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.

 

 

Casino Live MTTs

I know a few of my readers like to play in live poker MTTs at local casinos and I admit to liking the occasional punt in them as well. However these play differently to online games and it isn’t an area I have covered or seen covered anywhere so I decided to write a short article giving some general tips from my past experiences of these games. As with any article you read or video you watch you should not take this advice as gospel since the most important skill in poker is to be able to adapt to your current dynamics, with that word of caution heeded, there may be some pointers in here that help you with your casino donkaments.

Will you get lucky?

 

First off I will define what I class as a casino tournament; it may or may not be in a casino (but it usually is), more important than the venue is the buyin which is typically anything from a £5 rebuy up to £50 (or even £100) and the blind levels are quite short (15 to 20 minutes). The main player pool will be entirely recreational players who mostly see poker as another form of gambling, these events usually start in the middle of the evening and are finished in the early hours of the morning.

It can help you tremendously to do some fact finding before you even register to the tournament, particularly if you have never played at the venue before. Some things to try and find out include:

• The structure
• What is the starting stack?
• How long are the levels (do they stay the same length throughout or do they go from say 30 minutes to 20 minutes after the break?)
• Are there any rebuys, is it a triple chance?
• Are they likely to be lots of levels missing?
• Are re-entries allowed?
• Are there cash games that start soon after the MTT has started
• Are deals likely?
• How flat is the payout structure?

All of this information gathered beforehand can sway your decision in a marginal spot, maybe you are deciding whether to make a huge river call, if there is re-entry then the call is more favourable as you can re-enter but also your opponent is more likely to have a wider range as they can also re-enter. The faster the blinds the more you will need to gamble, you should always be aware of the next blind level in casino games as it is not uncommon to go from 100/200 to 200/400 for example which slashes your effective stack in half and you can go from 30bb to 15bb without realising if you are not paying attention and this often means you should me more inclined to push marginal spots towards the end of the 100/200 level that you may not if there is a 150/300 level. If there are cash games running some players use the MTT as a time filler until the cash action starts so will gamble more once the cash table is open.

With flatter payouts you can generally call a little wider in the end game as well but also should not be open shoving quite as much. This is due to the fact that people are more likely to gamble with flatter payouts as they aren’t so aware of big pay jumps which often bring out a tendency to play tighter.

Once the game has started listen to table chat as often you can pick up info on players, maybe they are new or they might be a regular talking about their win last week. You will identify who knows each other and might find out things about their playing style before seeing it in a hand. Of course a lot of the table chat at these tables can be quite annoying but it can still be useful if you can tolerate it.

Try to spot who the complete fish are, who are regulars that are maybe at least a little competent, those that are there to last as long as possible and playing very tight and also see if there are any real good players. See who is drinking and who is on coffee etc as those drinking alcohol are more likely to be 'gambling' as a general rule.

Early on in these MTTs it is usually hard to isolate players as any raise will get numerous callers so generally I find it best to limp in with a wide range of hands to utilise my skill edge and get value postflop, generally bluff very little but value bet hard as you will get called down by a lot of hands, people will pay over the odds to chase their draw so make them pay as much as possible but always be wary when the draw hits. This approach means you will see lots of flops without paying too much with the chance of winning a big pot if you hit and can value town a calling station. As the blinds go up rather quickly the cost of a few bb in the first level may only be 1bb in a couple of levels time so the loss of a few calls is not always that significant.

In these games players tend to be very showdown orientated, that is they want to show their cards on the river so they won’t usually bet with a wide range of hands, nor will they turn medium strength hands into a bluff. This usually means that they will have a polarised range when they bet the river so your top two pair hand may effectively be the same as top pair against their range, this point is even more apparent if you are the aggressor on the river and they raise your bet, this will often be completely polarised to air or the nuts, more likely the nuts depending on the type of player.

Look out for sizing tells, often players will raise a larger amount with hands like JJ, AK as they are scared to see the flop and the size of their bets can help you narrow down their ranges, of course if there is not a lot of raising you will not have a decent sample size to judge this on but if you are in a marginal spot a little bit of guesswork in this regard can help you make the right decision.

