Darkened Poker

A couple of years ago I was at Lucky Chances Casino and I sit down at what turns out to be a fairly weak 1-1-2 NL table.  No one has any real play, couple of kids are stuck in aggressive mode and there is a bunch of passive calling stations.  But it looks good as there is a bit of money at the table, so I decide to wait it out.  I get up about $100 when I see someone that looks familiar, it turns out to be Rafe Furst a Tiltboy and WSOP bracelet winner that I have played with at Phil Gordon’s home game.

TiltBoy Rafe Furst

Back then he was running Expert Insight and on this night he decided to take two of his employees out for a poker night.  They eventually all end up at my table and I think it is my lucky night; I get to play with this guy for $100 stakes instead of usual $1000 stakes were I have to play extra careful.  This should be fun right?  Given his normal wild play style and combined these small stakes I was sure he was going to crack this table wide open.

First hand he raises to $25 from the small blind after a bunch of limpers had just called, they all fold and shows 6 2 offsuit as he is takes it down.  Second hand he raises to 25 bucks from the dealer button and almost stacks seat 6 with his 6 4 offsuit when it comes 6 6 K on the flop, seat six is now cursing under his breath and shuffling what is left of his chip stack.

They do not call him a Tiltboy for nothing, now the entire table is going crazy and he is pushing people all in for fun for the next ½ an hour.  At the end of this 1/2 an hour everyone has lost their minds and is going all in with any pair, any draw, or any time they get deal two cards that are the same color.  Shortly after this one of his employees gets the most insaine double up I have ever seen.  The employee has not played two hands in the last 1.5 hours yet some fish in the feeding frensy decided to put im all in pre-flop with a K-J offsuit.  It was not like he bluffed and got caught with K J offsuit, no even better he had to re-raise twice to get all in as it is a 200 spread limit game.  Of course the employee had pocket AA and won a nice 500$ pot.  At this point I decide I am not leaving this game until it breaks no matter what.

Sadly I only get one hand during all this time, it ends up being with Rafe, I miss the flop and have to bluff to win my last pot of the night.  They leave around 1 am and a couple of people are now stuck around 2 grand and start gambling even more.  The pots that had been averaging around $80 at 1 am grown until there is about 6 grand on the table at 5 am and the average pot is about $400.  Sadly I only get 2 hands between 1 am and 5 am and I lost both to end the night down $100.

4 hours of folding hands while complete idiots are getting rich and then neither a str8 or flush can hold up for over $1500 in lost pots.  It was like a real poker nightmare.  But seeing how easily Rafe turned an only slightly profitable table into a mad cash crop was almost worth the price of admission alone.

I think every group activity will have its fair share of freaks, but somehow poker seems to have a few more than average.  This first one comes from my second trip to a card club ever ( Lucky Chances Casino ), this was back in the hay day of poker when everyone wanted to try the game and the valley had tons of money.  Back then LC use to run some very big limit and NL games, today all the big limit games are gone and the big NL games are not running all the time.

I  get to the board and get my name on the list for a 1-1-2 game when over comes this kid from the high stakes board.  He is coming to talk to the floor manager as he is pissed that he can not get a immediate seat in the 100 -200 limit game.  The floor manager tries to nicely explain that he can not piss off the regulars by bumping someone new to the top of the list.  So the kid pulls out a grand and tries to hand it to the floor manager.  The manager blows  my mind by handing it back to the kid and saying that he would like to help him out but can not risk that he might be a plant by his boss and lose his job.

The kid clearly needing action is convinced to sit in a 1-1-2 game until the 100-200 opens up and somehow ends up at my table.  Well this guy pulls out a 100 gets a rack of white chips with them and then pushes all in blind.  Everyone folds and he wins 8$ and starts laughing out loud at the table and then calls us all girls.  Second hand does the same thing, third and fourth, fifth hand I call him with A 7 and he seems happy that we are going to see the flop.  Sadly I get over called by A Q and so I only get the side pot when the kids 7 3 fails to improve.

But now he has to re-buy and we get the real insight into what kind of freak this guy really is.  He pulls out the biggest roll of 1000$ bills I have ever seen, about twice the size of someones fist.  In the very middle of it there are a few 100$ bills which he skips over and gives the dealer one of the 1k bills and asks for the max buy in of 100 in white 1$ chips only.  Dealer calls over the chip runner as he can not make change for 900$, chip runner gives him the 100$ and has to got to cage to get change.  Kid pushes all in again, gets called, loses and pulls out another 1000$, gives it to the dealer and we stop the game again to go through the same process all over again.  This time the chip runner tries to give him red 20$ chips and the kid refuses as he only wants 1$ white chips.  Dealer asks him why as he is only going to move all in again and the kid declares that 5 – 20$ red chips are not as intimidating.  Kid we are already long past being intimidated by you, your just free money now.

