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Lessons learned from my 2011 WSOP trip

by Travis Johnston on June 24, 2011 at 10:50 pm
Posted In: World Series of Poker

Last time I showed up in Vegas right before the tournaments and did not have time to adjust to the environment which can really throw your game off.  This time I showed up a day and night early but I made the mistake of not going to bed right away.  Since I go not get to Vegas that often I wanted to hit the Rio right away and get into some fish filled cash games.  The problem is I am not use to those hours so playing till 8 am and then not being able to sleep in the next day meant I was not in great shape.  Next year I will fly in again late and go straight to the hotel for a good nights sleep.

I messed up the order of events, for some reason I made a plan of playing cash games on Friday, WSOP tournament Saturday and then the Venetian Deep Stack tournament Sunday as a backup.  I proved this year that schedule is completely backwards, one should play the $340 Deep Stack tournament as a warm up on Friday to get all your mistakes out, then the WSOP on Saturday, last if you bust out then play cash games on Sunday.  This way if you get raped in the cash games it does not put you on tilt for the tournaments and really mess up your weekend.

The shutting down of online poker has made some of the cash games a little harder this year.  At the Venetian I was in a 1-2 Pot limit Omaha game and found out that it was a must move table feeding the main table.  When I got to the main table I found 4 guys not happy and 4 guys with huge mountains of chips backed by a deep stack of 100$ bills.  Listening to them talk it becomes clear they are Poker Stars backed Notable Pro’s as they were complaining about having to make video’s for Card Runners every month to keep up their sponsorship.  Clearly I felt really bad for them.  Anyway I sat for a couple of hours to check out there play style and see just how aggressive they really were.  It was educational but not fun, they were cleaning out an average of 1 person per 15 min and I had to re-pot all in 7 times just to get them to back off and stop re-raising every bet I made.  After 2 hours I picked up my money and left, happy to only be down a couple bills and educated in how to do really aggression in pot limit Omaha.

Tournaments are horrible EV for 1 very important reason, they only pay 10% of the field and even the bottom 5% of that is less than they could have made by spending the same amount of time in a cash game.  We know that on average 20% of poker players are good enough to make money in cash games, and the other 80% of players are losing money.  So in a tournament on 1/2 of the good players will by the payout structure not make any money even though could have made money just playing in the cash games.  But tournaments are fun and that chance to win really big is very enticing.

If you do not get your double up early, ie within the first break you might as well start pushing until you double up or go broke.  Early in tournaments I play every hand that has big potential because I know I need to make a big hand and double up from one of the fish.  I use to believe you could get into enough situations were one could take down enough small to med pots to double my chip stack.  But the tables are a lot more aggressive these days so it is very hard to take down enough pots to double your chip stack quickly.  This year I managed to play enough hands that I eventually made a big hand against one of the 3 fish at the table, he leads into me on the river and I re-raised for my double up.  He thought forever and finally folded, game over…

Realistically you only usually get 1 chance to get the very needed double up early in the tournament and mine just got away.  I thought to myself don’t panic I might still have time to play even looser, get another big hand and get paid off early enough in the tournament.  But an hour later I realized how wrong I was.  The other players that did get their double up could afford to raise to isolate more and were making it harder for me to get into pots with the fish.  They started choking off the power supply to the rest of the good players that are still unlucky and had smaller stacks.  Thus next time if I have not doubled above the chip average by the first break I am just going to build big pots and shove on them until I have a big stack or go broke.   Theory being it’s safer to take one coin flip earlier while you still have time to grow your stack beyond that point mostly risk free rather than wait any longer and then need to survive 8 coin flips in a row just to catch up to the other stacks.

Bose QuiteComfort 15 headphones are a poker players best friend.  Screaming kid 5 rows back on the plane flight out there, not a problem I could still fall asleep.  Attention starved internet brat at your table will not shut up, just put them on a practice reading peoples lips.

Many lessons learned, next year I will own it.

 

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└ Tags: Lessons, WSOP
  Comment

Multi-Way pots with AAxx hands in Omaha

by Travis Johnston on May 15, 2011 at 9:19 pm
Posted In: Pot Limit Omaha, Strategy

Having played Omaha for about a year now I have learned to be a little more careful with the the AAxx hands and even though they are favorites over other hands I do not always try to build big pots unless I can get majority of my money in pre-flop.  In hold’em even if you get as little as 1/8 your stack in the pot pre-flop you are not giving people the right odds to try and outflop you so one does not mind committing the rest of their stack on the flop.  But in Omaha you are going to get out-flopped a lot more and thus you need to get a lot more of your stack in pre-flop to still give them the wrong odds.  I have not worked out exact odds ( simulator coming soon ) but my best guess is you want to have well over 1/3 your stack committed pre-flop before you should not feel bad about stacking off  on the flop with an AAxx hand.

