A small aside

Incidently, I also intend to share with you what I I hope and expect to be a very unique creation, my own custom-made poker table, courtesy of Crummer Poker Tables and my wallet...including a hyperlink, of course.

No tells here. You will have to wait.

Been a long time been a long lonely lonely lonely.....time

[In an interesting twist of Poker Karma, I got 6 paragraphs into this long overdue, overly long blog only to have an errant key stroke wipe out the whole text. Undeterred, I start again...I intend to save religiously the second time around]

The Poker Monster, after 5 months of "wandering the desert" feeding on sng's and $1 turbo rebuys while riding out a huge bad beat streak, has emerged reborn with new insights and a fresh perspective to go with a new level of his game. It took a MOTHER of ALL BAD BEATS to find this higher plane of poker consciousness. Like all good karmic philosophers, allow me to take a VERY LONG TIME to make my point.

Along the way we'll talk some poker. Final table and key bubble poker, especially about traps and big draws from and against the blinds.

The Poker monster hit some hard times since winning $8500.00 on an online freeroll and his satellite into a major tournament. Sinus surgery, minor but painful, undermined my play during a $1,800.00 game with 500 entries. A final table split agreement with 4 people left on the Monday $60 Casino game gave me a certain $1400.00 over a good shot at $2000 over a tired field, but began a 3 month bad beat streak which turned into a frustration streak which EVENTUALLY turned my focus back to playing as well as I could, only to LEAD UP to the ULTIMATE FINAL TABLE BAD BEAT which, as my "rock bottom", in fact caused a whole new perspective and insight into that enigmatic ghost in the probability machine I, as an ignorant mortal, have occasionally alluded to as "poker karma".

I am now through the looking glass, people. But I get ahead of myself. First let me speak of the results of my rebirth, and then of my path to poker enlightenment.

Since the ULTIMATE BAD BEAT, I have played possibly my best poker. I made sick calls and huge laydowns to make my way to the final 4 of the Monday $60 Casino game, and then INSISTED we not chop the pot. Because I was fresh, alert, and in the zone. I had made a call with QJ of hearts to bust a short stack with 88 to make it there. I had folded AJ sooted to a 4x under-the-gun bet, because I looked up after reaching for the 1200 chips, only to see the raiser bristling in anticipation of action as only a big hand does, and laying down to find the raiser's AK up against a short stack with AA. Because I was still playing with my head up and my mind fresh, while others were worried about work the next day and their bedtimes.

And LO, UNTO ME was a raise all in and immediate reraise all in after I opened 4 handed with 88. And I PAUSED, because one of my opponents had a preflop monster, and FOLDED TO SEE the 8 on the flop and A7 in terrible against KK. But I was content with my solid laydown, because, LO, I KNOW when some Joe holds two cowboys, and I had barely committed 5% of a huge stack to see 60% at risk for a three way pot. BECAUSE the ZONE belonged to the MONSTER and to no one else.

Had I called, I knock 2 people out and have a 10 to 1 advantage against the remaining short stack. BUT THE ZONE BELONGS TO ME. I will be patient, and watch our new chip leader stumble with his chips and keep the short stack in only to fall to KK himself overplaying 67 and flopping 722.

AND LO, THINE SHORT STACK opponent now was leader heads up. And LO, I hear again those sick, sick words of the weary: "LET US CHOP THIS POT and together DWELL in the land of Milk and Honey".

BUT THE ZONE BELONGS TO ME. I refuse his entreaties. I intend to get Biblical here.

Our weary opponent makes his first stumbling attempting to raise too much. He has announced his raise from the sb/button, but has failed to complete his raise, adding his announcement to the SB of 4k only. He fumbles and drop chips completing the bet after his error is drawn to his attention by the dealer.

SOME of you UNENLIGHTENED may put our stumble on a hand, the nervousness of holding a monster, but THE ZONE BELONGS TO ME. We have played the final table for an hour now. I have observed every play he has made. I observe all of this before I look to my hand and see AJ, and move all in instinctively, confidently.

And he tells me what the gut already knew. He was making a move with junk.

The tide has turned. I have won 90% of my races at the final. AJ beat 99 calling all in with two even stacks. Sick call, J on the window. 55 calls to beat a short stack AK. Our prior big stack called with 66 and I needed to steal or double with K10. 10 on the window holds through.

That reraise all-in sealed my momentum, and I pushed my opponent around preflop and post flop, sometimes with hands, sometimes not, until I had him exhausted and his chips at 50% of mine.

