"Hero" Calling

I am sure you have all heard of the term hero calling. It means calling in a spot where we have a very poor hand that can only beat a bluff. In today's aggressive games there is probably more spots to hero call than a decade ago. So how do we know when we should be hero calling and when we should we fold?

Well right off the bat I am going to tell you that I hate the term hero calling, I only use it in this blog as it is term every poker player understands. However, it suggests that by making the call you are being a hero, making some brave move against all the odds. Well if you are hero calling correctly then you aren't a hero at all. You will be nothing more than a cool calculator, because you will have made the decision to call based on the odds given to you and weighed that up against the chance that you are actually ahead (i.e. that your opponent is bluffing). If you are calling to be a hero without thought to the odds etc. then you are doing it for all the wrong reasons and even if you happen to call and have the best hand then you have still made a mistake.

Calculate correctly and you won't need to be a hero again!

Hero calling is often done against aggressive opponents and when a lot of draws have missed on the river. This is because an aggressive opponent is more likely to bluff than a passive one, also if there are draws that have missed the river usually the only way for a busted draw to win the pot is to have a stab and bet the river.

So does this mean we should just blindly call every aggressive player on the river when a flush draw missed? Well not always, it depends on any reads and history you might have, bet sizing and most importantly what range you can put the player on given the action in the hand and how accurately you can narrow this range down. Usually to consider hero calling we would expect our opponent to have a polarised range (that is they either have a massive hand or a very weak one), but against good opponents this is not always true as they can beat medium hands for value in spots where lesser players want to go to showdown. So against really good aggressive players hero calling is a bit tougher.

You shouldn't be put off hero calling because you are afraid to look like a fool when you turn over your cards, it can be slightly embarrassing and frustrating to call with a King high hand when your opponent actually flopped a monster, but if you have correctly assessed their range and the odds then you should be happy you have likely made the correct play.

I recently played the PartyPoker Dusk Till Dawn Grand Prix, I had made day 2 by playing day 1 online and so when day 2 started I had no reads on anyone. About 20 minutes into the tournament it is my big blind and it folds around to the small blind who limps in, I look down at 73o and decide to check.

OK so a little info first, I have about 500,000 with the blinds at 5,000/10,000/a1000. The small blind has about 2.5million at this point having already doubled up with 88 v AJ all in on a JT8 flop. He seems to be a competent aggressive player. Note when I am new to a table I always pay most attention to the players sitting near me first as those are the players I am more likely to be playing marginal pots with. I had noticed that in a couple of hands he had bet more than half the pot with good hands and this was to prove crucial in this particular hand.

So after I check the dealer spreads the 832 flop with the 8 and 2 both being spades (I had the 3 of spades but an offsuit 7). The small blinds bets the minimum 10,000, this sizing feels like a bit of an info bet here so I suspect he likely has a 2 or a 3, I think he bets bigger with a bluff or an 8. I could raise at this point and look to take the pot down but he might still call and the pot would start to get bigger than I really want in the first level with a 50bb stack so I decide to call.

The turn is the Qs so I now have the nut low flush draw to go with my poor pair poor kicker. He continues for 22,500 and I think for about 30 seconds considering all 3 options at this point, I dismiss folding fairly quickly as I don't think he hit the flush as I believe he would bet more on the flop with the flush draw. This leaves raising or calling, I was tempted to raise as I think I can get him to fold some random spade cards that beat my 3s but in the end I decided to call.

The river is an offsuit ten and he leads for about 35,000 (I forget the exact amount) and I immediately feel like I am ahead, but one mistake I have made quite a lot in the past in these kind of spots is to call too quickly so I take a minute to work through the hand.

The pot at this point is 20,000 (blinds) + 9,000 (antes) + 20,000 (flop) + 45,000 (turn) and his 35,000 bet on river, so 129,000, so it costs me 35,000 to win 129,000, therefore I don't have to be right that often to show a profit.

I am pretty sure he doesn't have an 8 due to the small flop bet. It is possible he hit the ten or queen but again I think he would have bet larger on the turn or river if he had. I also don't believe he has two pair or better for similar reasons. This leaves bluffs, 2x or 3x (both of which I think he might turn into a bluff). I beat all 2x hands which leaves only the 3x hands that have me beat. Remember this was a limped blind versus blind pot so the ranges are pretty much any two cards! Given my indecision on the turn I believe he probably thinks I was thinking more about folding or calling rather than calling or raising (which was actually the case) so I in turn believe this is more likely to make him take a stab here, coupled with the great odds I decide I have to call. As such I put my chips in the pot and he declares one pair, he then turns over 24o and I table my hand to win the pot.

He later said he couldn't believe I called down with just the 3 and that he had bluffed the river because of my apparent reluctance to call the turn. Although this isn't necessarily the greatest example of a hero call (I had 4th pair after all!), it is more an illustration of the basic thought process I went through before making the call, after all I can't beat any hands he is betting for value! When I made the call I didn't feel proud or do a fist pump or sigh with relief or anything, I simply raked the chips up and moved onto the next hand. Remember, making good calls means not being a hero, but being a cool calculator instead!

I ended up making day 3, but sadly bust in 35th place out of over 7,000 entries, not bad but also tantalising close to a big score. There is always next time....

Counting Cards

When people who do not understand poker ask me about it, they usually say things such as “You must be good at counting cards”, they associate gambling at cards with card counting. This is usually because they have heard of card counting at Blackjack. Basically to card count at Blackjack you assign a point value to cards depending on their ranks and this tells you how many high cards are left in the deck. The more high cards there are then the more chance that the dealer will bust and the odds can actually be in your favour if the deck is heavy with high cards. This means you can make a short term +EV play by betting more when the time is right, because of this casinos frown on card counting.