As the blinds start to increase it becomes easier to steal preflop, particularly if you are getting close to the money. Even when you get called it is often only by one or two players and c-betting at the right times will help you accumulate chips whereas c-betting in the first couple of levels will rarely get through. Don’t be afraid to shove your stack in as you will be surprised how much fold equity you can have against the same players who were seeing every flop in the first hour. One big weakness of these casino standard players is they do not pay attention to their stack sizes so they will make very bad decisions such as calling for half their stack preflop then folding the flop so don’t assume they are pot committed as they won’t necessarily understand that concept. They will also setmine for large portions of their stack even with baby pairs.

To wrap up in one sentence, play small ball poker preflop in the early stages and gradually increase the aggression as the blinds go up and your opponents start to tighten up.

Remember your opponents may well be playing 'Poker Roulette'

 A word of caution regarding these types of games; be prepared for lots of ugly beats, most people there play with no knowledge of stack sizes or pot odds etc and just want to gamble in the same way as they might gamble at roulette. Don’t berate these players as it is important to keep the poker economy going and abusing players can only serve to put them off poker, you want them to make mistakes and you should accept it will happen, the bigger mistakes your opponent makes then the uglier the beat will look when it happens. The variance in these games is astronomical as they have a fast structure, with showdown type players and you are single tabling. Having said that, they can be good fun and profitable (depending on the rake etc) but should not be treated to seriously. As always, have fun and good luck!

2012 Short Review

Hi all, I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year to you all, may it bring you lots of luck on the felt.

I am not one for landmarks in time, I am not overly fussed by birthdays or new year but nonetheless the ticking over of the calendar from one year to the next is a good opportunity to review the previous year and to try and put some thoughts together for the upcoming year as such I am going to write a short blog recapping 2012.

I started this blog in 2012 and I have had a few positive comments regarding it, I thank you for those comments as it seems to me that I have given a few readers food for thought and provided different angles to consider which was my main aim (admittedly this was more for me to consolidate my thoughts on things rather than help others but if you are prepared to read my blog than I suppose you deserve a little something in return!). I think the blog has helped have a positive effect on me and my game and I intend to carry on with it in 2013 so please give me feedback as to what articles you like, what you would like further explanations on where I didn’t explain something to well and also any ideas for topics you may want me to write about. I am planning my next article to be on live casino donkaments where the structures are bad and the players are worse, this was inspired by my recent trip to Southend on Sea with a few PKR players for a meetup and crushage of the locals J

Poker was very much up and down for me in 2012, the highlight definitely being winning 2 live MTTs at the now closed Fox Poker Club, both for £4k scores, I also had 2 other final table scores for £1k a piece there around the same time.  Now that the Fox has closed it is going to be a bit more difficult to play live poker regularly but I will try to play a couple of the Genting Poker Series events and of course there will be PKR Live in London over Easter. If you have never been to a PKR Live before then I highly recommend you try to qualify, even if you haven’t played any live poker before you will still enjoy the experience.

I also highly enjoyed Vegas (of course!) but didn’t feel the best out there and didn’t get any results, however I plan to return this year but will probably focus more on the non WSOP events such as the Venetian Deep Stack simply because they are better structured than the $1,500 WSOP events although I may play the odd WSOP event depending on how the schedule looks and how I feel at the time.

The back end of 2012 has been hell for me poker-wise, I have been generally running horribly with the odd exception in a MTT here or there which has kept me going. It just seems at times that no matter how I play a hand I end up losing and in recent weeks I have felt myself getting extremely frustrated and this is definitely a step back for me as I have improved tremendously in this regard in recent months but the onslaught of bad luck has brought me to tipping point. I have been getting destroyed repeatedly by people limp calling out of position for large chunks of their stack preflop only for them to smash the flop. I’ve been calling someone down with a weak hand as I know they are bluffing only for them to spike a three outer on the river, I get it in with AK and lose to a weaker Ace and all manner of bad luck imaginable.  I know I am not the world’s unluckiest player (far from it) and that this kind of thing is very common but it is still frustrating, especially when you see a lot of players seemingly get the right side of variance all too often.

It’s not all been bad luck though, I have made more mistakes in the past few weeks than I can remember for a long time and what hurts the most is the rare times in the past few weeks where I have ran OK or well in an MTT I have frequently blown up in a hand when deep and made a huge error. Basically I have been trying to force spots where I shouldn’t be and making bad calls where I am capable of folding. Ironically in the past few weeks I have had hands like JJ/QQ a number of times in spots where the action tells me I am behind to KK or AA yet I have not folded and this was exactly the same situation that I discussed in an earlier blog entry on luck and how running bad often leads to not playing your A-game and making mistakes in those marginal spots, I have been calling too light against the wrong players on numerous occasions in spots where I knew I was dominated and this is a leak I will working on as it is something I thought I had fixed previously but the bad run seems to have meant that this has crept back into my game.

