Card Death

A session I had a week ago gave led me to an important insight.  I’ve been trying to take note when emotion rises and falls with me at the table.  Trying to determine what triggers tilt in me will give me a good place to start in better managing my mental game.  It’s really hard to fix a problem if you can’t clearly define it.  With technical skills you would never see a player voicing a problem with their game with statements such as “I just can’t win, I suck!”  So too with the mental game there are lots of different facets and flavors of problems  and trying to get at the root of what’s going on isn’t always very easy.

One problem I’ve been having is coping with card death.  I’ve tried deep breathing, going for walks, changing seats, all with spotty results.  It’s a form of injustice tilt with me, I understand that getting “my fair share” of good starting hands means I should be playing one out of three or four dealt to me.  I also understand, rationally, that a nice distribution only happens over a large sample.  It’s crazy to think that I actually do play every third or fourth hand I get.  That’s not how distribution works; it’s very messy in the short term.  When I do coin flips I would never expect EVERY “heads” result would be followed by a “tails” and vice versa.

In a session of Hold’em I might play 100 hands and it’s possible that I would be dealt about 20 or 30 that are playable.  But, 100 hands is much too small of a sample to see an appropriate distribution.  Most of on line players recognize that 10,000 hands is the minimum sample size to obtain reliable statistics.  Anything smaller and you run the risk of results being influenced by chance.  The larger your sample size the more confident you can be in trends and not errors in calculation or just simple random occurrences in the data.

So, if over 10,000 hands my VPIP (voluntarily putting money into the pot) is still only 18% I’ve got a problem with too tight starting hand selection and I need to figure out where I’m missing equity.  If I’ve got a VPIP of 18% after only 100 hands, I may have a problem, I don’t really know.  It’s just as likely that I’m facing a cold deck as I am getting too nitty with my hand selection.  This is where my mind gets foggy at the table.  70 hands or so into a session getting playable hands maybe once every other orbit I start to attribute my low VIPIP to things that statistically I can have no confidence in.  I start to think that because there are 3 limpers in front of me I can play J-9 off suit because “I’m getting 5:1” and I think I’ve been playing too tight.  This sort of thinking will clearly spell disaster for me.

If I can rationally understand that card death and cold decks happen, quite frequently actually, then why am I allowing it to put me on tilt?  Much of it comes down to some of the intangible reasons I play cards.  I enjoy playing well, making good decisions and trying to think through situations.  I enjoy evaluating other players and just the mechanics of how poker works.  I enjoy winning.  I like the respect winning commands from others and I enjoy the banter and exchange of ideas with other strong players.  When I compare what sets most players off, bad beats and suckouts, to what upsets me there’s a difference.  No player likes getting outdrawn, the fall of an unlucky card and the pot shoved to a player without the same level of skill.  But, these situations generally do not put me on my ear the same way card death does.  Somehow I’ve equated conservative (i.e. winning) hand selection with not playing at all.  Folding hand after hand doesn’t feel like striking out, it feels like never even being allowed to come to bat.  When I get a strong hand and get drawn out on I feel like, “So be it!”  I tried my best and I got beat, I can live with that.  But when card death stretches into its second hour with me I feel impotent, like I’m wasting my time and jipped.  I didn’t even get a chance to try and use my skills.  I’m like a second stringer, begging the coach in the fourth quarter, “Put me in!  Give me the ball! I want to play!” but never getting my shot.

So, what is it about hand selection that makes it feel like a jip?  The adult learning model talks about levels of mastery starting with 1.) Subconscious incompetence (clueless, you don’t even know what you don’t know) 2.) Conscious incompetence (understanding your shortcomings) 3.)  Conscious competence (learned skills you still need to focus on in order to use) and 4.)  Subconscious competence (skills learned so well, they are employed without thinking about it).

When I was starting to learn to play poker, thinking about what cards to play was a big part of my learning curve.  I had a list in my head and it didn’t really matter my position, my table image, the pot size, the action, the number of players in the hand and the relative quality of those players.  I had to consciously match my hole cards with the list in my head in order to know what to do with them; fold, call or raise.  Card death wasn’t such a problem for me at that time because so much of my thought process was occupied with this one element of hand selection.  As hand selection has begun to receded into subconscious competence I’m no longer focused on it.  It’s more or less automatic.  Now my focus is much more on post flop play, evaluating my opponents and their range, calculating my equity and pot odds and other considerations that happen AFTER I’ve decided to play a hand.  Does this mean my skill at hand selection has gone away?  Heavens no!  It’s just that it’s being employed at a level I’m not aware of as much.

So, no wonder that card death is eating at me more and more.  It’s not so much that I’m not being dealt my “fair share” of cards.  It’s much more that the things I’m paying attention to I don’t get to apply as much as I want.  Understanding this aspect of tilt, what’s getting under my skin and why is going to go a long way to resolving this problem and will help me inject logic when I feel my frustration rising.

“You are playing your share of hands, it’s just that the skills you employ in selecting those hands is going on at a level you are less aware of.”

Confidence

I got some interesting insights from Jerrod Tendler’s book about poker psychology on confidence.  I’ve often suffered from lack of confidence at the tables.  I get intimidated by other players, I begin to doubt my decision making and make mistakes.  When my confidence is threatened the adrenalin rush blocks out my ability to think and I get kicked into fight or flight. I see threats that may or may not be there but clearly don’t pose the danger I think they do.  I over play hands feeling like I have to defend myself.  I play timidly and fail to bet in raise in spots I need to.  The biggest problems with this short circuit in my thinking is that I start to focus on the wrong things.  I start to worry about a meta game that probably doesn’t exist and even if it did, shouldn’t result in making too many changes in my play.  I fail to put players on a range of hands and make proper betting decisions based on that range, the strength of my hand and the size of the pot.

Jerrod points out that all humans in general and poker players in particular, are terrible psychics.  We make errors all the time in estimating our abilities.  Poker players love to envision themselves as dangerous players who can take on all comers.  We also frequently miss the mark in evaluating the strength of other players as well and envisioning them as clueless fish, waiting for us to come and take their money.  Evaluating my strength as a player and the strength of my opponents is very important to playing winning poker, but it’s not that easy to do, especially in live play.  Learning to accurately evaluate my play and the play of opponents is a skill that has to be learned and practiced.  It’s not just a feeling you get when you sit down at the table or a judgment you can make by watching one or two hands.