The film "21" tells the story of a group of MIT students attempting to count cards at Blackjack.

I don’t want to talk about card counting in Blackjack (Watch the film 21 if you want to see card counting in action), but when I am asked about card counting, it is easy to be dismissive and say there isn’t a need to count cards in hold-em, after all it is a game of non-perfect information (we don’t know what our opponents cards are) there are only 5 known community cards and the 2 we have in our hand that we know for certain. However despite not having perfect information, we can still utilise what information we do have to card count in selective ways when playing Hold’em. Whenever we have to make a decision in poker, we should try to put our opponent on a range of hands, the more accurately we can do that then the better our decision making will be and in the long run the more money we can expect to make.

Blockers

The easiest and most useful way of “counting” is to look at your cards and those on the flop and see how this might affect your opponents range and their chances of hitting their hand. Let’s say we hold AhJs and the flop is Ac 9h 3h and we are heads up against one opponent. What is the chance they have the nut flush draw? This isn’t a difficult question to answer and it doesn’t involve calculating any ranges, the answer should be really simple. If you have not worked the answer out yet go back and read the question, paying particular attention to the cards and their suits. Don’t read on until you have the answer, once you have the answer you will know it’s the right one.

Clue: Don't think about your opponent's hand at all, look at the cards we have and work out how this changes the odds for our opponent holding the nut flush draw.....

The answer is 0%! Since we have the Ah they cannot have the nut flush draw…in order for them to have the nut flush draw they must have Axhh, but they cannot have this as we already have the Ah! This can be really useful in some situations, say for example we raised pre and they called from the SB, and they check raise our continuation bet. If we have notes of them that say they would only check-raise with 2 pairs or better or the nut flush draw (i.e. they would just check call with one pair hands or flush draws that aren’t the nut flush draw) then in this scenario when we get check raised we can easily work out that we are beat and assuming we don’t have the correct odds we can fold. If instead of the Ah we have the Ad then this becomes a trickier spot as they villain might have Ah6h for example as that would be in their check raising range according to our notes.

It is also less likely they have two pair here as well when we hold any ace as it is less likely they have A9 or A3 and they probably don’t have 93. All of a sudden their range looks a lot like a set when we hold the Ah, whereas it is a bit wider if we hold another ace and wider still if we don’t have an ace at all.

The above example is a bit contrived as it assumes the villain plays a certain way and we know this, however even if we don’t know that for certain, clearly their semi bluffing range is smaller when we have the Ah than when we don’t, most opponents are more likely to play Axhh this way than a lot of the other xyhh combos (how many would call pre with J2hh for example then check raise the flop? It’s certainly less than would play A2hh that way). This means their range is usually skewed more towards value than semi bluffs.

Another scenario might be where we have AdKd and the flop is Ah9h3s. Although the Ah is om the board, it still means your opponent doesn’t have it. Although they may have the nut flush draw with Kxhh, the range of Kxhh they would play preflop is likely less than Axhh (e.g. more players would call pre with A2hh than K2hh) so we can still skew their range in a similar fashion to that above, although we should note hands like KQhh and KJhh are more likely in their c/r range than in the first example.

The lesson here is to pay attention to any cards you have that may affect the range your opponent has, which leads me nicely onto the next point.

Combinatorics (EV)

Now let’s suppose we have AKs and a player has opened, we have 3 bet them and now they 4 bet shove for around 35bb (which is the same stack we have). Our notes tell us they always have AK or QQ+ here, let’s assume the villain always 4 bet shoves these hands and nothing else. Given this we can work out our EV in the hand, to do this we can work out our EV against each hand and take the average.

                Our EV against AK = 50%

                Our EV against QQ = 46%

                Our EV against KK = 34%

                Our even against AA = 12%

So our average EV = (50 + 46 + 34 + 12)/4 = 35.5%.

However, there is a flaw in this calculation; can you see what it is?

The flaw is that when we took the average EV we assumed each of those 4 hands is equally likely, when in fact they aren’t! We forgot to take account of the effect of our blockers on the combinations of these hands available, let me explain further.

There are 4 aces in the deck, spades, diamonds, hearts and clubs. We can get dealt any of those 4 aces and in any order. Note that getting dealt Ah Ad is the same as Ad Ah. So how many combinations of these 4 aces are there? Well let’s work it out:

1. As Ad
2. As Ac
3. As Ah
4. Ad Ac
5. Ad Ah
6. Ac Ah

There are 6 combinations of Aces when none of the aces are known to be elsewhere. 

For the record there are 1,326 combinations of starting hands in holdem, each of which are equally likely. The chances of being dealt aces preflop is the number of combinations of AA (6) divided by the total possible combinations of any two cards (1326) so 6/1326 = 0.45%

Now let’s go back to our example where we have the As, how many combinations of Aces are there? Well Combo 1, 2 and 3 can no longer be valid as they have the As in so there are now only 3 combinations left. This holds true for any pair so there are also only 3 combinations of KK since we hold the Ks. However we know nothing about any Queens, so there are still 6 combinations of QQ. This means our opponent is just as likely to have QQ as they are to have KK or AA combined!