AND LO, UNTO ME LAY TWO THIN DUCKS, MEATLESS, BONY, BUT LARGE AS LIFE.
ALL IN I DECLARE, BUT ONLY PUT THE CHIPS TO COMPLETE THE BLIND
MY WEARY OPPONENT, UNAWARE, ANNOUNCES RAISE...
I'M ALREADY ALL IN, I TELL HIM, AND HE CALLS
THE RESIGNATION IS THERE, EVEN AS HE TURNS OVER AQ

AND MY DUCKS SURVIVE 4 SPADES TO RIVER A STRAIGHT.

Why all in with 22? Because, children, because the ghost in the machine had whispered in my ear...

I will parlay my 1900 into outplaying 76 people to earn one of 4 seats in a $220.00 satellite for entry into the $1000.00 and $3000.00 buy-in main events of the major CPT event being hosted by my local casino in a week. And earning it sick and dirty. Surviving an early bad beat (A10 check raising all in into my AQ on an A high flop and turning a 10) to have to race 33 against AJ and 10 10 against AQ to finally get a chip stack with a comfort zone, then out playing a loose aggressive "young gun" who liked to back talk reraising him all in with 88, outplaying another with 88 and a Q J 9 flop, and raising the same "young gun" with A4 (that's right. Ace-four. Off suit) when he cut off raised with J9 spades and was "pot committed" to the call (see earlier blogs, Mr. Young Gun, about pushing short stacks in the blinds). A4 held up, and this kid was just incredulous when I told him I knew I was ahead (BUT NOT HOW I KNEW) just as I had talked him out of calling my 88 earlier by telling him I put him at 30% to win when he tried to talk me into information.

I am a very polite live player, but if someone wants to back-talk and trash talk me, I am happy to play back.

Young gun will bust in 6th. I will burst the bubble making an instacall with AJ clubs against the short stack's push with A3 hearts and seeing the J on the window.

I will follow up online the next day putting $20 into a field of 400 and coming home with $775 after spending the first 90 minutes of the game trapped with no more than my starting stack.

THE "ZONE" IS DEFINED SIMPLY: IT IS THE SUM OF THREE THINGS

(a) I HAVE A COMPLETE FEEL FOR MY OPPONENTS AND THE WAY THEY PLAY
+
(b) I HAVE THE PATIENCE TO BE OBSERVANT BEFORE MAKING ANY COMMITMENTS
+
(c) I HAVE A KARMIC SENSE OF DESTINY OVER THE TWO CARDS I HOLD

often, (c) really is a function of (a) and (b) It was to burst the bubble in the satellite. Sometimes, the equation in a race situation is more like this:

(c) = ((a)squared + (b) squared)/ G
where G is what the Ghost in the Machine has whispered into my ear.

On that fateful Monday, the Ghost told me to fold 88, even though an 8 was coming. I then won clean through superior play rather than through pure luck, providing me with the additional confidence to play sick and strong to win my buy-in for the biggest two events I have ever had the privilege to play. My fold was justified by my read of my players, in spite of my lucky flop, just as my fold with AJ earlier in the tournament in considering an opening raise of 1200, because I stopped to play with my chips, and look up to see the look of the raiser in anticipating my action, and then folding to see his AK fall to AA. Both laydowns confirmed I was in THE ZONE, which can be far more important than winning the pot.

I know no path to this enlightenment, other than the truly random path the Ghost may choose for you. I will tell of my path soon.

Let me talk some hands first. I just went to a seminar highlighted by lectures by Annie Duke, Phil Hellmuth, and a few also-rans. Interestingly enough, Annie Duke's math-based lesson was in many ways identical to my earlier blogs, including all the reasons why suited connectors are, mathematically, unplayable. Her example was 78 sooted. I have ranted similarly about 10 J sooted and off, but I will continue to play 78 sooted, simply because it is often good on a 7 high or 8 high flop, which often has straight outs to go with your top pair in situations where people in the pot are playing hands above this flop like, for example, J10 and JQ. J10 never hits top pair without being outkicked by a hand in the pot.

Annie Duke's poker strategy is based on very sophisticated math which is far in advance of the "basics" found in, say, Phil Gordon's teachings. In fact, when asked of good poker books, Annie and Phil commented on many, including Slancky and Harrington, but never breathed the word "Gordon". Phil Gordon was only mentioned for sucking out on Phil Hellmuth's AA with 99 in the only WSOP final table Mr. Gordon ever made. ENOUGH SAID? Annie will have a new book out soon, 500 pages on post flop play. I will read it, and can recommend it blind on the strength of her lecture today. Very simply, her math message is pretty identical to mine. Where she and I may disagree is that I will play looser in an early game with chips I feel comfortable speculating with in a hope of catching that huge double-up opportunity ("scary play") vs Annie's more conservative formula based on raises, steals, and made hands("tight play"). She has some excellent comments on table image. Very sophisticated analysis. I will look forward to comparing her 500 pages of notes.