Stupid Foxy!!

I have been dwelling too much on individual hands, certainly far more than is healthy; either bemoaning luck or getting frustrated at myself for making a mistake, while analysing mistakes is an essential tool to improve your game, it rarely does any good during a session and it is important to shed the negative thoughts away to maximise your chances of playing your A-game in the next hand and the one after that and so on, I am not doing this at the moment so it is no surprise that the run-bad is still continuing. All of this run-bad has built up and is hanging over my neck so even just one or two beats into a session and I am already frustrated, the best cure for this is usually a nice win but obviously that is easier said than done and other than that a break or a change until the baggage is gone or at least greatly reduced is usually the only viable option. Just writing the issues out here will help me refocus and hopefully bring me a win in the near future J

Anyway, that is enough of the negativity, I am sure that if I can improve and bring my A-game often enough during 2013 then it will end profitably, it certainly will do for Elz who has already bagged herself a PKR Masters title, huge congratulations!

Nice payday Elz!

Target Amount

Odds

Poker is a mixture of Mathematics and Psychology, while the latter is quite qualitative and based on judgements, the maths side is usually a lot more black and white. Therefore learning the maths side of poker can help to improve your game. The majority of the maths involved in poker revolves around odds and there are plenty of articles on Outs, Pot Odds and Implied Odds which you should familiarise yourself with if you haven’t already.

I don’t like to write about topics that have been covered to death and written better than I could hope to, so I am going to briefly talk about a couple of related concepts that I use rather than using Pot Odds or Implied Odds, these may or may not help but I always think it’s useful to look at things from a different angle, I will try to keep the maths to a minimum but some is required!

Maximum Return

One thing you can always do is calculate your Maximum Return; that is the maximum amount you can win from a pot if everyone still in the hand at that point went all in. Let us say we are on the cut-off with 18bb and it is folded to us, before blinds were posted the button has 12bb, the SB has 22bb and the BB has 17bb, assuming no antes in play our Maximum Return is 12bb + 18bb + 17bb = 47bb (we can only win 18bb from the SB since we only have 18bb ourselves). Even in a dream scenario where everyone behind us went all in and we won the pot we would only show 47bb profit and of course this is extremely unlikely, for example, if the button folds preflop our MR drops to 35bb.

Taking another scenario we are in a pot which is on the flop and there is already 12bb in the pot, we have 20bb behind and have a 22bb and a 13bb stack still involved in the hand, here our MR is 12bb + 20bb + 13bb = 45bb.

Maximum Return is useful as it is a definite known quantity which may help us quickly identify that we are not getting the implied odds required as there are not enough chips in play to make it ever worth chasing that flush draw.

Target Amount

All these different numbers and definitions can be confusing but when involved in a hand and making an odds decision I usually calculate things in a slightly different way than Pot and Implied Odds, I call this Target Amount (TA) and I will give an example to demonstrate how I might do this as this will make it clearer than any explanation could.

I am dealt ThJh on the button and a TAG player opens from early position, we have reached the turn and the board read AhQd2h 7s, the pot is 2,000 and we both have 8,000 behind, the TAG player bets 1,500 on the turn, what is the best move here? Well if I call and miss my flush and straight draws on the river I am folding and investing nothing else in the pot, I am also going to rule out raising (although that may be a valid play in some circumstances I am ruling it out here for illustration) so our options here are either to call or fold, if we make our draw we will try to get value on the river, if we miss we will fold.

It costs me 1,500 to call here, to make things easier I am going to assume we know the villain has AcKc so I have 11 outs and this equates to roughly 25%, which means I need to win 3x whatever I call in order to break even (3 to 1 – if you are unsure of how this figure is reached then google the subject and you should find some handy articles to help). This means I need to win a total of 1,500 x 3 = 4,5000 to break even therefore 4,500 is my Target Amount at this point in the hand, note the TA may change at different points in a hand as action unfolds.