Now let’s consider the combos of AK (given that we have AKss):

1. Ah Kh
2. Ah Kd
3. Ah Kc
4. Ad Kh
5. Ad Kd
6. Ad Kc
7. Ac Kh
8. Ac Kd
9. Ac Kc

There are an additional 7 combos if we ignore the fact we have AKss:

1. As Kh
2. As Kd
3. As Kc
4. As Ks
5. Ad Ks
6. Ah Ks
7. Ac Ks

Ok, so how does that affect our EV calculation? Well now we can calculate a weighted average, which is we assign a weighting to each hand to reflect its chances of being the actual hand compared to the others. There are 3 combos of AA and KK, 6 for QQ and 9 for AK. That makes a total of 3 + 3 + 6 + 9 = 21 combinations. So the chance of the hand actually being AA is 3/21 for example.

If you recall:

    Our EV against AK = 50%

                Our EV against QQ = 46%

                Our EV against KK = 34%

                Our EV against AA = 12%

So our weighted average calculation is:

50% * (9/21) +

46% * (6/21) +

34% * (3/21) +

12% * (3/21) = 41.1%

All of a sudden we have over 5% extra EV then we originally calculated, just because we “counted” our two cards.

If you are calculating EV versus a range, it is important to use combinatorics to ensure you adjust each hand based on the chances of it being the actual hand. Even if we didn’t know we had AK then it is still more likely someone has AK than AA (this should be obvious since once we get the first Ace there are only 3 other Aces left but 4 Kings). However if we have AK ourselves, it is even more unlikely our opponent has AA compared to AK (assuming we have AK then once they get their first Ace there are only 2 in the deck compared to 3 Kings).

As with a lot of my blogs, I wouldn’t worry too much about the exact maths behind this, but just try to understand the principle that our cards can make a huge amount of difference to the ranges of our opponents and also the combinations of each hand they might have. If you can get your head around this then it can often help your make the right decision in marginal spots.

Maths in Poker: An Exact Science?

With the boom of online training aids, such as forums, poker videos and dedicated training sites there is a lot greater emphasis on the maths side of the game than several years ago. Clearly poker involves a lot of maths, but there is a danger in that people often believe maths is an exact science, and while it usually is sometimes it is based on assumptions and if these assumptions are not reasonable then the theories based on them can be inaccurate. This applies more to poker than other fields of application as poker also has a psychological side to it. For the record, I come from a heavy maths background including a maths degree, so this is not a case of me bashing something because I don't like or understand it.

Let's take a simple scenario, I am not going to calculate any of the maths as that is not the point of the blog, you can find examples easily....Google is your friend!

OK so in this example we have 66 and open and get 3 bet shoved on by a 15bb stack. We need to decide whether to call, and for simplicity we are nowhere near the bubble and are only interested in calculating our cEV. To make this calculation we work out our opponents 3 bet shoving range and from that can calculate our equity. The result of this calculation will give us an exact figure and if its positive then we call, but if it's negative we fold. Maths has helped make exactly the correct decision, or has it? Well in making this calculation we had to make one assumption, what was that?

The assumption was working out the 3 bet shoving range of the villain. The accuracy of our resulting calculation is therefore based solely on the accuracy of our assumption of the range. What this means is closer the resulting calculation is to zero the more accurate our assumption needs to be otherwise we may make the incorrect decision. This highlights the dangers of blindly using maths and assuming the answer is always correct!

That leads me on nicely to the concept I really want to talk about, ICM. ICM stands for Independent Chip Model. This model is used to calculate your current equity (in terms of cash) based on your current stack (in tournament chips) taking into consideration all the other player's stacks and the payout structure etc. Again I am not going to go into detail, there is plenty written on the web about ICM in a much better way than I could explain. Feel free to Google and have a read before resuming the blog if you so wish.

ICM essentially assumes that all players have equal ability and that each players chances of winning is directly related to their current chip stack. This also means that ICM assumes that you have the same ability regardless of your stack size. So we have identified two assumptions required by ICM, so in order to determine how reliable the calculations are we need to establish how realistic the assumptions are.

The first assumption is that all players are of the same ability, how reasonable is that assumption? Well consider every single table you have ever played on, and then think how many times you have felt that all players on that table were of the same ability. Unless you are deep in a super strong event then it is extremely unlikely that everyone is at the same skill level.

The second assumption is one that is often missed by a lot of players who swear by ICM. It actually has equal importance to the first assumption. This assumption is that our own ability is a constant regardless of our stack size, and the same principle should hold for our opponents. Well ask yourself the question, do you feel you play equally as well with a 10bb stack as a 100bb stack? What about a 25bb or 40bb stack? The fact is most players don't play as well around 25bb as they do for other stack sizes, 25bb is a very awkward stack to play correctly so this also likely represents our opponents skill set as well. What this means is that our chances of winning with a 26bb stack are not twice that of a 13bb stack. It also may mean that having a 50bb stack is more than twice as good as a 25bb stack. All of this is further clouded by the other effective stacks of course, doubling to 50bb when everyone else only has 25bb isn't as good as we are still playing 25bb poker. Clearly this second assumption is also on shaky ground and cannot be relied on.

To further highlight the weaknesses in these assumptions I will give two quick examples in which ICM states our tournament equity is the same. Take a look and see if you think it actually is.

