3/6 wasteland

My first mistake was sitting down to play poker on Sunday morning.

I don't know what it is about Sunday mornings, but they always seem like the worst time to play. I know, I know, the games are still fishy, and I always picture my opponents in my head as being up late from the Saturday night before, drunk, hung over or stupid.

Maybe my hard time winning has nothing to do with the day and more to do with the 3/6 game.

Maybe the problem is that I'm not comfortable with the betting limits.

Or maybe I'm just going through a swing.

Or maybe I go on tilt more easily because now it seems like when the fish suck out, it hurts more.

Or maybe ...

I won't detail the bad beats, because who gives a shit.

But dammit, they make me feel like ass.

I have no choice now but to go back to 2/4. I fucking hate 2/4. It feels like I'm playing with a bunch of old ladies at the casino who can't see the writing on the cards.

The catch 22 is that while I consistently beat 2/4 at a decent clip, I'm never content there. And at 3/6, I never can establish a consistent streak of winning or losing and always end up sorry that I tried.

3/6 is very similar to 2/4. There are almost as many maniacs, almost as many fish, almost as many juicy games.

Yet, I can't win there for more than one or two days at a time.

Bitch, bitch, bitch.

I need to just man up, swallow my pride and play the games that I consistently beat. I always want to strive for something higher and better, but for whatever reason, I can't seem to make the jump.

I hate to think of myself as a 2/4 player, especially when I beat that game so easily and my bankroll can easily support 3/6.

But maybe that's what I am, and I should get used to it.

Link:
Poker with Dick Cheney

Look out for saabpo!

In truth, you don't need to be scared of saabpo himself.

But he may be a pioneer of darker things to come, like the fictional rule-abiding robots who spawn others that go on to destroy humanity.

Saabpo is almost certainly a bot on Party Poker (if you didn't know already). You'll find tons of discussion about saabpo in this thread.

Saabpo plays $20+$2 sit-n-go tournaments and has a very simple strategy: he either goes all in or folds preflop.

Fortunately, saabpo sucks at poker. I know he placed in the money a few times on Saturday, but I have a hard time believing that saabpo is a winning player.

It was funny watching saabpo's tournaments -- there were a few dozen 2+2ers watching the game and talking about saabpo. Any time saabpo moved in, there were shouts of "Call! Call!"

I only saw one showdown after saabpo had pushed. Saabpo lost with A7s vs. A9.

Many times, players in the tourneys would minimum raise saabpo preflop to steal his blinds. That's almost mean, except for that saabpo is evil.

Most of the discussion has been centered on whether building a better poker bot will be more difficult than building chess bots, which are fairly sophisticated.

There's little doubt in my mind that someone could build a much smarter poker bot that has an answer for most every situation. It's only a matter of time.

Of course, this is a significant danger to the online poker community. It has the potential to ruin its credibility, tighten the games beyond playability and bankrupt many players.

Our only hope is that poker sites step up their vigilance of bot surveillance and enforcement, but I'm not optimistic.

A well-programmed bot could appear to behave like a human player, and it would be hard to detect.

Even an obvious bot like saabpo was still playing all day long Saturday without interruption, despite e-mails sent to Party Poker.

Links:
Card game decides election (link first seen at Las Vegas and Poker Blog)
Best Bonus Ever????????
Slowing down on the river
Dowloading Poker

Limit is the future

"The only true way to win is to see the flop for the least amount of money. That simple."
--ltuengineer, a self-appointed table coach at Party Poker, who clearly has no clue what he's talking about

A few more gems from this tool:

"Ever heard of pocket aces losing? Thought so."
"It's all luck fool."
"Your (sic) talking to someone who has taken 3 college level stats classes here
"Your (sic) a no one so stop typing."

Worth the price of admission.

---

Back to the game at hand...

I tried to write a column for the 2+2 Magazine about how limit is a better long-term bet than no limit.

The piece was rejected, and rightfully so. It needed more work, Mason Malmuth wrote in an e-mail to me. I never revisited it because I decided I wasn't qualified to speak with authority on the subject.

My main arguments were that limit makes up the steady wages of poker -- no one plays no limit all the time, and limit is such an important style that it's absolutely essential. Fanboys may play only no limit, but limit has tremendous opportunity to relieve fish of their money.

I still believe this is true, and I'm trying to move up the limit ladder.

