Donk's play poker... hilarity ensues

2+2 forums has a section called “brags, beats and variance” where you can just post random stories about bad beats, bad players, brag posts or anything really. It’s a pretty funny section that can take up hours of your time reading – trust me.

Recently there was a post entitled – “Things said in chat that blow your mind and leave you speechless”. Since I love chatting to donkeys when I play I knew I would love this thread before I even read it. I’ll post some of the more hilarious ones here for your enjoyment. Some people aren’t even just bad, they are so clueless they blow the lid off the unintentional comedy scale.

“I was crippled in a MTT once in the money but before I got to the good payouts when I had Aces in the Small Blind and BB called my raise. The flop came something like 44K. I led, he raised, I raised again, he raised again and I pushed. He turned over 99. Of course a 9 hit on the river.

I asked him - not in an antagonistic way (although I was bummed), but because I was genuinely curious - what he thought he was beating there. I said even if I had K2 on a blinds steal that I was far ahead of his nines, that I would have understood him going broke if the flop came 7-high but the King should have saved him when my action screamed he was beat.

"I was gambling," was his reply.”

“Playing an MTT and raise on the button with A6s, shorty pushes from the SB and I call getting 2.5:1. He's got AJo and his hand holds up. He says "You've got no respect for the game."”

“Live NL game. Donk A raises, donk B calls. Flop comes Q72r, donk A bets, donk B goes all-in, donk A thinks a little bit and then calls. TV-style, they both turn their cards over before the turn and river are dealt. Donk A has 99, donk B has AQo. Donk A says "That's exactly what I put you on!" I, sitting next to donk A, am confused and say "well, then why did you call?". His reply?

"Sometimes, you gotta mix it up"”

“Live limit game (2/4, IIRC). Flop is A J T , two of us keep going, other guy's got position on me. Turn is Q . River is K . I laugh, and check. The other guy stares at the board for a few seconds, then bets. I call, and of course we chop. I ask him "why did you bet with that board? All you did was give the house another buck in rake."

His reply: "Ever hear of bluffing?" I wasn't the only person at the table who was speechless.”

“I had AQ, flop comes QJ3, one guy and we get all our chips in, he shows K6, no draw at all. He caught the King on the turn..chatbox:

Me: ??
Fish: Lucky call, I was hoping to catch the king,You can't win if you don't gamble!!”"

“Heh. 1/2$ NL post tournament cash game out in hickville a couple years back.....

I hold the button with QcJc after the loosest hillbilly on earth and his best friend both limp to my immediate right.

Flop is 9cTc2h. I bet the size of the pot, both call, turn is 4d, I bet again, of course realizing that neither of them would fold any pair/draw if the roof fell in on them, and they both called. River is nothing, and checks around. I show my Q high, hoping it's good, and they each turn over AK and laugh at the once in a lifetime rarity that they each held the same 2 cards.

Then Donkey B turns to Donkey A and quips "good hand, I knew you wasn't bluffin". Donkey A then replies "Naw man, I wouldn't bluff you".

Wow.”"

“MTT and we are getting close to the money. I'm getting short stacked and get AJo on the button. Everyone had folded around to me except UTG who had limped and had about the same stack size as me. I pushed (I had about 5000 left and blinds were around 200/400). He called with some crazy [censored] like 84 of diamonds. Of course he spiked a pair and took me out. I asked him what he was thinking and he said "I put you on stealing".”"

This one is my favorite

“Had ATs on the button and raise. SB reraise and i cap. Flop comes QJ9. SB checks, I bet, SB calls.
Turn gives the K and my straight. Bet and SB calls. River is 2 and I bet and he calls with 88.
"Why call?" Notice the board is KQJ92...
"Thought you had overcards"
Halleluja - SB is the result of 5 billion years of evolution..”

"Middle of a STT and I'm stealing this guy's blind repeatedly and eventually he speaks up, calling me out again and again, "You're raising my big blind every single time," stuff like that, but still folding. I keep doing it of course. Eventually I push Ax, he calls with 32s and wins. I berate him, he says, "I had to do something you were stealing like crazy."

“Donk raises preflop with KK, a guy calls from middle position, another guy calls from the button. Flop comes AQ9 the two callers of the preflop raise go to war and cap the flop. He calls all the bets with KK, turn is a 2. Once again they go to war and cap. River is a 7. Once again they cap.

One shows A9 the other shows QQ.

The guy with KK says, "The best hand just couldnt holdup."”

“I'm in a live 2/4 game in MP and hit TP. There's two clubs showing so when EP bets I raise. The guy next to me thinks for awhile then folds his hand. Action continues to the river where the 3rd club falls and I take the pot with top pair.

The guy next to me says "lucky bet"
I say "excuse me?"
He replies "If you hadn't raised I'd have made my flush"”

“Live 2/4 game (MGM from my trip to Vegas a few weeks ago), table is insanely loose. Everyone 8+ people seeing the flop, people calling down with any pair of any kind, ace high, overcards, etc. Most pots are easily 15 BB+

8 or so people limp and there are like 9 going to the flop

flop is 6Q6, checks completely around (9 players mind you)

turn is some brick, checks around

river is another dud, checks around

UTG turns his QQ over very proudly with a big smile on his face, as he rakes in his baby pot his friend asks him "Why didn't you bet?"

His response

"You have to slowplay hands that good man"

“In a tourny I'm playing, someone just said "anyone have pics of underage girls?"”

“Sit n Go online, just underway.

One guy writes "Ok, let's not have any nigga poker."”

“The most priceless thing i've heard is. I'm at this table for a little while, theres this guy with 5 buyins there. I get involved in a hand with him, i forget what i have, but we get to the river and the board 4 flushes. So i bluff it, and he calls with top pair on the 4 flush board, fine i don't really care. Then some guy goes "WOW what a call". Donk replies "its easy to call when i have so many chips". This is a cash game, and the terrible logic of it still has me laughing at it once in a while and was almost worth the $150 i lost on that river.”

I wish I could think of one of my hilarious chat session's with random_donk_01 at the tables but I honestly can't remember one that sticks out on this level. But I'm constantly berating the fish and tapping the glass when I play so I'm sure something will come up that I can add to this someday.

Vegas motherfucker, Vegas!

That’s right motherfuckers, this motherfucker is going to Las motherfucking Vegas this Friday for a whole motherfucking week!

Now while my second trip to Vegas in my life will unfortunately be sans friends and plus girlfriend, it should still be a good time.