Example 1:

Seat 1: Hero has 25bb

Seat 2: Nigel the Nit has 100bb

Seat 3: Larry the Good LAG has 10bb

Seat 4: Player 4 has 30bb

Seat 5: Player 5 has 22bb

Seat 6: Player 6 has 17bb

Example 2:

Seat 1: Hero has 25bb

Seat 2: Larry the Good LAG has 100bb

Seat 3: Nigel the Nit has 10bb

Seat 4: Player 4 has 30bb

Seat 5: Player 5 has 22bb

Seat 6: Player 6 has 17bb

The only difference in the examples is in seats 2 and 3, it is a subtle difference that makes a big difference to our chances in the tournament. Being out of position to a good LAG player is horrible when you have a 25bb stack and clearly our chances of winning in example 2 are far less than in example 1 as Larry will make our life very difficult whereas in example 1 our life is easier against the big stack because they are a tight player. Despite this, iIf we calculated our ICM in these two examples they would be exactly the same. Hopefully this shows how flawed the assumptions in ICM are if taking the results to be an exact science

There are also other failings with ICM, it treats each hand in isolation and it doesn’t account for the structure, ironically in a turbo ICM is going to be more accurate as the luck element is increased. Nor does it look at the average stack, again if the average stack is lower than ICM will actually be more accurate due to the higher luck factor. ICM doesn't account for players moods which may affect their ability. Lastly ICM fails to account for future games.

ICM generally means you should fold a massive range to opponents shoves on bubbles, what this means is your opponents can shove any two profitably purely because you can hardly ever call according to ICM. However they can only do this if they know you will fold most of the time, all of a sudden if they know you will call lighter, then they are also putting themselves at risk which means that if you call them lighter in one or two tournaments then they should start shoving a bit tighter in future games. This is especially true in small player pool SNGs / MTTs where you play the same players a lot and have a lot of history on the bubble against ICM players. If they adjust correctly to your lighter calls then you should find yourself getting a few more walks, this can be worth making a slightly marginal call and giving up some small equity in earlier SNGs in order to realise extra equity in future ones.

Don't worry about making precise overly complex calculations based on unrealistic assumptions

So bearing all this in mind is it worth bothering with ICM at all? Well despite all I have said I believe it is. Despite its flaws, ICM is the most accurate mathematical model currently available for poker tournaments. It gives a good approximation and can help players achieve a better understanding of calling ranges when near the money. It is clearly better than just using chip EV.

That said I would never actually go to the trouble of working an ICM calculation out myself, as some players do when looking back at a hand and deciding whether to they made the correct decision on a marginal call. If the decision isn't obvious without calculating it then the calculation itself is likely to be marginal enough that given the assumptions made the results themselves won't be reliable. Instead I will look at the hand and the context to decide whether it is worth the risk. For example if I have 25bb and have a good loose player with a big stack who has position on me than I am usually keen to get away from a 25bb stack so I am more likely to make a marginal call etc. Also in turbos or if the stacks are shallower I am more likely to make a marginal call. In good structured events I am more risk averse when I feel I have an edge over the field and have a playable stack.

It is more the principle behind ICM that is important than the actual calculations in my opinion. You need to be aware that you usually should be calling with a smaller range than cEV would suggest when near the bubble due to the loss of equity when losing the hand being more than the gain in equity when winning the hand. Providing you bear this in mind when making decisions you shouldn't need to do heavy ICM calculations unless you play in super tough games. People who calculate ICM and treat it as an exact science may be making the incorrect decisions on occasions due to incorrect assumptions.

The same is true whenever doing any mathematical calculation, make sure you are aware of the assumptions and put the results into context based on how realistic the assumptions are, otherwise you may draw the wrong conclusion from those calculations. Sometimes you don't even need to calculate precise results if you understand the principles behind a theory. Hopefully that is a relief to all you non maths people!

Success!

Well I suppose it's been a while since I have written a completely happy blog post. Well lots of good things have happened in the last couple of weeks so I thought it was only right that after hearing a lot of my moans that I share various bits of good news!

New Pro Alert!

Undoubtedly the best recent news was announced at the start of PKR live. In case you missed it (where have you been?) PKR have announced a new pro, who is none other than Eleanor 'Elz442' Gudger. I found out a few days before the announcement and of course I was really pleased for Elz and we had a celebratory drink (or two!). Since the announcement several people have asked me if I am jealous or otherwise tried to belittle me due to the fact that my partner is now a sponsored pro whereas I am not. I found these remarks laughable, I am not really the jealous type but even if I was I can't think of anyone who deserves to be a PKR Pro more then Elz, that includes myself. If PKR has asked me to chose whether I or Elz should be their next pro then I would have said Elz without a moment's hesitation. Congratulations and the very best of luck Eleanor!

Elz442 - The latest addition to the PKR Pro Team!

 

Foxes Achieve Promotion

While I was on holiday in Malta, Leicester City mathematically confirmed promotion back to the English Premier League after a 10 year absence. It's been fully deserved with a hungry young squad playing consistently well this year, hopefully we will continue to do so for the next 6 games and wrap up the Championship title (although as I write this we are losing 2-0 to Brighton!). Hopefully we will make a good fight of life in the EPL and survive our first season and stay there for years to come, although I do enjoy life in the Championship as it is such a competitive and unpredictable league, the EPL is where the top clubs are so naturally I want to see Leicester play the big clubs week in week out. Congratulations to all at Leicester, including the manager, players, other staff, the owner and the loyal fans, looking forward to next season already!

Next seasons fixtures are released on 18th June, looking forward to it already!

PKR Live

The last weekend in March saw another instalment of PKR Live at Aspers in Stratford. This time it was a $500 buyin mix max event, which meant it was 9 handed on day 1, 6 handed on day 2 and the last 16 players would play HU on day 3 until there was a victor. Starting stack was 20,000 chips with 40 minute levels. I was looking forward to this event as I felt my shorthanded and HU play would give me an edge against the general field if I could get deep.