So for the next hour or so the kid has his own personal chip runner and does not tip him a dollar the entire time, but tips the dealer extremely well ever time he wins a pot.   By now our table has several grand on it as this kid has only won about 5 times in the last 40 hands and has been just poring money into the game.   Every shark in the room has put in a table change to our game and has left their game to rail our table.  But during that time someone was crazy enough to ask where he got the insane bankroll from.   He announces his name very proudly and we all kind of look around not sure of the proper reaction.   He then furthers that is father is the owner of K&B homes.  Well we have all heard of that so someone mentions that that is very nice and he counters with “they are shit homes, he would never live in one”.  OK, kid bite the hand that feeds you.

This somehow leads him to think someone really cares and he starts talking about how he was taking up poker because his psychologist said he needed a more constructive outlet.  Apparently losing a lot of money in poker is still cheaper for his dad than trying to keep him out of jail.    He starts talking about all the failed relationships as in the end they are just using him for money and he is just using them for sex.  He can not find a real relationships as he tends to become a jerk to everyone he knows.  But apparently that is now OK as he has finally realized that with the help of his psychologist somehow the act of realizing it makes it all forgivable.

Suddenly I realize we are nothing more than paid friends for the nut case.  Since no one will hang with this guy normally he has moved into the poker world.  At the poker tables people will be nice to him and listen to him ramble as long as he is losing, everyone working there has to put up with his stupid little power plays and other abuse.  He gets a non destructive way to blow daddy’s allowance which is the only thing that he really knows how to do.  It is a win win for everyone.

Sadly his spot at the 100-200 opens up and we have to say goodbye to this guy so he can go loose some real money in the bigger game.  By now my table is in max crazy mode with that much extra money in the table.  People are running into the 100 spread limit cap pre-flop and somehow our game is playing like a 100 limit game.  I of course do not pick up single playable hand the rest of the night and somehow miss all the dead money.

♣♥♦

Darkened Poker

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… C: wait… SD: wait…

I was recently short stacked ( 66 ) in a 1-1-2 no limit game where people were putting on the blind bet.  This meant there were 4 in blinds, 8 in blind raise, and the lady under the gun had just raise to 16 for a total of 28 in the pot.  I look down and see A K suited and move all in.  Its a no brain er right?

It is folded around to the lady and she thinks awhile about putting in the extra 50 bucks and then decides not to.  I show her AK to be nice as I rake the chips and she claims she had a small pocket pair and how could I over play my hand like that.  For a sec I am completely stunned, so I mention that there was a pretty good overlay.  This fly’s right over her head and she starts bitching about how I am testing her since she just sat down and since it was her first hand I must have assumed she did not have a good one and she knew I just had AK or AQ.  So I do what I always do with the fish, I tell her I do not really know how to play that well.

Lets show that given the overlay, I had to move in and if she had a pocket pair she should have called if she put me on two big picture cards.

Ok, math time:

First, she was min raising a blind 8 to 16 so I am not going to put her on AA or KK, so I assume that at worst I am 48 – 52 underdog if she does hold a medium pair.  I am 77 – 23 favorite if she has Ace anything or King anything.  In this case I am inclined to believe she did have a pair as a lot of people are now putting in little raises with them just to try and stop someone else putting in a big raise and not letting them get to see the flop.  If she had AQ or such she would most likely raise to 28 or something and get rid of other hands and force the blind raise to fold.  So lets give weight it 75% that she has a pair and I am behind, 25% she had worst ace.

Case were I am ahead and she calls with Ax:

28  + 66 +50 = 144 / 66 * .77   EV = 1.68, that is very positive, risking 66 to win 144 with .77 percent chance of winning.

Case were I am behind and she calls with xx:

144 / 66 * .48 EV = 1.04, that is slightly positive, risking 66 to win 144 with .48 percent chance of winning.  This is only positive because the 28 in the pot more than covers being behind in the hat.

Calling EV:  1.2

So every dollar I put in the pot I expect to make 20 cents back on it in pure profit over the long term.

Now if we consider fold equity it gets even better…

So there was a min raise under the blind raise, it could have been a trap with a really big hand like AA or KK, but since I held two of the cards needed the chances are cut in half.  Estimating fold chances is not an exact science at all, all I can say is estimate low…

144 pairs QQ and lower, 12 chances of KK and AA’s.

54 AQ thur AT, 9 chance of AK

Lets assume she will not fold AK, AA – TT.  Everything else lets assume 30 percent chance she folds…

45 / 219 = 20% hands she will not fold, of the other 80% she folds 30% of the time so 24% of the time she is folding.

Folding EV: 2

Average that in with the rest of it and we get the new EV more moving all in:

Total EV: 1.4

This is excellent in this situation I can expect to make 26 dollars every time I move all in.

