Squandered Opportunity in Multi-Table Poker Tournament Part 2

At some point Monkey got moved to my left. Perhaps, it's merely a consequence of going fairly deep a lot, recently, but I can't seem to play a tournament without some Monkey table time. The monkey dial was on charm today, and the rest of the table was enjoying the repartee. One guy folded twice saying he didn't want to bust him and become blog fodder for sucking out on him.

I've said it before, and Will claims it's not a tactic, so I'll call it a gift, but his table banter is dispersed with surgical precision and gets him pots unchallenged. Must make live vs. online Texas Hold 'Em a lot easier. Perhaps this is a big edge for him in live poker and a hurdle he has to clear with online poker where there is just as chatbox. I don't care what anybody says (anonymous bashers on his blog) the guy is as skilled as they come at navigating these types of live fields. There is certainly a talent to slither through danger, to apply pressure when necessary and to do it as successfully as he does. He looked really in the zone (saw on facebook he made the money).

I thought to myself at one point that our table really wasn't making many mistakes. The excitement would come when a couple of big hands would clang into each other and though we were 15 or 20 from the money it felt like we are already on the bubble with cautious preflop play. People were just waiting for a mistake.

I come back from dinner, Sparky and I thinking we had 10 minutes more only to discover seconds on the break clock and rush to my seat. I see an enchanting AQ suited from early/middle position. I fire out a bet, folded to the button, who brusquely announces raise and buts 5k on top.

It's folded back to me. Okay this is a straight forward fold. If I call I'm committing close to half my stack. If I shove he ain't folding and he could have me crushed. I stew. Perhaps, it was the dearth of big hands to see a flop with earlier in the day but something wouldn't let me fold. I freely admitted I had no idea what to do as I counted my chip stack. I sat there and thought about Howard Lederer's concept of leverage and how you can bet just enough to box a person in. Well, this guy had applied leverage and I didn't like being the box. I just didn't feel settled from dinner and knew I had to let go, but I wasn't. Then he kind of verbally challenged me a bit, and like the fish I was I bit.

For a weird reason I called to see the flop. Probably not the right option. I gave myself the opportunity to stop and go... or maybe check fold. Which is probably (excuse me IS) a bad use of my remaining stack. It came Queen high. I check, fully feeling beaten but knowing I'm boxed in a corner. He shoves. I call. I left feeling fairly embarrassed. The guy was new the table and I had no read or information to think my pedestrian AQ was good.

I had this thought that because of his big chip stack and antagonistic behavior he was looking to table bully (let's just say he leveled me and I bought it hook line and sinker), but really when you break it down it was quite simply an egregious mistake on my part just before the cusp of the bubble with a near average chip stack.

Yeah, when I hear my friends getting bad beated left and right, and I'm winning every coin-flip, I know I had a great chance to go deep on this day and donked out like a stooge.


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Squandered Opportunity in Multi-Table Poker Tournament Part 1

Played in event 1 at harrahs. I think there were 212 runners or so. The format and structure, again, left plenty of room for ample play. I found myself second best a couple of times early and missed two mega draws where had I shoved my opponent would have had to call and busted me.

Sometimes in tournaments you just have a feeling it's going to be your day. This feeling hits you early in an online poker tournament. When you play poker tournaments online you can be hitting everything and chipping up and it's obvious... or you can just get in the groove and feel like you will steadily improve and outlast the competition. True running great when you play poker online or live is more fun, but being in the groove can almost be relaxing in a zen like way. In long live tournaments I find the groove more often leads to success. When you are comfortable with your table image in an online poker tournament and you have spots you can attack being settled down is the key to patience.

Then there are days you hit your coin flips. I won five straight, all in on four of them doubling up to a saftey zone with each. That doesn't happen very often to me. When it does it usually goes hand in hand with a deep cash. I was running so good, at one point I pushed with AK getting called by. JJ, I said King ball on the flop to myself and visualized it as the middle card. Splat King of Spades right in the middle of the flop.

When you are having one of those days the key I find is just not making any mistakes. The confidence you have and the repetitive image of you winning pots can help you accumulate chips as opponents opt for folding when they aren't sure.

I didn't get any big pairs today except for pocket queens. Didn't really need them with my coin flip success, and an underrated aspect of running good (or being lucky) stealing and not running into hands.

Early on, I noticed a little bit of a disturbing trend at the table, not disturbing for me but an openess of hand discussion by almost every player. People would analyze how they played a hand, question what everybody had, and then debate whether or not the player was lieing. Normally, there is a little bit of this but for a good solid level or two this was rampant. Sure, I gleaned some nuggets on how people play, but I found the entire conversation kind of boring.

