Assani's Poker Thread (3 Viewers)

[Alias]

Well Ham we had that convo last night and sure enough it comes back to "bite" mePlaying in a loose but passive 1-2 game. Lot of multi-way action even to the river. Unfortunately I was pretty much card-dead the entire time and after 4 hours I was still sitting at about my buy-in (400). Caught KK two off the button. Second position led out for 15 (standard table raise). One caller to my right and I raised it to 40. Folded to button who then goes all in for 275. Original raiser and caller fold to me. My read on the guy, who apparently had been sitting there for 16 plus hours, was that he overplayed hands. They also had an aces cracked promo (shouldn't be a thought in a NL game) but the game seem liked the type to consider it. I was about 95 percent sure he didn't have AA. I thought for two minutes, recalling our exact convo from last night - it was a relatively huge call for me and I felt pretty comfortable that with a healthy stack I could still have a profitable night with a ay down. Nonetheless my EV on the hand was 440+ and it only cost me 275. That's a winning call. I called and he showed JJ.Of course, the guy spikes a J on the turn to beat me.

As I am sure others have noted this is not the BBV thread/forum (just bump one of my posts instead)

 

[Assani Fisher]

Hey Assani,Can I get your feedback on a situation last night?I played in a local game last night and lost the biggest pot of my life and I'd love to get your thoughts/analysis. I've been beating myself up all day.I won $500 the previous night and bought in for that last night. It's a weak group of players. Early on, I got AA in early position and raised the 2/5 blinds to $20. I got two callers from loose players and the flop came Q-2-2. Two hearts. I bet $50. I get a fold. The guy in the cutoff raises me $50. This guy has been playing a lot of pots and showed down questionable hands. Against another guy, he fished to the river on a flush draw when he was getting about 1.5 to 1 on a big bet on the turn. I put him on a flush draw or AQ/KQ. It feels like a feeler bet. I think he's a customer, so I put him all in for $250 more. He thinks for a solid minute. Not acting, really thinking. I usually don't talk at the table, but I'm now begging for a call. I try to get him to call. After about three minutes he finally calls and shows J-2 of diamonds. . I don't improve and he talks #### to me about being a weak player and how could I go all in with such a weak hand. He "had me" on A2 or QQ. I was and shook it off. The guy had been there twenty minutes before he took my money and the money of the flushed guy and hit and ran. I was down to $200.I battled back and over four hours managed to get my stack to $2,100 from very solid play. I don't drink when I play and others were, particularly the obnoxious guy who runs the game. We got into a bit of a spat when I asked to spread a pot and calculated pot odds, then made a big call and won about $500 off him earlier with correct odds. He criticized and I said something along the lines of having to call before hitting one of my 13 outs against top pair.This guy bought in for $1,000 twice and had a stack that was within $40 of mine when I had $2,100. He was drunk and had obvious tells. He picked up queens once and kings and both times immediately stopped his gabbing and got serious. Otherwise he was flicking in raises and playing super loose and showing down marginal hands. I am getting close to cashing out and leaving, as it's about 2AM. I have been waiting forever to trap the guy. I was in middle position and it was checked to me. I looked at JJ and decided that this time I wanted to limp in hoping for a raise from one of a couple of loose players who raise junk. I am not in love with jacks, but I feel like I know where I stand with this crowd and am prepared to fold them on a bad flop. Sure enough, drunk guy in late position raises to $25. He's gabbing and laughing at some conversation and I am positive that he doesn't have a premium hand because his demeanor changes markedly. The woman in the BB goes all in for about $80. She's super weak and I'm not worried much about her. I think my jacks are good. I study the pot for a few seconds and the drunk guy makes a comment about me being and internet player and pot odds. I get more information that puts him on a marginal hand. I am sure he has KQ at best, but probably not even that. Could be as weak as 7s-Q10. That's the range I'm thinking. I announce raise and carefully count out another $200 and push it in. Almost immediately he says, "Another $500." All ears perk up. The woman on the BB makes a comment along the lines of "I'm going home." I immediately put her on AX and I know I'm ahead of her and that she has one or more cards of the over cards I'm worried about. I reevaluate whether he could have me and I'm seeing his balls doing the betting. He's trying to mark his territory in the game and has a beef against my math approach apparently. I think for awhile and announce all in for a total of about $2,100. He gives a couple of speeches that confirm that I'm good, then he says something along the lines of "I don't give a #### if I lose. My gut tells me I'm going to win this pot." I don't say a thing. He says he knows I have him now, but that he has a good feeling. He calls. He turns over KJ offsuit. Then he brags that he "has one of my outs." I tell him that I don't need it and the woman on the BB turns over A9 suited. Of course, flop comes a king. Turn another king. I'm drawing dead. He celebrates wildly starting on the first king and it gets worse as I take it perfectly stoically and say that I'm content. I got my money in in a good spot. But the ahole isn't done. He starts lecturing me about how you can't trust pot odds and you have to rely on your gut. Goes on as he stacks and I'm left with about $40. Obviously I know conventional wisdom says that if you can get your money in as a 70% favorite, you always should... But is there a point where you've reached a certain multiple of the buyin that you should cash in and insure a win?I find that I pretty consistently build big stacks only to eventually run into such a situation where the big hand takes it all away. The reason is because I never adjust my game to my stack. I am always willing to put all my chips in play even if I'm not going to rebuy. Is that correct? Is it mathematically correct to keep risking your chips against bigger stacks when you've reached a certain multiple of the buyin? Should I have a different approach to cash games? Should I try to keep the pots small and rely on my ability to outplay with post flop play and situations where I can get value with hands I'm sure are good? I built my stack that way. Should I be prepared to fold hands when I know I have a clear advantage just because of pot size and the downside risk? I "should" have had about $4,200 after that hand, but instead I lost $500.I'm just wondering if you tend to avoid the big clashes and rely on grinding or if you think that I should continue to put all my chips in play if I can. If I won that hand, I'd have had a stack four times bigger than anything else on the table and would be past the danger zone where I could lose my stack. I find that I'm often back to square one before I get to enjoy that big stack advantage. Any insight would be great! If it weren't this hand, I fell like I'd have pushed on some other hand with an advantage only to lose most of my stack. You can only enjoy your edge if you're left with chips. I didn't intend to rebuy past the $500 and didn't, so knowing that going in does it make sense to play within a narrower range of pot sizes or can you not look at the game in terms of a single buyin? When do you walk away? When do you decide to limit pot sizes? I felt very strongly that I had at least a coin flip and probably closer to 3:2 or better when I pushed and I was right. What would you have done?

