Rake and Blind Structure

I wrote a bit about the impact of the high rake in small stakes fixed limit hold’em as a factor in being a long-term winner in the game.  The rake, as well as blind structure, can also have an impact on betting decisions at the table.

Miller, Sklansky and Malmuth in Small Stakes Hold’em suggest that the proportionately higher rake in low stakes games should have an impact on your hand selection.  Let’s say in a $15-$30 game the action folds around to you on the button and you have 5-7 of spades.  The rake is 10% in most card rooms but caps at $4.  If you raise there’s already $70 in the pot and the rake is capped.

If you are playing $3-$6 and you raise the pot is now only $10.  The rake is nowhere near the $4 cap and the pot will be raked the full 10% and probably more if there is a jackpot drop.  This makes for proportionately smaller pots and does not give you the odds you need to play more speculative hands like 5-7 of spades.

Blind structure has a similar effect.  In a $4-$8 game in the small blind if there is no raise in front of you, it’s only $2 to complete or 1/2 of a bet.  This affords pretty decent odds (with the usual 2 or 3 limpers in front of you) to play a wide variety of hands.  However, in a $3-$6 game the small blind is $1 and costs the same $2 to complete but now is 2/3 of a bet.  So, it not only costs more, proportionately, to complete the blind, but the pot is smaller too.  The odds are not as favorable so hand selection should tighten up with this blind structure.  

I’ve also found, psychologically, it’s a little easier to play with more patience in $3-$6.  It is much easier to get away from $1 small blind.  I don’t feel as much invested in a hand and am looking for reasons to fold.  In a $4-$8 game I’m more likely to play trashier hands because I feel like I’ve already got more invested in the hand and am looking for reasons to call.

There is no Spoon

Remember the Matrix?  I love that film.  There's a great Zen teaching in it about being mindful of the beliefs we hold, assume are true and lead us into trouble.  Poker is littered with these pitfalls.  I was playing a few months ago with a young fellow who told me he never plays pocket queens.  He said he had been beaten too many times and now he just mucks them.  No matter how hard I tried to convince him that QQ is an excellent hand and wins far more times than it's share and he should press his equity by not only playing but raising this hand, it was no use.  To him the spoon was real, it couldn't be bent and there was no point in trying to convince him otherwise.

Tommy Angelo talks about the grey area in betting decisions.  He says that most of the controversy happens with decisions that are very close in terms of expectation.  In other words the things that generate the most heated debate are often the decisions that matter the least!  Whenever, I obsess over wanting to know if I "got it right" I need to stop and realize the truth.  There is no spoon.  Analysis of hands, talking with other players about handling situations, blogging and studying are all not what I'm talking about.  I'm talking about the perfectionistic pursuit the "right" answer and ascribing meaning to it.  My buddy who wouldn't play QQ in some vague way understood the mathematical strength of that hand but for him, personally, he felt cursed by it.  He had been beat with that holding enough to ascribe meaning to it, that "I, personally, am destined to fail with this hand and therefore I won't play it."

I get annoyed with a stretch of card death, feel like a loser after a getting stuck and berate myself as an idiot when I make mistakes.  But, these things have nothing to do with reality.  When I try to realize the truth, that there is no card death, that I'm not a loser or an idiot I can see there are no patterns and know that it is only my self.

Reverse Implied Odds

Implied odds are super important to winning poker.  If faced with a call on the turn, figuring out your pots odds can give you an idea if it’s profitable to continue.  But, implied odds take into account future betting and can make the difference in deciding if you should continue.

Lets say you have you have Q-10 off suit and the board is J-8-2-7, rainbow (no possible flush).  There are two opponents in and you are faced with a bet.  You have four outs to make your gut shot straight and another three outs to hit your Q because it is likely the better has a J.  With 7 outs the pot needs to lay you about 6:1 in order for this call to be profitable.  In other words, if this exact situation were to be played out over and over, the river card will make your hand a little less than 1 time in 6.  For your call on the turn to be profitable, the pot needs to be paying you 6:1 or better or it won’t cover the cost of all those times you loose.

Implied odds account for future betting.  So, in the above situation if the pot is only laying you 5:1 for your call on the turn, it’s still profitable to call because the one or maybe two extra bets that go into the pot on the river will push the odds over the 6:1 you need.  Miller, Sklansky and Malmuth in Small Stakes Hold’em refer to this situation as free rolling on the river.  If you don’t make your hand you don’t loose any extra bets (because you just fold) but you can make an extra bet (or two) if you do.