It all started a few weeks ago where my girlfriend who works a day job and is 900% jealous of my sloth-like existence begged me to take her on a trip to somewhere hot. And since I went to Vegas last summer, where it was probably about 500 degrees outside everyday, I said – “there ain’t no hotter place than Vegas!” Besides, what am I going to do on some gay ass Caribbean island for a week with no internet connection?

So I signed us up for a trip to Vegas where we’ll stay at the luxurious Tropicana hotel. Alright so it’s no Bellagio, but it does have a pretty kick ass pool with all the same bullshit you get at a Caribbean resort – palm trees, waterfalls, etc. So I figured it to be the best of both worlds, where she can sit by the pool all day, while I sneak off to the neighboring MGM Grand for some pokehair action.

I’ll definitely have to check out the big $25,000 buy-in WPT tournament that is happening at the Bellagio that whole week. All my favorite sexy pro’s that I watch on the TV will be there and should be quite a spectacle. Maybe I’ll even grow some balls and buy into one of the smaller events ($500 maybe?). But most likely I’ll just be railbitch.

I’ll mostly play 1/2 cash games as the tournament structures from what I remember from my last trip were god-awful. Blinds raising every 4 seconds with 32 total starting chips makes me sad. But if I scout out a good one with reasonable blinds and starting chips I may give it as shot. Other than that I’ll probably end up stuffing my face with $3 steaks and $0 drinks the remainder of the time. Good times.

All is well on the on-line front as I’ve just crossed the $5,000 profit line for the month of March. That is actually above my lofty goal of $4,000/month I had set at the beginning of the year so that’s good! I also just received platinum status at Poker Stars, which really isn’t that big of a difference. For playing that fucking much at their site they should give me more than +50% more FPP points but hey, I’ll take it considering my other options.

I truly feel my SNG game is at a new high and really don’t feel intimidated at the $55 turbo games whatsoever anymore. I recognize a few familiar decent faces, but most are still pure donk’s with $55 to spare. Maybe next month I’ll end up taking a shot at the $100 games, but I doubt it at the moment.

Lastly I finally just bought Sit and Go Power Tools, which is a fucking ridiculously expensive program designed to take the skill out of late game SNG’s and just make it all about unexploitable mathematical edges by pushing all in. I figure I’ve always had a decent grasp on late game push/fold strategy but I still wanted to tighten up any weak holes in my game where I’m either missing out on some marginally +EV pushes or making some marginally –EV pushes. So far I havn’t learned a hell of a lot, but I do realize I actually should be pushing more often with any 2 cards, especially on the bubble. More to come on this once I run more tests on hand histories.

So to my 3 daily loyal fans, I may not be posting while I’m in Vegas so you can take a risk and stop reloading my page every hour for new updates. But I will have my laptop while there so you may get a special out of the Country post.

Hehe, whatever…

Ramble On

Let me warn I’m starting this post with absolutely no direction or idea in mind before I write it.

Every word that is printed here has immediately flown from my thought process to Microsoft Word, with no mediation in-between.

It will be interesting to see what evolves.

I want to write a strategy post, and I’ve been wanting to write one for a long time. My blogging hero’s Scurvy and DoubleA’s can seemingly bat out a top-notch strategy post with ease and pure clarity - while I struggle to even post my meager results.

A lot of my friends have been playing SNG’s lately and while I don’t think I am better than any of them individually, I do think I have things to share to help them in their game. I just have trouble articulating it sometimes because usually the tips are so subtle that it’s hard for me to even recognize myself doing them. Especially after multitabling for so long, 99% of my moves are on an instinctual level based on my play history, so it’s hard to somehow extract that part of my game and put it down on paper.

I once heard a quote by Einstein saying “you don’t truly know something until you can explain it to your grandmother”. I truly love this quote. It really speaks the truth, and gives you the realization that you don’t really know what you think you know.

Now while I agree with this quote, I am not 100% sure that if I could explain the values of folding equity to my grandmother that I would become a better poker player. I think you can be a winning player by just playing off of experience and instinct. On the other hand, even by just doing something as simple as writing my thought process in this blog, or detailing strategies and thoughts with my friends – it has only been helpful to my game. It’s one thing to always do a move without thinking, but it’s another to think about a move while doing it, even if they end up looking damn near identical.

Just a sec have to start up my favorite late night treat - $11 turbo 45 man game. In the last 5 or so of these I’ve played I’ve gotten 3-2nd’s. Nothing like an hour of all in preflop action.

Ok where was I? Oh right, extended babbling…

I am just simply not at the point in my game where I can articulate why I do every move I do without sitting back and giving it some serious consideration. So for me to try to give advice to anyone else when I’m not even sure myself that I’m playing at peak poker efficiency is just wrong. Sure we can discuss, because in poker, there almost is never 1 clear cut answer. So giving one piece of advice or tip is almost definitely going to be misleading.

The truth is you just have to play a fucking ton. You have to experience certain key situations that come up over and over again and recognize what the +EV play is. Any book can tell you what hands to play, or how to steal blinds, but there is always going to be a microcosm of events happening where you can chose to make the +EV or –EV move. All of these decisions add up to a win or loss, it’s as simple as that. And recognizing +EV situations and being aware and gutsy enough to follow through on your reads is the only way to succeed in the long run.

So what I would say to anyone trying to improve there game is to go through a few games and play a little different. Call someone down when you have a “feeling” that they may be bluffing or that you have the best hand. See what happens when you re-raise all in when you sense that someone is weak. Don’t go crazy crazy, just 1 crazy will do. Use your experience to make plays that create +EV situations and don’t be afraid that you might be wrong. This I feel is the only way to truly expand your game and realize possibilities that have never been apparent before. Being able to recognize even the smallest of +EV situations is where your edge over the field comes from. And make sure to do it at the same buy-in that you always play at. If the game isn’t as meaningfull for you, you won’t learn anything as your results will be skewed.

There, not a bad post off the top of my head… a little rambly but over all, not bad.

Oh and if you havn’t seen this yet, click this link right now.

How anyone can be as good as Phil Ivey is I don’t think I’ll ever understand.

Ridiculousness Inc.

Another brag post incoming...

So yesterday I started back to the daily grind of SNG's after about 6 days off and had horrible results losing almost $500. I was feeling sick all day with a cough and then blamed my losses on my sickness.

Today I bought some spray and halls and sucked em down all day, had a shower, ate some cheerios and sat down to try to recoup yesterday's unpleasantness.

First 6 games:

4 firsts, 2 thirds. Profit: $828. Time: 45 minutes.

Next 6 games:

1 first, 2 seconds, 3 thirds. Profit: $481.50. Time: 45 minutes.

