Darkened Poker

I was playing down int New Orleans and had just sat down at a table for a few min when it became apparent that the older guy in the 7 seat was just there to have fun and really gamble.  It was a 1-2 NL game and he was opening every pot for 21-36$ most of the time blind.  This is great, the game is now playing like a 3-5 game and there is going to be a lot of money on the table very soon, mostly his.  These kinds of guys make the game very volatile which can be hard on your bankroll some nights, if you can handle the swings they will make you a lot of money in the long run as most of the time they are taking the worst of it.  It is a dream situation, most poker players look forward to finding a table like this that is ready to go off like a powder keg.

But one kid in the 8 seat at our table was not smart enough to be happy about the situation. He liked dominating the action which he could no longer do with this old guy in there and he did not know how to adjust and take advantage of the situation.   Instead of waiting for better hands and isolating this guy heads up to stack him he went into pre-flop raising wars with him.  After an hour or so of this kid not getting anywhere and losing a bit of money he starts getting verbally abusive to this old guy and declares that he will be busting him soon.

I never like to see verbal abuse at the poker tables and after it became apparent that the dealer was no going to step in I told the kid to “stop being a cry baby and learn to play poker soon so you don’t loose all your money”…  In a effort to keep the old guy at the table I start trying to joke around with him about how these young kids take everything to serious and do not know how to just have fun at the poker tables.

Mission accomplished, old guy is laughing again and the kids now completely hates me and is on revenge tilt.  Every second he is not in a hand he is just sitting there staring at me till the point were I start to wonder if I should request security on the way out tonight .  A little while later I get KK and double up again from the old guy.  Sitting with 900 of the old guys chips the kid gets even more pissed off he just got stacked by the old guy and has had to buy in again for the third time.  Finally the kid gets a run of good luck and manages to get even by winning a really big hand against 2 people and then stacking the old guy.

Sadly the kid was not cool about it and started laughing at the old guy until he decided to take his money and go play a the craps table.  Way to go kid now your just left playing with the smart people that are not exactly happy with you for driving away the easy money.  We both had about 900 when he turned his attention to me and started re-raising every bet I made and in general just coming after me.

After a few hands of this I pick up JJ and raise to 12 which is called before the kid re-raises to 50.  I smooth call and so does one new guy behind me in the 7 seat.

Flop J 9 5

Kid bets 100 which I call and is over called by the 7 seat.

Turn J

Kid bets 200 which I call and is again overcalled by the 7 seat.

River 8

Kid for some reason slows down and only bets 125, which I raise to 270 as I think he was finally figuring out he was beat and I wanted to make a small raise that he and the 7 seat who had just made his str8 would call.  The 7 seat does make the call but then to my complete surprise the kid re-raise all in for 425 more.  I call and the 7 seat thinks for a long time and finally folds his str8 face up.  I was wrong, the kid thought that if he bet smaller I would re-raise with my str8 on the river and then he could trap me with his full house 99′s.

So bent in his revenge plan that he totally ignored that he by no means had a lock on this hand and would I really call that kind of re-raise with a hand that could not beat him or would I even re-raise in the first place on a paired board with just a str8 and three people in the hand.  While waiting for the other guy to fold he figured out what I had and called out my hand before I even flip it over.

That sir is my friend called Karma.

>2.2k My Biggest win at 1-2 NL game ever

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Darkened Poker

So I am goofing around at a small work cash game with my good friend Mick when there is a small raise which Mick calls so I have to call.  The implied tilt odds if I win this pot from Mick with 72 is huge.

Flop comes down in this picture from right to left and I flop a open ended str8 draw so I call the bet 1$ bet on the flop.

Turn gives me the low str8 flush but str8 flush never the less and I am hoping someone has the Ace or King and I will get payed.  I call another 1$ bet as I have position on Mick and can get a good re-raise in on the river.

