Darkened Poker

This weekend I was in my favorite 2-5 NL game when this pretty old guy sat down and start squinting really hard to see the cards on the board.  Applied my normal poker stereo type and named him Mr. Magoo, figured he will most likely play tight and over value good starting hands.  I was a little off on this guy as he turned out to be a straight up nut job.

Mr Magoo, is in danger or is a danger?

He starts raising 4/5 hands and stacks 2 people after calling 30$ pre-flop raises with 74 and J 7 only to hit trips and check raise these guys all in.  This should have been my first clue that things were not as they seemed with him.

Now he has the entire table on tilt and I think this game is going to get really good.  He raises in late position to 15$ and I smooth call with 10 10 to see if I can trap this guy.  I get over called in 2 places and 4 of us see the flop.

Flop: A Q 10

Possible Str8 already and flush draw is sitting there, since I am out of position I have a much tougher decision than I would have liked too.

• If I lead and one of draw calls then the others will to and he is then unlikely to bet big at it so I will miss out on his bluffing money.
• If I check I could end up giving everyone a free card if he checks behind.
• If I check and he does bet I then have to re-raise to blow out the str8 & flush draws as there will now be a big pot worth drawing to.

Really wish I had position in this hand as I could make a lot more money by him betting and then trapping all the drawers before a big re-raise.  Usually like to lead into and Ace flop when I have a set, but in this case I was trying to catch a whale.  I look out of the corner of my eye and I see him starting to grab at a bunch of chips so I just check and wait for him to bet.  Everyone including him checks!!!

Turn:  3

Not a scare card so I got lucky, and now I slightly look left to see another guy lining up chips to bet, I check thinking if he bets I will have last position and can make even more money.  If he does not bet then Mr. Magoo will surely bluff this time as it will have been checked around twice.  Imagine the screams in my head as it gets checked around a second time….

River: 8

I am now fully convinced no one has anything at all and check it one last time to see if Mr. Magoo will do one of his pot size bluffs on the river to try and take it down.  It is checked around again and I almost want to muck my hand I am so disgusted, given that there was 60$ out there I decide to turn over my hand and collect the pot even though it lets them know I was trapping.  Mr. Magoo smiles and flashes me A Q before mucking.  He checked down Top Two pair, WTF is going on here.

My 2 theories as to why I did not have all his money…

1. I have a big tell and he knew I had a monster, knew I was looking to trap him and might have even noticed that that I look left after flop and so he was giving me tells that he was going to bet just so I did not bet.
2. He likes to check raise people all in with his monster hands and was doing the same trapping I was.

I have to go with theory #1 as top 2 pair on that board is not nearly strong enough to give free cards to with 4 people in the hand.  He had position so there is no one left to trap after it is checked around to him and the only reason to show me the hand is to rub it in that he avoided my trap.   The more I think about it now believe I must have noticed him squinting all the time at the cards and while thinking he is 1/2 blind I let myself get sloppy when watching him for tells.

Well done sir, the old guy that can barely see routine and then snapping us all off when we drop our guard.  That is good poker…

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Darkened Poker

First watch the first 1/2 of the video to be amazed at what looked like poker amateur hour except it was online pro “Pokernoob” and live pro “Roland de Wolfe” in a large buy-in tournament over in Europe.

The good:

• What a call by Pokernoob, he put Roland on a busted flush draw and made a risky but normally +EV call which in this case turned out to be wrong.

The Bad:

• Roland de Wolfe does not turn over his hand when called, he tries some amateur move of just turning over one card to see if he is beat.  As I have discussed here before this form of angling at the showdown has to stop.
• Roland then further compounds his mistake by actively trying to avoid showing his full hand and pushing his cards into the muck.
• The dealer tries to stop Roland from mucking his hand, they should only do that if someone in the hand explicitly asks to see both show down hands.
• Pokernoob then turns up his hand to rub it in Roland’s face that he just folded the best hand.  Why is he trying to stop Roland from making great big mistakes like mucking the best hand.  Why not just take the pot and see if Roland will do it several more times in the tournament so he can make more money.
• Roland then try’s to get his hand back so he can win the hand by saying he showed a higher card.  Wow what a weasel move that was, he was happy to muck his hand to avoid giving away info earlier when he thought he was beat.  But as soon as realized he made a mistake he wants to get his hand back so he can win the pot.  Seriously WTF, pro’s should know better than that.

The Ugly:

Sure Pokernoob just proved that he can angle better than Roland at that moment in time, but he has now taught Roland to be a slightly better player.  Why do these kids always have to trade educating their poker competition of all their mistakes for a mere 2 seconds of “in your face” glory.  Not a long term +EV play.

PokerNews has a slightly different take on the hand which I fully disagree with.  I think Matt Savage saying that he would have pulled Rolands hand from the muck and awarded the pot to Roland would be a terrible mistake.  Just because he thinks Pokernoob did not play in a “Gentleman” manner does not mean you can go and change the rules of the game on the fly.

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Darkened Poker

First let me set up why I played this hand in such a non standard manner that it got me into a really confusing spot where I started second guessing myself and did not know what to do.