On Party Poker, for example, the highest no limit game you can play is $2/$4 with a $200 buy-in.

The highest limit game is $30/$60. If you can average even 1 BB/hr at a single table, that's $60 an hour. Or, more likely, if you can play $15/$30 and three table for 1 BB/hr, that's $90 an hour. I could handle that.

It's recommended that you need at least 300 BB to play at a certain level. I'm going to return to $3/$6 very soon, and I'm going to try $5/$10 6-max also.

Hand of the Day:
Set of 10s vs drawers

Ode to the Emory game

The Monday night Emory game was the easiest money I've ever made. It will be missed.

I heard the Emory game held in my hometown, Atlanta, has ceased to be. I don't know any of the details about why it was cancelled.

My suspicion is that these players, universally horrible at poker, finally ran out of mommy and daddy's money.

I went to the Emory game every Monday night that I could because I knew I'd probably walk away with a hundred or two more than I came in with. I think I made it there about seven or eight times, and only busted once.

The game was held in the basement of a house just off Interstate 85. Three tables were set up, and it was a $200 buy-in, $1/$2 no limit game. Most of the people there were college kids.

We nicknamed this other guy "Pacific Poker" because he said that's where he played online, and he was about the most conservative player I've ever seen. One time when he folded, he said, "I didn't have the nut." If I folded every time I didn't have the nut, I wouldn't have any money left.

One time this guy named L.A., who claimed that he never lost, flopped a boat against Daniel, who also had a strong hand.

L.A. was going out the door, so he said he was just going to check it down. He raked a decent pot, but his kindness cost him about $100. He busted the next five or six weeks.

There are so many great hands from that game. It's hard to emphasize how easy it was.

One guy wore an "All In" hat and sunglasses, looking every bit the World Poker Tour hero-worshipper. I bet out on the flop, and he called. A flush card came on the turn, I looked up at him and bet the pot.

Like the pro that he was, he stared me down and folded a set -- a far better hand than mine.

"I know you better than that. You're trying to sucker me in, so I'm going to fold," he said.

"Nice read," I said, as I took down the pot.

The best night was the last Monday I went before moving to Chile.

I doubled up when I moved in with pocket ladies on the turn. My friend Drew laid down a weird straight because there were three cards of the same suit on the board, and I got called by one of the loosest, most passive players I've ever seen.

I was packing up my chips a little later when I accidentally got dealt in one last hand. I looked down at 32s and called the blind.

I flopped something silly, like a bicycle or a flush. I moved in on the turn, pushing all my chips (already in the racks) into the middle. I got called by the same loose player, who said, "I just have to see what you've got."

And I was out of there. It was a nice $400 going away present.

I later heard that this obnoxious gambler named Tom tried to sell off his poker supplies because he busted. Yeah, I'm really sad about that. The first week I went to the game, he ran to the ATM to reload. I never needed an ATM -- Tom was sitting right there.

I'm reminded of the final scene of "Braveheart" when I think about the decline of the Emory game:

"And that's how the fish earned their freedom."

Links:
2 pair vs four-straight on the turn
Intertops bonus

My hand is short

I can't emphasize enough how important practicing short-handed play is to my overall limit game.

Short-handed tactics are critical because most pots bring only a few players to see the flop, and even fewer on the turn. You need to know how to handle those situations.

It's crucial to learn when to speed up and when to slow down, and how to show aggression without spewing chips.

The most important part is to gain a better understanding of value betting.

Before my shorthanded excursion, I didn't fully know what value betting was, and I fooled myself into believing that fancy check-raises, delayed bets and stop-and-goes would bring me the money.

I was wrong.

Value bet when you think you have the best hand. When you get raised and you think you have the best hand, reraise. I know it sounds simple, and maybe it is. But it wasn't for me until I was able to practice those evaluation tactics in the controlled short-handed environment.

When you bet with top pair, for example, you're doing so more because you have the best hand than because you want to prevent free cards. Think in terms of everything you know about the hand so far, and if you think it's more likely than not that you're ahead, bet.

Another point that I've mentioned before is betting a four flush on the flop. In essence, you should either lead out or check-raise with a four flush if there are at least two other people in the hand. The reasoning is simple: you will make your flush about 35 percent of the time by the river, and if you have two callers, you're only investing 33 percent of the pot. You want to build the pot because you will win more than you lose. That's the very definition of +EV (expected value).