River pairs the board which makes me a little sad as it might slow down the nut flush and I can not re-raise quite as much.  Mick leads out with another 1$ bet and I re-raise to 3.5$.  The Pocket KK’s calls and then Mick starts mumbling to himself and says out loud that I probably have the 2♥ but then moves all in.

Dam…  Usually when he talks about hands that he is putting you on it he can beat them, it is a big tell of his.  I do not like it but I have to call, the pocket KK’s finally realizes he is beat and folds.  Mick asks me what I got so I flip my 2 and the table explodes and the KK flips his card to show how unlucky he is.   I am still watching Mick because he has not mucked yet and I am now pretty sure I know what is coming.

Sure enough he waits till it quiets down and has everyone attention before he says “So you got a str8 flush” and then finally turns over his larger one.  Slow rolled for maximum tilt, that is my good friend Mick…

That's why you don't play 72!

I hear you buddy, you want slow rolling tilt war.  Its on

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Darkened Poker

Lots of very smart people like David Sklansky, Chris Ferguson and Roy Cooke have wrote about bankroll management and the effects of standard deviation on it.  I am not going to go over their impressive work but I do have a few thoughts to add.

Most bankroll systems for No Limit boil down to:

• Never put more than 5% of your bankroll into any one cash game
• Never put more than 2% of your bankroll into any one tournament
• You should get up from the table if you have 10% of your bankroll on table either through winning at the table or losing at other tables.

I started with a system like this and have added some exceptions over the years.  For live games I have never had a bankroll big enough that I could buy into a cash game for only 5% of it.  Every time I build up my bankroll something comes up in my personal life that kills a good chunk of it.  This makes it very hard to live by rule # 3 as I would always have to leave a table every time I won a big pot and in live games there is often no other good games to table change to just so you can protect your profit and bankroll.

What I have done instead is I will stay there as long as the fish do not get comparable stacks that can take you out in a bad beat.  I use to make the mistake of worrying about the other good players having the big stacks.  But over time you realize you should not be playing hands with the other good players but instead focus on the fish.  If you do play with the other good players it will most likely be with the nuts so it rarely matters.  But the fish always get you into bad spots were they usually have a draw and get all your money in.  So only stay at the table with > 10%  of your bankroll on it if fish are not stacked enough to hurt you.  I will even sometimes stay at a table with one big stacked fish if there are a lot of other small stacked fish and just not play him until he gets knocked back down.

Next online the rule for 5% of your bankroll does not work if your even slightly prone to tilt.  If you’re multi-tabling you might have only 5% at each table but you have 4-8 tables open and therefor have 20 – 40% of you bankroll in action.  I have once or twice in the past gone on tilt on one table and then blown off all my money at the other tables before I realized I was on tilt and shut it down.  Don’t think it will happen to you, it will happen to everyone.  Tom Dwan even had a great article in Card Player were he was playing live at the Bellagio with Lyle Berman and tried to bluff him off a royal flush loosing >800k in the process.  Busted out of the action he went home and started up a bunch of online tables before he had lost another 600k before realizing he should not play for a very long time. Online I do not believe you should have > 10% of your bankroll in action at any one time regardless of the number of tables.

Just some thoughts,

♣♥♦

Darkened Poker

So I flew to Vegas for the last weekend of the 2009 WSOP.  As I do every year I either have to win the buy in through Sat’s or cash games as I am not blowing $1500 on a seat.  Last year a friend and I did Sat’s but we got screwed in that they let us win our seat after they had already stopped registration.  So this year I wanted to try jumped into a 1-2 cash game at Bally’s to try and win enough in 12 hours to get myself into event 51.

Bally's Casino

My choice of Bally’s is by no means scientific, I have just had some good luck there over the years.  I like that they have enough traffic to keep the games filled with fish and I find there is less semi-pro’s there vs other places like MGM grand.

Well this game did not start out so well as it had in the past.