Day 1 started well enough, I didn't recognise anyone on my starting table (one guy was familiar but I couldn't put a name to his face). I managed to win a number of small / medium pots early on and I increased my stack to 28k. We reached the 3rd level when an opponent (with about 27k) raised from mid position to 350 (at 75/150) and the cut-off (about 19k) called. I had 46ss in the SB and called, everyone else had folded. The flop fanned out Js5d3d to give me the open ended straight draw with a backdoor flush draw. I checked, the original raiser bet 450 and the cut-off called, and I followed suit, the turn was the Ks giving me the flush draw. I checked again and the original raiser bet 850 and again was met with two calls. The river was the 8s meaning I had hit my flush, at this point I fell the cut-off was unlikely to call another bet nor would he bluff if he had a busted diamond draw.  I also couldn't be sure that the original raiser would fire again, I think he would check most of his range except for sets and maybe KJ given that there were two players calling him down. As such I decide to lead out for 2,100 as I felt this would get called most of the time as it would look like a busted flush draw, indeed the original raiser called and the cut-off folded and I scooped the pot. Although I won the hand I think I made a mistake as I should have bet 3,000 to 3,500 as this wouldn't have changed the chance of me being called much and so I lost around 1k of value. This highlights an important lesson to review all your hands and not just the ones you lose as often you can win a hand but still have made a mistake somewhere.

I stayed at that table for a while and steadily chipped up to 45k but sadly the table broke and this left me at a much tougher table with a few PKR players who I knew including LockeLamora, zOMGhangover and Marlinmann. I ended the day with 40,200 which was a bit of a disappointment given my start but it left me with 25bb to start day 2 and given I hadn't had any big starting hands after the first 3 levels (nothing better than AJo and 88) I couldn't complain too much. After all I had never made a day 2 of a PKR Live before.

Off to a great start

You can view more PKR Live Mixed Max photos on Facebook

Day was 6 handed and there were 73 players left with 24 paid, my table was relatively passive for 6 max and I got a number of walks which suited me as I was really card dead but I kept chipping away but still in need of a big pot to get above average. PKR Pro Scott Shelley moved to my table and I soon found a spot to 3 bet jam over his button open to which he folded. I lost a couple of smaller pots after this while trying to steal but soon after I got involved in my first all-in of the tournament, I 3 bet shoved AJo over Scott's open and this time he called with KJ, I flopped the Ace to look safe but the turn brought a King which left me needed to fade another King on the turn, which I managed to do to double up. I tried to keep active but was really struggling due to getting a large amount of junk. I got a table move with about 31 players left and expected the pace to slow down however the bust-outs kept on coming and we soon got into the money where I had a healthy but not great stack. Eleanor moved to my table and after a while I 3 bet shoved 99 over her open, she called with KJ and I somehow won a flip against her to double up. Soon after we had the last bust-out of the day which meant there was 16 of us left so I won a 30k pot on the last hand to bag up 136,00 for the final day, again I was largely pleased with my play throughout given I had been involved in only 2 all in showdowns throughout the tournament and the biggest pair I had seen on day 2 was JJ.

Day 3 saw me play a heads up match against Jake, who I had played with towards the end of day 1. He had played aggressive and had floated out of position with 63o on a 999 flop and hit his 3 on the river to beat 22. This meant I had to be prepared to get it in light if I thought he was going to take the same aggressive lines heads up but I always thought he might be more cautious as he knew I had seen his play and we were quite shallow. As I only had 22.5bb and he had 27.5bb there wasn't much room for play although the blinds were not increasing during each HU round. I actually started well enough, and had a slight chip lead until Jake hit a straight on the river of a QJxx8 board with T9 and he shoved the river which meant I had to fold my top pair and that gave him a 2-1 chip advantage. I shoved a number of hands to try and get back in it but the first genuine hand I found in the match was KQs which lost to Jake's A8o. I was a little disappointed not to make it through but shallow HU matches which are even in ability are always going to be decided by luck. Jake had played well so I had no grudges at him getting through. Whichever of us got through would have to play Danshreddies HU starting with a 2-1 deficit so even if I made it through to the last 8 it would have been very difficult to get past Dan as he is a very good player who eventually finished 2nd and was unlucky not to win the whole thing. I finished equal ninth for $1,602 which I was happy enough with.

I jumped into the £35 triple shootout, I love shootout tournaments and I made it to the final round and ITM in fairly straight forward fashion. The standard was terrible as most players didn't understand correct shootout play and I was stealing at every opportunity. The blinds were going up fast and with 7 left on the final table I shoved AQ with 12bb stack from the button. The small blind asks the dealer for a count and eventually called with his 12bb stack and tabled AK, his hand held and I was very annoyed at his slow roll. I was left with exactly 1 ante but as is the way of tournament poker I somehow spun that up to be chip-leader with 4 left (due to a lot of luck and getting a lot of incorrect folds from my opponents). 4 handed I lost 77 to 77 when my opponent hit a 4 flush to leave me back down to 3bb which I promptly shoved with 24o in the SB, the BB called with A5o but I hit a 2 to double up. Soon after we were all even in stacks and agreed to do a 4 way chop. I agreed to do a chop as the stacks were shallow, the blinds fast and my image by this point meant I was going to struggle to keep stealing blinds so my edge was small. I wanted to keep it friendly and everyone got £415 which would cover a chunk of their expenses for the weekend.