These errors in judgment, particularly in evaluating the strength of my own play is at the root of confidence issues.   I had a pretty good run earlier in the year.  I played fairly well but there’s no doubt I was touched by positive variance.  In the midst of it I erroneously assigned too much of my success to skillful play and also began to underestimate the skill of my opponents.  The truth is I’m a decent player but still very inexperienced and prone to making a lot of mistakes better players avoid.  I’m still a novice and it’s going to take a lot more work, study and experience to be an advanced player.  I’ve begun to grasp a lot of the fundamentals and this does give me an edge over a lot of my opponents but I’ve got a long way to go. 

Subconsciously, I knew that my confident stand was a sham.  I was overconfident.  When poker eventually slapped me down my confidence level collapsed like the house of cards it was.  The trouble is that my level then dropped below any semblance of reality.  I began to underestimate my ability “I suck, I’ll never be a decent player” and over estimate my opponents “That’s the second beat that guy gave me.  He’s targeting me!”

Cultivating certainty is the solution to confidence issues.  Learning and putting in the work to accurately assess my skill, to be able to consistently spot variance and learn to correctly evaluate my opponents abilities will enable me to put confidence issues behind me.

Game Notes

A tool I’m going to be using to help with my mental game is taking notes on how I'm feeling and what I’m thinking during my sessions.  I booked a nice 5 hour session yesterday morning.  There were two fairly drunk fellows at the table; leftovers from the night before from a game that broke an hour or so prior.  We started a three handed game.  I’ve been playing short handed games a lot on line lately.  These are play chip games so opponent ranges are wide open.  I didn’t compensate enough for my live play and so I got hammered a couple times with hands like 2^nd pair losing to top pair. 

Interestingly, one hand I won set me off a little bit.  Out of position I hit trip 9’s and turned quads.  There was very passive action so I was just checking and sure enough got a bet on the river, I raised and both called.  The room has a high hand promotion.  Hitting promotions are important to my win rate as they help compensate for the terrible rake at these low stakes.  Unfortunately, this room has a four player minimum to be eligible so I missed out on a $100 prize.  This room allows employees to play, especially when games are short handed to keep the action going.  There were two dealers sitting around chatting and not playing.  I was pretty pissed. 

The truth is, however, that I knew the rules when I sat down.  I could have waited until four players turned up to play.  I accepted the possibility of hitting a promotion but not getting paid when I agreed to play three handed.  AND, I’d do it again because I have a MUCH higher expectation playing against two drunks short handed compared to winning a promotion.  This is the equivalent of bad players slow playing sets trying to hit quads to win a promotion.  The amount of money you win on the extremely rare occasions your case card hits comes nowhere near making up for all the equity you miss by not betting and raising your sets.

I guess rationality finally won the battle because I was able to move on and keep a handle on my play.  I won a few hands and by the time the table filled up I had a decent stack and then “it” happened.

I have been struggling some with entitlement tilt, specifically to great feeling of injustice when I go through long stretches of being dealt nothing but unplayable hands.  I know the math says outside of the blinds I should be playing ¼ to 1/3 of the hands I’m dealt.  Any more than this range and I’m playing too loose; exposing myself to getting drawn out on and coolers.  Any less than ¼ and I’m too tight; risking losing equity and getting run over.  But, when a cold deck hits it and I enter the second hour of looking down at 8-3 and 10-2, I start to question my hand selection strategy.  This is easy to do since nearly all of my opponents at these low stakes will regularly play hands like these and occasionally win with them.  It’s tough to stomach folding hand after hand when my neighbors are raking in huge pots with 7-2.  Temptation comes calling when I get dealt A-rag UTG + 2 or suited trash in cutoff with 2 limpers in front. 

Another thing that compounds my “card death tilt” is that probability doesn’t take a break along with the trickle of hands I’m “supposed” to get.  Stewing in my entitlement I somehow believe that because I’ve waited “SO LONG!” for my pocket 10’s they should hold up.  But, as so often happens, the overcards come and I get played back at.  Instead of taking my foot off the gas I reraise trying to force the hand but only end up building a bigger pot for my opponent and I end up feeling even more spurned.

One or two of these overplayed hands can often emotionally swing me in the other direction and cause me to feel hopeless about my play.  One situation came up yesterday when I found KJ in the big blind with three limpers in front of me.  Instead of raising I just checked, I missed the flop and checked.  One of the limpers bet out and with such a small pot, I just folded.  As played, it wasn’t too bad, I lost the minimum.  But, because of my tilt I started feeling hopeless and deviated from my normal aggressive game.  My internal talk was, “Why raise?  I’m just going to miss anyway.  Why should I build a pot for an opponent again?”

The “Why raise, I’m just going to miss…” is very seductive because there’s a lot truth in it.  Yes, I am going to miss the flop, 2/3 of the time in fact.  It’s also some consolation (in a sick way) when I check fold the flop in these cases that “I lost the minimum there.”  When I’m this mode after my fold I’ll watch the turn and river very carefully and smugly gloat to myself as I would have missed those two cards too.

But, the definition of tilt is when emotion causes you to change a winning strategy.  Raising preflop with hands that likely have an edge over opponents is standard basic play.  Without it I have no chance of winning in the long term.  My entitlement and injustice tilt is causing me to play losing poker.

Finally, I caught pocket 8’s in early position.  I raised and got called in four spots.  The opponent to my right had folded and commented, “You waited a long time for that hand!”  Usually, I catch myself giving too much credit to opponents but I forget that sometimes they do pay attention.  My c-bet on the flop got raised, I called grumbling about my probable beat again but a sweet 8 fell on the turn.  I check raised and the board cooperated on the turn, pairing and giving me a fullhouse.

I could feel myself tilting and I did make some bad plays but my worst play yesterday was far better than the worst I’ve ever played when on tilt.  This is really important because while playing better is important, playing less worse is just as crucial.  I’m beginning to feel like my A game is improving slowly but I’ve got lots of opportunity improve the back end of my game.  Playing better when I’m not at my best is a very worthwhile goal.  Staying with a winning strategy, even when it doesn’t “feel” like its winning can be done.  What happened yesterday is a good example in staying disciplined, being sorely tempted to play bad hands but resisting.  That patience allowed me to stay in the game and eventually get a few of the hands I was looking for.