And that doesn't even account for the many times when you'll catch an overcard or when everyone folds to your initial bet.

About two months ago, I read a thread on the 2+2 Forums about what winning players would do differently if they did it all over again.

"Learn shorthanded tactics sooner" was the resounding answer.

I can vouch for that.

Link of the day:
News of the Week

Cat is my co-pilot

"In my experience, there's no such thing as luck."
--Obi-Wan Kenobi

I may be the one behind the wheel of my X-Wing, but the poker cat is my R2 unit.

The cat, Beleza, is the one who's really running the show.

When my normal game gets too predictable, the cat will take me to Degobah with a spurt of aggressive play.

Cats love the action, they love to see the cards fly. Most of all, cats like changing gears.

Beleza says "meow," but that one word carries a lot of loaded meanings:

"No check! Only bet! Constant aggression! Take all their fucking money," Beleza says. "I want my fucking vittles, you motherfuckers!"

A poker cat is never satisfied. She can never get enough action; she always has a one-word command: "Play!"

Who am I to refuse? Cat needs her vittles.

Hands of the day:
2 pair vs four-straight on the turn
KJo HU vs unpaired board
The Hammer!

Click!

Like a seatbelt fastening: click.

Everything seems to fall into place.

I've been working on my shorthanded limit game at the Party $1/$2 6-max tables. By no means are these difficult games, but I wasn't just winning.

I killed these games.

Shorthanded concepts seem clear to me now, and they're easy to apply at full ring, where I also crushed the fish beneath my heels at $2/$4.

I've always struggled with limit poker, but everything finally made sense: when to push, when to back off, how to be aggressive without spewing chips, how to leverage your position.

Of course it won't be this easy all the time, but I genuinely feel like my game made a leap to the next level today. I know results don't necessarily indicate sound play, and of course shorthanded games have wide fluctuations.

But I've played more than 1,600 hands so far today and beaten these games for 10 BB/100.

Here are the primary leaks I've plugged:

1) I invest more in flush draws on the flop because I have a pot equity edge.

2) I play top pair with a weak kicker smarter. The advice I read in the link below suggests using this betting pattern: (flop) check-bet-call, (turn) check-bet-call, (river) bet. It saves bets when you're behind and wins them when you're ahead. This isn't a hard-and-fast rule, but it's often a good strategy when in early position and you're unsure of where you stand.

3) I more fully appreciate betting for value.

4) I'm more aggressive with my strong hands and more willing to call down when it's appropriate.

Playing these shorthanded games has been invaluable experience to improve my game. I highly recommend practicing them.

Here's some great advice: The most information 6-max posts for newbies

Coming back from Biloxi

I was out of my depth at the no limit table at the Grand in Biloxi, but that wasn't going to stop me from playing at one of the most exciting tables I've ever sat at.

I've only been to Biloxi once, but I have to keep coming back from it.

I lost my measly $750 buy-in at that $5/$10 no limit table against guys with much more experience and much deeper pockets.

There was a tubby guy in an orange shirt who looked like Tennessee coach Phil Fulmer. He had a cool-looking $500 chip and busted shortly after me. A blond guy who looked like a 30-year-old Dexter from Dexter's laboratory said he was a semi-pro. Another bespeckled, older guy looked sharp. A middle-aged guy with most of the chips seemed savvy and said he had played with Dewey English and Josh Arieh.

In the end, I pushed with 10-10 and got called with AJ. The J paired, and I was out after about three or four hours at the table. I should have left a lot sooner, but you couldn't have dragged me from that table. It was such a thrill.

The comp manager wanted to know how I busted. He said it was a tough beat.

I was pissed: "If I wanted a toss-up, I could have played roulette."

My friend Daniel actually made a few hundred and got the hell out of dodge. That was smart of him.

Anyway, the trip was fun but a bankroll disaster.

I've been coming back from Biloxi ever since.

It took much longer than I expected -- four months -- to recover from that $1,166 total loss and get back over $2,400, where I was at before the trip to coastal Mississippi.

I came back in November, then fell behind in December. Then I failed at moving up to 3/6 limit in January and went on a big $1,600 slide.

But this time, it was only a three week trip to get back from Biloxi.