I went and railed Dan who was HU with Jeff Kimber for the title, which turned out to be a marathon match but sadly Dan lost a couple of flips but did the PKR fans proud. Well played to Jeff also who kept his cool and played a very good game despite most the rail cheering for Dan. I think the PKR Mixed Max was a good format that needed a couple of tweaks to stop the HU games being a lottery early on and then marathons in the later rounds. Staring the blinds a bit lower at the begining of each round but having them go up every 30 minutes would have been ideal IMO. The next PKR Live is in Cannes sometime in October, I don't know if I will make this due to work commitments in early October but I will be there if I can.

This weekend I will be playing at the local Grosvenor Casino in Leicester, where there is a 25/25 event which has a £220 buyin and £25k GTD prize-pool. Hopefully I can keep up the recent form and get a good cash on home soil :)

P.S. Leicester lost 4-1, but at least they confirmed promotion before getting slaughtered!

Come On You Foxes!

Well I am trying to keep up my promise of writing more than I have of late, although there isn't much I can tell you of interest, it still feels like I am only playing with 2 cards against the 7 of my opponents! 

I went to the local casino in Leicester on Friday, mainly for a few beers and a bit of fun more than anything. I played the £25 tournament and had a yo-yo stack throughout before finishing in 12th place with 8 paid (although they did a deal to pay 10 places in the end!). I played well and was picking up chips but every time I got into a big crucial pot I lost and found myself short again.

Anyway after I bust I went to play some £1/£1 cash as the standard is normally bad although it is very high variance due to the players there. I sat down with 120bb and didn't get involved in any big pots for nearly 2 hours. I did however share the same table as Anthony Knockeart, who is a French footballer currently playing for Leicester City. Last season he scored an injury time winner for us against Nottingham Forest to get us into the play-offs at the very last second. However in the play-offs he missed a last minute penalty that resulted in us missing out on the play-off final. He is very highly thought of at Leicester and things are going a lot better this year for The Foxes!

Knockeart celebrating after scoring late winner versus Forest!

When I first sat down I thought it was him but was unsure as I expected him to be in France as Leicester didn't have a match last weekend and I know he often goes home to see his family. It wasn't too long though before he started talking to his friend in French who called him Anthony and confirmed who he was. We didn't really talk much (I don't like to bother celebrities when they are not in their work environment) although he did ask me what time the Arsenal v Everton game was at as he was going to watch it (this was about 2am when he asked, the game kicked off at 12:45 the next day).

The table was a typical live casino table where there would often be several limpers in a pot preflop, and occasionally one of the two French players would open to 17x or even more!  So 2 hours in and I had a tight image mainly as there was little value in trying to bluff anyone as they rarely folded, in fact I was yet to win a pot. I pick up A6o on the cut-off and with 4 or 5 limpers in front I chuck a £1 chip in, the button and blinds all call. The flop is K64r and it checks to me so I bet and the button raises, it folds back to me and I decide to call as I have seen the button get overly aggro and bluffy. The turn bring a T and I check, he bets fairly big (about 75% of the pot) and I call. The river is a nasty looking Q so I again check. He fires a big bet and I decide to call as I have seen him bet big as a bluff and smaller when he has a hand. I win the pot and it remained the only big pot I got involved in until a couple of hands before I was going to leave (about 5am) when I get A4s in MP, there are a couple of callers so I decide to call (it is always a mistake to raise these type of hands in these games IMO). The flop is a good looking AT4, it checks to me, I bet and get one caller. The turn brings the Ks so I now have the nut flush draw as well, my opponent check calls my bet and the river brings another Ace. He checks and I bet fairly big (thinking he likely has the other Ace and will pay me off). He calls and I table A4 for a full house, he waits for about  5 to 10 seconds then turns his hand over to also show A4. Needless to say I wasn't entirely happy about it but I ended the session with profit even after deducting the tournament buyin. This was despite not having any premium hands (my best pair was 33 in over 4 hours and I had AQo once) on a loose calling station table with a chunky rake.

I have a few live tournaments lined up in the next month or so, this weekend I am heading off to Sheffield to play a side event at the Genting Poker Series (sadly work commitments mean I can't get the Friday off to play the main GPS event). On the last weekend in March I will be playing the PKR Live Mix Max at Aspers in London, I am hoping to do better than I have done at previous PKR Lives but given my recent form I am not banking on it. On the weekend 11th - 13th April there is a Grosvenor 25/25 event at Leicester which I intend to play (given it is in my hometown it would be rude not too!). Then on 13th - 15th June there is a PKR meetup in Southend on Sea, which is always a lot of fun. If you haven't been to a PKR meet before and are considering it then I highly recommend you do. After that I may head off to Vegas, although this isn't certain yet. With any luck I will be able to add to my live record in one or more of these events, but more important is that I can play well!

Crazy Golf and drinking are on the agenda again for Southend on Sea!

Lastly it looks like Leicester City are destined for a return to the Premier League next season, they have a good lead over 3rd place, hopefully March and April will be a good time for foxes all round! Maybe the next time I write a blog it will be about a good live score and The Foxes having confirmed promotion :) 

Long Overdue Vegas Report (Of Sorts!)