What is Tilt?

Jarrod Tendler in his book, The Mental Game of Poker, lays out the concept of tilt and how it costs players so much at the tables.  He suggests that normal advice on self help and poker such as breathing exercises, meditation, visualization and positive self talk may help in the moment of a tilt storm but don’t get at the root cause of tilt.  Tilt will continue to happen it’s just with these “tricks” you may be able to cope a little better with it.  Jerrod is interested in helping players uncover what causes players to tilt in the first place, find ways to resolve these issues and in this way stop tilt from happening.

Here is Jerrod’s equation:

Tilt = Anger + Bad Play

We are all familiar with bad players.  Folks play poorly for all sorts of reasons, ignorance, indifference, superstition.  But, it is when anger (frustration, indigence, envy, arrogance, etc) results in bad play that we have the recipe for tilt.  Notice that anger alone is not tilting.  The best players in the world get angry at the tables but they have learned to not allow emotion to negatively impact the decisions they make.

Trying to find out players beliefs about and meaning assigned to poker is at the root of what causes anger, and subsequently tilt.  It’s natural to think that I need to find out what’s pissing me off to resolve my feelings about it, not just try some tricks to stop feeling pissed off!  But, one tool Jerrod suggests turns this upside down.  I need to critically examine what success means for me in poker.  I get angry at the table when I feel like my attempts to achieve success are thwarted.  So, what does success look like for me?

It’s easy to think that success in poker means winning money.  Money is how we keep score in poker.  A big win rate, a string of positive sessions and a swelling bankroll would tend to make most players think they are on the right track.  But, when I sit down at the table there’s more at steak than just money.  Trying to find out what those things are, how to measure them and identifying the thing preventing me from achieving them would go a long way to start getting a handle on tilt.

Tilt

I’ve been taking a beating lately.  My bankroll is draining fast and I’m worried about going broke for the 2^nd time since playing seriously.  My sense is that what’s going wrong is mostly due to variance.  A common pattern I’ve been facing is making one big hand early in a session and raking a big pot, then going card dead.  As the session grinds on looking down at 7-3, 10-2 and the like, those rare situations I do connect with the flop I end up over playing.  For example: having 9-7 off suit in the big blind, it checks to me and the flop comes 9-10-2 and the small blind checks.  I bet and get called all the way and am beat by a guy with 10-J on the button.

It only takes one or two of these losses (along with bleeding my blinds) and I’m stuck a rack.  I rebuy and start worrying about my short term performance.  “I’m down a rack, so I could double up on this rebuy and I’m still only breaking even.”  “Even if I only break even, after investing three hours my win rate will still take another hit.”

The grind continues with my 2^nd buyin and the crazy thinking starts.  “I’m playing way too tight.  I should just take a chance on the button and cutoff and just see a flop with any two cards.”  I also start making very dubious peels, calling one bet on the flop with small suited connectors trying to improve to a proper draw on the turn. Nearly every time when I do end up improving I miss on the river anyway and I’ve just pissed away 2 big bets.

I’ve tried a few things to help my rising frustration.  Breathing exercises, positive self-talk, taking a walk and listening to music.  I even bought a watch with some of my winnings and I look at it or play with it when I’m in a rut like this.  These things help for a time but I continue to feel defeated and glum as the card death continues.  I lay my head on the table, start counting out loud the number of hands I don’t play in a row and audibly grouse about my bad run of cards.  A few times I’ve even crossed the monkey tilt threshold and stopped caring, finally catching a decent hand, missing the flop and blindly betting and raising despite a coordinated board and walking into a baseball bat.

There is little doubt that these bad runs are to blame for a chunk of my bankroll that’s missing.  There is also no doubt that my tilt in the face of this bad run is compounding the problem.  I would probably be just as frustrated with my bad run had tilt not been a factor but my bankroll wouldn’t be on life support. 

Not only is tilt costing me money but a more serious concern is that it’s making me miserable.  I’m getting to the point were I’m having some fear about sitting down at the table and wanting to “take a break” from poker.  I’ve even done things like deleted a disaster session and made plans to archive my database and “start a new bankroll” as a clean start.

There are a couple game conditions that I’ve noticed hasten my slide into tilt.  One is when the game gets really good.  One or two action players sit down and pots start getting really big.  I recognize that winning one or two pots from these guys would be enough to get me into positive territory for the session.  I want so badly to get in and mix it up with these guys but just can’t catch a hand to try.  As the fish inevitably spew all their chips to the table and leave, I’m still grinding my tiny stack, stuck a rank and a half and go back to trying to scratch a tiny pot or two away from the loose-passive regulars.

Another condition I often face is when one player at the table is running very good.  I’ve lost one or two big hands to this person and fail to recognize that other players have too.  As their mountain of chips grows, I start getting resentful and begin to imagine that this player is targeting me.  My rational mind knows this is ridiculous.  Nearly all players at my stakes wouldn’t know how to exploit a weaker opponent even if they could identify someone they had an edge on (not a forgone conclusion).  Thinking that a player on a heater is somehow singling me out is not only paranoid but granting way too much credit to an opponent.  The fact that most players are solely focused on their own hand, (not on anyone else’s potential holding) is the very thing that gives advanced players an edge.  Nevertheless, my reptile brain is in fight or flight mode thanks to my tilting reaction to my bad run.  I’m not only seeing monsters under the bed but across the table from me too, behind that big stack of chips!  I try to play back at these players with marginal hands and end up getting whacked.

Finally, the last situation happens so frequently that it undermines my confidence and sometimes has me changing my game to the point of endangering my winning status.  Rationally, I know that a hand like A-Q will win more than its share, probably around 30%.  I also know that 30% is not 100%.  Despite a big preflop advantage, I’m still going to lose 7 times out of 10.  To make up for these losses, I know I need to get as much money as I can into the pot early in the hand when I do still have an edge.  However, when I’m running bad and take a loss with A-Q I feel a great sense of injustice in that I’m falling far short of the 30% that’s due to me.  One of two scenarios play out here: I either go on monkey tilt and try to bull my way to winning the pot on the next occasion I have a strong starting hand or something much worse.

