You Can't Save Many Bets

It seems to me that it's a fine line between profiting the most from a hand and losing the least. If you know that you have the best hand, then it makes sense to figure out how to get the most money into the pot.

But many times, you have to be resigned to seeing a showdown with what may well be the second-best hand. You know you're likely beat, but the chance that you will win and the size of the pot mean that you should pay off that last bet or two.

The problem is that I find myself spending a lot of extra bets on hands that turn out to be second-best. I usually want to jam the pot when I believe have the best hand, and I want to gain information, position and equity by raising and making other people fold.

My point is that it's difficult to save bets because that often means you would have to scale back your aggression. And I strongly believe that aggressive play wins the most money in the long run, even if it costs a little bit more on those second-best hands. I think it's difficult to try and save money, because those hands are the ones where you should be thinking about value betting and fighting for the pot.

Of course, some hands are clearer. When you're way ahead or way behind, it's easy to check-call, check-call, bet. And against a passive opponent, it's easy to raise the turn and perhaps check the river, depending on the situation.

But I don't know how much you can really try to save money on losing hands without losing money on winning hands as well.

Separately, I am continually impressed with Sound of a Suckout. He had another excellent post here.

The post rang true with me for a couple of reasons. First, he talks about how you need to examine your game closely when you're winning, moreso than when you're losing. I need to work on that. And he also talks about how it's easy to get complacent in your game. He's absolutely right, once again.

Braves Win!

The Atlanta Braves won their 14th consecutive division title last nigth -- a feat unheard of in professional sports. No other team has ever been this good for this long.

I've been a Braves fan since I was 4 years old, when I have vague memories of something good happening in 1982. Of course, it wasn't until a few years later that I begged to stay up late to see the end of games, but the point is that I've been with the Braves my whole life. From Little League baseball to Internet broadcasts in Santiago. From being the worst team in 1990 to being the best team ever since.

I'm incredibly lucky to have a team that I love so much do so well for all these years. Despite my bitching about their bullpen or their offense or their managerial decisions, the fact is that everything always works out every year.

Some people say that the Braves aren't a great team because they've only won the World Series once during this unprecedented run. I disagree. While one championship is disappointing, I don't think that should take away from the greater, more difficult challenge of being the best of their class, year after year.

The playoffs are a crapshoot anyway. Anything can happen in a short series.

And this year, perhaps the Braves will get lucky one more time and win their second championship.

Go Braves!

One Year Past....

I arrived in Santiago, Chile one year ago today after a long plane flight from Atlanta.

When my flight landed, my main game was $25 buyin no limit on Ultimate Bet. My bankroll was $2,200, which shrunk to $2,000 by the end of the year and $800 by the end of January. Other than that, all I had was my dwindling savings and my small pay from The Santiago Times.

I wonder what would have happened if I had not recovered from that bankroll downswing in January. What if I had gone bust then?

I would never have gotten good at limit. My total profits would not now exceed $12,500. Perhaps I would still be in Chile. Maybe I would have returned to the States sooner.

Poker has shaped my life over the last eight months. Without poker money, I would have had to have found another job in Chile. Maybe I would have liked my new job. Maybe I would have liked that job enough to stay in South America. Perhaps my Spanish would have improved more. Perhaps I would have fallen in love.

Or maybe I would have run out of money and been forced to come crawling home. I could have ended up broke. I certainly would have needed a new job by now -- I wouldn't have had the luxury of taking my time looking for jobs while making regular vacations.

The one inescapable conclusion is that poker has given me more opportunities than I would have had otherwise. Whether that's for the best or not is debatable.

But I do know this: Poker has guaranteed me a secondary income for the rest of my life, barring an enormous economic depression that would drive all the fish away. I am good enough at the game to consistently win, even if the games get rocky.

I will never be poor. I will never be hungry. I will always have poker to pay for my basic needs, if not more.

For that, I am grateful.

Up next: the card rooms of Tampa, Florida!

Not much...

Poker continues to be good, although I don't really understand why I tend to play less when I'm winning. Perhaps because I feel like I'm on my game and don't want to ruin it? Or maybe a more realistic answer is that it means I'm treating poker more like a part-time job in which I earn money, and I don't want to sink too many hours into it.

Don't get me wrong; I still love poker. But losing is what motivates me to play and get back above even.