The authors also talk about how implied odds can also work against you (or for your opponents).  These reverse implied odds have the most impact on weak made hands that are very vulnerable to being drawn out on.

Let’s say I have 10 of clubs, 3 of spades in the big blind with three other players in.  The flop comes 10 of diamonds, 7 of diamonds and 6 of hearts and the small blind bets.  I should just fold.  You say, “But you have top pair!  Why fold?”  Because there’s a good chance someone else has a better kicker but more importantly, reverse implied odds is working against me.  I have no redraw, the pot is small and my opponents have odds to call down against me in a spot where my hand that is very vulnerable to being drawn out on.  It’s very likely someone has a J or better and straight and flush draws are also very possible here.

Learning this little nugget also drives home for me the critical importance of reading board texture.  Understanding what the possible hands are out there and judging my hand against what I’m likely up against is a basic and crucial skill in poker.

Bad Beat?

A hand I played the other night went like this:

I was in middle position with AJ of diamonds.  The under the gun player limped and I raised.  A fellow to my left called and the button, blinds and the open limper called.  The flop came 3-J-6 rainbow.  It was checked to me and I bet.  Everyone called.  The turn was an 8.  Checked to me and I bet.  The player to my left called, the button and blinds folded and the UTG player called.  At this point I was concerned about two pair or a slow played set and resolved to check-call the river if I didn’t improve.  The river was a K.  It checked around and the player on my left showed K3 and snatched the pot from me.

Many players would muck their hands in disgust, grumbling “suckout” and brood over what they felt was a bad beat.  But was this a suckout or a bad beat?  Let’s take a look:

Mr. K-3 had bottom pair on the flop and five outs.  He was right to put me on top pair good kicker because of my preflop raise and the flop texture made it unlikely that I made two pair.  So, he was correct in assuming he would win with trips or two pair.  The pot was laying him better than 12:1 on the flop and he was about a 5:1 underdog to make his hand by the river.  The pot was laying him about 10:1 on the turn and was about a 9:1 dog to make his hand on the river.  It was close but I could see making this call, especially since he didn’t know what the button and blinds would do.  If they called the implied pot odds would clearly make it a correct call.

So, the bad beat wasn’t really a bad beat at all.  I made the correct decision to press what was the best hand and he made the correct decision to call down with the odds he was given.  The biggest mistake he made wasn’t calling me down with bottom pair; it was cold calling a pre-flop raise basically holding only one card.  I would never play a hand of hold’em with only one hole card but many players do in the games I frequent.

So, should I be upset that this fellow deciding to play K3 against my AJ suited?  Many players bemoan low stakes hold’em because they believe play like this lowers the skill level of the whole game.  They say things like, “It’s like playing bingo!  I might as well just play a slot machine!”  These players long to play higher stakes “Where opponents respect my raises.”

Miller, Sklansky and Malmuth in their book, Small Stakes Hold’em point out that every cent you earn, long term, in poker comes from your opponents’ mistakes and predicable play.  It’s absurd that I should be angry that Mr. K-3 played junk against my hand.  If I could see his cards, I’d want him to call EVERY TIME because my hand is so far out ahead.  Losing poker, long term, isn’t about my opponents bad play, it’s because of my mistakes and failure to exploit theirs. 

Pot Equity vs. Post Flop Strategic Advantage

Hand selection and playing tight are the basics for winning poker, especially in the weak loose action so often associated with low stakes fixed limit hold’em.  If I am the tightest player at the table in most games I play in, I will win money but to be the expert I aspire to, I need a few more tools in my kit.  Post flop play is going to be the bread and butter of any winning fixed limit player.

To guide my post flop decision making I need to understand the importance of the aspects of different starting hands.  One way to do this is to follow Ed Miller’s thinking about splitting hands into the categories of high pot equity hands versus hands that have post flop strategic advantage.

Hands with good pot equity are cards of a high rank and closely connected.  Obviously, pocket A’s would fit into that category, all the way down to probably pocket 10’s.  AK would also fit into this category, all the way down to QJ.  High pot equity refers to the fact that these hands have a high probability of winning when they connect, even lightly, with the flop and sometimes unimproved.

By comparison, hands with a good post flop strategic advantage will almost never win unimproved and will need to connect with the community cards solidly in order to win.  Small pocket pairs (9’s down) and small suited connectors like 89 suited on down are examples of these hands.  The reason that these hands are so playable is that there is seldom any doubt what to do with them on the flop.