First Hand: 77, 5 of us head off to the flop

Flop: 7 8 J

I lead and it gets re-raised and then called by 2 people, not liking the draws out there I push and get called by 88 and 9 T which means I am drawing to 1 out.  Board does not pair and 9T gets a nice 600$ pot.

re-buy

Second Hand: KK, 3 of us head off to the flop after they call my 40$ re-raise

Flop: K Q A

All the money gets in on the flop and I am against QQ and A 8 suited, it comes runner runner spade to give the A8 the nut flush and an impressive 900$ pot.

re-buy again

Third Hand: TT, and 3 of us see the flop in a raised pot.

Flop: J T 3, I lead out, it is called and then re-raised.  At this point I am effectively pot committed if I call so I push to get rid of the flush draw.  One fold and then called by JJ who wins a nice 450$ pot.  This kind of bad luck can not run forever right?

re-buy one last time

In years past I would not even try that 3rd buy in yet less a fourth.  Loosing 2 buy in’s would be enough to put me on silent tilt and nothing good would come of the rest of my time there.  Especially with the added pressure of starting down 700$ in 1 hour when I was trying to make 1500 in < 18 hours so I could buy into a tournament.

What was great this years is I did not get down or go on tilt, I looked at the table and saw nothing but fish getting lucky.  So I took that last buy in and ground it back over the next 17 hours straight.  By 8 am I had won enough to get into the tournament but sadly by the time I got to the Rio, event 51 was sold out…

Wow, just like last year if you want to play you have to wait till Monday and play in that event.  It might have been just as well as I had not slept in a long time and might have just donked off my chips anyway.

I have said in past posts that you should leave a table after losing 2 buy-ins as you table image is shot and you can no longer bluff.  At a good table that might be the case but in your average low limit table in Vegas it is by no means the same situation.  You now have a bunch of fish that think they are invincible and will give you their entire stack whenever your ready.  You just have to make sure you’re OK to still play.

Given how many tournaments sold out this year including day 4 of the main event I think next year I will go ahead on reserve my seats online.  Although it is fun to go clean up the cash games I am now really dieing to play in one of these tournaments.

High Stakes Poker Season 5 Episode 12

First Daniel Nagreanu was got stacked and started playing scared.  Now it seems like Phil Laak has taken over that role.  He has been folding heads up with mid pair when he should re-raise and he decided to bet 50k pre-flop with AA instead of playing the hand post flop.

The first great hand was Metzer calling 800 with A 8, Elezra raising to 1,600 with K T and Menieri re-raises to 9600 with 6 4.  Metzer with the best hand folds and Elezra with what is now the best hand calls.

Think this was just either a bad read or bad move on Menieri’s part, he most likely read Elezra’s min raise for weakness but re-raising him with a bad hand like that is not smart.  Elezra is not know for laying hands down once he has money in the pot, its like Menieri has not watch even a single episode of this show.  This would have been a good play against a non pro, but is bad against someone as aggressive as Elezra.  Elezra quickly makes a good call, not sure if it is because he read Menieri for making a squeeze play or he just does not lay hands down against aggressive players.

Flop: 6 10 4

Elezra check, Menieri bets 14k into a 22k pot and Elezra thinks for awhile and just calls.  This suprised me quite a bit, I expected Elezra to check to someone as aggressive as Menieri so he could check raise him.  There is not a lot of value in calling re-raises, hitting a vulnerable hand and then just calling a bet so you can be drawn out on the turn.  He must have picked up a tell of strength and just want to call on the flop to see if Menieri bet again on the turn.  Again this would have been a good play against a newb, but was a bad play against someone as aggressive as Menieri.  It is very unlikely he would not fire two shells so calling now is wasted money as he is unlikely to learn anything new on the turn.

Turn:  A

Menieri thinks and then bets 37k into a 50k pot.  Elezra thinks for awhile then folds, this was a good fold at this point as there was really nothing he could beat.  If Menieri had a big ace like he was representing pre-flop then Elezra was now beat.  One of the last hands that he could beat just got there so folding is the only option.

Very oddly played by both parties but it worked out for Menieri.