Seems like you have a multitude of questions there, but I'll try to answer as many as I can:I almost always buy in for over 1000 BBs, so yes I love playing deep. It is a very different skillset though. If you find that you continually lose big pots when playing deep, then theres nothing wrong with leaving when you get up big. However, learning deep stacked poker would be ok too. In deep stacked poker, hand values are much less important preflop, position matters more, and giving away the strength of your hand preflop is more costly(thus disguising it is more valuable).I have never come close to getting it all in with a hand as weak as JJ, but your read was good so theres no problem there."If it weren't this hand, I fell like I'd have pushed on some other hand with an advantage only to lose most of my stack. "I'm not sure what this even means. You had an intuition that you were going to suffer a bad beat? I find superstition or intuition to be very silly and nonsensical the majority of the time. I would never turn down a situation in which I was a favorite unless losing the money meant too much to me(in which case I would move down in limits).

 

[Assani Fisher]

Sorry Short Corner. What forum is that? I don't want to pollute the thread. I just lost $2,100 on a pot and am interested in Assani's thoughts on home many times your stack you should consider heading out or refusing to commit all your chips?

If you had just asked that, Short Corner wouldn't have made that post.Your post is a (very) thinly disguised bad beat thread.

It's part of it certainly, but the real question is whether there is a multiple of the buyin you can reach where you should adjust your play because of the equity needed to reach that amount versus starting over if you're stacked?

I'm still not sure what you're asking....If you're asking if you adjust your play based upon your stack, then yes without a doubt.If you're asking if you should play suboptimally(or not play at all) when you get a big stack because of fear of losing a big pot, then no not at all.

 

[Assani Fisher]

also Ham, you are either way way better at reading hands than me or you are using the fact that you now know they had KJ and A9 to make yourself look good with your reads in that post.

 

[Assani Fisher]

No. I don't buy into this. Look at the equation.

Say it takes a minimum of 100 time units to amass 4X the buy-in. If you lose the entire amount, as you eventually will by committing all of your chips despite the odds, you lose that 100 units of time plus the buy-in. Given infinite time, I agree with you, but there is a time value on the money given finite time committed and finite buy-ins. As such, it is necessary to protect your time equity when you increase the multiple of the buy-ins in proportion to the time invested. At a certain point (I'm guessing 3X?) it's worth it to walk away and come back later with a single buy-in OR adjust our strategy to avoiding downside risk until you can take some cash out of play.

This is where you are wrong though. The more chips you have on the table the less likely you are to get all in preflop(and the stronger hands you need to). As an example, I've never been all in preflop in the past 6 months or so simply because I'd only be willing to put $20K in the pot with aces and I've never found an opponent willing to put $20K in with less than AA(and I've never ran AA up against AA in that time span).With $2000 in a $2/5 game, you shouldn't be getting it all in often and when you do you should have a huge hand usually.

 

[Assani Fisher]

I lost $500, which was within $50 of what I won the night before. This isn't about the money, it's about strategy. I think there's got to be a logrithmic relationship between time invested, multiple of buy-in earned and downside risk management to optimize profits. Otherwise, assuming there is always a crippling stack to clash with, you will eventually lose the value you amassed and the time. At a certain point, banking profits is essential to long-term strategy when you don't have unlimited time or buy-ins. I'm getting a sense of what I should do to adjust. Given the stack and circumstances, I think adjusting to Dr. J.'s suggestion makes sense, while playing "my way" makes sense below say 2X the buyin. You must protect that time equity.

I hate to belabor this point but its insane to me that you think you have to risk 400 BBs simply because you're sitting that deep or that it is likely that you'll get all in during a session.

 

[bostonfred]

I ♥ 2Jo

It was sooted. Diamonds. It was the most head shaking hand I've hand in some time. I respect calling junk if you suspect strength. This guy was not good. The fact he didn't autocall my all in and literally stewed for a full minute "putting me" on A-2 or QQ with a Q-2-2 board really threw me. He legitimately didn't know where he stood and after about five minutes when he called he seemed shocked that his 2 was good. It was pretty staggering. I figured after a minute of sincere contemplation he'd have called if he could beat me, so I started lobbying for a call with QX or a flush draw. Little did I know. Everyone else at the table, including me, had a head scratching moment when he turned over that hand.