Okay, math, odds, putting a guy on a hand...

Lets talk about playing flush draws at critical times in tournaments.

Example one:

[Pay attention kids, because this is the same final table and the same player who delivered me the ULTIMATE BAD BEAT...I've had AAAA cracked, but this is worse]

Final table, $100.00 Casino Wednesday game, I have played excellent to get there, have an average stack of 30k in chips, blinds are 800/1600, two short stacks are already gone, but we have only played 5 hands. I am first to act in the middle with AJ clubs and I raise to 4000. This is the first hand I've played, and 5 players at the table are unfamiliar to me, including the 30 something oriental woman in the BB, who makes the call.

Every time I am at a new table, I try to be very observant in order get a feel for my opponents, and this is now exception. I am watching her eyes through my sunglasses as the flop comes down. I am not looking at the flop, only her reaction to it.

I see disappointment. Clear and obvious disappointment.

I look at the flop. It is 5 high two clubs.

Seeing the flop and her disappointment, I really can think of no better option here.

All in.

She folds.

I show.

Why all in? Aren't I bluffing for my tournament life here?
No, not at all. I am, in fact protecting the best hand. 5 high is of course, 5 4 2. Because it is clear her hand needed a flop, I clearly have a huge number of outs. A, J, 3 for a straight, any club for nut flush. 17 outs is, roughly, (without dead-out counting) 61% ahead of even 10 10 here, and 10 10 loves that flop, not hates it.

Even if I assume I was dominated preflop by QQ or AK, I still have 14 outs, which is even money (50.4%, but my read post-flop confirmed my impression preflop that she was simply defending the BB. It is more likely, then, that I also had the best hand preflop, perhaps dominating. For her to continue here, she is gambling with probably 4 or 5 outs, assuming she has two live overs like Q 10. She gets 5 if she has a club, and I have to take one away. Her best two live/one club scenario forces her to pick up some life at 18% with two to go, while a full 13 of MY outs which will hit 47% of the time and CRUSH her caught Q and 16 of MY outs crush her caught 10 58% of the time.

The last thing I want, however, is a Q or 10 of hearts on a turn card I gave up for cheap, giving my opponent the confidence of top pair and dropping chances of winning in half. I have the best hand because it has dominating POTENTIAL against an opponent who has completely whiffed. If I price someone in for a turn card, with say, a 6000 bet into the 11,000 pot (remember the sb and antes) I gave up control of the hand and possibly a pot. I did not need to play this hand for a big pot, and I cannot trap an opponent with mere potential because shit happens.

So why show?

It is early in the final table. I want to demonstrate a few things which will benefit me in the long run:

(a) I am telling the field that I am going to play the final table aggressive, fearless, and to win;
(b) Less sophisticated players will think I am merely loose-aggressive and think they can play me for double ups, while sophisticated players who paid attention to the flop will understand the math as well as I and perhaps clue in that I also do, giving me action where I want it and respect where I need it: The former sees my move as semi-bluff (Phil Gordon on his good days, or a novice read of Doyle Brunson's Supersystem), the latter as a strong play with a strong hand from someone who understands the whole math of the hand. (Annie Duke)
(c) I will play this opponent again, have a good read on her, I have put her in the former category, and want to set up a trapping opportunity for later (I will eat these words!!!!!!.......wait for it)


[How bizarre...blogger.com is now autosaving like a hot damn]

Okay, here's an example of a similar nature from the seminar:

This is Shawn Rice, whom I consider to be a middling pro. He is an official Ultimate Bet pro, so he is also a guest speaker [Is this a clue to Poker Monster's secret online identity?] His lecture focuses on playing weak $1/2 cash NLHE tables online to maintain your bank roll. He will play a hand where both he and his opponent make big mistakes. These mistakes will not only tell you how to beat Shawn Rice by playing weak at cash tables, but also illustrate the steps I discussed above which both players missed to make mutual mistakes.

Here's the hand.

SR is in the cutoff with QK diamonds and raises to $7 into the blinds, and the BB calls. The BB only has $80 to SR's $200.00 The flop is identical as my example, 5 4 2 diamonds, and Shawn's reasoning is identical: two overs and a flush draw. However he is missing a few pieces of the puzzle, and his draw is not as strong either: there is no git shot straight and he doesn't KNOW he has two overs, or at least live cards, on his opponent. ITS A CASH GAME. PEOPLE DEFEND THEIR CHEAP ASS BLINDS. PEOPLE ALSO CAN HAVE BIG HANDS IN THE BLINDS AND PLAY WELL FROM THEM.