In some ways I enjoy playing suited connectors and small pocket pairs better than playing big pocket pairs.  Have you even raised with QQ only for an A to come on the flop (and no queen) and get bet into?  How to handle this situation really depends on your ability to observe and exploit your opponent’s play.  In some cases if there is a lot of action in front of you it might be appropriate to just fold.  If it gets checked to you and you bet but get check-raised, how do you deal with that?  What if the turn makes three to a straight or flush?  These hands can give even the best players fits and can cost you a lot of money.

When I’ve got a hand with a post flop strategic advantage like pocket 5’s the path forward is often much more clear.  I either connect with the flop or I don’t.  If I don’t connect with the flop I'm  only drawing to two outs and they may not even be very clean (another 5 would make my set but also possibly make an opponent's draw).  It’s very clear that I should just fold.  With suited connectors if I make an open ended or double gut straight or a flush draw I have enough outs to call most any bet, unless there is monstrous action ahead of me.  Either way, the decision making is easy.  And that is the essence of poker, making good decisions.  Whenever I can make my choices as simple possible I have a big advantage.

Tilt = Attachment

 I’ve been reading more stuff from my man, Tommy Angelo.  Turns out he’s had the brilliance to apply some Zen teachings to poker, specifically to the recognition and management of tilt.

Tilt can have such a devastating effect on poker.  I’ve had so many sessions when I’m tired, frustrated, indignant or tipsy and almost always my play has suffered.  So many players think of tilt as steaming, of getting ticked off over a stretch of card death or a few bad beats and then losing their minds chasing loses.  But, what’s interesting (and maybe more damaging for me) is the tilt I have experienced when things are going well at the table.  Usually, this looks like playing low expectation hands I normally never would but feel like I can handle it because “Hey, I’ve got a few extra dollars here.”  The other end of this goes something like this, “Okay, I came out smoking this session!  Remember what happened last time!  Be careful and don’t blow off your winnings!”  I then proceed to tighten up and play far too timidly, missing important opportunities and leaving money on the table.

Tommy points out the Zen teaching that attachment to failure and success creates unhappiness, not these events in themselves.  This is mind blowing to me for two reasons:

1.)   Most players, including me, assign tilt to external events and not on their internal cognitive and emotional reaction to the event.

2.)   Because tilt is manufactured by me, and not imposed on me by some external event or force I can have some influence on it!

My fuzzy thinking about tilt leads me to curse my fate when I go through stretches of card death.  It also leads to me berate myself for making bonehead plays, missing important opportunities or picking bad spots.  All of this involves me assigning significance to events.

It’s folded around to me on the button and I have A-rag.  I raise hoping to pick up the blinds but with a hand with some slim showdown value in case of a call.  But, I fail to take into consideration a strong player in the big blind who vigorously defends his blinds, which he does.  The board is very small and dry and I bet and get called down on the flop and turn.  I fail to improve all the way to the river and my opponent bets out and now I’m in a fix.  My internal dialog goes something like this:

“I’m a terrible poker player! Look at this terrible line I took!  I’ve got nobody to blame but myself!  What was I thinking, that I could play poker, what a joke!  You know, I’m not just a bad card player, I’m an idiot!”

I have attached A LOT of significance to this hand, even beyond my ability (or lack thereof) to play poker.  Tommy says this is the essence of tilt.  Bonehead plays, failure to consider all the available information and just plain errors in judgment happen all the time in poker.  It’s what we make of these events that makes all the difference in terms of tilt.

Attaching meaning to success can also be problematic.  I played in a game last night when a youngish man was the victim of a cooler or two (one from me) when I first sat down.  He started wagging his jaw and from the way he spoke I could tell he was a fairly experienced player and as the game went on, I could see he was moderately talented as well.  The more he complained about the poor cards he was being dealt, about what he believed was the poor and lucky play of his opponents (including me) the more his play deteriorated.  By the time I left the table, this guy open raising every hand and was flinging his cards face up into the muck on the river in disgust.  The last two hands I saw, he actually mucked back to back winning hands (one to me).

This is a fellow who obviously attached a great deal of significance to his prowess as a player and ability to win.  So accustom to winning was he that he felt entitled to it and indigent when it wasn’t forthcoming.  The focus of his monsterous tilt was completely external.  Everyone and everything was in the crosshairs; fate, dealers, incompetent opponents, you name it.

