…
4. Don’t fold the nuts on the river.
Klopzi’s Mediocre Poker: Not My Finest Hour
That is solid advice you can take to the bank, folks! And as a side note, I’d like to add: Don’t play more tables than you can handle.
/j.
If you’re anything interested in how to play expert short handed, you need to mosey on over to Pokersavvy and watch Andrew ‘Focault’ Brokos talk his way through final table of the Full Tilt 100K guaranteed. The package is two part, but Pokersavvy has released part 2 as a freebie. It picks up when the game is three handed and proceeds into heads up.
http://www.pokersavvy.com/plus/fullpreview
It’ll probably disappear from the front page sometime in the near future, so watch it now. It’s not too long and full of good advice – as you’d expect.
/j.
Andrew 'Focault' Brokos, Full Tilt Poker, hand analysis, heads up, poker strategy
MrJimmy left me a comment in my previous post, saying never to flat call with Aces. The first part of his comment is in danish, so don’t adjust your screens, the words are supposed to look like that…
Anyway, I began typing a reply, which got longer and more complicated. So I took it out and decided to make a real post instead. I’m really tired, but I hope I got the math right. Fell free to let me know if I got the numbers wrong or anything. I really should stop doing hand analysis at past 1 a.m. Really.
First, let’s just review the hand, so we know what’s happening. Basically, I call a raise from the button with AA, then proceed to get sucked out on the River:
Now, “Never” is a problematic word in Poker. If you never take a certain action, you become predictable, and end up sawing into the tree branch that you’re sitting on.
My second argument for the evening: Villain makes a standard raise from the button. It’s either a steal or a value raise. We don’t know. We do know, that for now, I hold the boss hand.
Preflop I can beat every hand he may hold, unless he holds pocket Aces himself. So at this point I really don’t have to worry about his range, I just have to make a plan for what’s next.
I can three bet. Then I should expect him to fold a large part of his range: Most suited connectors, small Aces, small pocket pairs. I would win 450 for that effort.
Donk betting the Flop is probably okay, and I can see a case for just going all-in, since I’m pretty much committed anyway with 1,020 left in my stack.
My plan though, is to have a flop and then checkraise him. If he has anything but a very strong hand, he will most likely lead if I show weakness, so this is a good opportunity to unload him some of his money.
Flop comes [Qh7h3s].
It’s a good flop. Not that it matters now.
The pot is 650, I make the check and he snap bets all-in. Okay, so that particular move wasn’t in my plan, but the glass is definately still half full.
Now the pot is 650+1,020 = 1,670 and I have to call 1,020. Pot odds are 60% 1,6:1
There are 3 possible sets, 3 possible two pair hands and one AA. I can beat none of those hands.
There are a number of possible draws: AK, AJ, AT, KJ, KT, T9, 98
POST EDIT: Forgot to add AQ, KQ to the mix, but the numbers shouldn’t change much.
Against this range, I’m about 80% or 4:1 to win.
8/10 times I win 1,670. Average win = 1,336
2/10 times I lose 1,020. Average loss = -204
EV(call): 1,336-204 = 1,132
EV(fold): 0 (But I do get to keep my stack of course).
I call.
Playing quad treys to perfection, I was also rewarded with this little nugget – along with a bundle of chips.
I totally forgive him though – he was also from Denmark.
There was a bit of hubris involved in this game though. As I got to heads up, I was a 2:1 leader until I burned myself good by betting into a Flop full of Aces. Representing a strong hand in this situation can be really bad business – especially if the opponent holds the fourth Ace himself…oh well.
Overall, tonight was good to me. Four sit’n go’s and twice ITM. Yesterday was not a loss either, so hopefully I have stemmed the downswing. Yes, I have also employed a Tweak, btw. And unlike some, I’m not going to be shy about my secret: It’s Reciprocality!