Seeing him flip J2 shouldn't be surprising at all in deep stack poker. He was getting implied odds of 84 to 1 on his preflop call, because you were willing to stack off with AA unimproved. You should be taking advantage of his loose play by raising bigger preflop and playing more conservatively postflop once you have a deep stack. You should also realize that hands like AA and KK don't play well at all when you have over 400 BB, and JJ plays absolutely terribly

Hand in question he raised to $20 preflop and villain seems to have about $400 in front of him. Not really deep stacks at that point, and villain only getting about 20:1 implied on a crappy J2. It was definitely poor play.

Of course it is. Although he certainly had better than a 5% chance of beating Ham, even if Ham had aces. But the real question is, do you think players do this often enough that Ham made a mistake shoving all in postflop?

I think the question is what is this particular player's range for making that raise - I think this includes just about any Q and will have a Q far more often than a 2. Probably will be a flush draw more often than a 2 as well, which is what Ham put him as most likely having. I also think with this type of villain, he will call this bet behind quite a bit. And yes he's more than a 5% chance to beat Ham, but he can't possibly believe that Ham is going to stack off every time he gets a Q22 flop. There will be plenty of times where he gets this flop and takes down little more than the preflop action. Not a lot of justification for playing that hand against preflop raises with that short of a stack.

2/5 and 5/10 players rarely commit postflop with top pair and less than an ace kicker. Even TPTK is fairly rare, although TPTK may shove first. This guy may have made a loose call preflop, but he was correct that Ham made an even looser play postflop by shoving with a hand that only gets called by a deuce or better.

I disagree. Guy would have probably called with AQ or KQ.

It seems like you might overvalue your reads. Let me ask you a question - do you consider this hand a bad beat?

 

[Assani Fisher]

In your case, I think the problem with your style is that you don't adjust your game enough for deep stack poker. You're too willing to commit with weaker hands. You committed your entire stack to what you had to assume was a coinflip based on your read. If I had to guess, this kind of confrontation helped you get to your 2100 in the first place, and it was inevitable that you were going to lose one of these eventually for your whole stack.

:(

 

[Assani Fisher]

No. I don't buy into this. Look at the equation.

Say it takes a minimum of 100 time units to amass 4X the buy-in. If you lose the entire amount, as you eventually will by committing all of your chips despite the odds, you lose that 100 units of time plus the buy-in. Given infinite time, I agree with you, but there is a time value on the money given finite time committed and finite buy-ins. As such, it is necessary to protect your time equity when you increase the multiple of the buy-ins in proportion to the time invested. At a certain point (I'm guessing 3X?) it's worth it to walk away and come back later with a single buy-in OR adjust our strategy to avoiding downside risk until you can take some cash out of play.

This is where you are wrong though. The more chips you have on the table the less likely you are to get all in preflop(and the stronger hands you need to). As an example, I've never been all in preflop in the past 6 months or so simply because I'd only be willing to put $20K in the pot with aces and I've never found an opponent willing to put $20K in with less than AA(and I've never ran AA up against AA in that time span).With $2000 in a $2/5 game, you shouldn't be getting it all in often and when you do you should have a huge hand usually.

You're playing in Vegas against good players. I'm playing at someone's apartment and guys will call all ins with K10, second pair or flush draws with 2:1 odds.

I'm playing in Vegas with very bad players.

 

[Assani Fisher]

I lost $500, which was within $50 of what I won the night before. This isn't about the money, it's about strategy. I think there's got to be a logrithmic relationship between time invested, multiple of buy-in earned and downside risk management to optimize profits. Otherwise, assuming there is always a crippling stack to clash with, you will eventually lose the value you amassed and the time. At a certain point, banking profits is essential to long-term strategy when you don't have unlimited time or buy-ins. I'm getting a sense of what I should do to adjust. Given the stack and circumstances, I think adjusting to Dr. J.'s suggestion makes sense, while playing "my way" makes sense below say 2X the buyin. You must protect that time equity.

I hate to belabor this point but its insane to me that you think you have to risk 400 BBs simply because you're sitting that deep or that it is likely that you'll get all in during a session.

Unwrap this.

I don't understand what you mean by "eventually." If you mean that if you play 1000 hours of live poker then you'll eventually have a big clash between two big stacks, then yes I agree. But you make it sound as if every session in which you have a big stack you're scared to stay because "eventually" you'll have a clash with another big stack, and that seems silly to me. If I sat with $2000 in a $2/5 game, I'd expect my stack to be in danger only maybe one out of twenty sessions.

 

[bostonfred]

I disagree. Guy would have probably called with AQ or KQ.

It seems like you might overvalue your reads. Let me ask you a question - do you consider this hand a bad beat?

Not really. I respect the preflop call. He got lucky to spike a 2 because it was so well disguised and he called a big raise with a 2 in his hand, but no it's not a bad beat. When I get all my money in and I'm behind -- when the money goes it -- then it's never a bad beat.