Early on I played hands like A-Q way too passively and missed out on a lot of folding equity.  One or two spots like this in a session when failing to play appropriately aggressive can be the difference between a winning and loosing session.  When I’m running badly I begin to lose faith in this very basic poker concept.  I become demoralized and begin to think things like, “What’s the use? I’m just going to miss the flop anyway.  Why not just limp in, see the flop and fold when faced with a bet.  That way I can cut my losses.”  That thinking is a total disaster to winning poker.  Giving in to thinking, “It’s better to win a small pot than lose a big one” will grind me down just as sure as my stretch of card death and a combination of the two could drive me out of poker all together.

Confidence problems and tilt are clearly impacting my game.  I’ve started reading Jared Tendler’s book, The Mental Game of Poker.  One of the suggestions he has is to use journaling as a tool to manage tilt.  I’ve decided to give it a try.  I can’t control a bad run of cards, but I have all the control in the world over how I deal with it.  The difference could mean life or death to my poker career.

Peeling

Cold calling a bet on the flop to see if your hand improves on the turn is called Peeling (aka peel a card of the deck).  I’ve been thinking lately about given different flop textures, what would a good range of hands I should have to make peeling a good idea.  If I am on the button and have good overcards to a dry flop with only one bet in front of me.  This might be an ideal situation to peel because I have decent odds to hit my hand or possibly to improve to a draw.  Say I have Qd-Jd on the button, a 10s-6d-2c board and a bet and two calls in front of me.  I’m closing out the action so no need to worry about getting raised.  I have a decent amount of outs, any of the six Q’s or J’s is probably good, any diamond gives me a flush draw, a 9 or K give me open an ended straight draw.  That’s 28 cards that would make me at least want to stick around and see the river.

But, what peeling presupposes is that there is an unraised pot.  In other words, everyone limped in, including me (an overlimp), the small blind probably completed and the big blind checked.  If I’m on the button with a strong suited connector like QJ, why wouldn’t I raise?  It might be that this is an extremely weak-tight table where only hands like AA or KK are raised preflop.  If that’s the case there may be a lot of hands here that have me in trouble.  Players in front of me could easily limp in games like this with hands like AJ, KQ and lots of pocket pairs as strong as JJ.  All of these hands would have me in serious trouble.  While these games do come around now and then, they are pretty rare where I play.  Loose-passive is the name of the game in low limit fixed hold’em.  My opponents are MUCH more likely to have hands like A-x, K-x, unsuited connectors and gapers or any two suited.  Against that sort of hand range my suited QJ stacks up pretty well.  So the answer to our raise question is there is “no answer.” We really ought to be raising here.

Let’s say as played, I did overlimp on the flop, peeled the turn and picked up one of the cards that improved my hand to a draw.  More often than not I’ll miss on the river and if bet into I’ve only got Q high.  I’ll have to fold.  What I’ve done here is traded any smidge of fold equity I had to save just one small bet preflop.

Now let’s say I raise preflop.  Now, I’ve got odds to bet this flop.  I have to use discretion.  Say a 7 comes on the turn and I’ve seen a check-raise or two from my opponents.  I may have to check behind when the action gets to me, take my free card and see the river.  But, barring anything like this I have fold equity.  Say a K comes on the turn for 10s-6d-2c-Kh.  I’ve improved to an open ended straight draw and I can bet as a semi-bluff.  With a board like this what’s my opponent going to think of is his 5-6?  He doesn’t have to fold that often to make this play profitable and even if he does call I’ve got outs and good odds with a pot this big.

So, what does all this have to do with our original question about peeling?  The truth is that if I am playing fixed limit hold’em correctly (i.e. aggressively) there should be very few opportunities for peeling.  It’s rare to open or overlimp out of position.  It’s best to either raise or fold with one bet in front.  In position, I should be raising my marginally strong hands preflop and betting down barring any bad cards or opponents playing back at me.

Mask to Playing Correctly

A hand I botched recently went like this:

Hero in small blind with KsJc.

Three limpers, button raises.

Hero calls, three limpers call.

Five players, 5 big bets.

Flop Qd-Js-9d

Hero checks, limpers check, button bets.

Hero check-raises.

Limpers fold.

Button calls.

Two players, 7 big bets.

Turn 2h

Hero bets.

Button raises.

Hero folds.

Let’s see… where to start in this hand where the wheels came off so badly.  Can you spot the worst error?  Cold calling in the small blind with a hand that is dangerously vulnerable to domination is a good place to start.  Even on the button, this would probably be a fold but a 3-bet would be worth considering.  But, cold calling, with a player left to act (who could 3-bet) and first to act after the flop, this is pretty terrible play.

How about the check-raise with the overcard, flush draw and straight draw on board.  Check-raising with 2^nd pair when heads up into the preflop raiser is a good play on a dry board.  Most of the value in a play like that comes from fold equity on the turn.  But, with so many draws out there and two big cards on board there is very little chance of anyone folding.  The floating play (just calling the check-raise and then raising my bet on the turn) my opponent made on me is very standard with top pair strong kicker.  I was toast from the get go.

Well, as bad as these two plays were they don’t hold a candle to my fold on the turn.  Let’s say my opponent has AA and for some reason after her turn raise she exposed her hand.  It would STILL be a terrible play to fold.  My outs at this point include 2 Jacks (for trips), any of the four 10’s (for a straight) and 3 K’s (for two pair).  Nine outs total.  That’s about 5:1 to make my hand on the river.  I am faced with 10 big bets in the pot with my opponent’s raise being asked to call 1 and I’ll probably have to call one more on the river as my opponent is likely to bet when I check, all in all about 6:1 implied odds.  I am getting odds and MUST call the turn raise and river bet.  Failing to do so, in the long run, will ruin my chances of being a winning player.