Returning from Biloxi blows, and I don't plan on going there again -- unless it's to get revenge.

Link: Never Open Limp?

Hey! That's my face you're throwing that deck at

I was ready to write a post about tilt, variance and the character-building qualities of suffering beats at the hands of lesser players in a loose, fishy game.

Fuck that.

Everything changed when my losing streak came to a sudden end.

The deck just came out and hit me in the face. Pow!

It hurts so good.

Every fifth hand I looked down at today seemed to be AA or KK. Every flop brought a flush or a draw.

If I missed my draw, I'd make it on the turn.

If I missed tripping up by pocket pair, it would get checked around twice and I'd hit on the river.

One time I looked down at AK out of the big blind. There were a bunch of limpers, and the button had raised it to $3.

"What the hell?" I thought. "I'm a bully and I'm running good."

All in.

Board: KK8TA for a boat. A little bit of overkill vs. pocket 9s.

Any bluff I made got everyone to fold; any time the fish thought I was bluffing I held the nut.

There's no reason for it. I'm not playing much better than usual, and Lord knows I was running bad yesterday. I can't explain why such a hot streak came right after so many bad beats. It doesn't seem to make sense.

But I'm going to enjoy these good times while they last.

I want to cherish this (stop to smell the roses and all that), and maybe I can remember what it feels like next time I start running bad.

In other news, Multipoker (a Party skin) is offering a rare reload bonus: 50 percent up to $100 in bonus with the code FEB05RELOAD. I'm working it off right now.

Hands of the day (or, limit misplays before this golden era):
Check raising a weak flush
Is this river bet for value?
Find a flaw
Set of 8s vs scary river

Poker Gods

Can a lowly card player know the mind of the poker gods?

The poker gods are harsh, fickle rulers. They're heartless, uncaring deities overseeing the vast poker landscape as their dominion grows with the game.

The poker gods don't give a shit if you win or lose. They don't take sides, and thanks for their miracles goes unappreciated.

You can sing the praises of the poker gods, but that doesn't mean they will send you better cards. You can curse them, and they will like that less.

The poker gods' creed is single-minded: make the correct play, and you will be rewarded. Hope for miracles or go on tilt, and you will be punished, as if by lightning bolts from Mount Olympus.

The poker gods answer to no one but probability, and their justice is always fair and even-handed.

Worship them if you want, but faith or superstition won't fill your gutshot draw or make your cowboys overcome rockets.

Links:

Yahoo! Poker

Ed Miller Hand Quiz

No Limit Wasteland

No Limit has always been kind to me.

It's the game I learned first; it's the game where my easy, slow, steady profits come from.

But man, it can get tiresome -- four-tabling NL25, playing a boring, one-dimensional game. Waiting for a strong hand and slowplaying it.

Watching the cards get dealt out, time and again, like a neverending merry-go-round across the table.

Taking the small wins, hoping to spring on someone with a surprise set or gutshot straight.

Maybe I'm weird, but limit poker is where the excitement is for me. Perhaps part of the lure is that my limit game is far weaker than my NL game, and I'm fascinated by the nuances of each betting round rather than the single-minded aggression of NL.

Limit is the prodigal son who I always welcome even when he lets me down; no limit is the wife I can't afford to leave.

Hand of the Day: Passive play with trip 8s

Winning the pot? $82.15. Chat? Priceless

This conversation at a Party NL25 table is just classic.
This guy, StonerJeff, kept moving in with anything. My username in this room is nbof6. On the $82.15 pot I won, I made a set of 2s on the flop. He moved in as first to act with paired K off a starting hand of K7.
It's all very Party Poker.
Just read the amended chat:

