Darkened Poker

A good hand range for a TAG in early position is about 20% in a 6-Max game.  The top 20% EV hands against 6 opponents are:

Although in theory this would be the best hands to start with in a 6 max game you would be out of position and this hand range has a couple of exploitable issues.

• A vast majority of these hands contain a Ace or King and people will start re-raising him on any flop that does not contain such cards.
• There are very few low cards in this range so on small flops people will bet him off his hand because it is unlikely to have hit him.

One needs to trade some of these higher 6 person EV hands for hands that hit the full range of flops harder so we can continue to c-bet which is very important in 6-max games.  I removing some of the Ace -Rag & King -Rag suited hands and replacing them with small pairs and suited connectors.

This solution is pretty easy to remember and solves a # of problems:

• Small pairs make sets which are such powerful hands that they play well out of position, one can go for check raise traps and make other moves which you can’t with weaker hands like just top pair against multiple opponents.
• One’s range is not Ace or King dominated so you can continuation bet on low flops and people will learn to give him credit instead of just blindly re-raising.

Although the theoretical EV for the starting hand range has gone down .05 these starting hands have a lot more utility and one will see their pre and post flop frustration drop as well as their profits rise.

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Darkened Poker

Was doing some coaching for a friend as he finally got around to sending me the screen shots from his poker tracker database that I requested.

This one page tells it all

First screen I looked at was Positions tab and it becomes clear what this guy’s problem is, he does not understand and respect position in Texas Hold’em nearly enough.

1. His range on hand played ( VP$IP ) is only 5% different from UTG to the button position.  That is a tiny amount compared to how many hands he is playing ( 22% ).  Given how profitable it can be to play hands in position in Texas Hold’em he should be playing about 1.5 – 2.0x the hands on the button vs the # he is playing UTG.   In this case I think he is playing too many hands up front trying to flop monsters but forgetting it is hard to get payed off enough when you have to act first.  He needs to tighten up his early position range ( 10 – 15% ) and keep is in button position # of hands around the (20- 30%) range.
2. Now his pre-flop raise percent is almost static between UTG and button position, it only swings ( 2%) and in the wrong way.  He should be raising with more hand on the button when he has position and less UTG when he does not.  I would suggest raising with 33 – 50% of all the hands he plays so his range is not so narrow that people can get a easy read on it.  Whatever raising percentage he picks, lets call it X then for every position this formula should hold :  PFR / VP$IP = X

If he can fix those 2 issues it should get him back on track to some noticeable profit.

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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

It is clear I have a problem with this style other than the last 4,000 hands were I was just plain running bad.

Red line = win or loss before show down

Blue line = win or loss at show down

Green line = total win or loss

My hand reading is working and I am showing up at the river with the best hand like I should be.  But why in the hell is the red line such a major bite out of my profit.

That red line is way bigger than just lost blinds and failed c-bets.

It is either:

• Getting moved off to many winning hands before showdown.
• People are re-stealing too many pots against my bluffs.

It is interesting that the red line kind of flattened out when I was running really bad and kind of tightened up.  During that point I was just paying blinds and only pushing my good hands.  Kind of leads me to believe that my problem is most likely people are re-stealing pots to many pots against me when I am playing my normal game.

Will have to drop down to 1 or 2 tables and start taking detailed notes until I figure this out.  Too bad there is no software that can read your hand histories and give you stats on how often your bluffs failed.  Might just have to write that soon.

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Darkened Poker