I was pretty embarrassed after this hand and anxious to get some help with it afterword.  It’s pretty easy to know you’ve played badly when you are so thoroughly shellacked in a hand like this.  But, what about hands that win?  Winning a big pot can often mask bad play that can bleed your bankroll dry over the long haul.  Winning is, after all, the ultimate yardstick we use to determine success, right?  How can you judge the quality of play in a hand regardless of the immediate outcome?  Here’s an example:

Hero on button with Ah-3h

Limped pot, 5 players, 2.5 bb

Flop 5h-2c-10s

UTG +2 bets

Highjack raises

Hero cold calls

UTG +2 calls

Turn 6h

UTG +2 checks

Highjack bets

Hero raises

UTG +2 folds

Highjack calls

River 4h

I won a big pot with this hand.  My play probably looked like genius to the rest of the table but was it really?  Two players limped in front of me establishing they have weak hands that will most likely miss the flop and fold on the turn or river.  I have position on the limpers and I have an opportunity to fold out the small blind and force the big blind to define his hand.  I have a hand with some showdown value that is more likely than not (compared to my opponent’s ranges) ahead.  I need to get more money in the pot when I have an edge and I failed to do so.  A fold would have been a good alternative to a raise; instead I picked the weakest of my three options, limping.

My second mistake was cold calling the raise on the flop.  With such a small pot I’m simply not getting odds to call.  Folding the flop is the preferable play with an alternative being to raise with the intent of getting to the river for one extra small bet.

Finally, the raise on the turn was pretty bad.  I’m only hitting my hand a little less than 20% of the time.  I need better than 33% with three players in the hand to raise.  Worse still is forcing the UTG +2 player to fold who might have called one bet and compelled to call the river (given the size of the pot) and paying me off when my hand hit.

Having the insight into when I misplayed a hand, even when I win the pot, is a skill in itself.  If there is any consolation in these two messy hands, I’m at least beginning to get a feel for what’s going wrong.

Update

I crossed the 400 hour mark last night and should be able to make 500 by the end of the year.  The good news is I am holding steady at about 1 big bet per hour win rate.  Barring some catastrophic downswing, I should be able to make my goal of sustaining my win rate past the 500 hour mark.  I think it’s safe to say the meteoric rise of my win rate in the early stages of my tracking, (around March and April) was probably due to variance.  The passive, rockish style I was playing shouldn’t have yielded the 1.5 bbph I was enjoying.  Now that I’ve improved my game and probability has caught up with me I’ve settled in to a more sustainable figure.  Also, I think it’s safe to say that if I subtracted out the disastrous misadventures I’ve taken into higher limits, my win rate trend would be even more encouraging.

One of the things in playing a more aggressive style has done is increased my variance.  While I’ve been able to sustain my win rate, my standard deviation has risen dramatically from the mid 9’s to now over 12.2 bbph.  I’m having fewer sessions where I’m winning or loosing around $40 or less.  When I loose, I’m loosing around $1-200.  My winning sessions are about the same.  Even though I suffered a pretty bad downswing last month, I still have ended up cashing in 12 of my last 21 sessions.  July saw me just barely creep over the winning mark for the month (by only $35).  Fortunately, August is shaping up better; solidly in winning territory so far.  I’m planning on about three or four more sessions to close out the month.  If I cash big in one session or small in at least two, I’ll be OK.

Adjusting Your Play

An important element of advanced play is being able to adjust your play, (or changing gears) to adapt to your opponents playing styles.  Many new players are often frustrated when asking about decision making in their play when the reply comes back, “it depends.”  Determining what type of opponent you are playing against and interpreting the decisions they make is one of the big factors that go into that “it depends” answer.  Some of the decisions you would make against a “standard” opponent would be the absolute wrong choice against an unusually aggressive villain.  Here’s an example:

My usual live 4/8 cash game.  Normally, my opponents are very loose-passive but occasionally get some overly aggressive players.

Hero in cutoff with 10d-10c
Highjack limps
Hero raises
Button 3-bets
Blinds fold
Highjack calls
Hero caps
Button calls, Highjack calls
3 players, 6.75 big bets
Flop 10s-7h-7c
Highjack checks
Hero bets
Button calls, Highjack folds
Two players 7.75 big bets
Turn Qh
Hero bets
Button calls

Button is a classic loose-aggressive player. I’ve seen him constantly play hands like unsuited connectors and A-x. There was some metagame going with this fellow and myself. He ran me down with fourth pair beating my overcards, with at least two paint cards on board and a smug little grin. I’ve seen him play very aggressively early in hands but slow down a lot on later streets.  Including a few pretty bad river folds.  Highjack is a very well known loose-passive regular who takes this line all the time, calling four bets to see a flop and folding if not connecting.

With highjack’s limp, I’m very sure I’m ahead of him preflop but am I ahead of the button? Against a “normal” player in the spot, a capped preflop bet would probably have been a mistake.  My usual loose-passive opponents are probably not 3-betting anything worse than pocket Q’s or AK.  A better choice would have been to flat call the 3-bet and look to check raise a safe looking flop like J-8-2 and bet down praying I’m up against AK. 

 

However, the opponent in my example I’ve seen open raise very light.  The 3-bet means he really has something of value but because he is loose-aggressive he could have an A down to a suited 9, K down to a suited J and maybe 9’s 8’s or 7’s. That’s a lot of combos compared to the wired pairs that are crushing me. Also, with the metagame stuff, he may have just been trying to isolate which would really open up his range, maybe down to J-9 and any pocket pair.  All this made me fairly confident I had an edge preflop and to include pocket 10’s in the bottom of my own capping range against this specific opponent.

Another read specific decision in the hand was to bet down in this hand.  A different but fairly common player I find in my games are weak-tight players who give way too much credit to their opponents and make terrible lay downs in the face of the mildest of aggression.  A bet on a flop like this to a player like that would clearly look like what it truly is.  A monster hand!  He might even fold a hand as strong as pocket J’s.  In a situation like that using what’s called a “value check” on the flop might induce a weak-tight opponent to call on later streets.  In other words, I’m sacrificing some immediate value for the chance of bigger value later in the hand.

In the example, however, my opponent’s style and his pre-flop three bet make it a pretty close to a slam dunk that he’s calling down.  A check through on the flop would be a disaster in that case and my betting to him could clearly look like another overcard bet down like the one he caught me on earlier.
 

Understanding and classifying your opponents and adjusting your decision making accordingly is a vital skill in advancing your poker prowess. 

Cracking No Limit

I haven’t been running as good in Fixed Limit lately so I’ve been considering No Limit.  The handful of times I’ve tried to play NL cash games it’s been a disaster.  I enjoy playing tournaments and met with some mild success.  What I’ve learned from playing tournaments I’ve tried to translate to a few cash games and I’m beginning to understand why it hasn’t worked.