Another Tommyism is, “Tilt is like crooked teeth.  It isn’t your fault and you can do something about it.”  We humans are wired to look for patterns and assign meaning to events.  Thousands of years of evolution has made it that way and nothing we can do will change that.  In this light all players are subject to tilt, it’s all a matter of degrees.  So, to the degree I can minimize negative and blaming thinking to past events I can start to get a handle on tilt.  Likewise to the extent that I can let go of my expectation and sense of entitlement to success that breeds disappointment, frustration and more misery; I can make progress.

Etiquette and Rules

Every casino and card room has rules.  Most post them on the wall in a very detailed fashion that almost no one reads.  Rules are different then etiquette.  Commit a faux pas at the card table and you might draw the ire of you fellow players.  Break a rule enough times and you might find yourself dealt out or asked to leave.  Rules are in place to help keep games as fair as possible and to help the establishment run their business as efficiently as possible.  An example of a rule at my local card room is to dispense with a “main game.” 

Many card rooms will have a main game going. When the wait list reaches enough players they will start secondary games and move players to the “main game” when seats open. The point is to have at least one table of full action for players as most folks don’t care for short handed play.  My card room has elected to forgo this rule in favor of having tables play themselves out.  It’s not unusual to see two tables of five or six players limping along.  This is an example of a rule that doesn’t really benefit players that much, but does benefit the house because they get to rake two games as long as possible.

An example of a rule that benefits players is not acting out of turn.  The reason for this rule is that it can have a negative effect on the action of players left to act behind you.  Much is written about the benefit of position in poker.  The benefit of getting to act last, by seeing what your opponents will do before you have to decide, is very valuable.  It’s also fairly rare.  In a full ring game, you will only get to play from the button 1 out of nine times.  This is why it’s such a violation of the rules to act out of turn at the table, because it undermines the advantage of player left to act.

Let’s say I’m in middle position with 8-9 off suit.  There are two limpers in front of me and I prepare to muck my hand but just as I go to do this, two players behind me throw in their limps.  Now I know there will be at least 5 and a half small bets in the pot.  I also know with at least 4 players committing to playing the hand, it is unlikely the button or blinds will raise, tying an unacceptable number of players to the pot.  Getting 5.5:1 with very little chance of a raise, a hand that I would have mucked becomes playable because of information I obtained in an illegal way.  Now, let’s say the flop comes 6-7-A.  The player on the button has A-10.  If I draw out on him, how unhappy might he be with the two players that acted out of turn?

Beating the Rake

Poker players are notoriously bad at estimating their own success.  This isn’t anything different from most human activities and folk’s reckoning of their effectiveness in a given task.  I’ve taken to using a tracking application for my Iphone to try and get some objective data on how I’m doing but it brings up an interesting question.  What, exactly, is success in poker.

We don’t have to talk about success in money terms but that is pretty much how winning is determined in most player’s minds.  So, how do we measure that?  Bankroll size?  Winning percentage?  Total dollars won?

Most players track winning by their win rate.  In live poker win rate is expressed in the number of big bets won per hour of play.  A very successful player will win about 1.5 big bets per hour and 2 per hour is considered crushing the game.  In a 4-8 Fixed Limit game that’s about $10 per hour or about half a stack of $1 chips.  I was pretty shocked when I first learned that.  Considering how easy it is to get $15-20 into a pot in only ONE hand, it doesn’t take much to turn an average winning session into a loosing session.

Win rate calculation may be the most effective way of gauging your progress but it doesn’t take into account a very important factor, the rake.  A rake is the amount of money skimmed off each and every pot by the house to cover their expenses of providing a game to players (and a little extra…).  In addition, most card rooms take an extra amount above the rake to cover the cost of promotional gimmicks such as a high hand contest, bad beat jackpot and Monte Carlo bonuses.

Let’s say to win your $10 in a 4-8 game you average about two pots won each hour.  The rake at my local casino is $4 and $1 for bonuses for a total of $5.  I may be winning $10 per hour but I’m also paying $10 in rake.  This issue is why so many professional card players avoid low stakes, because it is so hard to beat the rake.

Win rates are confounded somewhat by the rake because in order to win the 1.5 big bets per hour you are actually performing at about 2.25, taking the rake into consideration.  That means that unless you are some sort of rock star poker player, variance is stepping in and artificially inflating your performance.  Conversely, you could be a loosing playing at -.25 big bets per hour but taking rake into consideration, you are actually winning 1 big bet per hour.  You should be a winning player but the rake is taking away all your money!