We played those hands we are not trying to garner a consensus here, yeah that was the right play, you thought correctly, pats on the back for everybody, we can sing some campfire songs later, and tease the dealers en masse. We are a happy nine. Not surprisingly there were little in the way of fireworks at the table and we lost people at a snail's pace.

So, on one of those days, those rare days where I'm hitting the hands I need to hit, and I feel I'm going to cruise rather comfortably to a deep finish, we have a dinner break. I dined with Craig Gullung or "Sparky", a friend of Gene's, and we compared notes. I think we share a very similar style and similar strengths. I brought up a tell of one of our table mates and he had spotted it and noticed a subltety that I hadn't picked up--it was the way he casually splashed his chips out with a strong hand--but on his vulnerable ones there was a noticeable hitch.

Sparky has faced some challenges recently and I'm glad that the results have been coming for him in poker. After playing with him for hours... he was the guy that short-stacked me when my draws didn't come, and a perfect river bet to chase off my chasing ways. He seems like a very cerebral player with a knack for knowing where he is in the hand.

So, during action, I participated in the table game of hand analysis, and I was as guilty as the rest of the table as we'd discuss hands with asides and try to put all in players on hands. He caught some hands early, but even after taking a hit or two, seemed to also be on cruise control for the final table.

Dead Money Poker Satellite Table

We played our local dead money satellite poker table in Houma and in Lafayette, LA this past weekend. This satellite puts a player in the World Series of Poker Main Event, and while it isn't wrapped up or resolved as quickly as an online qualifer to something like the Aussie Millions, it's a fun thing to be able to sweat a representative of all of us.

We've had a couple of winners already qualify for the final table, with a Table Captain David Anderson performing his magic again coming into heads up play with huge chip disadvantage and going all the way to the title at the Lafayette table and a good player taking it down in NYC.

In Houma last night GeneD and Dinger got the action started and we had a good game. The Houma table was a battle as The Pool and HotTub King of Houma Robert Dinger dished out the bad beats like they were jacuzzis during a cold snap. 6-4 o/s got him in and out of trouble a few times.

John Price "is Right" and Tim Thompson also battled throughout the night. Yours truly rode a wave of good luck and an ample helping of good cards to navigate the table. I got to heads up action with Shane after Gene and Tim were eliminated in third and fourth place. Both those guys played really well but seemed to be pretty card dead. Twice I watched Gene make the right decision and get punished for it. Sucks when you are having that kind of night.

At heads up everything was still at stake. We had a small cash prize for second, and by small I mean $25, so most of the glory was in first as it tends to be in tournament and sit 'n go poker. Shane was a tricky and smart player. It was hard to put him on hands and his aggression was just the right amount to take down pots without creating a target on his back.

I knew to fear him a little bit when in a battle of the blinds earlier in the night I had JJ and he had QQ. Flop brought an ace and we both put the other on an underpair. He did the betting and I did the calling. He value bet the river and I mulled over an over the top move but lacked the conviction about him not having an ace. The bet was small enough to be weak.

In heads up play, I knew I was fortunate to have position on him because I was on his left. Unfortunately, that only seemed to apply half the time. Wish I could say I got my money in good and it held but quite the opposite was true. Some back story... Earlier I pulled off a bluff by completing from the small blind, him raising me, and then me firing back like I had a monster. He didn't like it.

The critical hand occurred after he took a small chip lead. This time I was in the big blind with A5 o/s a hand I'm not looking to go crazy with and he led out. I stewed and looked at the chips and figured the only way I could win this hand was to shove (yeah that's no crazy Texas Hold 'Em strategy... or as my friend says right before we do something stupid, it'd be stupid not, it'd be crazy not shove). His bet was suspicious because it was bigger than most he had made. Sometimes this is weakness and sometimes it's strength, for some reason, I thought weakness.

In my head I thought he had two face cards. If he called I'd be slightly ahead, if he folded I be happier. I shoved. He thought forever and came to the right conclusion with A9 and called for most of his stack. Neither of us paired our kickers and at the river he was pysched and I was in the midst of congratulating him, then I noticed the board was all red. Then the dealer said, "Don't you have a flush?"