It reminds me of a part in the book, "The Professor, The Banker and The Suicide King." At one point, Ted Forrest loses big -- real big -- early on in a session, but he sits through for hours and hours to get even. Generally, I agree with the conventional wisdom that when you're running bad, you should stop playing for a while to gather yourself and find a better game. But sometimes, like Forrest says, it can be an excellent character- and confidence-building exercise to work yourself back into the black. That applies especially if you're in a good game and you feel like you're playing well.

Separately, I was impressed by this post: Cold Calling: The Silent Killer. Check it out.

I'll leave you with a Hand of the Day. It may have been my single biggest hand in a limit ring game. Thank you, river!

***** Hand History for Game 2753770897 *****
$10/$20 Texas Hold'em - Thursday, September 22, 00:00:25 EDT 2005
Table Table 41362 (9 max) (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 9
Seat 1: ScubaDiva57 ( $458.44 )
Seat 2: pokerinchile ( $489 )
Seat 3: allgold111 ( $307 )
Seat 5: capt_Yip ( $185 )
Seat 7: garfield33 ( $657.24 )
Seat 8: jjbear ( $437 )
Seat 9: KidSunshine ( $915.95 )
Seat 6: Jujubes ( $405 )
Seat 4: pokernoob420 ( $500 )
allgold111 posts small blind [$5].
pokernoob420 posts big blind [$10].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to pokerinchile [ Jd Ac ]
capt_Yip folds.
Jujubes folds.
garfield33 folds.
jjbear folds.
KidSunshine calls [$10].
ScubaDiva57 calls [$10].
pokerinchile raises [$20].
allgold111 folds.
pokernoob420 calls [$10].
>You have options at Devils den Table!.
KidSunshine calls [$10].
ScubaDiva57 calls [$10].
** Dealing Flop ** [ Td, Ah, 7h ]
pokernoob420 checks.
>You have options at Devils den Table!.
KidSunshine checks.
ScubaDiva57 checks.
pokerinchile bets [$10].
pokernoob420 calls [$10].
KidSunshine calls [$10].
ScubaDiva57 calls [$10].
** Dealing Turn ** [ Js ]
pokernoob420 checks.
KidSunshine checks.
ScubaDiva57 bets [$20].
pokerinchile raises [$40].
>You have options at Devils den Table!.
>You have options at Devils den Table!.
pokernoob420 calls [$40].
KidSunshine raises [$60].
>You have options at Devils den Table!.
ScubaDiva57 calls [$40].
pokerinchile calls [$20].
pokernoob420 calls [$20].
** Dealing River ** [ Ad ]
pokernoob420 checks.
KidSunshine bets [$20].
>You have options at Table 13058 Table!.
ScubaDiva57 folds.
pokerinchile raises [$40].
pokernoob420 folds.
KidSunshine calls [$20].
pokerinchile shows [ Jd, Ac ] a full house, Aces full of jacks.
KidSunshine doesn't show [ Qs, Kc ] a straight, ten to ace.
pokerinchile wins $442 from the main pot with a full house, Aces full of jacks.

WSOP

I sat down in the living room tonight after sending application materials for a job in Washington. I thought about playing poker first, but I figured I should probably relax instead of worrying at the tables.

First I flipped to the Phillies-Marlins game, which the Marlins won (and which helps the Braves keep their 5-game lead!) Then I saw that last week's World Series of Poker was on next. I got excited when I saw the lineup of the final table for the $5,000 no limit event: T.J. Cloutier, John Hennigan, Todd Brunson, Tony Ma and John Bonetti.

But, as usual, the coverage totally sucked. When will TV get over this fascination with only showing all-in showdowns? That's not poker. It's fucking preflop play, over and over again.

And they don't even do that very well. They only show the chip counts occasionally, they don't break down the pot odds for the viewer, they don't give the audience any idea of the hand number. It makes me mad.

Poker is a game played on the flop. I wish the rest of the world could see that on TV every once in a while.

---

Meanwhile, the tables have been overly good. I haven't even been playing much, and I've still recorded some very nice wins. What can I say?

I must be living right!

Buckhead Poker

I successfully stayed away from online poker yesterday, but I still got into a live game!

I went to a Buckhead home game for the second time. It's a pretty good group of guys who play, and they have a fairly nice poker table and a dealer. I broke even for the night, but it was pretty fun.

There were two highlights of the evening.

The first was when one of the guys at the game insisted that a made hand always has better odds to win than a drawing hand. That got a lot of the guys (including me) laughing, and one of them set up a prop bet. The bet was that they would set up hole cards of 22 and KQs on a board of JTX, with the J and T of the same suit as the K and Q. So the KQ drawing hand would have nine outs for the flush, another six outs for the straight, and another six outs for top pair. I wish I could have gotten in on the prop bet!

