800.  Card dead since moving and really not playing any hands at all, I pick up A/10 suited on the button.  With only 4 big blinds, I move in.  Small blind folds, big blind snap calls.  Not good.  He has.....wait for it...... J/J.  O.K., I have outs, at least until the flop when a jack hits.  Really? The board then pairs and I am out in 10th place, the table breaks to go to the final table.  I hear that another player busted out on the same hand, so technically came in tied for 9th which is the final table.  Oh well, big game Sunday, $100 buy-in and guess what?  Not dealing!!!

2016 Recap

For a person who is essentially unorganized, my tracking of all poker financial action last year was unprecedented.  Every time after playing a tournament or cash game I dutifully noted the buy-in, cash out, tips given and received, and net profit.

I read a long time ago that there are three kinds of poker players when it comes to reporting their results:   winners, losers and liars.  Obviously we are all either winners or losers, but often we are also liars.  "How did you do last year playing poker?" will usually be answered by, "Well, I won money overall"  This cannot be true or honest for everyone.  Hardly anyone will admit to being a poker loser, yet we instinctively know that everyone cannot be a winner.  I also read how important it is to log your results so you can be honest with yourself.  So here is the "bottom line" for me in 2016.

Tournaments Played:  71
Tournament Buy-ins:  $3,553
Tournament Wins:  $4687  (21 cashes or 30%)
Net win (before tips):  $1134.
Tips paid:  $295
Net/Net Win:  $839
Biggest Win:  $500

Cash Games Played:  9  (4 winning sessions)
Total Buy-ins:  $2006
Total Cash outs:  $1598
Net Loss:  $408
Biggest Win: $225
Biggest Loss:  $300

In addition, I dealt at Wheeler or Cannon Beach a total of 27 times, collectiong $817, for an average of  $30 a session.  This was probably not even minimum wage but it certainly offset some of my total expenses.

I played at a variety of venues, only making it to Vegas twice, Tri-Cities 3 times, Pendleton once, and Arizona once.  All of the other games were our local ones at the American Legion, Wheeler, or lately Nehalem.

Taking a hard look at my year, it has not been a super profitable year, but it does go down in the "win" column.  Also, I finally broke the Pendleton Roundup curse with my Seniors cash.  I hope that you have also had a good year, and I wish each of you a fun and financially successful New Year. My plans include a trip to Vegas February 19th for the WSOP circuit event ($360 buy-in) with my buddy Don from Mesa, Arizona.  See you there?