♣♥♦

Darkened Poker

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… C: wait… SD: wait…

Recently I was playing 1-1-2 No Limit at my favorite hang out when this older man sits down and he looks a little familiar but I can not quite put my finger on it.  This happens at bigger places like Lucky Chances so I do not worry about it and start watching his play.

He is playing old school big stack poker with large over bets and trying to go for the opponents whole stack any time he has a good hand.  Sadly he was having about as good of a night as I was and every time he flopped a Str8 he ended up loosing to a flush or getting counterfeited and splitting the pot.  Our table had some real insane fish and after he lost a few big hands to some donkey’s making crazy all in calls and in the sickest way getting there.  Soon after he got called for the 2-3-5 spread limit game but rolls it and decided to stay at our table.

This confused the floor lady so she announced it again “Ray Zee are you sure you do not want your 2-3-5 spread limit game”.  The name only took about .5 milli seconds to register before the voices in my head started freaking out.  Holy shit that is legendary poker player and author Ray Zee.

First must read book

Second must read book

Dam I am in for a treat, so I watch him play for the rest of the night until 3 am when he finally decides to call it.  I tend to not play big bet poker so I got a free education watching someone that does it well and seeing how they get paid off enough to make it work.  He got caught in pretty good bluff with Q 9 offsuit and I could not help but to rub it in a little that I did not remember reading that in his book.  In the end his choice to stay at our table did not work out for him so well.  It was a great table with a lot very exploitable people at it as normal.  Monday is often very good as the fish come out for the “rack attack” giveaway.

Our table had two amazingly exploitable fish that I was staying late hoping to extract money from.  One lady would call pre-flop raise with any suited cards and then call anything on the flop if she got her draw.  When she did hit it she would then over bet the size of the pot so no one re-drew and she could make up for the money she was loosing pre-flop.  Sadly I never got a chance to charge her way to much to draw or draw to a better flush with her and then stack her if we hit.  She managed to walk away up a lot of money from the people that did not figure out her game quick enough and paid her off.

The second guy like to bet really big with all top pair and above type hands on the flop and bet normal when he was drawing.  I got to stack him twice by waiting for two pairs and sets, but his money was not enough to make up for all the bad beats the rest of the night.  Also there was a nice dealer mistake that costed me a couple hundred, will talk about that later.  Some days I can not wait for the electronic tables to hurry up and get here, and then some days you get a great dealer that pumps up the game and hope they never do…

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… C: wait… SD: wait…

Since most of my play is at Lucky Chances Casino the semi-pros there have a pretty good bead on my play and know me to be tight – aggressive player.  They tend to get out of my way if I am driving the betting, but since they also know I am tight they will take shots at me if flop looks like a total miss or I ever check.  Normally I like to bet my hand very straight forward manner as there are plenty of people in the game to pay me off.  But I have been getting tired of them taking flops with me just so they can bet into me on any bare flop.  To counter this trend I have started checking some good hands to these guys so I can come over the top of them.  I have got a few of them to slow down quite a bit as they realize there are easier targets in the game that they could be going after.  But you do not get enough great hands to make this an effective strategy by itself.

Some people see a pot being built and they just can not resist no matter what or some people keep track of the percentages of check raising and realize it is not often enough to still not make it profitable.  Well since their play is messing up my continuation betting strategy I have been forced to start introducing the re-steal into my game.  Given that my bankroll is in good shape and I can afford to get caught re-stealing a few times I decided to just punish one of my favorite Russian players and see how he reacts to my image and aggression.

It worked amazingly well, but I had spent a little time figuring out how to make it believable as he is a good player and if you just come over the top all night, he is going to start picking them off.

1. I only did it on scary boards that made it look like I was protecting a big hand and I came over the top for an amount that was not giving anyone proper odds to call but it was never an all in bet that looked desperate.
2. I made the decision to come over the top on the flop before anyone acted, that way it was no pause in my action and it looked perfectly natural.
3. I got seated to his right so that I was last to act after his steal and did not have to worry about others over calling and messing me up.
4. I did not slow play anything against him that night and came over the top with good hands as well even on dry boards for now real reason.
5. Every once in while I showed him a monster to keep him calm.

Even after 4 re-steals that night on the last one he was talking out load and convinced himself that I must have had a set and laid down a big str8 flush draw against me.  Wow that is crazy, I would never put anyone on that good of a hand if they had been re-raising me that many time in one night.  But that is fine with me, if you want to always assume I have the nuts and lay down every hand.  So be it

Take advantage of that tight image but be careful not to loose it, if i went for 4 re-steals every night I am sure he would wise up, but I am going to keep it at few in every night to keep these thinking players at bay.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… C: wait… SD: wait…