Tilt, Tommy Angelo, Upswing, famous last words, playing good, poker strategy
Finally! The 100 Sit’n Go challenge is over. That only took, like, forever to complete. Can’t even find the starting date, but I do believe it was somewhere inside of 2008, or beginning of 2009. That’s how long it took me. In comparison, it took ElkY about an hour to clear 62 games in one go. I do think my profit was relatively better, though :-D
So…the numbers: Most of them are on the screen shot above. The ITM percentage quickly stabilized at around 40, ending one up, which is good. Managed to bubble one in eight games, which is probably good as well.
The ROI is…acceptable, I suppose. I don’t really have anything to compare it to.
But I think I could have taken more by upping the aggression when the money hit. Especially in those situations when I was already the short stack. Waiting for the other two to knock each other out is not really winning poker.
There’s a wart sticking out, called 7th place. Bad beats and variance aside, I think this is about two things: Pushing it too hard and getting bored.
Some games I would open up very loose, constantly minraising and calling small bets from position, no matter what. Of course, I would then proceed to lose a chunk of my stack in the process, prompting me to play ever looser to catch up. Now and then it would work, but mostly I’d find myself out rather quickly.
Other times, I sat down without really wanting to play, but just because I had no better things to do. Which is a surefire way to a quick exit, so in that respect, I guess I got what I came for, but in a very unprofitable way.
There was also a period during the challenge, where I just couldn’t bother. And that’s no way to play winning poker.
I’m glad I managed to avoid a lot of 8th and 9th spots, though. At the outset, I said to myself that taking ninth and having to publish the result afterwards, would not be cool. And it wasn’t. (BTW, I did manage to finish the 100th game in 8th place, ahem…)
Overall, I am pretty okay with it. I think, my overall SnG strategy has shown to be solid, as long as I stick to it. These things are of course table-dependent, but there is a basic strategy that will get you a long way towards the money.
Lessons learned:
Next challenge, you ask? Hmm, I dunno. Maybe do what danish poker prodigy “Bajawa” just did. Turned a few thousand into a million buck, in 17 days, then took a holiday in China. Okay, so I won’t go to China, but somewhere else. Maybe Fiji, I hear they have excellent bottled water.
/j.
Here’s the thing. When you are happy to splash around for $50 or $100, but completely unwilling to gamble for $500, you’re a sitting duck for a hyper-aggressive player. He’s a one trick pony, and his trick is, “Threaten your stack, take the pot.” If you back down every time your stack comes into question, you’ll be abandoning large amounts of money.
Noted Poker Authority: Fighting Back
Continuation bets are a tool that can be overused. Consider reducing the frequency of continuation bets. If you do continuation bet and get raised, consider re-raising, even if you missed. If you continuation bet and the villain calls, consider both betting and check-raising the turn.
Ben Frisch: “Reacting to Continuation Bet Defenses“
I usually perform best under pressure.
Around the first relaunch of this here blog, when it was still hosted by blogspot and even less read, I created The Ferguson Index. It was a means of keeping score, and related to Chris Fergusons bankroll management strategy, which I adopted as well.
Changes in the index was reflected by a number at the beginning of each post and in a sidebar, but the avid reader will now notice the absence of both. And for a reason.
A tight BRM is good, and I’ve done my best to adhere to the strategy of risking no more than 5 percent of my roll per session. I has saved me from losing a lot of money, but it’s also barred me from sitting in at games I know I can play.
For the time being, I’m stuck at the smallest buy-ins, and frankly they are beginning to bore me. Being bored with doing what you love to do is not good. So for that reason alone, I need to make it fun again.
So for a period, I’m going to play freestyle, and loose up on my BRM. By how much, I haven’t decided, but I think I need to take some shots and see what evolves.
I’ll still finish my Sit’n Go challenge, which is nearly completed anyway. After that, I’ll have to think of another challenge that will…uhm, challenge me.
Ideas are welcome,
/j.
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- Ed, Sunny, and Matt
It isn’t about never failing, it is about cutting out the failures that are unnecessary. I will never tilt, I will never make a call out of frustration, I will never call because I feel like I am obligated to. Those are the only promises I can make myself.
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