What I have noticed is this type of play tends to get me into a lot more mult-way all in situation pre-flop as I have to just call the raises until my re-pot would get > 1/3 our effective stack size in.  Often at that point even if I go all in it starts a chain reaction of calls as people feel they have to much invested and the pot is going to be huge.  The question is how much EV do you have in a multi-way pot with a AAxx type hand and is it worth letting other people in or should you try to get heads up if possible.

For example this week I got into a big pot, I had 600$ and both opponents had me covered.  Under the gun raises to 8$, I call and a few people behind me call as well until the button that re-raises to 40$, the UTG player re-raises to 80$ which I just call.  Then the button re-raises to 220$ which for some reason the UTG player just calls, now I can easily get my entire stack in so I re-raise all in for 600$ and which both players call.

My hand:  A A of heartsA A of clubs7 7 of hearts5 5 of spades

UTG hand: K K of hearts9 9 of clubs7 7 of clubs3 3 of spades

Button hand: 3 3 of hearts4 4 of spades6 6 of spades7  7 of clubs

Apparently this was a bluffing match in which they forgot to notice someone was in the middle and not folding.  Pretty good situation for me, we agree to run the entire board twice and somehow I lose both of them because I suck at willing my hands to hold up.  According to the Omaha Calculator the hand percentages are:

Win %   /  EV

49.87  /  .4961

23.49  /  -.2953

24.24  /  -.2728

Would it have been better to try to re-raise the UTG player when he made it 80$ and get rid of the button player so I could go heads up?

Win  %  /   EV

68.48  /  .369

31.52  /  -.369

There is still better EV to be had by getting more than one person all in when you have and AAxx type hand.  But it is kind of interesting that in Holdem the EV almost doubles when you go from 1 to 2 opponents ( 0.7 to 1.2 ) were as in Omaha it only gets less than 1/2 bigger ( 0.369 to 0.49 ) so the incentive for playing tricky and getting multiple people trapped in the pot is much less.  Something to think about, if your bankroll can handle big swings then it is still worth trying to playing multi-way but be aware there is not the same huge payoff for it that you might be use to if your coming from a Hold’em back round.

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└ Tags: AAxx, EV, Pot Limit Omaha
  Comment

Rarely is your EV as high as you think in Omaha High / Low

by Travis Johnston on April 24, 2011 at 5:16 pm
Posted In: Pot Limit Omaha, Strategy

We had a really exciting dealers choice game going this Friday, couple of players that were make sure every pot was worth fighting over, couple of players on tilt and I was dealing fast enough that we would get a few interesting hand worth writing about before 5 am.

The game is Omaha High \ Low 8 or better with 1/1 blinds, I am up to about 600$ and UTG player has me covered, everyone else has roughly 400$ so the game is playing fairly deep stacked.

In late position I pick up A A of hearts 2 2 of hearts K  K of clubs Q  of spades, a really good High/Low hand.

I limp for a one dollar as there is not much point in raising yet since so far since there has not been any problem getting stacks in on later streets if one hits.  The button who is on tilt and stuck a lot of money bets the pot and 4 people call for 10$

Pot is 43$ and the flop comes down:  3 3 of spades 4 4 of hearts Q Q of hearts

  • What a flop, I have 8 outs with the nut flush draw, 12 outs to the low draw, plus 3 outs for the 5 to complete the wheel.

UTG player bets 40$, I would be happy to raise and get it all in right now but with 4 people in the pot I just call to see if we can build a really big pot.  2 people behind me also call and 4 of us see the turn, mission accomplished this is looking good.

Pot is 203$ to the turn comes down: 10  T of clubs

  • I still have nothing but my nothing just got better as I now have 3 outs with the J for broadway.

UTG player bets 100$, I call and get over called before the button re-pots for 150$ more at which point the UTG re-pots for 600$ total which puts me all in for 350$ more.  There is one person behind me not all in and has about 100$ left.

So there is 1050$ in the pot, plus I have to imagine the guy behind me will call off his last 100$ at this point as there is so much money in the pot and he is an action junky.

So I tank for about 1 min to work through the math before I decide to put the rest of my chips in the pot.

The river is the sweet sweet: J J of spades, one of the only 6 cards that lets me scoop the entire 1600$ pot.

