Darkened Poker

This episode was rather confusing.  First Phil Hellmouth re-raises Phil Ivey and gets moved all in on.  At this point he starts talking about how he is thinking of making a stand against Phil Ivey.    The problem is he is trying to do table talk mind games against Phil Ivey.

What could he hope to accomplish:

• Is Phil Ivey really going to stop raising him as much or respect Phil H’s next re-raise because he says he is thinking of coming over the top?
• Is Phil Ivey going to start raising him more since he is only thinking 1 level ahead and Phil H is thinking 2 levels ahead so he thinks it will be easier to trap him?
• Is Phil Ivey going to not respect his re-raises as much in the future and pay him off more now that it could be Phil H making a stand?

Not likely, Phil Ivey is aggressive against all the other players and it seems unlikely that anything anyone says is going to change his strategy.  Phil H really needs to just fold and hope that Phil Ivey keeps it up so he can re-raise or trap him.

Hand starts around 1:30 mark

Then a little while later he play very well and manages to not go broke against Antonio Esfandiari higher flush and you think for a moment that Phil H might survive this table.

But eventually he gets into a hand with Phil Ivey again and goes broke by moving on in on the turn a flush and str8 draw which by itself is often not a bad move but in this case he should have known it was well over 50% likely he was getting called and he was only about 33% to win at best and getting < 2-1 on his money if called.

Big mistake in my mind was after Phil Ivey asks for a chip count and then just called the re-raise on the flop he either has a pretty high flush draw or is slow playing a set or maybe top pair to see a safe turn card.  So moving all on the turn after the K comes just means that he is now going to get called by all sets, flopped straights and now King high flush draws.  The only thing he might get to lay down is the Ace high flush draws.  Even top pair would have to think about calling that all in given all the draws out there.   Kind of a bad play in my mind and he gets stacked, what is even more odd is he only came with 1 buy in and leaves right after.

Hand starts around 6:30 mark

All in All another good start to another season.

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Darkened Poker

It is a form of projection but poker players that tend to bluff way to much tend to be calling stations themselves because they either think everyone else it bluffing too or everyone wants some form of bluffing revenge if they have been caught.  Best way to take advantage of it is to over value bet into these guys, they will play you off way more than they should.

Such was the case with this guy, in the first hand I catch him making a pretty bad bluff.  He limp calls my raise which usually means he just has a suited connector.  He checks the flop in position which likely means he has nothing at all.  He bets 1/2 the pot on the turn which likely means he is hoping to pick the pot up cheap or maybe has a draw.  Flush draw gets there on the river and bets 1/2 the pot again, the bet is too small to be a back door flush value bet and if he had a small pair he would have checked behind.  So it is likely another cheap attempt to pick up the pot,  I call and turn out to be right.  Now I have a tilting bluffer, which leads to how I play the next hand.

Poker Stars $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold’em – 9 players

Hero (BB): $22.60

UTG+1: $11.15

Pre Flop: ($0.35) Hero is BB with A K

1 fold, UTG+1 calls $0.25, 5 folds, SB calls $0.15, Hero raises to $1, UTG+1 calls $0.75, 1 fold

Flop: ($2.25) 8 6 4 (2 players)

Hero checks, UTG+1 checks

Turn: ($2.25) 3 (2 players)

Hero checks, UTG+1 bets $1, Hero calls $1

River: ($4.25) K (2 players)

Hero checks, UTG+1 bets $2.25, Hero calls $2.25

Final Pot: $8.75

Hero shows A K (a pair of Kings)

UTG+1 shows J Q (high card King)

Hero wins $8.35

He is looking for bluffing revenge so I can really value bet into him and if I pick spots when it looks like I could be bluffing he is very likely to pay me off.  Such is this case.  I check the flop in position to make it look like I have nothing on the flop.  Turn comes and pairs the board again which makes it unlikely I have hit the board.  I over bet the pot after he checks and he calls.  River is a high card and I again over bet the pot and he calls, at this point he can not beat and A or 7 or any pair over 88’s and is only calling to split with any hand containing a K.  He really has no reason to think I am bluffing except he tried to pull one over on me but pays me off.

Poker Stars $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold’em – 9 players

Hero (BTN): $26.60

BB: $6.90

Pre Flop: ($0.35) Hero is BTN with J A

6 folds, Hero calls $0.25, 1 fold, BB checks

Flop: ($0.60) A 7 7 (2 players)

BB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($0.60) A (2 players)

BB checks, Hero bets $0.75, BB calls $0.75

River: ($2.10) Q (2 players)

BB checks, Hero bets $2.50, BB calls $2.50

Final Pot: $7.10

Hero shows J A (a full house, Aces full of Sevens)

BB mucks K 4

Hero wins $6.75

Projection is a beautiful thing.