#1589701094: StonerJeff wins $8.15 from the main pot with a pair of queens.
StonerJeff: any hand i play ALL in pkay be caeful
StonerJeff: any hand all in
#1589711386: StonerJeff wins $40.45 from the main pot with three of a kind, eights.
StonerJeff: haaghagahgaghagagahgaha
KatSS157: ouch
StonerJeff: u fool
StonerJeff: hahahahfahghaghahgahgh
StonerJeff: $500
bearnyogi: u look like the fool to me!
StonerJeff: ace 8 suited my friend
bearnyogi: lucky 1
...
KatSS157: do it
StonerJeff: ace 10
StonerJeff: what111111
StonerJeff: i show
bearnyogi: do ifeel lucky?
#1589713597: StonerJeff wins $41.7 from the main pot with high card ace.
StonerJeff: yes
StonerJeff: ace ten
StonerJeff: i have a program
StonerJeff: hehehehd
StonerJeff: it's called quay-pak - it's created by a danish programmer
StonerJeff: i have perogram flush drsa
#1589716780: StonerJeff wins $48.9 from the main pot with a pair of eights.
bearnyogi: that explains all ins with 34 offsuit
StonerJeff: hey, does anyone know how to size the windows?
StonerJeff: so i can play six games at once
bearnyogi: use ur program!
StonerJeff: buy my program
#1589720344: nbof6 wins $30.2
StonerJeff: $439.99 Quay-pak.com
StonerJeff: ALL IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!AHHAHGHAGHAGHAHGHAHGHAH
StonerJeff: I already got the feds breathing down my neck
bearnyogi: who dont,,,IRS
StonerJeff: I have gaming comission wardances from over three different countries
#1589724193: StonerJeff wins $2.5 from the main pot with high card king.
StonerJeff: I run a Cambodian drug ring as well
StonerJeff: I've raped T.J. Cloutier
captenproto: Quay-pak.com ?
StonerJeff: to those who use it
bearnyogi: only thing u run is under ur nose
StonerJeff: cocain
StonerJeff: yup
StonerJeff: maybe
StonerJeff: pu$$$y
KatSS157: I like cola
NorCalSteel: put the pipe down and back away jeff
NorCalSteel: you got some bad weed LOL
#1589724971: KatSS157 wins $42 from the main pot with two pairs, kings and sevens.
KatSS157: sweet
StonerJeff: RAPADIDOOLIEDOOLEE
NorCalSteel: yeah sweet LOL
StonerJeff: RAPE
StonerJeff: RAPED BY 2 PAIR
StonerJeff: OHOHHOAGAGHAHGH
KatSS157: sorry man, it was luck
StonerJeff: NO IT WASN'T YOUR A DIPXXXX
StonerJeff: THAT
StonerJeff: AND
StonerJeff: QUAY-PAK
KatSS157: blind luck
#1589727724: bearnyogi wins $22.25 from the main pot with two pairs, aces and threes.
StonerJeff: There are over 520 registered users of Quay-Pak - that dude right now for instance, do you really think all those pocket rockets you've seen are RANDOMLY GENERATED? What a foolish mortal.
#1589729355: StonerJeff wins $19.45 from side pot #2 with two pairs, kings and queens.
#1589729355: nbof6 wins $14.9 from side pot #1 with a full house, Twos full of queens.
#1589729355: nbof6 wins $67.25 from the main pot with a full house, Twos full of queens.
KatSS157: Jeff, nobody cares about your little program. Come to one of my money games and I'll show you what poker is really about
bearnyogi: i tink he just got a lesson
#1589730850: bearnyogi wins $38.4 from the main pot with two pairs, tens and twos.
NorCalSteel: K 7 was a bit sloppy
KatSS157: hahahahaha
StonerJeff: No, I think I just met a
StonerJeff: registered user of Quay-Pak - it comes back to haunt me a little - like for instance that J6 right now was supposed to be a JK
StonerJeff: of diamonds]
StonerJeff: program error
KatSS157: what, your program didn't calculate pkt 2's
StonerJeff: No, my program was probably what generated
StonerJeff: that set
StonerJeff: also specially realized to flop it with high cards
StonerJeff: to destroy someone l
StonerJeff: i suck bye bye i have no morfe money u wont be seeing me anymore i go tohawain garedns
StonerJeff: no more in account
StonerJeff: either
NorCalSteel: this place bites anyhow
StonerJeff: There really is no Danish programmer, there's no quay-pak.com website, the truth is, I got too high, and I went on tilt and adopted a kamikaze style. I'm sorry, it's pathertic
StonerJeff: , I know
StonerJeff: but I just want to say one thing
StonerJeff: .
StonerJeff: It was great
nbof6: it was great. happy valentine's day
KatSS157: he just made the rest of us stoners look real bad

Killing Insurgents

We are at war here, and we need to do everything we can to win this war.

The insurgents may be unsophisticated terrorists, armed only with rudimentary weapons like Ax and pocket 5s, but taken as a group, they can be a dangerous adversary.