Poker is brutal. I did hold the Ace of diamonds with four diamonds on board. I was so keyed into hitting my kicker I didn't even look at the suits. Sucks for Shane. Also, I've come in second in so many of these things I was just prepared for his hand to hold. This time the karma was on my side. Feel like Drew Brees and the Saints, I've been on the other side of it so much I'm not apologizing.

Later I got QQ and he had to shove on me and they held. Looks like he'll be doing a table in Thibodeaux so I wouldn't be surprised to see him again at the final table.

www.gulfcoastpoker.net

Addressing my own leaks in poker part 2

I scanned the board. There were some bad straight draws but with the action they didn't make sense . Did he have an overpair the entire time and was stringing me along? I couldn't figure out how I was beat, but I felt beat. Such is poker sometimes. He looked very confident and then he started jabbering... he foolishly said, "I didn't think you had a jack, if you had a jack you would have paid me off by now." Paid... me... off... by... now...

This wasn't some complicated level, I thought it was just an unfiltered genuine sentiment. Everything said I was beat. I flashed the jack to the players next to me and folded. He turned over a rivered set of 8s. I groaned. He told me again I didn't fold a jack. Impossible to fold a jack there. I said, "a lot players would have folded it faster than I did."

And with that fold, I promptly went on tilt. It was the sixth or seventh such lay down. It was exacerbated because in trying to build the pot I got the guy to come along to the river... where he made his hand. Of course, then I started to try to protect my hands and just scoop a pot, but now to them I smelled like bleeding meat in the ocean, and I would get called by players who ignored the fact i was pricing them out and they started hitting.

My final hand was embarrassing with KJ, again, in late position I threw out a raise in a limped pot.

Button called and big blind called. Flop was king high. Big blind led out for a pot sized bet. I called. Turn a brick. He fired out most of my stack. Here was the laydown I was too frustrated to make and why it was an excellent bet by him if he was reading that frustration.

Obviously, I was beat. I mumbled K8 to myself (top two flopped). I shook my head and fired in the rest of my chips with second best against an opponent who had been nitting it up. It was practically impossible for this guy not to have the best hand in that spot. Sure enough K8.

So, now I'm going to figure out a way to plug this frustration leak. A walk around the casino? Online, I guess there are so many hands being dealt that it is easier to fold time after time when you get into bad spots whereas live if feels like you have less opportunities. This is one of the reasons I’m almost afraid to play Omaha.


Dan Walsh and others have tried to get me to add that to my options. The selling point is there are a lot more bad players playing Omaha these days then No Limit Hold ‘Em poker. However, if laying down second best hand is tilt inducing, and watching made hands get caught up to, I’d imagine that would make Omaha really difficult for me.


I suppose I should talk to Brandon Jarrett who excels at that game and consider getting some coaching if ever make the jump. Obviously, I’ve played half and half with fixed limits for Omaha. One night, my first night ever playing it at Boomtown when Harrahs was shut down after Katrina, I crushed it without even knowing what I was doing.

I still remember the huge hand I won dumbly. I had a pocket pair of aces. That must be good. It got capped on every street with almost the entire table playing… and I’m guessing chasing two different straight draws and two different flush draws. And they all missed. I scooped with just my pair of aces. At the time the biggest pot I ever won. Obviously, I had no clue what I was doing. Such is poker sometimes.

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Addressing my own leaks in poker part I

Online poker perhaps because of the speed of it, is maybe a better crucible to self-examine your leaks. In live poker some of them manifest in different ways but when I see some of my online poker weaknesses extend to the real felt I need to take stock again of my game.

After going over some of my hands, I was surprised to see a facet of my game I do better on the Internet than I do live. I thought it'd be just the opposite, but I think this is a little bit of anamoly, albeit true for a lot of Texas Hold 'Em players. However, I also think when the leak exposes itself when I'm playing poker online it's more dangerous. I'm being kind of vague sorry...

The leak is making good folds after good folds. I think all of us wannabe players have a limit on how many times we can lay down good hands. And I think this seperates the truly great players from the rest of us. They don't have a limit on making the correct play. I think that limit, at least for me, differs on a live table vs. an online table.

Perhaps there are some contributing factors, like it's easier in live play to know you are beat, so often times you might make the crying call online and lose the hand, which is a bit of pressure release for your frustrations than folding time after time and not seeing the better hand (to know for sure). Which can maybe save you money later on a bigger hand where you might think I can't be beat again and get your money in bad.

This weird cap on my capacity to make lay-down after lay-down almost suggests that I'd be better off making some bad calls for small pots. It's like getting rivered and figuring it out, or knowing when you I'm beat even if I started ahead can only save me a finite amount of money in live play. I don't know if it's six or seven hands live but around hand seven or eight I'll make a frustration call and get my money in bad even though I know it.

