Darkened Poker

Here is the biggest and costliest difference between the .05/.10 & .10/.25 games on PokerStars.

At the .05/.10 levels you will often see a nice size pot built by the river and then suddenly there is an odd all in over bet on the river.  It was odd because the str8 or flush draw did not get there and a majority of the time just a desperate bluff.

A lot of inexperienced players either think they have to play aggressive poker and put a lot of money into the pot on a draw and/or if their draw does not get there they have to move all-in and try to save themselves.  It is very profitable over all to just pick off these bluffs, once it awhile you run into sets but at least 65% of the time it is a bluff.

VS

Now at the .10/.25 level those odds are completely reversed and I would say 75% of the time you will be shown the nuts and only 25% of the time you will be picking off a bluff.  There is a ton of people that noticed how many people were picking off big bluffs in the last level and are now taking advantage of it in this level.

Do not fall for it.  If the pot is small because there was not a lot of betting and they only bet around the size of the pot then go ahead and call as it will often still be a orphaned pot bluff.  But if you or someone was betting all the way and someone still moves in on the river they are hoping someone notices there is a missed drawn and are looking for the sucker that will make a BIG HERO call.

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Darkened Poker

There is one player on PokerStars that every time I see her play she has ends up leaving the game just after getting felted.  She plays a little overly aggressive game for the most part, but the big leak in her game is her poorly executed bluffing given her table image.

She always seems to end up pushes all in when she has little to no fold equity for the situation so she often gets a lot of crying calls that bust her out.

Consider all the variables that factor into fold equity:

• Table image, the more aggressive your table images is the more you will have to bluff
• How much strength they have shown, if they have already lead out at the pot, most likely a min raise will not take it down.
• The board, the less hands you could legitimately represent vs draws and pure air the more you would have to bluff.
• What could they likely holding, the better the hand they could have the more you would have to bluff to move them off it.

Before this particular hand with her I have seen her stack off enough times that I now look for reasons play hands with her and double up.  She c-bets almost 100% of the time although usually only for 1 street.

Poker Stars $0.02/$0.05 No Limit Hold’em

Hero (BB): $7.38
MP2: $2.51

Pre Flop: ($0.07) Hero is BB with 8 T

4 folds, MP2 raises to $0.20, 3 folds, Hero calls $0.15

Flop: ($0.42) 3 3 8 (2 players)

Hero checks, MP2 bets $0.30, Hero raises to $0.90, MP2 raises to $2.31 all in, Hero calls $1.41

Turn: ($5.04) 7 (2 players – 1 is all in)

River: ($5.04) 2 (2 players – 1 is all in)

MP2 mucks A2

Interesting points:

• I check to her on the flop hoping to snap off a c-bet which she goes ahead and does.
• I check raise her 3x showing a lot of strength
• She all in raises for only 2.5 more than my check raise which is not a lot given my already aggressive play
• Given her aggressive image I can put her on flush draw, overs and complete air so I call.

If I hand not seen her stack off before, had a less aggressive image and there was not a flush draw on the board it might have been enough of an all in to work.  But given that it was only 1/3 my stack she had no fold equity at all.

HIGH STAKES POKER SEASON 5 Episode 6 Part 2

This was a interesting hand because it was a massive 900k pot plus after all the money was in Barry Greenstien said he thought that was the hand that Tom Dwan had.  But if that was what he put him on then Barry really misplayed the hand so I have to think he was just saying that for TV.

First Eastgate raised to 3500 with AK and then Barry G ( 600k ) re-raised to 15k with AA at which point Tom Dwan ( 450k ) calls with KQ and Eastgate calls to see the flop.

Flop:  4 2 Q ( 45k pot )

Dwan bets 28.7k, Eastgate folds and Barry G raises to 100k.  If he put Dwan on the flush draw then maybe it is best not to let him name his own price for the draw.    That is the more aggressive way to play it which is Barry’s style.  If he put him on a Q then why re-raise and move him off the hand, let him bet his money away.   Given that Tom just called pre-flop he could also be holding small pair and Barry is re-raising a set.

2 cases he is behind – 1 case he is ahead, i really thing a smooth call would have been a lot better here.

Even if he put him on a flush another way would be to just call, wait for a safe card on the turn and then since he is in position he can really put pressure on the turn.  Since they are both deep stacked he needs to be concerned about building a really big pot with only an over pair.  I have been stacked more times than I can remember by betting hard trying to drive the flush draws out, only to find out I was way behind.