That’s right, 12 for fucking 12 ITM. A Ridiculous profit of $1,309.50 within 2 hours of play.

I know it seems like I’m embellishing here. I wish I was. I’ve never gone 12/12 ever in my life, not to mention 5 firsts out of 12 games. Closest I’ve come before was 10/12 and I had only 2 firsts.

It’s pretty funny that yesterday after losing $500 over 30 games and a few MTT’s I was considering that something was seriously wrong with my game. That my time off had messed up my groove. And that may even be true still since 12/12 is still only a 12 game sample size, but I doubt it.

That’s what sucks about my life. I’m so pessimistic about things that even when I do something as good as 12/12 ITM I write it off as variance and don’t take any credit for it at all.

I figure it’s simply efficient to keep a stable headed mind about things in order to keep your game at its peak level, rather than thinking you are some sort of poker god and end up doing stupid shit.

Anyways, enough rambling, I just wanted to pat myself on the back a little bit as 12/12 is something I probably won’t see ever again. Dare I try 6 more?

If you’ve read any posts on this blog you know what I will do…

Oh and if you have time, check out this hilarious poker artictle about folding. I think he has something there...

I take the "the" out of "psychotherapist"

So today I figured out what method I would use if I ever had to kill myself. I think about this from time to time for some reason. A lot of people say they would take pills, or a gun to the head, but there are so many things that could go wrong with that. My main qualifications with it are it being quick, painless, and 100% effective. What I would do to kill myself is to get hit by a train. Now I wouldn’t be an idiot and just stand there, no, I would lie myself down perpendicular to the rails with my neck aligned with one rail ensuring that the train wheels would slice my head off completely. I imagine I wouldn’t feel that, although it would be pretty terrifying awaiting that train with your ear basically on the rail.

But enough about my problems…

So I’ve been somewhat absent from the ol’ blog for a few days, as I was away from my den and went back home to visit friends for St.Patrick’s day. I only played a few online sessions here and there, mostly MTT’s as I just can’t play my regular multitabling SNG game while away from my normal surroundings. I actually managed to place 10th in a $3 rebuy tourney with like 322342342 entrants. But 10th sucks and only pays like $2 so it was basically a waste of time. My homeboy WP scored a nice third place in a $10 MTT that I witnessed for a cool grand, grats man, but too bad you aren’t as good as me as I would have gotten first undoubtedly.

I spent most of my nights playing home game poker and/or drinking my face off. Also went to a house party that for the first time at my age of 25, felt super old. Chatting up 17 year olds who are still in high school is a skill I havn’t yet acquired, but hey, young boobies all over - can’t complain. I also managed to win a few home game tourneys which is always fun, even though they are only for $5.

Yesterday 2 friends and I headed down to Niagara Falls Casino to play some live NL cash games. They run mostly 1/2 NL with a measly $100 buy-in. I’d definitely prefer a $200 buy-in and I can’t really figure out why they don’t have it but hey, you deal. After about 5 hours of play I had worked my stack up to about $175 which was fine with me, but my other 2 friends both dominated the tables and were up 5 buy-in’s each at $500. A part of me watched the horrid poker being played and wanted to start raising with meh and outplaying people post flop, but bluffing calling stations is something I’ve always tried to avoid and decided to just “play my hands”. It worked out I guess, as I was getting a few QQ and AK to deal with, but my raises were definitely getting too much respect as I would raise and just steal the limped blinds of everyone. I then decided that hey, if I’m getting this much respect, lets get a little crazy, so once from UTG I raised to $10 with 54 of hearts, with 1 caller in the SB. Flop throws down a Q23 which gives me the draw and I decide to check behind the caller for a free card. Turn brings a T and he again checks to me, and since 2 checks to a preflop raiser = bet, I bet and of course he puts me all in and I can’t call. So much for loosening up.

All in all the trip was really fun and that play combined with my earlier live game tournament wins is giving me a pretty good feeling about my upcoming trip to Vegas in which I hope to make enough money to pay for the trip itself.

Today being my first day back to the grind, I of course am down about 5 buy-in’s after 18 games, which is excellent. But it’s obviously all bad beats and variance since my play is perfect… yea

I don't mean to brag but...

I'm fucking amazing at poker.

Well not really, but sometimes I do make plays that are so good that they impress even my own brain.

Now generally when playing a turbo sit&go, once you reach heads up it's purely a battle of all in's preflop, and whoever gets the good cards wins. It sucks but thats how it is. But occassionally, you reach the final 2 with the blinds not overly huge and sometimes you can actually play "poker".

This upcoming hand just happened today but surely it will become one of my all time best played hands. They'll probabbly read it aloud at my eulogy.

Seat 3: Marwan34 (2290 in chips)
Seat 5: RikkiDee (11210 in chips)
Marwan34: posts the ante 25
RikkiDee: posts the ante 25
RikkiDee: posts small blind 100
Marwan34: posts big blind 200
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RikkiDee [5h 4d]
RikkiDee: calls 100
Marwan34: checks
*** FLOP *** [3c 4h Ad]
Marwan34: checks
RikkiDee: bets 500
Marwan34: raises 1565 to 2065 and is all-in
RikkiDee: calls 1565

Ok, so what right?

Let me try to explain why this hand is so good. First off I limp from the SB with 54. If the blinds were higher I may have just folded this preflop but we had a little room to work with, so I call. Now once the flop comes with an ace on it, things become exciting.

Both my opponent and I know that if either of us had an ace they would be raising preflop. There is no way in hell that my opponent would let me limp in if he had an ace. It's pretty much a guarantee.

Now he knows I don't have an ace. I and I know that he knows that I don't have an ace. So what do I do? Overbet the pot. Thats right, classic attempt at a pot purchase from the big stack. Now I know that he won't like the looks of that overbet, and because he knows that I don't have an ace he figures he can make a move on this pot representing an ace. But this man isn't a 3rd level thinker like I am. I intentionally overbet the pot with 2nd pair in order to induce him to read it as weakness and push on me. Because I know he doesn't have an ace, I (most likely) have the best hand.

One other thing is that if he did actually have something strong like 2 pair or the straight then knowing I don't have an ace and can't call his big reraise, he would be inclined to slow play.

So what happened?

*** TURN *** [3c 4h Ad] [Jd]
*** RIVER *** [3c 4h Ad Jd] [5d]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Marwan34: shows [Ac As] (three of a kind, aces)
RikkiDee: shows [5h 4d] (two pair, Fives and Fours)
Marwan34 collected 4580 from pot

Ya right like I would embarass myself on my own blog like that after I went off on how genius my play was.