So, if it’s difficult (or near impossible) to be a long term winner at low stakes fixed limit, what’s the purpose of playing?  Well, for me (besides the intrinsic value of playing competitive poker) it all comes down to one word, experience.  There simply is no substitute for learning the game by playing the game.  My goal is to move up in stakes so the rake becomes less burdensome but unfortunately, there are no shortcuts.  So many players before me have taken their shot at moving up to higher stakes without being bankrolled for it and not having the skills to survive.  They paid the price and I’m willing to tread water for a few years to not make that mistake.

Enjoying the Play of the Game

Poker is a game and there is a reason why the words “play” and “player” are used to describe the act of poker and the person doing the acting.  I’m the first to admit it doesn’t much feel like “playing” when it’s not my night.  It’s pretty maddening when my opponents repeatedly draw out on me, but I can’t make my draws on them or coming up strong but second best over and over.  Nevertheless, I can make some progress in taming the tilt beast if I can focus on making good decisions and strong plays at the table regardless of the short term outcome.

Last night I went out to a card room I don’t frequent a lot.  I don’t go there because the action is spotty compared to my usual haunt.  I’ve played there with the typical loose passive players but now and then I run into maniacs and more than once; a table stone solid pros.  These situations aren’t always bad.  Some of my best nights have been at the expense of maniacs.  Solid players also aren’t always bad to play against because they often understand what I’m doing and we can enough to get out of each other’s way.  This is what happened last night.

I often don’t like sitting to the right of solid players because they are more apt to raise than call.  I like having the option to overlimp with loose passive players without having to worry about a raise behind.  Also, if anyone is going to do any raising, I want it to be me without having to worry about a 3-bet.  When I found a patient and perceptive player on my left I took the first chance I got to move to a seat on his left.  It didn’t take long for a spot to come up to test me.

I was in the hijack seat (two off the button) and overlimped with five other players holding A5 of clubs.  The flop cooperated coming 3c-10c-6h.  It was checked to Mr. Patient and Perceptive who bet, I raised and everybody folded around back to him.  So, why raise without a made hand?  A great deal of post flop strategy in Fix Limit Hold’em revolves around what’s called a free card play.  With the low cost of the small bet on the flop it is often correct with a good draw to play very aggressively.  In position the action will often be checked to you on the turn and you can bet out if you make your draw, or check behind if you didn’t.  You basically get to see the turn and river for the price of only one extra small bet.  Out of position you can check-raise with similar results.

In my usual game I often will not use the free card play because of the players I’m up against.  Neophyte players don’t understand the strength of their hands.  The turn comes and their thinking goes, “I’ve still got a pair, I bet!”  The free card play all revolves around your opponent’s check on the turn.  The play becomes too costly if my opponent is smart and senses what I’m doing (or is too foolish to know better) and bets.

In my hand last night, I think Mr. P&P did pick up on what I was doing so he three bet.  I figured I was still drawing quite live against his likely set or two pair so I capped.  I missed on the turn but sure enough, Mr. P&P checked!  I checked behind to the gasps of all at the table.  I missed on the river again.  This time Mr. P&P bet out and I mucked, again to a chorus of gasps.

So, why was I grinning despite having lost $20 and looking like an idiot in front of my opponents?  Because I had the courage to make the correct decision despite adverse and scary circumstances.  I put myself in a position to win although without that ultimate result.  As long as I can keep doing this, positioning myself to win, I’m playing the game instead of being played.  The long term results will inevitably come my way but in the mean time I can enjoy myself instead of feeling defeated.

Quitting

It’s a question a lot of players wonder about, when to quit.  The old adage of “quit while you’re ahead” may provide some apparently solid advice, but why?  How do we unpack this?

Matt Hilger in his book, The Poker Mindset: Essential Attitudes for Poker Success makes note that players often talk about going on a heater; a hot streak when they catch good cards and make all the right decisions.  The idea being that if you sense you are on a heater you MUST continue playing no matter what because you never know when another one will come around.  But, heaters are the same as downturns in that they don’t exist in reality.  They are random blips in a distribution curve.  Because they don’t really exist you can’t predict when they will start, end or how intense they will be.  In poker, all you have is the hand you are playing now.  So, in that sense, breaking your poker play into discrete sessions is of no objective value.  You may tell yourself, “I’ve got to keep playing, I’m really hot tonight” thinking that if you quit, and come back the next day, your streak will be over.  But, the truth is your poker play, all of it, every hour, every hand, is one long session.

So, using Hilger’s thinking, there is no optimal time to continue playing.  He suggests that there are only reasons for players to stop playing:

1.)    If the players in the game are clearly of superior skill to me and I am obviously being outplayed.