Dwan thinks for awhile and then re-raises against to 244k.  I really do not like this raise as it now has him which has totally pot committed him and in a coin toss for all his chips.  He knows he is not good right now and has 11 outs, but he just put himself in a position were all the money will be going in now or on the turn if a Spade does not fall so he will be racing for his entire stack.  The only thing this bet does it let Barry know this hand is for all his chips, but given there is 245k in the pot there is no way Barry can fold.

Now Barry G has a bit of an issue, this hand is too good to fold and not good enough that you want to be all in on the flop.  But what can he do.

• Just calling is pretty bad, if the Spade comes on the turn are you really going to fold a 750k pot for another 150k more.  That would be a monster lay down and people would suddenly have phantom outs against you.
• If he calls and pushes on the turn when no spade comes Tom Dwan will be getting the right odds to call anyway.
• Re-raising is also just bad, the draw wants to get all the money in with two cards to come and the made hand want to get to the turn and then apply really bad odds.

Barry chooses to push and re-raises to 436k putting Tom Dwan all in.  He has to call and they agree to run it once which is also Barry style.  Given that is was a 50-50 draw and for such a massive pot I think Barry would want to run it more than once but he does not.

Turn: Q
River: 7

Tom pulled down a nice 919k pot.  Although that was classic Barry style of making big pots, I really think he should have just smooth called and let Tom bet again on the turn.  He could have then got away from the hand when the next Q dropped or at least lost the min instead of his whole stack.  Also not sure why Tom Durr wanted to it all in with the draw, there was easier ways to make money at that table.

Finally got a chance to work on my tournaments ranking for this year, took down 41th out of 3212 players.  That is apparently enough to go from unlisted to a Rating of: 77.98% Rank: 185,655 of 843,053

Getting late in the tournament when big hands are being played and people are being left short stacked, noticed there is a lot of mistakes made short stacked.

Example:

Poker Stars $2.00+$0.20 No Limit Hold’em Tournament – t1000/t2000 Blinds + t200 – 9 players

celtic19671 (BTN): t108756 M = 22.66
Hero (BB): t41478 M = 8.64
harddave69 (UTG): t2484 M = 0.52

Pre Flop: (t4800) Hero is BB with 2 7

harddave69 raises to t2284 all in, 5 folds, celtic19671 calls t2284, 1 fold, Hero calls t284

Flop: (t9652) K 2 3 (3 players – 1 is all in)

Hero checks, celtic19671 checks

Turn: (t9652) 5 (3 players – 1 is all in)

Hero checks, celtic19671 checks

River: (t9652) Q (3 players – 1 is all in)

Hero checks, celtic19671 checks

Hero : shows 2 7 (a pair of Deuces)
harddave69: mucks hand 8 7
celtic19671: mucks hand A 6
Hero collected 9652 from pot

Interesting mistakes in this hand:

• Although harddave69 does have an ace in hand he is under the gun and trying to push through 9 people for only 10% more than the big blinds when there is already antes involved.  He knows he has to get called by the big blind and most likely the small blind if not several other as well.  Everyone is getting at least 3-1 odds to call his all in.
• celtic19671′s call was a little odd.  He is getting ok odds with small suited connectors if he knows he will be heads up.  If others come in or someone raises then he will be getting really bad odds and although he is deep stacked at the table no one else is so he has no implied odds for a hand like that.  Since he is really big stacked it is not a big deal if someone re-raises and he has to lay it down.  But why get involved if you know the BB has to call and the all in is not getting a free walk.
• For only 200 more with 9000 already in the pot I have to call with 72.

If I were harddave69 i would have folded that hand and waited till my BB.  In his under the gun position he was giving everyone 3.5 – 1 odds to call his all in.  In the BB he might get a walk on the hand which had been happening at the table once in awhile.  By waiting one hand the main difference is people are only starting with 2.5 – 1 odds to start the calling process and if it is folded around to the blinds then he is likely to be heads up and go from 33% to stay alive to 50% to stay alive.

When your that short stacked you want to give people the worst odds you can to call you and get heads up if possible.  So either moving all in behind a big raise so their bet is likely to chase the others out or move in from the blinds so they have smaller odds.

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