Here is the real result (yes you can fake hand histories!)

*** TURN *** [3c 4h Ad] [Jd]
*** RIVER *** [3c 4h Ad Jd] [5d]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Marwan34: shows [5c 7s] (a pair of Fives)
RikkiDee: shows [5h 4d] (two pair, Fives and Fours)
RikkiDee collected 4580 from pot

Booya grandma. Hail to the king baby.

Hot Hot Heat

Well my good streak continues to get better. It’s getting to the point where I think that I actually may be a good poker player. But I’m sure a storm of junk-kicking beats will be coming my way soonly. But in the mean time, my junk has no fear.

In the last 3 days I’ve won $2489.20, mostly just playing $55 sit&go’s. Today after being up a bunch of c-notes, I decided to play in some big buy-in tournaments. Started off with a $150 NL tourney, then added an $80 WSOP satellite where top 8 (out of 69) qualify for this Sundays big $615 WSOP satellite. Sprinkle in a $33 PL hold-em game and a $20 heads up tournament and you got yourself an evening of fun.

The $150 NL Tourney was by far my biggest buy in of all time, dwarfing the previous record set by a few $50 games. I recognized a lot of big names but I was curious to see how I would fare against them. I think this hand tells the tale of how my tourney went pretty good. Oh by the way this is the third hand into the tournament.

Seat 1: RikkiDee (1500 in chips)
Seat 2: HAVANANIGHTS (920 in chips)
Seat 3: muggylicious (2020 in chips)
Seat 4: wpt-nuts (1620 in chips)
Seat 5: cheddarmon (1570 in chips)
Seat 6: emcee21 (1500 in chips)
Seat 7: AmuLeto (1460 in chips)
Seat 8: solidluck (1500 in chips)
Seat 9: playfast (1500 in chips) is sitting out
cheddarmon: posts small blind 10
emcee21: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RikkiDee [As Qs]
AmuLeto: folds
solidluck: folds
playfast: folds
RikkiDee: raises 40 to 60
HAVANANIGHTS: folds
muggylicious: folds
wpt-nuts: folds
cheddarmon: folds
emcee21: calls 40
*** FLOP *** [6c 2d Qd]
emcee21: checks
RikkiDee: bets 180
Emcee21: raises 1260 to 1440 and is all-in
RikkiDee: folds
emcee21 collected 490 from pot
emcee21: shows [Jd Ac] (high card Ace)

So yea; not so good. The aggression levels and overplaying that goes on at this level is unreal. I’m simply not ready for it yet. I cannot combat when players are able to put a third raise in as a bluff, or as in my example, a check raise bluff with absolutely nothing. Without good cards, I’m toast in these tourneys as I’m just too weak tight and don’t have enough gamble in me.

However, I did manage to score a seat in the Sunday $615 WSOP Qualifier by finishing in the top 8 – so there’s a cool $615 if I want it.

That’s the question though. Do I think it is worth it to try for the WSOP seat and give up my $615? It’s a tough one. $615 is a lot of scratch, and I wouldn’t dream of buying in for that amount ever, so that’s pretty good evidence for me to just take the money and run. But something inside me says to play in that tournament.

Playing in the WSOP main event would just be amazing. Sure I’m pretty much dead money, and wouldn’t have much of a chance to cash, but hell, just for the experience alone I want to do it. But even if I won a seat in the WSOP, would I even take it? If it’s even possible to sell seats that is. I mean, $10k is a ridiculous amount of money for me, I couldn’t imagine blowing it on one tournament. I really don’t know what to do.

I’m too safe to take risks, but taking risks – especially in poker – is the only way to get anywhere. Sure I could cash out the $615 bucks, put it back in my roll and with an expected ROI of 10% I could compound that into much more over time. But how fun is that? Isn’t winning $10k or more in one fell swoop more fun? And isn’t it the only way to truly step up your game to the level your stupid egotistical mind thinks are at but don’t have the roll for? I mean, take any big name poker player you want. I guarantee at one time or another, they won a big massive tournament (or huge cash game score) to greatly increase their bankroll and just haven’t looked back. I can’t say for sure, but I just don’t see any high stakes poker player just grinding it out forever until they are at that level. There are just too many ways to win big in poker for them to avoid it.

And that’s all it would take. One win would change everything. Amazing how much luck is involved in a life changing experience eh? But for now, I think the smartest thing to do, even though I’m on a sick hot streak, is to pussily cash out of the $615 satellite. I’ll take a few more shots at a WSOP qualifier and I’ll see what happens. I think I’ll be more likely to take a real shot at a WSOP entry by entering a smallish buy-in even with a lot of people where the top prize is a WSOP seat. The odds are worse, but the investment is small, and I also won’t be faced with these uncomfortable decisions of what to do with my satellite earnings.

Oh here’s one last hand I found interesting from yesterdays session. It’s similar to that AAAA on the flop example I had yesterday.

Seat 1: slamrod (1930 in chips)
Seat 2: seangk (4160 in chips)
Seat 3: rekm (2760 in chips)
Seat 6: gyndok (270 in chips)
Seat 7: Nados (1470 in chips)
Seat 8: RikkiDee (1145 in chips)
Seat 9: manganello (1765 in chips)
RikkiDee: posts small blind 75
manganello: posts big blind 150
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RikkiDee [5c Th]
slamrod: folds
seangk: raises 450 to 600
rekm: folds
gyndok: calls 270 and is all-in
Nados: calls 600
RikkiDee: folds
manganello: raises 1165 to 1765 and is all-in
seangk: calls 1165
Nados: calls 870 and is all-in
*** FLOP *** [Js Jh 8d]
*** TURN *** [Js Jh 8d] [Jc]
*** RIVER *** [Js Jh 8d Jc] [Jd]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
manganello: shows [Ts Tc] (four of a kind, Jacks)
seangk: shows [Qh Qc] (four of a kind, Jacks - Queen kicker)
seangk collected 590 from side pot-2
Nados: shows [Kc Kh] (four of a kind, Jacks - King kicker)
Nados collected 3600 from side pot-1
gyndok: shows [6d Ac] (four of a kind, Jacks - Ace kicker)
gyndok collected 1155 from main pot

TT vs QQ vs KK vs… A6! Gotta love that. I mean yea; all the A6 really had to do to win was hit an ace and he beats all those premium pairs, but heh, that is a sick way to do it.

Idiots...

I constantly amazes me seeing the abso-fucking-shit terrible play that goes on at the $55 buy-in games. I mean, you would think you would see vastly better play here than at the $6 games. But to be honest, I see no difference. Zero. None. All players who arn't multitabling like I am fucking suck. Which is good of course, since thats pretty much how I make my money. But this hand here topped them all.