I agree. So if it's not a bad beat, and you did get all your money in behind, the question is how can you improve your play on this kind of hand so it doesn't happen on a consistent basis? You raised to 1/20 his stack preflop. You led out on the flop, and he raised. Now about 1/3 of his stack is in the pot. As of this moment, you know he has something. It's just a question of what. In the JJ hand, you placed a lot of value on your read that somebody had nothing, because he always played a certain way when he had something, and because he was a bad player. But in this hand, you know you're up against someone who does stupid things, and he's screaming, I have something! by reraising you. If he has a queen in his hand, he's drawing to two outs - the queens. Two pair is no good, because you already have aces up. So there's no reason for you to make him pay to draw. When he minraises, you don't know if he has the queen or the deuce. Why are you trying to get all of your chips in? Even if you check/call the whole way, you're going to be up against a softer range of hands than if you shove, because when you shove, you get hands like a suspicious 33 or Q5 to fold, while those hands might keep betting if you check/call after he reraises.

Your propensity to get all your chips in - even if you think it's a reasonable play against his range - is going to cost you a lot in the long run. I know that you're playing against really weak competition, but it sounds like you're giving back money you should be able to win off of them by making overaggressive plays. Based on the few hands we've discussed here, I think you might need to raise a little higher preflop when you get a deep stack, because you tend to commit a little too light, and I think you should work to control the pot size on hands where your opponent tries to take the betting lead.

 

[bostonfred]

In your case, I think the problem with your style is that you don't adjust your game enough for deep stack poker. You're too willing to commit with weaker hands. You committed your entire stack to what you had to assume was a coinflip based on your read. If I had to guess, this kind of confrontation helped you get to your 2100 in the first place, and it was inevitable that you were going to lose one of these eventually for your whole stack.

So modify the question. How do I adjust to deep stack poker? Give me some principles.

The book professional no limit holdem might help. The primary topic is to consider the size of the preflop pot compared with the size of your stack. In the case of AA vs J2, you raised to 20 preflop, which left you with roughly 40 in the pot, and roughly 400 in your stacks. That gives you a "stack to pot ratio" of about 10. The authors posit that you want a stack to pot ratio that's closer to 4 (or maybe 6 or 7, against weak players like this) to be profitable committing all your chips postflop. They lay out a good case for this. They also suggest that a larger ratio - like 20 - would be good because you can control the pot size a little better when your opponent has to be afraid of you shoving with an absolute monster. Really recommend that book.

 

[DrJ]

Hey Assani,Can I get your feedback on a situation last night?I played in a local game last night and lost the biggest pot of my life and I'd love to get your thoughts/analysis. I've been beating myself up all day.I won $500 the previous night and bought in for that last night. It's a weak group of players. Early on, I got AA in early position and raised the 2/5 blinds to $20. I got two callers from loose players and the flop came Q-2-2. Two hearts. I bet $50. I get a fold. The guy in the cutoff raises me $50. This guy has been playing a lot of pots and showed down questionable hands. Against another guy, he fished to the river on a flush draw when he was getting about 1.5 to 1 on a big bet on the turn. I put him on a flush draw or AQ/KQ. It feels like a feeler bet. I think he's a customer, so I put him all in for $250 more. He thinks for a solid minute. Not acting, really thinking. I usually don't talk at the table, but I'm now begging for a call. I try to get him to call. After about three minutes he finally calls and shows J-2 of diamonds. . I don't improve and he talks #### to me about being a weak player and how could I go all in with such a weak hand. He "had me" on A2 or QQ. I was and shook it off. The guy had been there twenty minutes before he took my money and the money of the flushed guy and hit and ran. I was down to $200.I battled back and over four hours managed to get my stack to $2,100 from very solid play. I don't drink when I play and others were, particularly the obnoxious guy who runs the game. We got into a bit of a spat when I asked to spread a pot and calculated pot odds, then made a big call and won about $500 off him earlier with correct odds. He criticized and I said something along the lines of having to call before hitting one of my 13 outs against top pair.This guy bought in for $1,000 twice and had a stack that was within $40 of mine when I had $2,100. He was drunk and had obvious tells. He picked up queens once and kings and both times immediately stopped his gabbing and got serious. Otherwise he was flicking in raises and playing super loose and showing down marginal hands. I am getting close to cashing out and leaving, as it's about 2AM. I have been waiting forever to trap the guy. I was in middle position and it was checked to me. I looked at JJ and decided that this time I wanted to limp in hoping for a raise from one of a couple of loose players who raise junk. I am not in love with jacks, but I feel like I know where I stand with this crowd and am prepared to fold them on a bad flop. Sure enough, drunk guy in late position raises to $25. He's gabbing and laughing at some conversation and I am positive that he doesn't have a premium hand because his demeanor changes markedly. The woman in the BB goes all in for about $80. She's super weak and I'm not worried much about her. I think my jacks are good. I study the pot for a few seconds and the drunk guy makes a comment about me being and internet player and pot odds. I get more information that puts him on a marginal hand. I am sure he has KQ at best, but probably not even that. Could be as weak as 7s-Q10. That's the range I'm thinking. I announce raise and carefully count out another $200 and push it in. Almost immediately he says, "Another $500." All ears perk up. The woman on the BB makes a comment along the lines of "I'm going home." I immediately put her on AX and I know I'm ahead of her and that she has one or more cards of the over cards I'm worried about. I reevaluate whether he could have me and I'm seeing his balls doing the betting. He's trying to mark his territory in the game and has a beef against my math approach apparently. I think for awhile and announce all in for a total of about $2,100. He gives a couple of speeches that confirm that I'm good, then he says something along the lines of "I don't give a #### if I lose. My gut tells me I'm going to win this pot." I don't say a thing. He says he knows I have him now, but that he has a good feeling. He calls. He turns over KJ offsuit. Then he brags that he "has one of my outs." I tell him that I don't need it and the woman on the BB turns over A9 suited. Of course, flop comes a king. Turn another king. I'm drawing dead. He celebrates wildly starting on the first king and it gets worse as I take it perfectly stoically and say that I'm content. I got my money in in a good spot. But the ahole isn't done. He starts lecturing me about how you can't trust pot odds and you have to rely on your gut. Goes on as he stacks and I'm left with about $40. Obviously I know conventional wisdom says that if you can get your money in as a 70% favorite, you always should... But is there a point where you've reached a certain multiple of the buyin that you should cash in and insure a win?I find that I pretty consistently build big stacks only to eventually run into such a situation where the big hand takes it all away. The reason is because I never adjust my game to my stack. I am always willing to put all my chips in play even if I'm not going to rebuy. Is that correct? Is it mathematically correct to keep risking your chips against bigger stacks when you've reached a certain multiple of the buyin? Should I have a different approach to cash games? Should I try to keep the pots small and rely on my ability to outplay with post flop play and situations where I can get value with hands I'm sure are good? I built my stack that way. Should I be prepared to fold hands when I know I have a clear advantage just because of pot size and the downside risk? I "should" have had about $4,200 after that hand, but instead I lost $500.I'm just wondering if you tend to avoid the big clashes and rely on grinding or if you think that I should continue to put all my chips in play if I can. If I won that hand, I'd have had a stack four times bigger than anything else on the table and would be past the danger zone where I could lose my stack. I find that I'm often back to square one before I get to enjoy that big stack advantage. Any insight would be great! If it weren't this hand, I fell like I'd have pushed on some other hand with an advantage only to lose most of my stack. You can only enjoy your edge if you're left with chips. I didn't intend to rebuy past the $500 and didn't, so knowing that going in does it make sense to play within a narrower range of pot sizes or can you not look at the game in terms of a single buyin? When do you walk away? When do you decide to limit pot sizes? I felt very strongly that I had at least a coin flip and probably closer to 3:2 or better when I pushed and I was right. What would you have done?