These terrorists not only hate freedom, they also hate playing good cards. In large part, that's not their fault. They don't know any better. They aren't armed with the sophisticated 2+2 and Sklansky weaponry that we are. They don't have the education or resources of a vast Western country.

But they need to be taken down. In fact, many of these insurgents are asking for it.

This task will not always be as easy as it sounds. There will be Fallujahs along the way, where we will lose pieces of our bankroll that may take time to win back. We'll bust some humvees, but we'll be able to buy back with some new ones with better armor.

Over time, though, we cannot fail. We have superior weaponry, better strategies and more experience.

Troops will get killed and small battles will be lost. There will be times when we have the nuts, try to torture the fish with slow plays and get sucked out on.

But when we are finished with this war, we will look over this vast landscape and see that these insurgents have nothing left.

We'll have all their fucking money.

A Horseshoe Virgin

"Every time a plane takes off from O'Hare for Las Vegas without me, another little piece of my heart dies."
--Jim McManus, "Positively Fifth Street"

Vegas is a long way from here, in sunny Santiago de Chile. There are a few casinos in Chile, but none of them have Texas Hold Em or 7 Card Stud.

But I remember my first trip to Vegas. It was only last July, but it seems like so long ago.

I was staying at the Horseshoe, and when they opened a no limit table, I couldn't resist. I immediately jumped off the $2/$4 limit game and traded in all my cash (only $317) for a rack of chips.

The blinds were $1/$2, and I was out of my depth.

I felt confident, having memorized the starting hand groupings from David Sklansky's "Hold em for Advanced Players." (As if that would make me a good player, but what did I know?) I was also terrified -- the biggest no limit game I had ever previously played in had been when we upped the buy-in to $10 at my weekly game.

I mostly folded around, waiting for my chance.

I was on the button and was dealt K2 of clubs. About six people limped in front of me, and I limped too (hey, it's a Group 7 hand!) The big blind checked, with what I later learned was 10-10.

I don't remember what the flop was exactly, but two of my suit came and it was a large pot. The betting on the flop was affordable.

The turn brought the A of clubs, giving me the nut flush. I was astonished when an early position player came out betting with $100.

I checked for a pair on the board to make sure a boat wasn't an option.

Then I pushed immediately -- way to fast for someone with the nuts, but what did I know? I was just astonished at my good fortune! I had never been in a pot anywhere near this large.

"All in," I said, for a little more than another hundred.

My opponent called and turned over the Q-high flush. He had played Q8 of clubs from under the gun!

The river didn't change anything, and my hand was good. The loser was disgusted, walking away from the table cursing his bad luck.

I was shaking. One hand later, I picked up my chips and said goodbye to that game. I took the money and ran.

I moved to Santiago at the end of September, and I'd love to get back to Vegas. But that won't happen until I either save enough money for a flight, win enough money online or decide to move back to the states.

Living south of the equator is the good life, but it can't compare to the glow and glamour of Vegas.

Woops!

I've changed my mind.

Screw the small pots. They don't matter nearly as much as the big ones, and it's those I should focus on.

I wrote in the previous post, "I'm beginning to believe that a key to winning limit poker is to win the small battles."

That's just foolishness.

Everything I know, everything I've read, tells me that the big wins are the most important.

Here are some nuggets from Ed Miller, the co-author of "Small Stakes Hold Em," which I consider to be the Bible of the game. These statements come from the 2+2 Forum.

"WHEN THE POT IS BIG DO NOT FOLD DECENT HANDS FOR ONE BET! Just stop doing it.
You know those guys that play "fearless" poker and seem to win? When the pot is big, it is time to play fearless. Throw in that extra bet or raise. If you crash and burn, so be it. That is winning poker, though. If you don't have the stomach for it, take up tiddle-e-winks.
The time to save bets is when the pot is small. Make your prudent folds in the four-ways for one bet pots.
For the love of god, think about this and reevaluate your game, guys. If I folded as much as you guys do, I'd be flat broke right now."

It's hard to argue with the man.

Here's a horribly played hand of mine in 2/4 on Eurobet: AA ugly multiway hand

I can't drive 55

I often hear experts give some obvious advice: "play your best game."

But what is my best game?

Upon reflection, I think I play best when I focus on winning pots regardless of their size. I play best when I concentrate on the small pots as much as the large ones.