Worst Hand Ever:

Table '21263028 1' Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: chromequeen (1500 in chips)
Seat 2: EwigerStenz (1500 in chips)
Seat 3: RikkiDee (1500 in chips)
Seat 4: linda1057 (1500 in chips)
Seat 5: tophatt29 (1500 in chips)
Seat 6: reno43 (1500 in chips)
Seat 7: DRBGN82 (1500 in chips)
Seat 8: Bodtker (1500 in chips)
Seat 9: eaglesnest10 (1500 in chips)
EwigerStenz: posts small blind 10
RikkiDee: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RikkiDee [2h 9c]
linda1057: folds
tophatt29: folds
reno43: raises 20 to 40
DRBGN82: folds
Bodtker: folds
eaglesnest10: calls 40
chromequeen: calls 40
EwigerStenz: folds
RikkiDee: folds
*** FLOP *** [Ah As Ad]
reno43: bets 40
eaglesnest10: calls 40
chromequeen: calls 40
RikkiDee: folds
*** TURN *** [Ah As Ad] [Ac]
reno43: bets 40
eaglesnest10: raises 1380 to 1420 and is all-in
chromequeen: calls 1420 and is all-in
reno43: calls 1380 and is all-in
*** RIVER *** [Ah As Ad Ac] [7c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
reno43: shows [Jd 6c] (four of a kind, Aces)
eaglesnest10: shows [3s 3d] (four of a kind, Aces - lower kicker)
chromequeen: shows [Kh Qc] (four of a kind, Aces - King kicker)
chromequeen collected 4550 from pot

Seeing 4 aces on the board isn't something that comes along every day, so I imagine that these inexperienced players just didn't know what to do.

I don't know what is worse though, pushing all in with 33 when there are 4 aces on board, or CALLING after a push and another call - with J6. Actually the call takes the cake. AAAAK is the nuts in that situation and anyone who doesn't know that simply should not be playing the $55 games. But I welcome their presence.

Horrid

The Irrationality of Rationality

By playing multiple SNG’s all the time, one generates a shit load of FPP points, especially with the new VIP program installed. At first I had always planned on using the FPP points just to buy into small satellite tournaments at 500 at a time. But I found myself accumulating more than I could spend in those tournaments, plus I started to figure the time I was investing in them wasn’t overly lucrative in terms of profit or expected gain from them.

So I started to read that list of things you could purchase with your FPP points. Most of them are 100% gay, like t-shirts, hats, jackets and posters. But there are some things that have decent value on there. I decided that I wanted to continue using the FPP points for entries into larger tournaments. So I first decided that I would join one of those single table tournaments with one of their “stars” – price: 15k FPP. The appeal there is you can win $1000, plus more if you knock out the famous player. I would have chosen to play against Greg Raymer, that fat lucky piece of shit who won the 2004 WSOP. I’ve always despised him. For no real good reason other than he’s just really annoying to watch play. I think it comes down to the fact that I just hate super-aggressive players that push all in every other hand, and that is what Raymer seemingly did in his win – and got extremely lucky in the process sucking out multiple times.

Anyways, once I reached 15k FPP, I decided against joining the single table tournament, in favor of a larger tournament entry – the end of the month $530 buy-in tournament that Stars puts on – which costs 33000 FPP. I figured I should take a shot at a big tournament someday, and even if I busted out with nothing, I would probably still be happier than with an iPod or something material.

But then I changed my mind again.

And this time it had nothing to do with anything rational or smart. It had to do with vengeance and anger. In a sense, it was prolonged tilt which made me make this decision. But even now, in a clear state of mind, I stand by my decision. I’m going to save up enough FPP points to enter a WSOP event. Not the big one – I won’t have enough FPP by then, but I should have enough for a $1000 or $1500 buy-in event. And while these smaller events don’t have the prestige that the $10k event does, it is still a live tournament against the best players in the world.

So what made me make this decision? Well last night I was reading random sights, when I came across the poker stars blog that had live updates for the EPT Monte Carlo tournament. A few months ago I finished 2nd in a satellite which would have sent me to that exact tournament, paying my buy-in, hotel and extra cash for spending. It would have been amazing. Well I decided to see if I could find anything out about the player that beat me in heads up to go to that tournament. His name was “AuroraKT” and from my accounts and what I remember he was a pretty bad player, which at the time compounded the pain of losing. I searched for him and low and behold, there he was, in all his goofy old man glory. The blog author decided to do a short mini blurb about him:

“A long time ago, back in the days when I was a "normal" journalist, I subscribed to the theory that everyone has a story. While my normal journalism days are on indefinite hiatus, I still hold on to the maxim. In every poker player, there is some sort of story, whether it is a mad rush, a bad-beat-filled month, or a simple moment of good fortune, under the cards there is a story.

Take, for instance, Kevin "AuroraKT" Tennant of Aurora, Ohio. Normal life deals him cards in the pharmaceutical industry. Apparently he plays them well. But several months ago, Tennant decided to try his hand at online poker. A Sit&Go here and a Sit&Go there eventually helped him accumulate a few PokerStars Frequent Player Points. And one day he spied a little 60 FPP sub-qualifier for the EPT Grand Final.

"I basically did it on a lark," he said.

The lark led him to the weekend qualifier. And, wouldn't you know it, now Tennant is sitting a few feet from me, fighting against some of the toughest poker players in the world. His kids are back at home. His wife is here with him. Oh, and if I failed to mention it, this is the first time Tennant has played in a live tournament.”

Aww isn’t that a heart warming story. I’m glad to read that he didn’t make it past the first day. I imagine that he ended up all in on the first hand with AJ that he just couldn’t get away from.

Reading that small passage upsets me greatly. It brought me back to that exact painful moment when I lost it all. It was my tournament to win and he’s there playing it for me. I realize all this must come off as pretty pathetic and envious, but I can’t help but get upset about it.

But that’s poker. And losses like that are things you just have to take.

I also just finally just finished reading “Positively Fifth Street” by James McManus. It’s basically a story about the author who at the time was a very amateur player, entered the 2000 World Series of Poker and went on to the final table, finishing 5th and taking home a few hundred grand. Reading the accounts of his play made me angry. He made a lot of extremely questionable moves throughout his book, and look where it got him; to the final fucking table.