I just finished another book from my poker mentor, Ed Miller called Getting Started in Hold’em.  The section on FL is a great overview and was helpful as a review for me.  But, the section on NL turned a light on!  Conventional wisdom in NL tournament play is it’s always desirable to play with a big stack.  With a short stack your options become very limited and you are very vulnerable to being knocked out by a big stacked opponent who risks very little of his own tournament life.  I’ve always took this notion to heart in cash games and tried to buy in for as much as I could, trying to avoid being pushed around by bigger stacks and wanting to extract maximum value when I get a big hand.

Ed turns the “always buy in for the max” notion on its head.  He says that big stacks are a liability for beginners.  Expert players are able to ply their trade on later betting rounds, post flop.  They are better at reading hands, understanding their relative strength of their holdings compared to the likely hands their opponents have and making good betting decisions based on that analysis.  The only hope a beginner has is to find a way to nullify that post flop advantage experts have.  The best way to accomplish this is to always play with the minimum buy in.  As a novice player the only edge I’ll ever get is in preflop hand selection and then trying to get all my money in the pot as quickly as I can while I still have that advantage.  Now, instead of opening myself to getting out played on the turn and river, my strategy becomes a whole lot simpler.

An example would be if I got AJ in late position with a medium sized stack and I’m covered by everyone at the table.  An earlier player limps and I raise four time the big blind.  Everyone folds back to the limper who calls.  The flop comes good for me with A-9-8.  The limper checks and I bet half the pot expecting to take it down but the limper calls.  The turn is a 7 and now the limper bets into me with a big 2/3 of the pot sized bet.  Now, I have to think what my opponent could have. The turn probably helped him, but how?  He could have the straight but many aggressive players will bet out when they turn a good draw.  He could have made two pair, in that case I may have a good call here hoping the board could pair on the river, counterfeiting him or giving me trips or a better two pair.  The 7 could have made a set for him, leaving me only drawing to two outs.  At any rate I’m in quite a tough spot and being put in these sorts of situations is what leads novice players to make big mistakes.

Now say I’m in the same hand with a short stack, enough only to just play the first two betting rounds.  I raise and get called as in the above example.  When the flop comes, I only have a little more than what is already in the pot so I just move all in after being checked to.  The limper calls and we both turn over our hands and he shows K-7.  The river fails to improve my opponent’s hand any more and I win the pot.

In the second example my short stack strategy has negated my opponents post flop advantage because I no longer have any more money to bet with.  My superior hand selection has won me the pot. 

It goes without saying that ultra-tight hand selection is a must for this strategy.  I can only play A’s-10’s and AK in early position.  I can add a few more pocket pairs in middle position as well as A-Q and J.  In late position I can play pairs down to 7’s and add A-10 and KQ.  In front of a raise I can only play with A’s, K’s and AK.  With a re-raise behind I move all in if my original raise was half or more of my stack.  If my original raise was less than half my stack I have consider how strong my hand really is.  Most of the time it will be a fold.

The couple times I’ve tried “short stacking” it’s worked like a charm.  With my bankroll taking a hit the past few weeks, I’m hoping to gain some ground back.

How to get Ahead in Advertising

A breakthrough I’m having right now is the benefit of fold equity.  As discussed before, about 10-15% of the time my opponents will be drawing and brick off or have a some other hand with dubious showdown value.  In these hands if I’ve show strength preflop and the pot is laying 9 or 10:1 by the river it makes sense to just keep firing bets, particularly when there are few draws available (aka a “dry” board).  The reason is if the pot is that large the chance opponents will fold on the river just makes it worthwhile to keep firing.  Also, with good hole cards I’m not simply just plowing bets in cold bluffing.  With six outs to a good pair I’m getting a good 20% equity or so by the river.  Missing the flop it’s 2.5 big bets to bluff out the hand but with that fold and drawing out equity it’s more like a functional 1.5-2 big bets.  At that price I can hit my card and win or my opponent will have to fold only about 1 time in 8 to make this betting line profitable.  Here’s an example from a hand I played last night:

I was in early position with A-10 off suit.  One player limped in; I raised and three players all together called.  The flop came 8s-9h-2s.  Checked to me; I bet and everyone called. The turn was the Qd.  It checked to me and I bet again.  Only the player to my left called.  There are now 8 big bets and will probably be 10 on the river.  So, I’m getting about 9:1 on my river bet, no matter what card comes.  The chance that my A is good along with the 15% or so chance my opponents draw bricks off and he’ll fold make it clearly worthwhile to just stick a bet out there.

The river turned out to be a 10.  Of course I bet, got called and my opponent turned over 7-9 off suit.  He wasn’t too happy but the lady to his left teased him about the several hands he had earlier when he made his hand on the river and won.

These small post-hand events do have some value.  It draws the attention of players to the hand.  My opponents all see that I bet down with only A high.  This all serves to create some doubt in their minds about what I’m holding when I show strength early in the hand.  Did I make my hand on the flop?  I only seem to be playing big cards.  What will my opponent think of his 8-7 on a K-2-8-5-2 board?  With 10 big bets in the pot, he’ll only have to fold 1 time in 8 for my raise-bet-bet-bet line to be profitable.  If he calls and I turn over KK, how valuable was my earlier hand when I bet down with only A high, even if I hadn’t caught my card and lost?

The final benefit of playing hands out like this is that it balances my play and makes me much less vulnerable to exploitation.  If better players are sitting at my table they will take note if I raise preflop and check-call the flop and check-fold the turn.  These players will assume this "one and done" pattern is a habit for me and will almost always bet the turn and river, confident I will fold.  Or, they will notice I bet the flop and turn, put me on a value hand and not pay off.  If I'm always just betting, they don't know what I have and can't react to me with much confidence.  Players freeze up and make mistakes.  It's true that they will end up with strong hands played passively and beat me.  It's also true they will draw out.  But, when pots get as large as 8:1 I don't have to win all that often to make up for those loses and make a profit.

Bluffing and Fold Equity

The romantic story about bluffing in poker is that the sly shark senses weakness in his opponent.  A sweaty brow, dilated pupils, shaky hands all clues to the expert player that his rival doesn’t have as strong a hand as he is representing.  Acting on this sixth sense our hero makes a big raise at a critical point in the hand holding perhaps only 8 high and his pray folds.