As there is 3,500 already in the pot (2,000 plus my opponents 1,500 bet) I need to make at least another 1,000 on the river when I make my hand to hit my target amount and thus for the call to be profitable (do not make the mistake of adding the cost of your call into this equation, you haven’t called yet so it cannot be added into the pot and as such it is not profit).

So the question to ask is if I call this turn bet how likely is it that I can make at least 1,000 on the river when I make my hand. If I call on the turn the pot will be 3,500 + 1,500 = 5,000 so it is reasonable to assume that when I make my hand I can make at least 1,000 on average, e.g. if I bet 2,500 when I make my hand and only get called 50% of the time then in the long run I make 1,250 on the river when I hit my hand, calling the turn therefore is profitable, the river bet of 2,500 is only half the pot and so is a reasonable river bet and the villain has 8,000 behind so it is putting about a third of his stack at risk so he is more likely to feel he can call and still have a playable stack.

Of course if you are playing a good player they may put you on the flush draw and may fold more than 50% of the time to a 2,500 bet so you may not be able to reach that target amount no matter what bet size on the river you choose and so would not be able to call the turn bet, similarly if stack sizes are short you may never be able to reach your Target Amount as your opponent does not have that many chips behind (this is where Maximum Return is used). If in the example above the villain only had 3,000 behind then it is probably going to be much harder to get them to call a value bet when we hit so the TA is harder to make and so calling should be less appealing.

Notice that I didn’t calculate pot odds or implied odds, I looked at how much I had to call and determined what amount I needed to win if I made the call, if this Target Amount is reasonably achievable in the long term then the call can be deemed profitable, this doesn’t always mean it is the best play of course!

In another hand we get dealt pocket deuces in mid position, we have 28bb and UTG + 1 makes it 3bb to go from his 30bb stack. Should we set-mine here? Well we will flop a set 1 in 8 times, so 7 times we lose the value of our call which makes a total of 7 x 3bb = 21bb. This means that the 1 time in 8 that we flop the set we need to make a profit of 21bb just to break even, so we need to make 24bb (since we are putting 3bb in by calling) the original raise was 3bb and there is another 1.5bb in the pot from the blinds, so we need to make a further 24 – 3 – 1.5 = 19.5bb postflop when we flop the set, this is over half of our remaining stack! This means we would need to double up at least 50% of the time we flop our set and this is usually an unrealistic assumption as the original raiser may fold as they missed the board or they may get it in with us but either have a better hand or hit a draw to improve to the better hand. Add this to the fact that if we do flat preflop there is always the chance that someone squeezes and we might not even see a flop. This means we should aim for above our Target Amount (how far above depends on how likely we feel we are to be squeezed off the pot) and so this makes the decision a pretty easy fold if we are purely set mining. Of course we may have reads on the villain that mean we are happy to call here as we know they will always stack off if we hit the set or they never c-bet without a good hand which may allow us to win the pot without a set.

These last 2 or 3 points cannot be quantified and our opponents range may not always be well defined and so there will always be a grey area when it comes to calling based on a Target Amount but it can be a useful guide and as shown above can often illustrate a spot that is a clear fold or a clear call, if you are not confident of making these kind of calculation during a hand then you could even create a spreadsheet with common bet sizes (either in number of blinds or as an amount of the pot, e.g. ½ pot etc) and chances of winning to get grids of target amounts based on typical situations (such as flush draws, small PPs etc) using this you would always have a figure that closely resembles the situation you are in which you could refer to in play to help your decision making. Of course there will always be grey areas and this is where you will need to use your experience to make a decision that may override any calculations you make.

This will probably be my last blog this year so I wish you and your families a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year J

To Flip or not to Flip?

I made the journey to the Fox Poker Club for their main event this weekend and very early on had a hand that I think is worth a little discussion, players often ask whether you would take a flip early on in a tournament to double your stack, usually the response is no as the variance is too high and the double stack is not worth twice as much as a single stack (tournament chips are not linear in value, that is the most valuable chip is your last one as once you lose it you are out, similarly each extra chip you have is worth slightly less than the previous one). For these reasons this refusal to double or nothing early doors is quite a sensible one in my opinion, but poker is not a game of absolutes as the hand I am going to discuss will illustrate.