When I try to steal the blinds instead of letting the big blind keep his bet.
I play my worst when I try to avoid marginal situations and only play hard for the big pots. When I take author David Sklansky's advice to "invest extra bets when the pot is large" the wrong way. When I play weak in the hopes that I can come out strong when it matters.

I'm beginning to believe that a key to winning limit poker is to win the small battles. Yes, the large battles are important, but that's natural.

It's like in a war: just as the bigger army usually wins, the best hand usually wins.

But in the smaller pots, aggression or smart play may make the difference.

I don't know how to apply this knowledge exactly, other than to concentrate, steal the blinds and continue reading up on the game.

Some of these ideas occurred to me while looking at this Web site.

Let me know what you think. Do small pots matter this much, or are they more trivial?

What are the odds?

Let's talk about odds, because who doesn't love math?

I was having a hard time understanding why you would call with AJo in a three-way raised pot on the flop. If I only had six outs, it seemed like that wasn't enough to continue.

Conversations of the topic are here:
Understanding pot odds
Basic question about flop play in a raised pot

These discussions were very educational.

Here's what I learned:

1) I was calculating my chances of winning incorrectly because I insist on using percentages instead of ratios. For example, if the pot has seven bets and it's one to call, the odds are 7:1, but the percentage is 1/8.

2) There's a seemingly simpler way to count outs in the first discussion thread. It involves multiplying bets times outs, and if that number is greater than the number of unseen cards, then the odds are justified to continue with the hand.

3) It probably doesn't matter much that I miscalculated by a couple of percentage points. Post-flop play is much more important.

But I think this is an important topic, even if the exact percentages are not.

This kind of discussion deals with how you think about the game.

Perhaps by using percentages rather than ratios, I was slowing myself down at the tables and showing hesitation.

Maybe it's helpful to count bets in terms of units instead of money to help my attentiveness toward the game. (For example, the pot has five big bets instead of saying the pot has $10).

Mindset and reasoning are crucial to quality poker play, and a new counting method can only help me think of situations in a new way.

Mr. Slick, Big Ugly is here to see you

When I was in high school, I took this outdoor education class that was pretty cool.

Even though I'm an Eagle Scout and know plenty about camping, hiking, rafting, etc., I got a B in the class because I kept arguing with this dude who wouldn't take on his share of the communal gear. I should have just kept my mouth shut, but I hate selfish fucks, especially on camping trips.

That story is a bad analogy for my poker game -- I know how to play pretty well, but I can't help myself from fucking it up at times because I don't know any better.

The biggest single flaw in my limit game is short-handed play, and that's a big flaw.

Full ring games often end up heads-up or three-way on the flop, and I'm practically useless in those situations. I think one of the main reasons for that is that I'm still not used to seeing a showdown with what I know is a likely second-best hand. In no limit, you usually have to be pretty sure you're ahead at the showdown to get that far. In limit, you often have to call down because the betting on each round is lower.

Fortunately, I've found a fertile training ground: Party Poker's $1/$2 6-max games.

They're short-handed by design, the play level is atrocious in general, but it's still enough of a challenge to evaluate how hands and opponents should be handled.

It's like all these fish at this level are my control group, and they're giving me an education for free (and often paying me for it!).

And these games are action-packed. You have to lower your standards and play more hands because you're up against fewer players, and other players do the same. Meanwhile, there are only six players per hand, so each hand comes around very quickly.

So I'm enjoying it and plan on playing at least 10,000 hands at this level until I feel comfortable with aggressive play, pressure situations and call-down standards.
If all goes well, I'll come out of it as a much better player.

Early on, I asked the 2+2 forum about odds and when you should continue playing a hand. Check out the discussion here.

The Big Stack

When I sat down at the $5/$10 no limit table at The Grand in Biloxi, I had already made my biggest mistake: playing in that kind of game.

I came to the table with a measley $750 compared to my opponents' stacks of a few thousand. It only took me a couple of hours to lose it all -- my biggest single loss.

At the time, I only had a dim awareness of how important bankroll and stack size was.

An equally skilled player with double the money that I have will bust me the majority of the time because he can afford to make more marginal decisions and still win.

This is especially important in no limit, where aggression is more important than anything. An aggressive player with sufficiently deep pockets will put in all his money when he has a 50 percent chance of winning (or even less because many times people fold). A normal player with a small bankroll can only afford to risk all his money when he has better odds.