So I decided that I needed some redemption. I want to say that I’m good enough to be playing in a large buy-in tournament, especially based on what these two amateur’s have done with their embarrassingly bad play. And I suppose that a lot of home/internet players would say the same, especially after watching such monkeys as Moneymaker and Raymer winning these things. I know I’m probably at best a below average player compared to most of the contestants who would enter the WSOP, but fuck, I deserve it to myself to take a shot at something. Final tabling or winning any of these types of events would pretty much change my life I imagine. And it’s not a complete impossibility by any means. Sure, it’s quite unlikely, but there is a chance. And I can’t grind it out at the SNG’s my whole life, I’ll need a windfall win here and there, so why not now?

So it’s something I just have to do. Rational or not, it must be done. From any kind of risk standpoint, it’s a losing endeavor. The cost of traveling to Vegas, the cost of the FPP”s I would give up by entering it, and the unlikely hood of me winning anything at all add up to a stupid move. But reading that blog about the geezer who took my trip to Monte Carlo warped my sense of rational thought.

So I’m going to the WSOP, which is something I’ve always wanted to do anyways since I started playing poker, and I’ll be in an event to boot. It’s got to be better than a Poker Stars Jacket and an iPod. Sorry for the stupidly long, probably incoherent post.

Rollin rollin rollin

This is going to be a bit of a brag post, but hey, I need to feel good sometimes too.

So since I’ve moved up to the $55 games, I’ve had a ton of mixed results. I do really good one day and really bad the next. And a “bad” day of playing the $55 games can be really bad. Like want to rip off my own face with my hand just to distract myself from the pain of losing hundreds of dollars bad.

But I think I’ve gotten more used to it now. Well I still get a little suicidal when I book a daily loss, but the anger has definitely subdued.

Early in March I was experiencing a long stretch of break even play - and when you play for a living, break even play fucking sucks. So I was sitting there last Friday after a week of playing for hours with nothing to show for it and was wondering if I should even be at the $55 games at all. Then I went over each hand history just to study the nature of my knockouts and possibly find some places where I should be pushing, or calling all-in’s where I wasn’t. After about 30 hand histories I couldn’t see any discernable bad play or leaks, although that makes sense since I was the one who played those hand histories. But I did notice a lot of the hands where I went out were all in’s that I got sucked out on. Usually a dominated situation like AQ vs AT or maybe something a bit less drastic like AT vs 89 but generally I was the favorite going in to the hand.

But it all changed this week.

That’s the beautiful thing about poker. You can change absolutely nothing about your game and get completely different results on a week to week basis. This week I don’t think I’ve lost a coinflip or better situation, which is truly remarkable. I actually can’t remember the last time I received a bad suckout. That is saying something.

But it’s just a heater. I can’t get too overly confident about my results this week, but I have to get them down on the blog just to remind myself about the other side of variance and luck. The side that poker players dream of but rarely comes.

So while I didn’t play anywhere near the amount of games I should be playing this week, my profit was one of my all time highs. That combined with my early March blah week puts me about right on target for my monthly goal.

Total Games: 66
Total Buy-In: $3,960
Total Winnings: $5,742
Total Profit: $1,782
ROI: 45.0%
ITM: 54.55%
$ / Hour: $162.0
1st’s: 9
2nd’s: 14
3rd’s: 13

Included in this streak is today’s profit of $913.50 after only 12 games, which is by far and away my best single day total that doesn’t include tournaments. My previous most profitable day was $450. Again, I wasn’t playing especially good, wasn’t getting all AA and KK, I was simply playing my regular game. The same game I wonder why I never make money with when I’m breaking even for a week.

Now 66 games is basically nothing. I’ve set a daily goal of 30 games since I moved up to the $55 games, and since I played every day this week, I am clearly falling way short of that goal. But I plan on maintaining that goal for the future weeks, as 30 games is about 5 hours of play. And given that I have all hours of the day to play I can easily get that in, not sure why I’m slacking so much.

One of the biggest changes I am trying to make doesn’t involve my game at all. Results greatly affect how I play. It’s unfortunate but if I know I’m up a couple hundred for the day, I’ll play much tighter, and much weaker. If I know I’m down for the day I’ll become a stupid aggressive idiot pushing any 2 cards hoping for a miracle double up so I can make some money. In order to counteract this horrible tendency I have I’ve been ignoring how much I’m up or down all day. I just start up the games, play, and win or lose I just start up a new round and don’t add up the total results. This way I can hopefully keep a clear conscious while playing. It’s pretty pathetic that I, a grown man have to trick myself so I don’t get emotionally attached to my money, but hey, if it works, it works.

And these short term results would indicate it works. Of course, 66 games is at best a bad indication of how it really affects my play, but I’ll take it as a good sign regardless. I think the real secret of winning sit and go’s is just being able to win one coinflip. You double up once in a coinflip situation, and you have a shot to finish in the money. And it really is that simple.

Putting the "fun" in Fundamentals

Here comes another boring philisophical theory post. SOrry but this is what I think about at night.

I’m starting to believe that I have a very strong grip on the fundamentals of poker. If there was an actual percentage attached to how much of the fundamentals one understands, I would be above 90%.

But so is every other good player - and knowing the fundamentals can only get you so far.

In fact it can’t even make you an above average player. At best with just perfect fundamentals I would imagine that you could be a break-even player.

When I say fundamentals I guess what I’m talking about is how the game is “supposed” to be played. Learning what bets mean and how to respond to them is only a fraction of what really goes on in poker.

I say this because after playing thousands of SNG’s, I’ve developed a lot of recognition of betting patterns by certain types of players. This recognition has lead me to an ever increasing knowledge of the fundamentals that form the game. Against unknown (average) players, certain bets or moves almost always mean the same thing, so you can react accordingly pretty easily. And as long as you aren’t doing anything fundamentally wrong (like calling an early raise with KJ in the SB for example) you will have an undeniable edge over random_fish_01.

What has really started to make poker interesting for me is when I recognize other similarly minded and experienced players that have noticed and realized the same thing about certain betting patterns that I have. Once you get to that 2nd and 3rd level of thinking where you are playing the mind game of “I know that he knows that I would raise here with this hand...” then you have something really different going on - something that goes so far beyond basic fundamentals that they almost don’t even matter.

I suppose that is why good players can play almost any 2 cards and win, as long as they are actually able to out-think their opponents. Or maybe, force their opponents to out-think themselves.

That’s why I think you see a lot of good players doing some really stupid things sometimes. I’m guilty of this myself. It usually goes beyond what cards they do have and ends up being about what cards they can represent – or try to represent. Good players know that other good players know what certain bets mean. So good players try to exploit their opponents knowledge of the fundamentals against them. So if a good player min raises on the river with nothing, he knows his opponent will put him on a monster hand, since that what monster hands do on the river and he may fold.