2.)    If I am on tilt.

3.)    If I have something better to do.

These seem pretty straightforward but they do require some conscience effort, especially reasons 1 and 2.  The aggregate skill level at a table is a moving target and good players are constantly taking stock of it.  It changes when players come and go and individual players wax and wane in playing their best.  Good players are also very astute in sensing their own level of tilt (in all its flavors) and its impact on their game.

Tommy Angelo also has an interesting take on quitting, through (of course) the lens of reciprocality.  Tommy notes that all poker players decide to quit at one point or another.  My goal should be to quit “better” on average than my opponents and money will flow my way.  Although probability and the distribution curve tell us that dividing up our poker play into sessions is arbitrary, if I can impose some sort of structure on my play that helps me avoid tilt, there may still be some value.  For example, I almost always feel good about my game when I finish a session ahead.  I almost always feel bad when I end up booking a loss.  An important factor in trying to play my A game whenever I go out is confidence.  I tend to play better when I’ve been meeting with some success, when my bankroll has been moving upward, not down.  I tend to not play my A game when I’m worried about being in a downswing, concerned about going broke or my low confidence is causing me to be a bit paranoid.

Most players can relate to a situation when they are not super tired and could keep playing but they just finished digging themselves out of a hole and may be up by only a few dollars.  So, the question becomes, “Do I risk chasing some profit to ‘make this session worth my while’ or is there some value to quitting now and just book the win?”  If I make the decision to take the win, over and over while my opponents choose to chase the profit but only succeed maybe one out of three times, after hundreds of sessions I’ll have come very far out on the profitable side of quitting reciprocality.

My Poker Business

I’m always on the lookout for tweaks to my thinking about poker that help me decrease tilt.  One that has been some help lately I came across from several writers is the idea that my poker game is my business.  Now, I’m not talking about approaching the finances and performance of my game as a business.  This is a very good idea, I think; using accounting and success measurement principles to manage your poker.  But, what I’m talking about is that basic element of a business, the buying and selling of a product or service.

So, if I’m a poker player and my game is my business, what is the product that I’m selling and who are my customers?  I think this question is related to a few of my previous posts about players of my meager skill needing to play against weaker opponents in order to make the enterprise sustainable.  What the casual poker player gets out of the exchange is the thrill of beating the odds.  They know they will likely loose their money but they consider it entertainment.  So, what I’m selling in my poker business is sort of analogous to a horror movie.

Why would anyone want to pay good money to sit in the dark and get the crap scared out of them for two hours?  It’s the rush or the thrill of your animal brain thinking it’s in danger and shooting you full of adrenalin.  I was at the table a week ago and a couple brothers were at the other end.  One was pretty loose aggressive and bet out on me when I turned two pair.  I raised, he turned white and croaked out, “I call.”  He checked to me on the river, I bet and he looked sick as he called.  He let out a gasp of relief as he saw my two pair and turned over a set.  His brother mumbled something to him as he stacked his chips and he replied loud enough for the table to hear, “Yeah I was scared!”

This is what I’m selling in my poker business.  The thrill my opponents get when I give them action.  As any experienced player knows, giving action doesn’t always result in winning the hand.  When my customer pays probably won’t be on the big hands but on the numerous small mistakes he makes that don’t feel all that painful at the time but ultimately will result in his stack migrating to mine.

So, if my customers are all the weaker players I’m up against at the table, as the proprietor of my poker business, how do I “take care” of them with good service?  Well, the first thing would be to NEVER berate them for their poor play.  Quite the opposite, I want to encourage them to play on just like they always have!  I don’t want to gloat or lecture over my wins or brood over my loses.  I want to give a smile and a sincere “Nice hand!” when they win.  I want them to come away from the table with empty pockets but happy for the thrill of playing and looking forward to their next adventure to the casino; because as any good business man, I’ll be there ready to supply all their needs!

Loose Passive Players II

One of the distinctions Ed Miller makes between weak tight players and loose passive ones is bluffing.  Weak tight players you want to run over the table because you can get better hands to fold.  Loose passive players call too much.  They'll call with bottom pair, gut shots, hopeless backdoor draws and even trashier hands like Q high.  When I play against loose passive players I have to remember why I'm putting money into the pot.  If I raise per-flop but miss the flop and my continuation bet gets called by a loose passive player, what point is it in making a turn bet if my hand doesn't improve?