The same applies at the smallest no limit games on the Internet. Someone sitting at a $25 buy-in no limit table who has won $100 can afford to take more risks than someone who only has $15. So the person with $15 can't afford it when the $100 dude raises it to $5 before the flop unless he has a very strong hand. Meanwhile, the $100 guy may have a marginal hand, but it's too expensive for the smaller stack to find out.

The point is that if you have the money to back yourself up, it's worth it in the long run to go all-in if you have even the smallest advantage. There will be streaks when you lose your entire buy-in several times in a row, but in the long run, it's worth it to risk it all any time you're favored (except in tournaments, when you have to be more careful because you can't just buy back in).

Most of this is obvious, but it helps to type it.

Playing weakly to try and protect your stack is more expensive than playing the odds.

On another note, everyone needs a cool poker nickname. What's yours? Find out here.

Yes, Master

Must...play...poker...

I woke up this morning at 8:15 a.m. to play poker when I could have slept in. I play a lot of poker anyway, but now I'm driven.

I'm on the comeback trail.

If tilt is defined as any time your emotions affect your play, then I've been on tilt all of 2005. The emotion is ambition. And the only way I'll get rid of it is to get even for the year.

After a terrible January, I've recovered more than half the money I lost. Perhaps it won't be too much longer.

The way to do this is on the overall most beatable game on the Internet -- the $25 buy-in no limit game on Party Poker and its partner sites. One $25 buy-in at a time, I'm busting these terrible players.

Of course, I'm helped by generous bonus offers from the Party Poker sites. I was just given a $150 bonus from Empire Poker for playing 1,050 hands. One of the reasons I got up early this morning was to work on the one-day-only Super Bowl bonus at PokerNow, which is $100 for playing 1,000 hands over the next three days.

Easily accomplished.

My strategy is to play four tables of NL25 at a time and make some good money there anyway. At that rate, it will only take a few hours to complete this bonus.
When do you pick up your winnings from a table and leave? When the conditions are right.

I consider leaving a table after I make $10. If there aren't any other big stacks, I'll stay. If there are a couple of other people with about as much money as (or more than) I do, I'll leave. The reasoning is that I don't want to risk my profits against players who could potentially bust me. Against smaller stacks, I don't run that risk.
I'm not sure if this makes sense in terms of maximizing value for my money, but the idea is to minimize risk. Any thoughts?

Here are a few hands I posted to the 2+2 forums Saturday for your consideration:
Two 10-10 Hands
Like a mackrel in the moonlight

The Nuts

I only played against this guy named Chris Crawford once, but I'll never forget it.

It was a single-table $250 max buy-in no-limit game, and Mike Matisow was on the 2004 World Series in the background, telling Greg Raymer he had "teeny weeny balls."

Chris was sitting to my immediate right, and early only he took down a sizable pot by bluffing all-in. He showed 5-2 offsuit.

He thought he was setting us up, but you have to be careful where you lay your traps.

I had been playing a pretty tight game, and I felt good even though I was down a little.

I looked down at my hole cards and found AK of hearts. Chris raised, I re-raised, and he called.

The flop brought rags. Thinking my hand was probably still good, I bet the pot.
Before I was even finished betting, Chris was starting to shove all his chips into the middle. I was shocked.

"All in," he said.

I went into the tank, thinking if it were possible that my Ace-high hand could possibly still be best for all of Chris' money. I stared at Chris for just a moment, and he was trying to look confident but was a little shaky. That usually either means he's weak or he's strong but worried about the possibilities. About three minutes later, I was sure.

"I call."

Chris flipped over a complete junk hand, something like Q6. Neither of our hands paired, and I took down the nearly $400 pot with the best read I've ever made.
My friend Daniel later told me that Chris' quick bet was a classic tell -- he was trying to appear so strong that I'd get scared and fold. Guess it didn't work.

Now I live in Chile and don't have as many chances to look into people's souls over the Internet, but I can still take their money at Party Poker.

This blog will be my outlet to talk about poker. I might end up talking to myself because it's not interesting to others, but even that's OK. The goal is to think and write about the game.

Here is today's featured link: Emotionless Poker

Please e-mail me any time with suggestions, comments and thoughts.