I'm not sure what this even means. You had an intuition that you were going to suffer a bad beat? I find superstition or intuition to be very silly and nonsensical the majority of the time. I would never turn down a situation in which I was a favorite unless losing the money meant too much to me(in which case I would move down in limits).

Dr. J addressed this. If there is a stack that can negate my gains by stacking me, then despite my edge I'm going to lose eventually if I'm initiating large pots. When I have the best of it, I like to get the pots as big as possible. Because I'm so aggressive and players often fold, and I don't show, I tend to get more action. I'll get my all in calls. I think I have a good idea of where to go with this. When I get 2X the blind I'll adjust and try to keep the pots small to maximize my edge and mitigate the downside.

The main reason it makes sense though is because at $500 you have 100BB and aren't really into deep stack play. It's like pseudo deep at that point. In shorter stack play, aggressively playing premiums is a fine strategy. Tough to get implicit odds because of stack sizes, so getting hands that play well on the flop and don't take a lot of development is best. Play at this blind level isn't all that different than tournament play.Once you get to deep stack play, play changes entirely and building pots proportional to the strength of your hand is as/more important than pricing guys out so they can't draw on you. It's a balancing act. It is often correct to check with hands that you believe are ahead but aren't strong (TPTK, overpairs) simply because you don't want to build massive pots in relation to the strength of your hand. You're going to end up winning a lot of small pots and losing a lot of big ones playing that way. In the case in question, you definitely built up a pot that wasn't at all in relation to the strength of that hand.I've just recently started making the transition to cash. I've been more of a tourney player and always ended up not doing well in cash games - mainly because I didn't understand this point and was always building pots not proportional to the strength of my hand. I picked up the Harrington on cash books and it's really helped me quite a ton. Still making a good number of mistakes, but I can see them now and am winning and improving. I definitely recommend checking them out - he explains it a heck of a lot better than I am here.

 

[rockalum]

everyone talking about 'pot control' in the AA vs. J2 hand - are you willing to fold at any point? you've made the read that he's got something. so if you do just call his raise on the flop and a blank hits the turn and he pushes into you, what do you do? you've been put to the decision rather than making the guy decide if he really wants to commit HIS stack with J2. No, he's probably not going to go anywhere. But what do you do to the turn push?

 

[DrJ]

everyone talking about 'pot control' in the AA vs. J2 hand - are you willing to fold at any point? you've made the read that he's got something. so if you do just call his raise on the flop and a blank hits the turn and he pushes into you, what do you do? you've been put to the decision rather than making the guy decide if he really wants to commit HIS stack with J2. No, he's probably not going to go anywhere. But what do you do to the turn push?

I think fred's point in that one wasn't about pot control but more about extracting value. His argument is that if you shove all in, your hand becomes pretty transparent and thus about the only hand that is calling him is something containing a 2. In order to get more money out of the hands that you are beating here, a smooth call is the best option. A lot less you can do to control the size of pots in shorter stack play, which is why playing premiums aggressivly is good there.