Then I won't be able to stem the flow.

Take a recent cash game. In LP I raised with KJ o/s, a guy on the small button called, an EP limper shove for twice my raise, and though I didn't like it I called. The button called again. Flop game jack high. I put out a tricky smallish bet in relation to the pot. For a couple of reasons. One, maybe to induce a play from him, or two to build something in the sidepot in case the EP limper had shoved with a high pocket pair.

The button confused took the bait and called. I figured I only had to sweat an A or Q but I really thought he had an underpair instead of overs so even if one of them came I was planning on betting. The turn was a brick. Now, I put in a half the pot bet and got a call which I was fine with.

The river was an 8 and the guy kind of flinched. I had planned on check calling him, as I thought I had value to catch a hand like 1010s making a play at the pot (or attempting an incorrect value bet), and three barreling might get him off the hand. The flinch made the check all the more reasonable.

He pulled out a stack (100) and his hand was shaking. What?


www.gulfcoastpoker.net

Question and some poker strategy advice...

This is an email from another friend of mine... when did I become principal of poker school.? I'd welcome some differing insight, as I'm sure there are probably other ways to look at this

So another hand I was going to tell you about from my last cash session and one I felt like I was playing well and playing poorly within the hand, street by street. Guy in the 8 seat just won a few nice pots and is racking his chips but he's still technically at the table, even though he is standing up. He gets two cards from early position, maybe even UTG and raises to 12 after barely looking at them.

From the 2 seat, I look at AJ off and make the call. The BB shoves all in for roughly 35 total. 8 seat calls, I call. Nice little pot developing and we're now heads up for a side pot. Flop comes out A high and 8 seat leads out with a pretty big bet, maybe 50 or 55. I stew and come to the conclusion that he has hit the ace and is trying to push me out of the pot and get heads up with the short stack. I call.

Turn is a blank. I forget what the action was here but I think he led for a very small, very suspicious amount. Either that or he might have check-raised me all in. I don't remember exactly, but it was here that I all of the sudden felt like I had misplayed my hand or was being severely outplayed. At some point, he set me all in and I folded. He had flopped a set of 6s and was basically stringing me along with my ace, perfect scenario for a set with the ace on board. Do you think I should have gotten out of dodge on the flop, figuring along the lines of why would he bet into a dry side pot if he was bluffing or had a bad ace?

Or do you think my call on the flop was technically correct, even though it turned out to be off? Plus, remember that this guy has basically already checked out of the table before getting involved in this pot on his way out the door. That is what made me finally come to my senses and realize that I was in no way good and led to my fold, after donking off about a hundo plus to him. I think the short stack had a bad ace, fyi.


As for calling the flop? That's the problem with AJ, you probably have to call there every time.

But let's go back a step, UTG or UTG +1 raised? Your mistake was calling preflop.

AJ o/s from UTG or early position is a losing poker hand, AJ from mid position facing a raise is a losing hand too. Oddly, you got into a coin-flip with position and hit your hand. Let's ignore the particulars for now, let's just focus on hand selection.

What's wrong with the hand? Most of the time somebody after you is going to call as well and you will be oop the whole time. Do you even want to hit your ace? Be careful what you wish for you might get it. If you do ou might be outkicked or you might have him outkicked but you'll never know where you are in the hand. Even if you do have him outkicked preflop he could easily pair his second card and have you crushed, plus he'll be acting after you on every street. Plus, most people raising under the gun have hands that have you beat to start.

To make it even more of a loser, since you can fold AJ to the type of betting you faced, you'll also be able to fold it to worse hands like A9 or A8 thus you'll also lose pots you should win too.

It's a mistake I make, but long run it's a loser for both of us. I can tell you why I'd make it. In live poker you have the information that this guy is leaving, and when I think the guy is leaving I think he might play any adequate to marginal hand before the blinds hit him. In online poker you wouldn't have that information and you'd be better off because of it.

So, you have a lot of those weak exploratory aces crushed. You are crushed by AQ, AK, KK, AA, QQ, JJ. You are coinflip with almost anything else and if he's a bad player and KJ is in his range or worse QJ from UTG you crush those holdings. It's a tantalizing situation because he's leaving the poker table but we need better discipline to lay that down.