1. I was playing against the big stack at the table, big stacks almost always bluff more than they normally would.  If you take a fairly tight player like this guy was and give them a big stack they will start throwing in a some bluffs.
2. He was paying perfect attention to the table and I knew he had seen me make 2 laydowns recently.
3. He had seen me pick off the a sick river bluff recently.

2-5 NL game at Snoqualmie Casino, I have 300$ and BB has 1000$.

I am UTG +1 position and pick up KQ, I min raise to 10$ and get 1 caller in late position and the BB.  KQ suited kind of plays well against many or few so I mix it up and play it for different raise amounts.

Flop:  Q 9 7

BB checks, I bet 20$, late position folds and BB calls.

Turn: 7

BB checks, I bet 20$ trying to make it look weak so he will put in a bluff.  BB re-raises to 80$, this is perfect so I think for awhile and then make what looks like a crying call.

River: T

BB bets 100$.  This is not what I was expecting at all, given the pot was $230 I was expecting him to bet between 200 – 140$.  His small bet of only $100 suddenly looks like a value bet that he wants to be sure I will called.  This starts me thinking.

What can I beat at this point:

• QJ
• Some 9 hands like A9, J 9, 98 suited
• A total bluff or small under pair

None of these hands seem likely except the 98 suited, I had seen him fold from the BB before so he started with a hand that had some potential.

What am I now behind:

• AQ, Q T
• Any 7 hand like 78, 67 suited
• 9 T, 99
• 6 8 or J 8 suited

Give that I had just called $80 I can not put him on making a $100 bluff at the pot as that would not be enough to get me off it.  Plus given that the river was such a bad card there is now even more hands I can not beat.  Since it seemed about a 40-60 situation I decided to fold.  If nothing else I can use my now even weaker table image to pick off some bluffs later in the game.

Given I really wanted to know were I was in that hand I started talking to a friend at the table about how bad I had just played that and hope he would join the conversation.  It takes awhile but the BB finally chimes in that he only had a 9 and was bluffing me.  This makes me feel a little better as I am think he is good enough to lie to me and try to mess with my self confidence.

To me the line seems very consistent with someone that had a set or made their flush.   If you have any other idea’s on what it could have been leave me a comment.

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Darkened Poker

If you see a weaker player hesitating to fold to your bet on the river you can often talk them into calling by just telling them you do not have the most obvious hand that beats them.  In this case you really need to not have the hand that you are telling them you do not have.  If you pull this move and do have the hand you just told them you did not have they will often never play with you again.  Not only does this costs you a lot of long term money it could cause them to get up from the game and that will piss everyone else at the table off.

Why does this move work so well, because weaker players do not put you on a range of hands but a single hand.  If they are thinking of folding then they have usually pick the most obvious hand that beats them and if you can convince them you do not have that specific hand they skip all other hands that can beat them and believe they are good.

Example from a 2-5 NL game at Snoqualmie Casino

Late position and I limp in with 6 6 and 4 of us see the flop.

Flop: Q Q 6

I bet 5$, BB is the only one that calls

Turn: 8

I bet 15$, BB calls

River: A

BB bets 30$ so I min raise to 60$

He starts thinking and looking at his hand, shows it to his buddy who frowns like it is a tough decision.  The most obvious had he is worried about is me having the Q so I start talking and mention that I do not have the Q.  This gets his interest but he has that look like he does not fully believes me so I take out a 100$ give it to the guy between us and say “If I am lying and have a Q then give him the 100$”.  This makes the BB pause for a second and then calls flipping over his A 6.  Hardest 30$ I had worked for all night.

If anyone starts telling you what they do not have you can always assume they somehow have something stronger.

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Darkened Poker

Was playing in a very friendly 2-5 NL limit game at Snoqualmie when I got myself into a very marginal situation with top pair (TP) and a very weak kicker (WK).  Normally I will only use TP WK for catching bluffs against really aggressive players or sometimes value betting into people that I know will call people down with second or third pair.  If a normal player calls my first bet I will stop betting and usually fold if they decide to bet out on the turn or river. This was about to be such a situation except the guy started talking and his verbal tells convinced me that I was good and should keep on value betting into him.

4 people had limped into see the flop and I had A 5 in late position so I called.

Flop: AQ7

It is checked around to me so I bet 15$ into the 20$ pot.  It is then folded around to the 5 seat who thinks for a second and then starts talking.

“I have hit some of that…  How good is your kicker…”  He then calls.

Turn:  8

I bet 20 and he calls.

River: 2

I bet 25 and he calls.  I turn over my hand and he mucks.

The Tells:

1. “I have hit some of that”, this usually means they do not have have TP, but second or third pair at best.  If they say that and then just call it means they are trying to slow you down from betting all the way to the river.
2. “How  good is your kicker”, that usually means they do not have a kicker at all and again they want to slow you down from betting so much.  I have found with really good players that if they ask you that and then bet into you or re-raise you it means that your kicker does not really matter and they have 2 pair or trips already.

Since I got two verbal tells that both usually mean the same thing that he was really weak I changed my normal plan and continued to value bet into him all the way to the end.  The bet sizes were smaller than normal as I did not want to convince him to fold and wanted to keep him making crying calls all the way to show down.

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Darkened Poker