 

[Zow]

I really don't know how you pros or regular players who depend on this as a source of income do it. I made all the right moves tonight and just lost my last two weeks profits. I can't really be mad because there wasn't a play I would have done differently based on the mathematics of it. Just got unlucky.

 

[DrJ]

I really don't know how you pros or regular players who depend on this as a source of income do it. I made all the right moves tonight and just lost my last two weeks profits. I can't really be mad because there wasn't a play I would have done differently based on the mathematics of it. Just got unlucky.

By playing enough hands I'd say. From what I gather you are playing live, so how many hands did you really log over that 2 week span? A couple thousand? Variance is pretty big over that small of a sample size. Assani and Eddie are doing thousands a day - there's losing days in there but over a few hundred K hands, it averages out and you get pretty close to your actual win rate.

 

[Zow]

I really don't know how you pros or regular players who depend on this as a source of income do it. I made all the right moves tonight and just lost my last two weeks profits. I can't really be mad because there wasn't a play I would have done differently based on the mathematics of it. Just got unlucky.

By playing enough hands I'd say. From what I gather you are playing live, so how many hands did you really log over that 2 week span? A couple thousand? Variance is pretty big over that small of a sample size. Assani and Eddie are doing thousands a day - there's losing days in there but over a few hundred K hands, it averages out and you get pretty close to your actual win rate.

You're entirely right. Just saying from a financial standpoint (well, as far as from a fun standpoint too) the swings can be nerve-racking. I don't know how you guys do it.

 

[rabidfireweasel]

Lot of great posts by Fred the last couple of pages. Top notch stuff.

 

[bostonfred]

[Well, let's say that Ham has spent a year running up his bankroll. He now has 100K. Someone offers him a bet - he gets JJ and the other guy gets 2 random cards, they're playing for his entire roll. That's better EV than this situation - should he take it? If losing your 100K and year of time don't bother you, and you say you could just grind back up if you have to, go for it. It all depends on how risk averse you are.I believe Doyle Brunson has stated that he would put his entire roll at risk preflop with AA because he feels he could win it back again. Many players wouldn't, despite the massive EV simply because of variance. There isn't necessarily a right answer - it all comes down to how averse you are to risk.

Exactly, and I guess I was assuming Ham is a risk-neutral person. I like to think that I am (at least as a poker player) and therefore if you told me I had to play poker very well for 100 hours and doing so would net me either 5,000 or a 50% chance at 15,000 - I'd take the chance and wouldn't consider those 100 hours of play lost equity.

I have a total killer instinct. I'm a go for the jugular kind of guy. I want to drain you to the felt on each hand if I can. I felted at least eight players last night. Several left. I think it's part of what lent to the slow boil of what made the guy resent me and want to bust me. But I have to be smarter than allowing it to all get away on one hand. I want to take away as much power from inferior players as possible.

A question for further self analysis - if you went for the jugular and felted eight players that night, what happened to all that money?

 

[bostonfred]

Lot of great posts by Fred the last couple of pages. Top notch stuff.

Thanks. We really do need to plan on making that foxwoods run sometime soon.

 

[rabidfireweasel]

Ham, as a preface, I will say that I am about as strong an advocate on reads and tells as you will find on this board. I believe astute players cued in to body language and on top of their game can put people on a range and assign a likelyhood to a smaller range subset with much higher frequency than most imagine.

However, I will say that you are doing one of two things:

1) You are letting hindsight affect your memory of the reads for good storytelling or

2)You are grossly overestimating your ability to read and are letting too small a sample impact your judgment.

I am specifically talking about the JJ hand. You put the guy on KQ or worse- which is reasonable; You can put a guy on a middling hand that will be a coin flip at best to beat you- but then your second range is silly. From the hands you listed (I think it was 77-KJ) you simply cannot eliminate A(x to a wheel) suited or AT, A9- unless he has a specific Axs tell or ATo tell. You might put those hand on less likely percentage chance of him holding, but you must account for them. Not that would affect your play preflop, but it could impact you after the flop.

 

[rabidfireweasel]

Lot of great posts by Fred the last couple of pages. Top notch stuff.

Thanks. We really do need to plan on making that foxwoods run sometime soon.

I would likely be a railbird or playing tiny stakes as money will be tight with the price of oil and living in Maine. However, talking poker and meeting you would be a blast.

 

[Dentist]

Assani > are you going to play any WCOOP Events?

I'm highly considering playing event #13 - the 200R

I final tabled another 20R last night.

last night I really noticed a huge difference in the quality of play between that and the 10R or 8R.

So many moves and removes.. it was actually getting pretty frustrating trying to figure things out.

I ended up 7th after getting put in a bad situation.

8 of the 9 guys who made the final table had fairly legitimate OPR numbers. It wasn't easy.

another interesting sidenote.. i've been reading this new tourney book that pearljammer, rizen, and apestyles wrote.

pretty good book through the first 100 pages.

I lol'd though when i saw that all three of the players in question were having a worse year this year than they were last year.

the amount of dive one's ROI takes when they are consistently playing these big tourneys is amazing...

Pearljammer was playing FIVE major tourneys last night at the same time... I can't imagine how he can keep track of that and play each to nearly his best ability...

call me inexperienced.. but 2 is my max, and I often play just 1

 

[BR33ZE]

No. I don't buy into this. Look at the equation.