The truth about bluffing is much more mundane and is, of course, embedded in very simple math.  A successful bluff is not trying to outsmart an opponent holding top pair or getting players to make bad lay downs.  Bluffing is simply determining the range of possible hands an opponent won’t showdown with, figuring out what percentage of those hands are among all the possible hands he could have and if the pot is laying me good enough odds given that percentage to make my bluffing bet worthwhile.

Another conventional piece of thinking about bluffing is that it’s just not possible in limit hold’em given the small size of the bets relative to the pot.  As I’ve talked about before, hard and fast rules in poker lead to habits that less talented players fall into that cost them a lot of money in the long run.  Using the above analysis bluffing is absolutely possible in limit hold’em.  In fact, if players aren’t incorporating bluffing into their play the results will ultimately be devastating to their bankroll.  Here’s an example:

Hero is in the cutoff seat with A-J off suit.

UTG + 2 limps

Highjack limps

Hero raises

Button calls

Big Blind calls

UTG + 2 calls

Highjack calls

Five players 10 small bets.

Flop 9d-8d-2c

Checks to Hero who bets

Button and BB fold

UTG calls

Highjack calls

Three players 13 small bets

Turn Ks

Checks to Hero

At this point there are 6 ½ big bets in the pot.  Assuming at least one opponent will call there will be nearly eight big bets by the end of the hand.  To bluff out the hand it will cost me only two big bets at this point, so I’m getting 4:1.  I may be up against a pair an 8 or 9x up to a king or ace.  Also very likely is a straight or flush draw that threatens to brick off since a disconnected K rolled off.  So, probably around 30% or so of the one opponent who call’s range he is unlikely to show down with (assuming the flush or straight draw doesn’t come in).

Another element of this analysis is the idea of fold equity.  On top of the 30% or so of hands an opponent won’t show down with in the example above is the 10 or 15% chance that he could fold.  Keep in mind I raised preflop, C-bet and a king rolled off on the turn.  Let’s say my opponent has 8-10 and peeled the flop.  What happens if a Q comes off on the river?  What is he going to think of his pair of 8’s?  Now getting close to 40% that my opponent either won’t show down or will fold, my 4:1 to bluff out my hand has become the mathematically correct play.

It’s important to note that 40% is not 100%.  I’m still loosing more than half the time in a spot like this.  But, the math shows that I don’t have to win that often to make my betting correct.  If this situation was played out over and over 100 times with the same flop, my same cards and random cards making up my opponent’s hands, I will come out very far ahead because of the size of the pot.  I will only win 2 times in five but the amount of those wins will more than compensate for the times I lose.

An Expert in Value City

One of the things that separates the good from the expert players in poker is finding extra value bets.  Conventional wisdom is with a medium strength hand when checked to on the river a check behind is the best play because you will only be called by a better hand.  Experts understand that hard and fast rules are seldom applicable at the table and in the long run forming habits can cost a player a lot of money.  Reading board texture and understanding your opponent’s range of hands should always guide decisions about betting.  A hand I played recently went like this:

Hero in Highjack with Jc-10c

UTG +2 limps

Hero raises

SB calls

BB calls

UTG +2 calls

Four players, 8 small bets

Flop Js-10d-2h

SB checks

BB bets

UTG + 2calls

Hero raises

SB folds

BB calls

UTG + 2 calls

Three players, 14 small bets

Turn 9c

BB checks

UTG + 2 checks

Hero bets

BB folds

UTG + 2 calls

Two players 9 big bets

River 3h

UTG + 2 checks

Read on UTG + 2 is an older retiree, beyond a regular and more of a fixture at this room; a weak-tight player who seldom bets unless very strong. He is capable of check-raising with the nuts. He often calls down with top pair, which is what I had him on; top pair strong kicker or possibly a straight draw.

Hands that are beating me here are K-Q, Q-8, 7-8, J’s, 10’s, 2’s or 9’s.  Hands I’m beating are any J-x, 10-x, A-K, A-Q, 9-x, Q-x, K-x, A-x all are within the realm of possibilities my opponent might call down with.  The majority of the hands I’m beating are also likely hands he would (and should) call on the river with.

Two pair is the average winning hand in poker.  Over and over again I’ve seen players (including myself) check behind in this spot and be content to win the pot and forego a value bet.  The thinking being that with a possible straight on board and the inherent averageness of 2-pair, “I’m only getting called by a better hand.”  An expert player will be able to do the above analysis of the range of hands my opponent could have and will call with.  Heads up on the river the criteria for betting is I need to be ahead of a little better than half my opponent's range (better than half because I could get raised).  I am beating well above 50% of my opponent's range so it is correct to bet on the river expecting to get called by a worse hand.

If you are curious, I in fact did not bet the river and checked behind.  I turned over my top two pair and my opponent did indeed show A-J.

What are My Chances?

Here is a graph generated by a slick little program I ran across on a site called ev++.  They have a page with a number of tools including a variance simulator.  This graph shows the frequency and size of downswings I can expect given my current win rate and sample size.

What it shows is that EVERYONE winning at the rate I am right now can expect to have a 180 big bet downswing at some point.  At 4/8 that's around $1400, about half my bankroll.  Isn't that amazing?  So, basically it's inevitable that I will loose half my bank roll at some point in one sustained losing streak.  Want to know something else?

About half the time I can expect a downswing twice as large!

Bottom line is it's about 50/50 that I'll go broke.

Here's something really scary:

I've got a 20% chance of a downswing as large as 700 big bets.  1 time in 5 I will just keep losing and losing, no matter how much money I put in, until I've lost $5700!

Depressing and fascinating at the same time!

Rinse and Repeat

I went on a little heater playing live fixed limit 4/8 at the end of last month.  I decided to use the little bump in my bankroll and take a crack at 8/16.  The last three weeks have been pretty terrible.  I had one good session walking away 3 buyin's up and another modest positive session, the rest (about six in all) I had my ass handed to me.

A lot of what went wrong was just a normal end to running good; my old friend variance.  I can point to a lot of situations were I raised preflop, missed and either gave up or got called down.  There were also just some plain old coolers and a lot of missed draws.  I have to say I didn't learn anything new from my little adventure but a lot of stuff was confirmed.