Well I am back (sort of!). It has been 10 months since my last blog post, and while I always knew the frequency of my blogs would reduce over time I didn't think I would go this long in-between entries. There are a couple of main reasons for this; first of all, I don't want to write posts if I think they are either going to be boring or repetitive. The past year or more has been terrible for me poker wise, certainly 2013 was the worst poker year I have had in several years, yes I had a few decent results but generally poor luck and some poor play cost me a lot in 2013. However the poor results on the felt have been more than compensated by events in my personal life, where Eleanor moved to Leicester to live with me, and more recently we have bought a house together. Clearly all of these events always had an impact on the amount of poker I have been playing and also my lack of time to commit to write any blogs.

I visited Vegas last summer and on my return I had drafted out some details for a trip report but I never got around to completing it. However I did have some details on the first few tournaments I played, so I have decided to post the notes I did make, although they aren't as comprehensive as I would like they may still make some interesting reading for some of you, while helping me get back into blogging!

For my trip to Vegas in 2013, I had no plans to play any World Series events due to an online downswing and life commitment I didn’t feel like stumping up $1k+ for a high variance event. The Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza (DSE) events have lower buy-ins and offer pretty good structures while still having a decent prize-pool.

The first event I played was a $400 DSE event, starting with 12,000 chips and 40 minute blinds, this was a 2 day event, I started off playing tight while I got settled and analysed the players. I got some value with a few hands and picked good spots to bluff and won a couple of big pots with big hands to put me up to 120,000 chips and in a commanding position. After that everything went wrong, I lost an 80k pot with AQs in the SB against the big blind’s AK shortly followed by losing a 90k flip with JJ v AQ, I managed to chip up a little with some squeeze shoves to get back to about 35bb if I recall correctly. 2 hands before the end of day 1 a loose big stack opens and I am in the SB with JJ, I 3 bet to induce a shove from him, he does shove and I snap but he has AK and I lose the race to bust out after 10 hours of play without cashing. I was happy with my play though and it gave me confidence for the rest of the holiday.

The next day was a $600 DSE event, this time with 15,000 chips. My starting table was soft and I was getting maximum value from marginal hands and won a big pot when a short stack shove then an older guy made a huge isolation shove, I looked down at QQ and re-shoved and held against rags and the old guy’s AJ. I amassed a stack of 70,000 after a few levels of play which was still over 100bb and I was confident of another deep run. Our table then broke and with the blinds at 400/800/a50 I get dealt AK, which is a very problematic hand for me in recent months, I have a very poor record winning with it or beating it. However, this doesn’t mean that I shy away from it when I believe it is in good shape, in this hand I get 40k in the middle against a young player and brick against his JJ. A short while later I run 99 into a short stacks TT and lose, finding myself back to the starting stack, which is now just 15bb.

AK has caused me a lot of pain in 2013!

I find TT UTG and shove, UTG + 1 3 bets, UTG + 3 4 bet shoves and the button then 5 bet shoves, UTG + 1 tanks and eventually folds and shows KK (as action had been completed). By this time I know my TT is crushed but if I can win the hand I would be well chipped up, the cards go on their backs and I am up against QQ and AA, somehow I hit my ten and get back to 42k. Pretty sick live hand to see AA, KK, QQ and TT all dealt, made even more so when I spiked my set, I was grateful for the reprieve and went to work building my stack up to 100k without showdowns. At this stage this was about 33bb and there were 47 of us left (36 paid). I was stuck between some big stacks who were playing well and I was unable to win any big pots, any steal attempts I tried failed. I decided the best approach was just to play hands for value until the bubble burst  and when we made it into the money I had 18bb. About half an hour later I open shoved A6o on the button and got called by the big blind who had pocket 3s, I lost the flip and was left with just 1,500 chips, at this point the blinds were 2,500/5,000/a500 so I had less than a SB or just 3 antes. Next hand I was all in blind and had AQ which won versus 99 and I then pushed K2h and beat AJ and before I knew it I had 100k again. We got to the last hand of the night and I had 80k ish at 3,000/6,000/a500, but this would only be 10bb going into tomorrow. UTG + 1 min opened to 12k and the cut-off and button called, they all had medium size stacks and I looked down at T9d and decided it was a great spot to squeeze shove as there was a good chance the players wouldn’t want a big dent to their stacks on the last hand. The initial raiser folded but the cut-off called, the button folded and the cut-off flipped JQh. I flopped the 9 and won the hand, the initial raiser moaned he had folded a good ace and would have won the hand (there was an ace on the flop) and the QJh guy complained about his bad luck, but I think his call was a very poor one with his stack size and one player left to act. The result was I had 194,000 chips to go into day 2 with 23 players left and $42k for the winner.

My table for day 2 began remarkably soft considering how deep we were in the tourney, the big stack was on my right but he soon got moved to another table and I chipped up to 250k without showing my cards. I then look down at AKc and min raise UTG to 16k (my standard) it folds to the SB who shoves 220k in, the BB folds and I snap call. He flips over KQhh. The flop comes A73 with one heart so I just need to fade runner runners, the turn brings the 9h and the river is the Jh and he scoops the half a million pot and takes the chip lead and I am left with just 4bb and feeling pretty crushed. I spin the 4bb up to 15bb then lose TT v AQ and bust in 17^th for just short of $2k.

I had definitely had a roller coaster ride during the tournament and could easily have busted earlier than I did on a few occasions, but also lost a couple of big pots with AK. If I had won that half million pot that I am pretty sure I would have made the final table with a good chip stack and with $42,000 for the winner who knows what might have happened, I also could have busted before we reached the money and won exactly zero!. That is the way of MTTs, they are usually a case of fine lines and ifs and maybes.

I avoid roller-coasters at theme parks but can't avoid them at the poker tables!