So the two guys set up those cards on the table and then peeled off the turn and river. They bet $5 a hand for 15 hands. Of course, the KQ hand won the vast majority of the time. Everyone was laughing because the guy with 22 couldn't believe he was losing. Afterward, we looked up the exact probability on a Web site. KQ turned out to be a 72 percent favorite in that situation.

The other funny thing was a hand I was involved in. I looked down at my hole cards from the big blind and saw Jh 6d. It was checked around and the flop came JTX, all diamonds. With top pair and a very weak diamond draw, I made a pot-sized bet, which was very small. I got one caller. The turn was an unsuited rag, and I bet half the pot. I still got one caller who appeared weak. The river brought a fourth diamond, making me a flush with the 6 of diamonds. I bet about half the pot again, and the other guy called.

"Well, all I've got is a flush with the 6. Can you beat that?" I asked.

"You only have the 6? I think I can beat that flush," the other guy said.

Then I flipped up my cards. I was as shocked as anyone to turn over a very different hand from the one I thought I had. I had the Q of diamonds and the 6 of hearts. I hadn't just made a flush on the river, I had made a straight flush! On top of that, I probably extracted near maximum value from the hand because I think my opponent wouldn't have stayed in if I had been betting stronger.

Good times, good times.

Win, win, win

Is there something wrong with me? I just keep winning!

I don't know if this is the best winning streak of my poker career in monetary terms, but it's certainly the longest. So far in September, I've had two losing days, and one of those was the first day of the month.

The weird thing about it is that I can feel myself falling into some of the traps that are set up for gamblers. I feel like I may never lose; I feel like the games are easy; I feel like I should step up in limits if I'm doing so well at these; I feel discontent with just winning without any sort of challenge.

It would be easy to make a costly error at this point. I'm going to do what I can to avoid it. If that means playing more conservatively (gasp!), then maybe that's what I'll do.

I'm thinking about taking a day off, but that seems counter-intuitive. You don't take a day off during a winning streak...

Do you?

Showing Down

The problem with good (but not great hands) on the flop is that you often have to take them to showdown, even when you suspect you're beat. And paying off sucks.

The idea is that if you're involved in a 10 big bet pot, you only need to win 1 in 10 times for the hand to be worth one more bet on the river. Fine. Easy enough.

The more difficult situation is on the turn, when you're facing a check-raise. Or a turn re-raise. And then there's the river, which sucks because river raises are rarely bluffs.

So I find myself in these situations constantly -- I know I have to be pretty damn sure to be able to fold a decent hand in a large pot, but calling down makes the baby Jesus cry. I'd love it if I could be the one doing the raising (as is usually the case) but sometimes all you can do is call and hope. It seems so weak.

Then again, it feels great when you do catch that chance that your opponent is bluffing and take down a large pot with a weak hand. I know Dan Harrington was writing about tournament no limit hold em when he says opponents are bluffing as much as 10 percent of the time, but I think that estimate generally applies to limit poker as well.

What gives me a hard time is having faith in the math. I know how to do the math. You add the probability that your opponent is bluffing to the chance that your hand is best. Then you compare that percentage to the size of the pot, and if your bet cost is a smaller percentage of the pot than your chance of winning, than you can call every time if your estimates are anywhere near accurate.

I still hate it though. It always feels like I'm throwing away money in those low percentage situations. I make the call, because I know folding is wrong (especially against maniacs), but I won't like it.

So long, sweet run

Oh, I hate to see you go. But now, it is time to say goodbye.

Farewell, sweet winning streak. I certainly will miss you. Perhaps we'll meet again someday. I'll wait for you.

OK, OK, it wasn't that great of a winning streak. I basically had about eight or nine winning days in a row. Most of them were small wins, with one big day mixed in.

But that came to a halt last night, when I finally posted a loss. Aw, shcuks. Can't win them all. I wish I could!

The loss doesn't bother me. It wasn't even large.

In a way, it might be good that I lost a little. I can't get complacent, and I certainly don't want to get too cocky.

Want to bet I start a new winning streak today?

Shorthanded Play

I have mixed feelings about shorthanded play. Is it more or less profitable than full ring? Is the higher variance worth it?