Whats funny is that good players try so desperately hard not to play hands the way they are “typically” played in order to trick their opponents. When a good player starts playing a hand against me, like min raising me on the turn when the board pairs, I almost never put him on trips because I know that if they really did have trips they would play it some other strange sneaky way – and that the min raise is probably just a smart bluff designed to take the pot down with a minimum amount of chips. So it becomes a weird back and forth matchup. Sometimes I like to play a hand exactly as how they are “typically” played just because it fucks up good players so much as they think I would never play a hand in such a newbie manner.

I’m not terribly confident that I have the mental strength and confidence to make strong reads against very good players and I feel that this may be my long term downfall. Like I said, I know the fundamentals, and that will get me somewhere, but in order to beat the best players I’ll need a lot more than that. But I’ve been testing my reads out more and more liberally at the tables. Pushing when I have that “feeling” that I’m ahead and making tough laydowns when I have that “feeling” I’m beat. That “feeling” is basically a summation of your entire poker experience applied to the situation at hand, and you should be able to trust your own memories and experiences.

Bad Hand, bad

I got a request from a friend to post more hand histories instead of boring theory posts that no one wants to read. And while I rarely have time to reflect on individual hands while multitabling, this one stood out to me for some reason, so hey, lets post it.

I'll start off by saying I played it really badly (fishy) and have been trying to discover a better way to play it since then. Just don't laugh too hard.

Seat 1: Shybert (1125 in chips)
Seat 2: Serge58 (1080 in chips)
Seat 3: BANDIT07 (1680 in chips)
Seat 4: dacrazesta (1455 in chips)
Seat 5: terrarra (1160 in chips)
Seat 6: waterboy113 (2280 in chips)
Seat 7: RikkiDee (1550 in chips)
Seat 8: aggiedad (1165 in chips)
Seat 9: BMike1977 (2005 in chips)
waterboy113: posts small blind 50
RikkiDee: posts big blind 100
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RikkiDee [6c 6h]
aggiedad: calls 100
BMike1977: folds
Shybert: folds
Serge58: folds
BANDIT07: folds
dacrazesta: folds
terrarra: folds
waterboy113: calls 50
RikkiDee: checks
*** FLOP *** [2s 3s 5d]
waterboy113: bets 200
RikkiDee: raises 400 to 600
aggiedad: raises 465 to 1065 and is all-in
waterboy113: calls 865
RikkiDee: raises 385 to 1450 and is all-in
waterboy113: calls 385


Some days I may even raise these 2 limpers with 66 in the BB, but today I'll just check. Here is my thought process when I made this play. First limper bets out, which is usually a pretty weak hand in this circumstance on this flop. I often see people betting these flops and I'm always suspicious, so I sometimes raise with a meh hand just to see where they are really at. But once the player who limped UTG re-re-re-re-re-re-re-raises me I know I'm most likely beat. Now here comes the next fun part, the original player who bet just calls the re-re-re-re-raise. If that isn't a flush draw I don't know what is. So I push all in, hoping to get some value out of my hand which is almost surely best against the original bettor. Of course what I didn't really realize immediately is that the original bettor is going to have 2 overcards most likely along with his flush draw, so its essentially a coinflip at this point against him.

Notice I havn't told you what they had. I'd like to just think about what kind of plays are available and what alternatives I could use instead of the donk play I chose.

Ok, I think in this situation I think calling the flop is the best play. I will reraise if it is heads up, but with one person to act behind me, a raise is a pretty risky play, especially if he limped with a pair, (now an overpair) which people love to do. When the SB bet out, even before he called the reraise, I figured he probabbly had a draw since he was a pretty aggressive player and if he had something like 77-AA he would be raising preflop at this stage of the game. So with one person to act behind me, I think calling is a much better play. Then if UTG folds and the turn brings a non spade (non ace?) I'll reassess the situation.

The only thing I fear - and it's mostly because I'm a donkey - is that everytime I end up calling someone's early position bet, and then someone moves in over the top of both of us, I get very suspicious that they may be making a move and end up making another stupid call. It's probabbly a huge leak in my game, but I do find myself doing it often. So I'm not at all certain that if I just called the flop bet and UTG went all in that I wouldn't call that as well, but at least I would have the option to get away from the hand, whereas a raise pretty much pot commits me while I have no information on UTG's hand.

Anyone want to know what happened?

Alright fine.

But it doesn't make a difference what happened, since it's how we got there that matters.

But anyways.
*** TURN *** [2s 3s 5d] [Jh]
*** RIVER *** [2s 3s 5d Jh] [Kh]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
waterboy113: shows [As Js] (a pair of Jacks)
RikkiDee: shows [6c 6h] (a pair of Sixes)
waterboy113 collected 770 from side pot
aggiedad: shows [Kd Ks] (three of a kind, Kings)
aggiedad collected 3495 from main pot
GG!

My First Professional Ace High River Call

I read a lot about pro's calling big bets on the river with just ace high figuring their opponent was bluffing and always wanted to try it, but never had the balls, instinct, and whatever else it takes to do it. But when you are playing agianst terrible fish, sometimes you just know how their ignorant brain works.

Seat 1: x5217x (3530 in chips)
Seat 4: gisborne (3090 in chips)
Seat 5: dewman15 (1160 in chips)
Seat 6: RikkiDee (2595 in chips)
Seat 9: Crystal Lynn (3125 in chips)
x5217x: posts small blind 100
gisborne: posts big blind 200
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RikkiDee [Ah Jh]
dewman15: folds
RikkiDee: raises 400 to 600
Crystal Lynn: calls 600
x5217x: folds
gisborne: folds
*** FLOP *** [7c Th 9c]
RikkiDee: bets 600
Crystal Lynn: calls 600
*** TURN *** [7c Th 9c] [Tc]
RikkiDee: checks
Crystal Lynn: checks
*** RIVER *** [7c Th 9c Tc] [Ts]
RikkiDee: checks
Crystal Lynn: bets 1925 and is all-in
RikkiDee: calls 1395 and is all-in
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Crystal Lynn: shows [Ad 5c] (three of a kind, Tens)
RikkiDee: shows [Ah Jh] (three of a kind, Tens - Jack kicker)
RikkiDee collected 5490 from pot


I was so proud of myself for this play. When someone makes a strange out of sync bet like this, it always arouses my suspicions. It's always only one of 2 hands, nothing or everything. In this case I couldn't figure out a hand that this fish would have that they could possibly be betting for value on the river. And of course, the fact that they went all is usually a pretty clear sign they are weak. At first I was scared that he slow played the flush on the river, but in my mind going all in with trips on board with just a flush is a pretty stupid play for even a fish, but it's been done. Anyways, good for me, pat on the back.