Here's why I'd probably get out of the hand (and this is important for you in the tournament too), stack size. In a Texas Hold 'Em cash game, if I'm mulling over the AJ from mid position and I see the BB with 1/3rd more than the pot if I call (maybe see if he's going to play or not... if he's an obvious read) in his stack, I have to conclude this a good spot for him to shove with almost any two cards. Do I want to play a hand for 35 against two players holding AJ o/s and the betting isn't closed? No. There's 105 already in the pot and I start getting married to a lot of holdings that could be losers.

Now if I'm in a tournament, sometimes I might reraise it for exactly the reason of the BB's stack size (I'd bet more than the short stack in the BB) putting the squeeze on the ep raiser. I win a couple of ways. Take down the pot right there. Much harder to call off your chips than shove them for the BB. Or the BB shoves and first position might fold. Then I'm playing a weaker BB hand with the bonus of the EP's raise.

A raise also might deter any marginal hands from gettting into a multi-way pot, or from them trying this squeeze play themself when my passive chips as added motivation. The table dynamic would be really important for me to make a play like that and it's probably not one I'd often make but if I did it and got called, I'd probably try and pot control from there. Another motivation to do it, is I get to mislead the table into thinking I'm 3betting with hands like AJ (when in reality my 3bet range is actually really thin).

www.gulfcoastpoker.net

Coaching Update and more

The gentleman I've been working with has been very kind in his praise of what we've worked with. He's also told me about some huge pots he's won where he's applied some little things we've discussed. And he's been running great. You want to feel like a successful poker teacher when starting a poker school have students that run great after your coaching sessions.

He had an over 2k day yesterday on 1-2 and scooped a giant $1100 pot and later a $600 pot off a guy he got a read on using one of my strategies. Wow, that makes me feel really good. That's a great day for 1 -2 especially considering without the donkley poker tournament yesterday there were mostly just your daily nits. The biggest thing was he trusted his read, believed in it, and let the other guy dig his own hole. Early on he picked up some information on the guy--when he had a big hand and when he didn't.

On one hand he looked down at aces (poker is easy) but picked off a tell of strength from the wild loose player at the table. The guy made his standard 14x raise (yes, one of those maniacs we all hope to look down at Aces against when he is driving the action), and my man smooth called.

One other player rode shot gun. Flop came Jack high. The other guy pushed out $125. My Man raised and the target called. Third wheel saw he was overmatched and begrudingly got out of the way. Turn was another ace (poker is really easy). A check by my guy, maniac puts out a big bet. Hollywood by my man and a call. River was another Jack. Another savvy check by my guy, as he knew the maniac would bet and bet he does, maniac shoves for the rest of his 900 stack. Snapped off.

He knew the other guy had a hand like Kings or Queens (it was queens) and he didn't scare the guy away. Granted the turn and river made it a lot easier for him, but he extracted maximum value. He knew where he was in the hand and knew the opponent would put his chips in for him. He showed the appropriate fear of a scare card which might motivate Kings or Queens to think their hand was good and checked twice to induce the action.

That being said he deserves a lot of the credit for this hand (okay the dealer gets a lot of credit too). However, if he didn't know the opponent was strong he might have fired out some small bets and minimized his earnings. I'd much rather have a 2000 day myself but hearing about it really made me feel good. So weird, but when I hear about my friends poker success I get a gentle buzz from it, I love to hear about big pots they dragged. I know sometimes when people are running bad they might resent someone else's momentary monetary success but I guess I'm lucky because in those situations when I hear the stories retold I almost feel like I'm also winning.

BTW, I got a ton of respect for my man's overall playing ability and I'm impressed how quickly he's digest the little tricks I use and incorporated them into big returns.

What I'm a little scared about is he's also running good or should I say he's running really good. What happens when he makes the right play because of a read and then gets sucked out on three or four times in a row. It's so frustrating to figure out where you are in the hand time and again, and then get punished for making the correct razor thin call.

We have another session scheduled for this weekend and I'm going to bring to the table a few more tricks. He's also gearing up for the tournaments next week and I think he'll have a good showing. He's really tuned in, has a lot of confidence, and can handle the buy-ins without a thought. Our big area of focus will be bubble and early money play. He's found himself in those situations quite a bit (I told you he was good) and believes the difference will be reading his opponents. He sees others getting away from hands and exploiting weakness. I think he's added a lot to his arsenal and will feel more comfortable in that stage of the tournament.

Oh yeah, in the second pot he knew the guy had nothing and called him down for 600 with just an ordinary hand, I forget the details but how fun is it to dominate somebody like that?

www.gulfcoastpoker.net