I don't know. When I was clearing the Poker Room bonus about a week and a half ago, I played mostly 2/4 5 max games. I got killed. Granted, I was experimenting a bit with the concept of balls-out aggression and seeing the showdown. Granted, I was sucked out on a lot. Granted, it was 2/4 and these things are to be expected. Despite that, I wonder if shorthanded games are even worth it.

Then again, while clearing the Poker Stars bonus today, I played 3/6 6 max games. I came out slightly ahead before receiving the bonus, and the play was atrocious.

Here are my problems with shorthanded play:

1) Because the range of playable hands is higher, you can't give your opponents as much credit for a strong hand as you can in full ring games. Therefore, you have to go to showdown more often with more marginal hands. That means that it's more difficult to push any advantage that you might have because you have less information to make a choice with.

2) Because you'll take more hands to showdown, turn and river play becomes less important (unless you have a strong hand). Many times, you have to simply call down.

3) Variance is higher because you have to see more hands to the end. I don't know if you gain any discernable edge in shorthanded play that would compensate for the increased variance.

4) Loose players gain significant preflop value. A player who sees the flop 50 percent of the time in a shorthanded game may be able to survive, but a player who only sees the flop 40 percent of the time in a full ring game will usually get busted eventually. Because it's correct to see the flop more frequently in a shorthanded game, loose preflop play isn't as big of a sin.

My gut feeling is that the expected value of shorthanded play is similar to full ring play. Unfortunately, shorthanded play tends to help fish out both preflop and with hands that they want to take to showdown. Fortunately, they're still fish and will pay you off rather than folding an obvious losing hand.

Now that these bonuses are clear, I get to go back to my home field: Eurobet! See you at the 5/10 full ring tables!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again

No limit can be freakin boring.

The only mild excitement in no limit comes when you actually do get a hand that you have a chance to play after waiting forever. Then you might make a bet preflop or on the flop.

And if you get raised, or, worse, check-raised, you'll likely fold. Maybe every few hundred hands you'll get a hand that's worth pushing. And even then, your opponent is more than likely to do just what you would do in the same situation: fold. Or he might call with a better hand.

So you have a game that seems like it should be interesting, but it's not because the large bet sizes make no limit largely a game of betting and folding. (Or just checking and folding).

Don't get me wrong; no limit is quite profitable. There are so many fish out there that don't even understand the basics of no limit. They couldn't spot a bluff or a continuation bet if it were wrapped around their throats.

The point is that no limit can be mind-numbingly tedious, even when you're winning.

While I was clearing the Empire Poker bonus last night, I played Mindsweeper most of the time just to have something entertaining to do.

Seriously. I had to play Mindsweeper to occupy myself while four-tabling $100 buyin no limit games.

I hate to critisize the game that has brought me so much money because fish see it on TV. I just don't think no limit is the game for me as long as limit poker is profitable as well. In limit, at least you can play some hands.

When Mindsweeper is more interesting than poker, something is definitely wrong.

Bonii

I love working off bonuses. They're so profitable!

So don't miss the bandwagon. I think the Poker Room bonus is expired, but there are still plenty of wonderful whoring opportunities out there right now. And I mean now.

Poker Stars: They have a 20 percent up to $120 bonus that expires Sept. 9.

Party Poker: Use bonus code USETOWIN to get 20 percent up to $100 in bonus money, expiring Sept. 6. I've heard this bonus isn't available to everyone.

Empire Poker: Use bonus code PLAYSEP to get a 100 percent bonus up to $100, expiring Sept. 6. You only have three days to work off this 10 times workthru requirement.

Multi Poker: They have a weird bonus scheme that offers 100 percent up to $500, or 100 percent to lesser amounts if you wish. Find out more info here. I'm not going to take advantage of these bonuses. The 20 times workthru is just ridiculous. I'd make more on rakeback playing 3/6 limit on Eurobet.

Eurobet: There was some talk that their monthly $25 bonus was gone (which is only really useful if you have rakeback there anyway). But someone found that the bonus code PETRA25 will work this month at least. More details can be found here.

I've also changed the way I work off poker bonuses again. Before I advocated working them off at 1/2 6-max limit games. While that may be the quickest way to clear them, I don't know if it's the most profitable. So recently, I've gone back to playing NL$100 for these bonuses (the Party Poker ones). I figure NL$100 takes slightly longer to work off the bonuses, but it's also a more profitable game. And I think it's good to keep my no limit game in shape.

Running Bad

Rather than write a post about these terrible bad beats, I'll just try not to dwell on it.