In other news, I started reading this dudes blog last night and besides laughing my ass off, started to become really jealous after reading post after post of huge MTT wins. I can't imagine winning 55k in a MTT and being all like.. ya, lets play more. If I won something that huge I would be jerking off on my own face for months. Somehow he continues to do it over and over and over and over again, at least thats the way he presents it. I want to be his best friend. Another interesting thing that he does is split entry fees and winnings with a group of his poker playing friends - which is really smart. Since MTT's are 99% luck and 1% anger suppression, it makes sense to have pieces of each other when the inevitable AA vs J2o suckout happens. Since you can only play the percentages for so long, when you have others in there that you have an equal piece of to help cushion the blow, it makes for a much more enjoyable experience I would imagine.

The only part that obviously sucks is when you pull down 100k and have to split it 6 ways. But who wins a MTT anyways?

February Stars

Quick status post since it's the end of the month and all.

Plus I havn't really posted much lately.

Truth is I havn't been playing much. I really stopped playing on Feb 20, and before that I hadn't really played seriously all month. I'm wierd like that.

March will be different. I've told myself that I will be playing 36 games a day, which should translate to $300~ a day if my ROI stays put at 10% and all that jazz. And $300/day would be nice.

So far, so good. March 1st, 36 games, total profit: $37.50. Booya.

So anyways, February results:

Cash Game Totals				126.50
SNG's				967.90
Tournaments				4187.00
Monthly Net Total				5281.40
Year to Date				8016.52

Obviously the Tournament win skews everything that is bad about these results. The SNG's should at least be 2k if I played even a somewhat normal schedule, but as I said, I ended up only playing about half of the total games I played in January.

Other than that, things should be good. I've recovered my ROI at the $55 games, which was in the negatives after 100 games, but is now hovering around 10%, which I'm happy with, and I'll continue in the $55 games throughout the month barring a big downswing.

The Game

Be warned, this upcoming post contains some horribly applied economics theories to poker. Not that they don’t apply, they do somehow, but I’m not smart enough to articulate perfectly how they do. But we’ll try anyways.

Ok so if you’re a student of poker, and have read and watched a lot of poker material, then you will have stumbled across players who claim they play poker based on something called “Game Theory”. Now, while I call bullshit on most of these pseudo-intellectuals, game theory does have its applications.

Quick lesson on game theory:

Basically it’s usually a 2 party (firm) model where you examine the various options to each party and their respective outcomes. So for example, 2 firms who compete in the same market (lets say 2 pig farmers) have to decide what price to charge for their product. And in this example they are the only 2 in their market. So there are basically 4 total combinations of prices.

A) They charge the same high price that maximizes their joint profits ($100/pig each)
B) Firm A undercuts Firm B (Firm A: $100/pig, Firm B: $60/pig)
C) Firm B undercuts Firm A (Firm A: $60/pig, Firm B: $100/pig)
D) They both end up charging the “undercut” price. ($60/pig each)

This happens all the time in the business world, especially when the firms can sell their product for “secret” prices. Now the theory goes, that if they both just chose option A, where they set a price that maximizes both their profits, they would both be better off in the long run. But what happens, is that there is strong incentive to cheat, and undercut each other. Because they are the only 2 in the market, if one undercuts, they will have 100% of the market share. The theory continues, that they will almost always end up at $60/pig each because the incentive is too great not to cheat, and a collusive agreement to stay at $100/pig never works out.

Ok, that’s pretty clear. But how the fuck does it apply to poker? Well, I’ll tell you it took me a while to see it. It truly only applies when you are playing against opponents who are skilled, think critically and have lots of experience. So don’t worry about this at the $5 buy-in’s. I’ll try to construct a poker example where this works.

It’s late in a tournament and blind stealing is very important. You are on the button at a 5 handed table and it’s folded to you. The player in the BB is smart, critical, experienced etc. Because it’s 5 handed, your opponent can just as easily raise your blinds as you can his. Now, what hands should you be raising here?

A) Any 2 cards
B) Any decent hand like A2 or J8
C) Top 20% hands, which is something like 55+, A8+, KTs+

Putting this into a game theory model, lets say you are firm A and the opponent in the BB is firm B. Lets assume that the frequency of your raises will be directly correlated to how often B reraises and calls you. What is the optimal raising scenario? Well, that answer is simple; the one in which best jointly maximizes both your profits (chips). Think about it, if you and your friend were playing in a tournament and decided to soft play each other, how would you maximize chips in this scenario? You would most likely only raise their blinds with stronger hands and when one friend picks up a big hand they would reraise them to let them know that this time they can’t fold. And that’s basically the optimal solution. There is no use raising the blinds with any 2 cards because eventually you will receive playback, and have to end up folding. So what you want to achieve is a non-communicative collusive agreement with your opponent in the BB. You want to let him know that you will only be raising with hands that warrant it and that he should do the same. This way you both maximize your chips saving lost chips that would have been uselessly thrown away by fighting each other with reraises. And you achieve this by only raising when you are likely to have the best hand. There’s nothing unethical about raising when you probably have the best hand, but many people feel that it is unethical to raise when you don’t. Of course this is a whole other debate because poker is poker and you can do whatever you want. Ultimately, at this stage of the game, stealing the blinds is usually all you want, unless you have a monster, and by making sure he knows that you are raising with strong enough hands and to only playback with even stronger hands.

But there is always incentive to cheat, just like in the pig farm example. If you start raising with junk from the button, for a bit, he won’t notice it. But eventually he of course will, and start reraising you with junk. And what happens is you both lose more chips to each other because you’ve started a little “pricing” war because the value of your hands has dropped.

But maybe you want that. Maybe you enjoy playing these games, or maybe you enjoy gambling with shit hands. I personally don’t. I usually will just raise with a playable hand and take it from there. Of course assuming your opponent is decent is a heroic assumption online, so there’s always that danger.

After reading this over I don’t love the example I came up with and there are certainly many more I could think of. Basically it just comes down to when you and your smart opponent are heads up against each other, and you both know the options to each player, you put them on a range of hands and play accordingly. It’s only when people start playing out of line that the “collusion” breaks down. And isn’t that always the case with any collusion? My advice is to stay in line and play the game. But a lot of people don’t get excited folding to their opponent 4 times in a row, so they make plays, and that’s what ends up driving poker.

This post sounded so much better in my mind, but I hope it was interesting.