I table my hand to collect the pot and someone not even in the hand start complaining that there is no way I should have had to think that long before calling given that I had 25 outs and was getting 3 to 1 on my money.  And this is why I love Omaha High/Low, people always vastly over estimate what their outs are which leads to higher EV’s and thus always putting their money into the pot when they should not be doing so.

So this guy thinks I am calling 400$ to win 1200$ with 25 outs:

Very Poorly calculated EV = 1  or ( 50% * 1200 – 50% * 400 ) / 400.

Thus I would agree, if the real EV was even close to 1 I should be shoving all my money in the pot as quick as I could, but our EV is not even close to this number so lets first figure out what our real outs:

  • 5-9, J K of hearts for flush
  • J & 5  for gut-shot straight draw
  • 5, 6, 7, 8 for low

9 flush outs possible, we subtract 2 of them for pairing the 3 and the T which could make someone a full house and given the betting so far with 4 people in the hand it is almost 100% likely someone has a set. So we have ( 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, J, K,) left but only 9, J, K give me scooping the pot outs and 5, 6, 7, 8 would bring the low which would allow someone else to at least split the low with me.  Given there is 4 people in the hand it is again almost 100% likely that someone else has A2 as well.

Slightly better calculated EV = .88 or (  ( 6% * 1200 + 8% * 600 )  + 36% * 1200 – 50% * 400 ) / 400.

6 gut-shot outs possible, since the J is a back door gut-shot I can assume no one else is going for it and they are clean scoop outs.  The 5 looks like a would give me possible scoop outs since it would give me the low and a straight but in this case I am 100% likely splitting the pot if it comes.

Better calculated EV = .79  or (  ( 6% * 1200 + 8% * 600 )  + ( 6% * 1200 + 6% * 600 ) + 24% * 1200 – 50% * 400 ) / 400.

12 low outs possible, these outs are not scope outs but only for 1/2 the pot

Even better calculated EV = .43 or (  ( 6% * 1200 + 8% * 600 )  + ( 6% * 1200 + 6% * 600 ) + 24% * 600 – 50% * 400 ) / 400.

But we have to be realistic, there is 4 people in a high low pot and we are getting all the money in, I can be 100% sure I am not getting 1/2 the pot if the low comes but at least getting quartered.  Heads up I could put the other person on a weaker backup low draw but 4 ways there is no way someone else does not have an A2 in their hand as well.

Close to Real EV = .25 or (  ( 6% * 1200 + 8% * 600 )  + ( 6% * 1200 + 6% * 600 ) + 24% * 300 – 50% * 400 ) / 400.

Well that is a lot lower than the commentator’s original calculation and in fact we can keep on driving this number down.  For example given that we have 4 people putting it all in it is also quite likely someone else has a King or Queen high flush draw and has 1 or 2 of my important scoop outs which drastically changes the EV.

But for this lets stop at close to real, although an EV = .25 is still good for the super high variance game of Omaha H/L it not a given that I would want to instantly shove all my money in.  I might want to take a little time to decide if the guy that has me covered is likely to also have the A2 or is it hopefully one of the smaller stacks so I have some additional equity in the side pot.

But lets not tell my commentator that, I will just smile and say I did not realize I had that many outs.  While he gets even more frustrated and starts going on tilt I will start stacking my new mountain of chips :)

♣♥♦

Darkened Poker

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└ Tags: Omaha High Low, Poker, Real EV
  Comment

#8-12 Love / Hate moments in poker

by Travis Johnston on February 9, 2011 at 9:18 am
Posted In: Humor

8.  Love:  Seeing the early warning signs that a player is going on tilt.

8.  Hate:  Mixing up the games online and playing Omaha High as if it is High / Low ( now I keep them on separate screens only)

9. Love:  When your favorite dealer sits down and you know the game is about to get good.

9.  Hate:  When some idiot gets sucked out on and starts yelling at the fish.

10.  Love:  Realizing that I am calling out my props while watching poker on TV or playing online.

10.  Hate:  People that can not follow the action and will not be interrupted from activity X to play their hand.

11.  Love:  Bluffing a notorious bluffer.

11.  Hate:  “Miss clicking” while switching tables or the action changing while your clicking call ( full tilt, looking at you ).

12.  Love:  Flopping top set against a “Super Nit”

12.  Hate:  Rush Poker

♣♥♦

Darkened Poker

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└ Tags: Poker
  Comment

Full Tilt – Play Like Yourself

by Travis Johnston on February 5, 2011 at 1:37 am
Posted In: Comic

Parody of the Tom “Durr” Dwan Full Tilt Commercial

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└ Tags: Full Tilt, Poker Comics
  Comment
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