I was extremely pleased with my play and was happy to bag my first cash of the trip and was eager to hit the felt again and after hour or so for some food I jumped into a $250 bounty event, which was a much faster 1 day event with $25 bounties, I busted before the money but managed to recover some of my buyin after busting a few players.

The next day I played a $500 event which had the same structure as the $600, my starting table was quite tight and I was chipping up slowly up to about 21.5k without any big pots of note. I did witness a bizzare hand where an old guy and a young kid where HU with a 3k pot by the river, the kid bet 7,500 on the river and the old guy shoved for 100 more and the kid snap folded leaving himself 200 chips! Following that I got dealt JJ and opened and got 3 bet by a middle aged guy in the blinds who had seemed fairly tight, I didn’t fancy 4 betting here as I felt he wasn’t 3 betting that wide and was unlikely to fold, but I had the odds to setmine so I called. The flop came down TT2 and the guy bet out pretty big and it felt like he had a bigger pair than mine, so I folded and he showed QQ. I don’t understand why tight players show their hands, surely if you are playing tight you need to get paid so showing that you are not bluffing is counterproductive as people will believe you. Showing would only make sense if you were planning to bluff later on. I then win with Aces v Queens to give me some room to play, I then 3 bet a guy with JJ, I had been raising him quite a lot and I guess he decided he had had enough of me raising him and he 4 bet shoved A2o, I called and held and went up to 60k and then struggled when a couple of aggro players moved to the table and went to the dinner break with 50k. After some food I pick up QQ and get one caller from the BB, the flop is J92 and he bets I raise and he calls, the turn brings a 4 and he shoves, I call to find out he has 94 and he holds which left me with 30k (~20bb). I manage to get a cold 4 bet shove through with T8s, with the original raiser claiming to have folded AK. We get down to about 65 left with 54 paid and I have just over 11bb and find 65h on the cutoff which I open shove into Aces, the flop is 4h5s7h giving me a lot of outs but I brick and bust after 11 hours with no return.

The rest of the trip wasn't too fruitful for me, I managed 10th in a $240 6 max at Caeser's for about $700 (shoving A7 and losing to JTo) but after that I didn't make any impression on any tournaments, but of course enjoyed myself in Vegas!

Well I hope that wasn't too painful to digest, I spent a long time debating whether to post this or not before finally deciding to. Until next time, I hope you all have good fortune on and off the felt!

The 'D' Word

The observant ones amongst you (hopefully most of you are observant since you are poker players) will have noticed that I haven't written a blog entry for a while, it has been about 10 weeks since I last posted. A few of you have commented on how you enjoy these blogs so for you I am sorry that I haven't posted recently, there are a couple of reasons for this, mainly I am on a sickening downswing at the moment with no end in sight and also I do not have anything concrete that I want to write about at the moment (I find it a lot harder to write about strategy when on a downswing as it is so much easier to doubt every decision you make).

As such this is only a short blog entry which contains no strategy and probably a lot of moaning, if this isn't you cup of tea, feel free to stop reading and do something more productive with your time, I won't hold it against you :)

On 7th February I won an MTT for a $700, but since then (as at time of writing on 2nd April) I have been on a terrible downswing and had only 6 cashes over $100 and none over $300, considering the number and buyin of MTTs I play this is bordering on a crisis and it certainly has affected me at times. I have been through a couple of major downswings before but this is worse than both of them, nothing is going right, I am winning very few flips and having lots of hands cracked while missing my own draws etc. There is also an element of sub-standard play on my part which is partly responsible but variance is being cruel to me on a constant basis, there is little point in me listing some of the hands that I have suffered in, suffice to say it can't get any worse. On top of the poker problems  my laptop died and I lost all my hand histories and had to purchase a new machine and start with blank poker tracker databases (my own fault for not backing HHs up I suppose, lesson learnt!)

 

I have tried different things to end the swing, taking a break has never really worked for me, although I had an online break during a lovely week in Malta I still played a live MTT once a night in which I also ran horribly. I have tried varying my style but tightening right up hasn't helped since I seem to get very few value hands and when I do they either get zero action or get cracked, playing looser hasn't helped as I pick up a couple of small pots then repeatedly get played back at by people who call then smash flops for fun. At the moment I am max 2 tabling to try and focus more on each table and I think this is helping my game a little but it is not resulting in any better results but in a way it is increasing my frustration as I am active in fewer hands than usual and also feeling the effect of busting more, but it is helping stem the tide in terms of monetary losses. The next option to try will be to move down stakes, but this brings its own challenges with bigger fields and faster structures I can't guarantee any success there either but I will persevere and aim to play my best every time I play which is all I can do.

When in a downswing it is very easy to feel down about the game but in terms of my quality of life overall, I have it very good, I have a very lovely and supportive girlfriend (who has seen my bad side due to poker run bad) and I have a roof over my head, am relatively healthy, I am debt-free and I have a job and have all the mod cons in life, I wouldn't give any of those up to end my downswing and so this should put perspective on poker. It can be hard to realise this when playing poker is a large portion of you spare time as it seems so important but we can't control the fall of the cards but we can control our lives and our decisions at the poker table, our main priority should always be on the quality of our lives and those of our loved ones, anything above this is a bonus, if I can remember this rule while playing and being beaten to a bloody pulp by variance then I should be able to play my A game and will come out of the other side no matter how dark and long the tunnel may feel, hopefully my next entry will be a more cheerful one, if you read to the end, thank you very much for listening to me whine!


There are more important things in life than poker like loved ones, family and friends.