Poisoned anchors is another good concept that applies here from Lee Jones' book Winning Low Limit Hold'em.  Let say I raise pre-flop with AQ suited.  The flop comes 3-8-9 rainbow.  There are three other players in and I continuation bet and am called by one player who is loose passive.  It's completely believable for a loose passive player to call a pre-flop raise with a hand like Q3 or A3.  So, although I've got two overcards my big hand is poisoned.  I could be seeing dollar signs if a Q comes on the turn but I'm walking into a baseball bat.  It's dangerous to bet into a loose passive player without some sort of hand to showdown with.

Betting Into Loose-Passive Players

My regular 4-8 game (like most) is notoriously loose-passive.  There is lots of pre-flop limping, often 5 or 6 players seeing the turn.  Most of the players play too many hands and check and call far too much.  This style of play invites disaster as it basically rolls out the red carpet for opponents to draw out on you.  Why wouldn't I play 5-7 suited on the button for one bet with three limpers in front.  What gets me is when the player in early position with AQ complains about being drawn out on in this situation.

Another of my poker gurus, Ed Miller, suggests that betting and raising is always going to be the profitable play against loose passive players because it exploits their weaknesses so well.  Loose-passive players call too often with weak hands and don't press their quality hands with bets and raises.  So, you get paid off by them more often when you win and are minimally penalized when you loose.  Yes, you do get drawn out on now and then but in the long run the money made by pressing hands you normally wouldn't against better players will more than make up for the few times your opponent gets lucky.

Many players complain about loose-passive players that they can't hand read with them.  They say, "How was I to know he had a set?  He never raised!"  They change their game play and get timid whenever their opponent calls.  The truth is loose-passive players call with all kinds of hands.  They call with worse hands than you can possibly imagine.  God knows why the do it, but they do.  What that means is that I must press my good hands and even bet my marginal hands for value in spots I normally wouldn't.

An example is making 2nd pair with a decent kicker on the button and it gets checked around to you and you bet.  The board cooperates but you get called down all the way to the river by the loose-passive player at your table.  Against a normal player the best play might be to check back on the river thinking you will only get called by better in that spot.  But, again, loose passive players play all kinds of hands and their calls don't mean much.  The better play is to bet medium strength hands for value.  Those sort of adjustments made to specific game situations are what makes all the difference in limit hold'em.  They all add up in the end and separate the winners and losers.

Why "Tiltless?"

I picked "Tiltless" for a handle in hommage to one of my poker guru's Tommy Angelo.  Tommy talks a lot about Reciprocality; money flows in poker when faced with the same circumstances I take different action than my opponents do.  Tilt happens to ALL players to one degree or another.  In other words your emotional state must have an impact on your decision making at the table because humans are not machines.  So, in tilt reciprocality, my goal doesn't have to be to eliminate tilt from my game, it is to tilt less than my opponents do.

I love this idea!

Now That's Quality Poker

I have been licking my chops to play at my local casino on New Year's Eve.  I knew the place would be packed and lots of loose action and weaker players in the card room.  Lots of folks disparage predatory poker players, describing them as heartless vultures that take all the fun out of the game.  One of my poker gurus, Tommy Angelo, calls them something else, winners!

Poker is a zero sum game.  There will always be winners and losers.  Players of mild to moderate skill understand they need to play against weaker players in order to avoid going broke to the more talented players they inevitably run into.  When I'm at the table I NEED the weaker player to call me down with 2nd pair.  I NEED that money to pay off in a situation later when I get out played by a pro and fold the best hand (something that probably happens more frequently than I realize).

The poker economy needs weaker players because if only experts played the game they would end up doing nothing but trading money back and forth.  The profitability would dry up and the game would die.  Finally, casual players sit down at the table for different reasons than I do.  They are out to have a good time and know they will probably lose.  They might as well lose that money to me.

I went out to the casino Saturday night for a seat at my usual 4-8 fixed limit game with all this in mind and excited for the possibilities.  I came out guns blazing, getting paid off nicely on one hand when I made a full house.  Then a women I recognized as a regular sat down, an observant but very passive and predictable player.  I woke up with pocket A's in late position and raised.  A weak player in the blinds called me and the regular lady.  The flop came 3-A-6, Gin!  The weak player bet out, regular lady called, I raised and both called.  The turn came a 7.  Weak player checked and regular lady bet out.  I figured both had two pair or a weaker set so I raised.  Weak player cold called and regular lady three bet!  Passive players never three bet so alarm bells should have been going off but I had suddenly gone deaf.  I capped and immediately regretted it when a 9 came off on the river, making a straight and putting three of a suit on board.  Regular lady bet, I called and she turned over 4-5 off suit and got more than $100 pushed her way.  Limping in from early position with 4-5 off suit, now that's quality poker!