Say it takes a minimum of 100 time units to amass 4X the buy-in. If you lose the entire amount, as you eventually will by committing all of your chips despite the odds, you lose that 100 units of time plus the buy-in. Given infinite time, I agree with you, but there is a time value on the money given finite time committed and finite buy-ins. As such, it is necessary to protect your time equity when you increase the multiple of the buy-ins in proportion to the time invested. At a certain point (I'm guessing 3X?) it's worth it to walk away and come back later with a single buy-in OR adjust our strategy to avoiding downside risk until you can take some cash out of play.

This is where you are wrong though. The more chips you have on the table the less likely you are to get all in preflop(and the stronger hands you need to). As an example, I've never been all in preflop in the past 6 months or so simply because I'd only be willing to put $20K in the pot with aces and I've never found an opponent willing to put $20K in with less than AA(and I've never ran AA up against AA in that time span).With $2000 in a $2/5 game, you shouldn't be getting it all in often and when you do you should have a huge hand usually.

You're playing in Vegas against good players. I'm playing at someone's apartment and guys will call all ins with K10, second pair or flush draws with 2:1 odds.

After reading your story, my first reaction is....There's about a 50% chance that there is cheating involved.

Your thoughts on this?

 

[Dentist]

What the heck happened to the W$ and T$ market.

It used to be you could get T$ or W$ for like 85-90 cents on the dollar... now it's like 96-97?

i'm not sure why people bother.

Anyone have any W$ they'd like to sell me?

 

[IC Alkies]

Assani > are you going to play any WCOOP Events?I'm highly considering playing event #13 - the 200RI final tabled another 20R last night.last night I really noticed a huge difference in the quality of play between that and the 10R or 8R.So many moves and removes.. it was actually getting pretty frustrating trying to figure things out.I ended up 7th after getting put in a bad situation.8 of the 9 guys who made the final table had fairly legitimate OPR numbers. It wasn't easy.another interesting sidenote.. i've been reading this new tourney book that pearljammer, rizen, and apestyles wrote.pretty good book through the first 100 pages.I lol'd though when i saw that all three of the players in question were having a worse year this year than they were last year.the amount of dive one's ROI takes when they are consistently playing these big tourneys is amazing...Pearljammer was playing FIVE major tourneys last night at the same time... I can't imagine how he can keep track of that and play each to nearly his best ability...call me inexperienced.. but 2 is my max, and I often play just 1

I can play up to 10 table but it has to be a limit game where the blinds don't go up. For tournies two is my max too.

 

[Dentist]

Assani > for multi-table tourneys, did you run any software programs like SnG Analyzer, pokertracker, etc. while playing?

how much did you utilize poker db and opr for analyzing players?

 

[Assani Fisher]

currently playing in the PokerStars WCOOP. Today's even was Pot Limit 5 Card Draw, which is very interesting. I have very little experience in it, but its amazing how terrible others are. Common poker sense can teach you a bit. I'm currenltly a pretty big stack with around 350 left(1000+ started)

 

[Assani Fisher]

Assani > for multi-table tourneys, did you run any software programs like SnG Analyzer, pokertracker, etc. while playing?how much did you utilize poker db and opr for analyzing players?

NoNot much

 

[Dentist]

currently playing in the PokerStars WCOOP. Today's even was Pot Limit 5 Card Draw, which is very interesting. I have very little experience in it, but its amazing how terrible others are. Common poker sense can teach you a bit. I'm currenltly a pretty big stack with around 350 left(1000+ started)

that's fun that you're playing that...how icy are teh pots?

 

[NRV77]

Is tight agressive play better suited for cash games, or tourneys?

 

[Assani Fisher]

Is tight agressive play better suited for cash games, or tourneys?

TAG play or some variant of it is the basis for successful play in every form of poker imo.

 

[Assani Fisher]

In the money now in the WCOOP 5 card draw event.

 

[Road Warriors]

In the money now in the WCOOP 5 card draw event.

Very nice, AF. Here's to a final table look.

 

[BroadwayG]

Nice AF. What shot you up to 40k? I missed it.

 

[Assani Fisher]

Nice AF. What shot you up to 40k? I missed it.

straight against AAxxx in battle of blinds

 

[Assani Fisher]

also had 2 pair, guy raised, I called, I hit my full house, he stood pat so I knew he had a big hand...so I check raised pot and he called

 

[Assani Fisher]

here you go:

PokerStars Game #20180245098: Tournament #200800002, $200+$15 5 Card Draw Pot Limit - Level XII (500/1000) - 2008/09/05 22:39:18 ET

Table '200800002 73' 6-max Seat #3 is the button

Seat 1: The Dad (24650 in chips)

Seat 2: Ab Babby (18000 in chips)

Seat 3: hoodini10 (37026 in chips)

Seat 4: jwvdcw (30218 in chips)

Seat 5: KnePer (30956 in chips)

Seat 6: ka$ino (40538 in chips)

The Dad: posts the ante 100

Ab Babby: posts the ante 100

hoodini10: posts the ante 100

jwvdcw: posts the ante 100

KnePer: posts the ante 100

ka$ino: posts the ante 100

jwvdcw: posts small blind 500

KnePer: posts big blind 1000

*** DEALING HANDS ***

Dealt to jwvdcw [Qd 2c 4c 4s 2d]

ka$ino: folds

The Dad: raises 1650 to 2650

Ab Babby: folds

hoodini10: folds

jwvdcw: calls 2150

KnePer: folds

jwvdcw: discards 1 card [Qd]