One of the things that facilitated my winning streak is that I got some coaching that helped me think differently about my game.  I had fallen into a lot of weak-tight habits and was missing a lot of value.  Moving up to 8/16 with the higher proportion of decent players there, I saw (and felt) the effects of true tight-aggressive play that is absolutely essential in small stakes fixed limit.  My coach hammered home with me the fact that the bets in fixed limit are so small relative to the size of the pot that in most cases it's just correct to just keep betting and raising.

I intellectually knew this aggressive, thin value style of play was correct but still resisted, letting my anxiety of losing big pots get the best of me.  Sure enough, the better players I sat down with in the bigger game lost A LOT of pots.  BUT, the pots they won were bigger than they would have won if they took more passive lines AND they got some fold equity a few times.  The net results were decent sized stacks by the end of the night more often then not.

It's quite a different thing to read and learn about a strategy, it's quite another to watch it unfold in front of you and beat you into submission.  I'm heading back to 4/8 with my lessons a little more crystalized in my mind.  Hopefully, I'll be able to pad my bankroll at least as fast (or a little faster) than last time and take another crack at moving up.

Perfect Play and Correct Play

I’m reading poker legend, Barry Greenstein’s book, Ace on the River.  It’s filled with a lot of narrative, not just poker notes so reading it is very entertaining.  One of the concepts he talks about is the idea of the “Perfect Play” vs. the “Correct Play.”  The perfect play would be decisions a player would make if opponents cards were visible.  A correct play is informed decisions made with the information available. 

Many times the correct and perfect play are the same.  For example if an opponent showed his top pair on the flop in fixed limit hold’em and bet, but I had four cards to a flush and the pot was more than six small bets the correct and the perfect play would be to call.

There are a lot of cases, however, where the perfect and correct play are not the same.  A hand like this came up for me recently:

Hero in Highjack with A♦-Q♦
UTG limps
Hero raises
Button calls
BB calls
UTG calls
Four players, 4 Big Bets in the pot
Flop: 3♣-A♠-7♣
UTG checks
Hero bets
Button calls
BB folds
UTG check-raises
Hero 3!
Button takes two to the face
UTG calls
Three players, 8.5 Big bets in the pot
Turn 5♣
UTG checks
Hero bets
Button calls
UTG check-raises

Hero calls

Button calls

Three players 14.5 Big bets in the pot

River 10 ♥

UTG bets

Hero calls

Button calls

UTG turns over 8♣-J♣

The perfect play on the turn would have been to fold to the check-raise because I was drawing dead at that point.  The correct play was to call the turn and the river, why?

I’ve played a bit with UTG. He’s one of those “hard luck” guys who plays way too many hands and gets all sad and pouty when he gets drawn out on. He’s fairly passive and I’ve seen him make quite a few pretty hopeless call-downs and terrible river folds when he just “knows he’s beat.” His flop check-raise could mean he had a weak A, two-pair, a set or a flush or straight draw. Being ahead of a good portion of that range and the pots as big as it was, I think my 3! was good. I have no idea what button is calling with, probably a straight or flush draw.

The turn was a nightmare card but with UTG’s check, I decided to make a value bet as many players in this spot would often have one club, in his case possibly the A of clubs.  As big as the pot was, getting more than 12:1, I need to be ahead of both opponents less than 10% of the time.  Even though I was crushed in this hand and I failed to make the “Perfect Play” I made correct decisions.

Is a Free Card Really Free?

Another lesson Ed Miller gave me was on the folly of the free card play.  He’s not opposed to using it but with good players, it simply gives too much away.

I posted a hand here in the blog a few months ago about using the free card play and thought I had done well using it (I ended up missing my flush but succeeded in getting to showdown “for free”).  Ed says that when playing against better players using this trick, you might as well turn your hand face up.  He said too many players fall into predictable habits in their play that are easily exploitable by better players.  I should beware when I start talking in terms of, “I always play my strong draws like this when I’m in position.”

For example, say my better playing opponent has a draw along with me.  I have position, he bets and I raise going for my free showdown play.  I miss on the turn, he checks and I check behind.  I miss on the river as well, BUT SO HAS MY OPPONENT.  An observant opponent will know in this situation that I bet when I make my draw, and check when I don’t.  Since I checked on the turn, he is going to bet ANY card on the river unless it’s 100% obvious that I made my draw.  His bet relative to the size of the large pot means I only have to fold my hand a small percentage of the time for that bet to be profitable.

In this light the “free” card play isn’t all that free.  I’m paying a HUGE price for the one or two times it works in my favor because in all subsequent situations like this my opponents will have a very solid tell on me.  Ed says when he spots habitual behavior with opponents he will almost always check to them to see what they do.  If they bet, he’s pretty sure they made their draw and not pay them off.  If they check behind, he bets a later street and often picks up the pot, regardless of his holdings.

Ed says a much better approach is to “just keep betting.”  The size of bets in fixed limit hold’em relative to the size of most pots just makes it mathematically right to keep firing.  Many times the fold equity alone will make it profitable.  An example:

I was playing 6-7 off suit in a short handed game one off the button.  There were two limpers in front of me. I over limped, the button called, the SB completed and the big blind checked.  The flop came 8-5-2 with two diamonds.  One of the limpers bet, I raised.  It called around to the better who three-bet, I capped and everyone but the button called.  The turn was a 10 of diamonds.  I was worried about a flush but it checked to me and I bet.  The blinds folded and the two remaining players called.  The river was a Q of clubs and it checked to me again.  I had two players to get through.  It was very likely both were on draws along with me and that both had missed, just like me.  There were about 20 big bets in the pot.  Betting 1 to get 20, my opponents have to fold only about 5% of the time to make this play profitable.  I stuck a bet out there and lo and behold, they both folded.  I took down a $160 pot with 7 high!

Another great benefit with continuing to bet draws is opponents will pay me off when I do make my hand because they simply can’t be sure of what I have.  If my actions are consistent regardless of my holdings it is very difficult for opponents to get a read on me and my play becomes much more balanced.  No longer do I have to wait around for the stone cold nuts to bet and win.  Most of the time I will loose these hands but the times I do win these pots will be big enough to overcome the losses.