I allowed this hand to put me on tilt the rest of the night.  I battled back a few times but ultimately left stuck two racks.  I'm not too unhappy with the way I played the hand.  Except for the capped turn bet I didn't to anything wrong.  Even if reg lady showed me her straight after her turn bet I would have called because the pot was so big and I had 10 outs to make a full house.

But, the regular lady playing trash from early position illustrates nicely my earlier point.  If the poker economy needs weak players, what do the weak players get out of it?  Well, thanks to variance, however improbable, weak players do win occasionally.  That slim chance of making a hand, that thrill of defeat of improbability is what brings weak players back, over and over again.  The good news for skilled players is probability will always catch up and weak player's winnings will always go back into the poker economy in the long run.  And, sure enough, regular lady did end up donating her winnings back into the game by the end of the night.

Black Friday

The laws of the state I live in have always made playing poker on line risky but Black Friday sealed the deal for me.  I had been keeping only few dollars on Full Tilt when they pulled the plug but my success in play chip play was remarkable.  In about 14K hands I went from $1,000 to over $5 million, nearly 7 big bets per 100 hands (two BB per 100 is considered crushing a game).  The competition in play chip wasn't stellar but on the serious poker sites like FT many of the real money players also play for play chips and most complete neophytes stick to the games on Facebook and such.

I had been meeting with some mild success at the local card rooms in town.  My studies, success at play chip play and finally Black Friday led to me decide to take a crack at maintaining a bankroll and tracking my results in live play.  I found an ap for my Iphone called Poker Income Pro.  I can enter all the details of a live session and my cash out amount at the end of a session.  It will keep track of my bankroll, win rate and can graph out my results in a lot of ways.  For example, I can see what card rooms and days of the week are most profitable for me.

My first run at this was a disaster.  I was terribly under funded.  I was playing 4-8 and 3-6 with only a $300 bankroll.  I'd dwindle down to about $50 and make a $200 deposit only to watch that go up in smoke.  My lack of skill, tilt factor and variance doomed me.  In a fit of hopelessness I gave up.

Some woodshedding and a few winning sessions a few months ago persuaded me to try setting up a bankroll again.  This time I saved up $800 with the expectation that I could easily loose half of that in the first couple weeks.  It's impossible to say "how well" I'm doing now with such a small sample size.  As of today I've only logged 32 hours.  This time next year I'll take an honest look at things (if I'm not broke by then).  I think I've armed myself with a couple tools that give me a better shot than my last adventure. I'll write a bit about some of those in the next week or two.

More Intro...

Of course my initial experiment with on line poker was a disaster so I started reading up and found Poker School Online.  The main pro there is Al Spath who laid out some of the big mistakes new players make.  Number one was that they play too many hands.  I started focusing on the play chip games on Full Tilt poker and there was introduced to the concept of variance.


Variance is the difference between how much money you expect to win on average over the long run and the results you are seeing in the short term.  Poker is a game of situations and decisions.  If you had perfect information on every hand, there would always be a correct and incorrect decision every time it is your turn to act.  But, poker is not a game of perfect information so you have to make an educated guess and rely on probability.  Over the very long term, making the "probably" correct decision on situation after situation will lead to winning at the game.  However, variance steps in in the short term and accounts, for example, that 30% of the time when your very strong hand will not win the pot.  Now, when I say long time, I'm talking VERY long term.  I mean years and years and 10's of thousands of poker hands.  Any examination of results on a shorter time frame and variance is going to rule.  For a more detailed discussion on variance see a nice article here.


On a session by session time frame, the effect of variance is huge.  However, I did learn some things early in my training that helped me get a small handle on the issue.  The biggest of these was playing Fixed Limit Hold'em.  Fixed limit, by definition, will only allow you to bet a set amount on any given street.  In No Limit Hold'em getting a strong but second best hand will often (especially for beginners) result in loosing their whole buyin in one hand.  The betting structure in Fixed Limit makes this disastrous result much less likely.  So, while variance strikes just as frequently in any form of poker, it's effect on your bankroll can be diminished somewhat (especially for beginners) by playing Fixed Limit.


Understanding variance helped me to decide to become a Fixed Limit specialist and provide me the apparatus to learn the game and get some handle on the risk involved.