Dealt to jwvdcw [2c 4c 4s 2d] [2s]

The Dad: stands pat

jwvdcw: checks

The Dad: bets 3000

jwvdcw: raises 12900 to 15900

The Dad: calls 12900

*** SHOW DOWN ***

jwvdcw: shows [2s 2c 4c 4s 2d] (a full house, Deuces full of Fours)

The Dad: mucks hand

jwvdcw collected 38700 from pot

*** SUMMARY ***

Total pot 38700 | Rake 0

Seat 1: The Dad mucked [Ad Tc Jh Ks Qh]

Seat 2: Ab Babby folded before the Draw (didn't bet)

Seat 3: hoodini10 (button) folded before the Draw (didn't bet)

Seat 4: jwvdcw (small blind) showed [2s 2c 4c 4s 2d] and won (38700) with a full house, Deuces full of Fours

Seat 5: KnePer (big blind) folded before the Draw

Seat 6: ka$ino folded before the Draw (didn't bet)

PokerStars Game #20180140395: Tournament #200800002, $200+$15 5 Card Draw Pot Limit - Level XII (500/1000) - 2008/09/05 22:34:49 ET

Table '200800002 73' 6-max Seat #1 is the button

Seat 1: The Dad (11825 in chips)

Seat 2: Ab Babby (15900 in chips) out of hand (moved from another table into small blind)

Seat 3: hoodini10 (67460 in chips)

Seat 4: jwvdcw (17509 in chips)

Seat 5: KnePer (33156 in chips)

Seat 6: ka$ino (35538 in chips)

The Dad: posts the ante 100

hoodini10: posts the ante 100

jwvdcw: posts the ante 100

KnePer: posts the ante 100

ka$ino: posts the ante 100

hoodini10: posts small blind 500

jwvdcw: posts big blind 1000

*** DEALING HANDS ***

Dealt to jwvdcw [8d 7s Tc Jh 9h]

KnePer: folds

ka$ino: folds

The Dad: folds

hoodini10: raises 1555 to 2555

jwvdcw: raises 5610 to 8165

hoodini10: raises 16830 to 24995

jwvdcw: calls 9244 and is all-in

Uncalled bet (7586) returned to hoodini10

hoodini10: discards 3 cards

jwvdcw: stands pat on [8d 7s Tc Jh 9h]

*** SHOW DOWN ***

hoodini10: shows [Qc Ah Ad 4d 2s] (a pair of Aces)

jwvdcw: shows [8d 7s Tc Jh 9h] (a straight, Seven to Jack)

jwvdcw collected 35318 from pot

jwvdcw said, "OH ICY ICY POTS!!"

*** SUMMARY ***

Total pot 35318 | Rake 0

Seat 1: The Dad (button) folded before the Draw (didn't bet)

Seat 3: hoodini10 (small blind) showed [Qc Ah Ad 4d 2s] and lost with a pair of Aces

Seat 4: jwvdcw (big blind) showed [8d 7s Tc Jh 9h] and won (35318) with a straight, Seven to Jack

Seat 5: KnePer folded before the Draw (didn't bet)

Seat 6: ka$ino folded before the Draw (didn't bet)

 

[Brady Marino]

Gotta give credit to Assani for being able to withstand this grind. 8 hours and 12 minutes and there's still 41 players alive.

 

[BroadwayG]

Making a nice comeback

 

[Assani Fisher]

last break I was at 38K, went all the way down to 8K, back up to 50K, down to 20K, and now just doubled to around 45K......huge huge roller coaster ride here, but I'm still alive at least!

 

[Assani Fisher]

out in 32nd, think I played pretty badly down the stretch to be honest

 

[Brady Marino]

out in 32nd, think I played pretty badly down the stretch to be honest

I don%t think a marathon runner could be at his 100% best for 8 hours and 45 minutes of 5 card draw play.You played well, and I admire your focus to play for that long.

 

[DrJ]

out in 32nd, think I played pretty badly down the stretch to be honest

I don%t think a marathon runner could be at his 100% best for 8 hours and 45 minutes of 5 card draw play.You played well, and I admire your focus to play for that long.

No joke, that is a pretty long stretch.

 

[Assani Fisher]

Playing in WCOOP #6: $530 NLHE

We're in the money now, so 2/2 in reaching the money in these so far. Still 1080 left though, and this one is a 2 day event.

 

[MrPhoenix]

Playing in WCOOP #6: $530 NLHEWe're in the money now, so 2/2 in reaching the money in these so far. Still 1080 left though, and this one is a 2 day event.

"We're"?

 

[Assani Fisher]

meh, called a 20K stack's all in and his QT beat my AJ...down to 60K now

 

[Assani Fisher]

Playing in WCOOP #6: $530 NLHEWe're in the money now, so 2/2 in reaching the money in these so far. Still 1080 left though, and this one is a 2 day event.

"We're"?

Me and everyone else still alive?

 

[MrPhoenix]

Playing in WCOOP #6: $530 NLHEWe're in the money now, so 2/2 in reaching the money in these so far. Still 1080 left though, and this one is a 2 day event.

"We're"?

Me and everyone else still alive?

I thought you were tag teaming or something. My bad.