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Darkened Poker

Last week I got invited to Microsoft’s legendary “Friday night of poker” in the main campus cafeteria.  For years I have struggled at companies to get a 8 person game going from a pool of 50-75 people.  But it is really not a problem with they have 1000’s of people around to pull from.  After the big tournament started knocking out people they were splitting off into several cash games.  Every week they have a pot limit Omaha & Omaha H/L game going along with some mixed  Asian games.  Every other week they have a killer 50-300 buy in NL Hold’em game.

An interesting hand came up.

89, limp in, button makes it 8, 3 of us see flop

Flop 67A, 2 hearts

I check, button bets 15, I call others fold

Turn is a 5

It does not complete flush so I bet 45, he shoves for another 110 and I call.

He only has flush draw, does not get there and I stack, not sure what he expected me to fold getting 2-1 on my money with that many draws out there.  Think I like this game

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Darkened Poker

I can see were this guys thinking was going but his all in check raise on the turn was very flawed.  He may have been thinking that with a pair and draw he now had a semi-bluffing hand but with no fold equity he was just wasting money.

On the flop I have a C-Bet stat of about 45% so taking a card off a card against me with bottom pair is not a bad idea, a better idea would be to check raise me right there and find out where he is at with his bottom pair.

Then he picks up a draw on the turn and decides to go for a check raise all in.  This is really bad because he has no fold equity, after he lets me bet his check raise all in is only a min raise and I am getting 4-1 to call it.  There is no pair on the board I can fold in that situation, he is only getting rid of the 2 barrel bluffs.

The draw really does not change his hand very much, his chance of being ahead is pretty small given that I fired twice, < 25% chance I am bluffing.   So in the best case if I just had top or over pair he has only gone from 10% chance to win up to 26% chance.  Not really enough difference that I would want to go all in with.

Poker Stars $0.10/$0.25 Pot Limit Hold’em – 6 players

UTG: $10.30

Hero (MP): $34.95

Pre Flop: ($0.35) Hero is MP with T T

UTG raises to $0.50, Hero calls $0.50, CO calls $0.50, 2 folds, BB calls $0.25

Flop: ($2.10) T 9 K (4 players)

BB checks, UTG checks, Hero bets $1.25, CO folds, BB folds, UTG calls $1.25

Turn: ($4.60) 8 (2 players)

UTG checks, Hero bets $4, UTG raises to $8.55 all in, Hero calls $4.55

River: ($21.70) 2 (2 players – 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $21.70

UTG shows J 9 (a pair of Nines)

Hero shows T T (three of a kind, Tens)

Hero wins $20.65

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Darkened Poker

Recently I have started sorting tables only by pot size and getting in line for the tables with the biggest pots even if there is already 15 people ahead of you.  It just does not matter, I would rather wait 1/2 an hour to play with the fish or a bunch of players coming off a feeding frenzy than grind it out with a bunch of nits.

Following this theory I ended up at a table with this guy, his name was 19KgFish and there was a lot of truth in it.  His stats were:  57 VP, 43 PFR, 27  3-Bet, 67 CB

With stats like that I am going to be inclined to let this guy bluff off his money rather than value betting into him.  For some reason everyone else flops monster hands against these guys and takes the money down risk free.  I never flop sets against guys like this but am always forced to make some crazy call to take money off these guys.

Poker Stars $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold’em – 8 players

Hero (SB): $12.00

BB: $26.10

Pre Flop: ($0.35) Hero is SB with K A

6 folds, Hero raises to $1, BB raises to $2.75, Hero calls $1.75

Flop: ($5.50) 9 T T (2 players)

Hero checks, BB checks

Turn: ($5.50) 8 (2 players)

Hero checks, BB bets $3, Hero calls $3

River: ($11.50) T (2 players)

Hero checks, BB bets $4, Hero calls $4

Final Pot: $19.50

Hero shows K A (three of a kind, Tens – Ace kicker)

BB shows 2 5 (three of a kind, Tens)

Hero wins $18.60

(Rake: $0.90)   <- what? dam I gave them 1,200 last month, I really need a rake back deal!!!

His 3-bet range at 27% is bigger than my entire range of playing hands so calling in re-raise was a given.  Him checking on the flop was the real tell, if his c-bet range is 67% then the only way he is checking that is if he has a T or really had nothing at all and no draws.

His bet on the turn was kind of weak, he might have picked up a draw, still figure to be ahead of about 95% of his hands.

His bet on the river was even weaker, I figure at worst I might be up against 22 or some other small pair but I am still ahead of 90% of his hands.  Given that it is about 4.5 – 1 to call I need to go with the read.  Plus fish like that are not good at thin value betting so it is even more likely that he is just weak bluffing.

One of these days I will get a good hand against these guys so I can push some serious money into the pot instead of being the kid guessing all the time.

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Darkened Poker