First off a little background information that is important, the tournament is a 2 day live event with a £400 + £35 buyin and a £10 optional dealer bonus, the starting stack is 25,000 +  2,500 dealer bonus and the blinds start at 25/50 with 45 minute levels. It has quite a good structure and allows 1 re-entry per person for the first 6 levels, it has a guaranteed prizepool of £25,000 and I was expecting around 70 – 80 entrants.

We are in the first level of the tournament having played for about 30 minutes, I am down slightly on my starting stack at around 26k and haven’t yet showdown a hand. In the hand in question UTG opens to 800 (16bb) from a stack of 21.5k and gets two callers from middle position, and it folds to me in the big blind and I look down at AQo. I have played with this villain before and he is very loose and is often busted within the first couple of levels and immediately re-enters, he is quite happy to bluff and gamble and although he is UTG here he doesn’t have to have a big hand. He also varies his raise sizes frequently, generally weaker and monster hands he would be raising slightly less (400-600) and so I was fairly confident that I could narrow his range down and gave him a range of approximately the following QQ-77,ATs+,KQs,AJo+,KQo, I think AA and KK are unlikely here due to the sizing. Against this range I am about 51% so it looks like a good spot to squeeze, however we are 430bb deep and I have also seen the villain get it in with pretty much all of his opening range here so I cannot rely on any fold equity and this also means I am reluctant to 3 bet then fold to this opponent. 

So this spot is basically a question of whether I want to flip or not, if I do then I can raise to around 3k with the intention of getting it in against him although I would have to re-evaluate if one of the other players raises back, if I am just called preflop I will have to re-evaluate but I think this is an unlikely case. If I do not want to get it in here then I can either call out of position or even just fold, even though this seems quite tight the guy will barrel a lot of the time and my life will be difficult out of position 4 way. So I quickly weighed up the pros and cons of 3 betting to get it in here, these are what I saw the cons to be:

1)We are very deep and flipping is high variance

2) I have very little fold equity to add to the EV from flipping

3) It is possible one of the other two players is trapping

4) I might only get calls which will mean I am playing a bloated pot out of position against a loose opponent

5) Doubling my stack is less than twice as good as keeping my stack

  

And the pros:

1) The villain is on my immediate left and is very aggressive making it harder for me to win chips without a decent hand while he is there

2) The structure is good and even if I lose I will have 90bb left to try and work with or gamble

3) It is a re-entry tournament, which increases the chances he will get in when I have him dominated, it also means I can re-enter if I lose and then bust my remaining chips

4) There is 1,600 of likely dead chips in the middle

5) Getting a big stack would allow me to be more aggressive in subsequent hands

6) The villain is likely to gamble off his chips in another hand and this is a chance for me to get them before someone else does

This last point links quite nicely to my previous blog about edge, in particular how our edge changes as the dynamics change and how our edge isn’t as big as it may appear if there are other good players at the table fighting for those chips. Point 6 definitely has a lot of weight here as there were other good players at the table who I didn’t want to get his chips as they would make my life even harder, add this to the fact that my edge over this player is reduced due to me being directly out of position and this edge is going to diminish as the blinds increase. If I had had position on this player then I would have been much more likely to call and assess on the flop.

Taking all this into account within a few seconds I decided to raise to 3k, UTG shoved and the other players folded, I called and flipped my AQ to find he had pocket 8s, I had got 430bb effective in preflop with AQo which may seem crazy but I was happy with it in this spot. Alas, I didn’t catch and ended up down to 4.5k, but after grinding this stack for a while I got back to the starting stack and eventually got well above average when I got it all in with AcAh on 2s4c5h 4h board v Kh3h and my aces held (They do hold sometimes!). I eventually busted on the last level of day 1 after triple barrel bluffing a K high board and getting called down by KQ, this left me around 20bb and soon after I got AK and flatted an UTG open the flop came KQ3 and I called his bet then he checked the brick turn and called my bet, the Ace on the river gave me top two and he put me all in, I called to find he had JT and rivered the stone cold nuts, I had slowplayed preflop and on the flop to try and get value and I did get value but in doing so I ran the risk of him hitting which he did on this occasion. Given my recent run in live games I can’t complain about some misfortune!

In summary, although generally we want to avoid flips when very deep in tournaments, we shouldn’t always shy away from them if there are stronger reasons for flipping than against, it will always hurt to lose big flip early on in a MTT and it increases variance but in the right spots it can increase your $EV, particularly if you can use the big stack well.