Shawn has no read at all from his opponent. The BB bets weak, $8, and, IN SPITE OF AN EARLIER EXAMPLE WHERE HE TRAPPED WITH A SET OF EIGHTS BY THE SAME OPENING BET INTO THE SAME POT IN THE SAME POSITION(which I will discuss later), SR puts that weak bet as weakness and BETS THE POT (and simply by pressing the bet pot button, which is lazy and stupid. It says to an online opponent that I am lazy, thoughtless, and aggressive, often meaning a bluff or semi-bluff) This bet is big. $31. IN SPITE OF THE BET COMMITTING THE BB TO 1/2 HIS STACK, BB JUST CALLS.

And SR still has NO READ when the 7 spades hits the turn. To a BB check, SR BETS THE POT and GETS CALLED. Rice got no information AT ALL from the called over-raise.

QK and QQ now show down and a King sucks SR out on the river. UGLY.

The BB was trapping a player who, by his own admission, continue bets every raise he makes. Was that a good play, in spite of the suckout? NO.

Why not?

Well, you spend an hour with SR at a cash table, and you find that he raises, but he is not reckless. There is usually a "raisable" hand behind him whether he hit or missed. Maybe he bets to much but he could very well have a hand that could beat QQ eventually.

It is fine to exploit his aggressive nature, but you must to it safely. QQ is good on that flop, but consider the range of hands SR may have made the raise with. QK is out there, but so are MANY A-x combinations, including A-x sooted.

Not even considering the flush draw, A-x on that flop has, effectively, TWO OVERS ON QQ: any 3 and any A. This is MORE dangerous than AK with two to go, because there are four 3's as opposed to three K's to draw from. Would you trap with QQ if you know your opponent has AK? Hell no. Odds to hell, we have ALL SUFFERED the overplayed AK catch up to QQ on turn and river. 21.6% to DISASTER IN A BIG POT. If you give him 25% to hold the two diamonds as well, throw in another 8% or so to disaster, JUST BY ANALYZING HIS LIKELY RANGE OF HANDS as opposed to a more accurate read. A more accurate read understands that odds are even here. With only a coinflip odds, who do you want to have to make that coin flip decision? You, or him? Bet for strength, and he does. Trap for value, and you have already decided you are the gambler.

QQ got greedy here. I liked the small post flop bet. But when the response is a lazy BET POT button click, WHY IN HELL against a real player would you give him a free card with a smooth call? and then guarantee him a river by check calling the turn? $40.00 profit out of this is plenty, when you can reraise all in for $40.00 more and force SR into a decision. If you have $100 more to reraise with, it is a MUCH TOUGHER decision.

You simply cannot get greedy like this without THE NUTS. If this was a short-stacked final table scenario, the temptation to trap might be much greater, but it shouldn't be. When you are offered a guaranteed pot post-flop because you have a strong hand and a good read, this pot offers you a 50% increase on your stack WITHOUT RISKING ANY CHIPS by simply slamming the door shut post-flop and post-raise. You will need those chips waiting for another opportunity.

In other words, QQ here is really identical to my AJ clubs on the same flop for actual strength. I will trap on occasion here, but only against opponents I can bust while affording to lose against them all in, and that is still no excuse for not putting my opponent on a hand or likely hand to the best of my ability and acting accordingly.

If the BB here sets up his pre- or post-flop bet up to an amount set up to give SR some folding odds, such as a small raise preflop which induces a "pot odds" call (total bet $15 maybe), or, better, check raises the flop, because lazy Shawn will click the BET POT button into a $15 pot, making a check-raise of $65.00 into $30 pot not only signal your opponent to a trap, which you want, while making a call with his flush draw marginal. Its a cash table, so you can always rebuy when Shawn sucks out (he was only 25% on the turn), but this trap can only be made in a critical time in a tournament when you can put your opponent on a complete bluff, which usually only occurs when the raising and call make a short stack pot committed preflop. Against a good player with decent stack, you have guaranteed your opponent will be looking for his outs with 2 to go.

Okay, trapping in the blinds, after catching a set: first, Shawn Rice's example:

Again this is cash and on-line, and SR smooth calls a button raise to $10 with 88 from the SB. Both players have $200 or more chips. The flop is AK8 two clubs, but in a heads up situation I am happy for the A and don't care about the flush draw, and so is SR.

SR will bet $8 and sees a lazy pot bet to $46.00. He will act just like the QQ and smooth call to see a J or spades, making two clubs and two spades.

SR has made an excellent read here. This was just a button raise, and the guy is continuing, trying to represent an Ace. Shawn just checks, and a HUGE pot bet (don't to this folks. Size your bets PERIOD so that it looks like there is thought to them) of $120.00 is the result, leading to SR raising all in to about $160, and, amazingly, a Q3 hearts bluff with a gutshot to the river calls and misses for a big cash double up.

NOBODY IS THAT STUPID OR RECKLESS LATE IN A TOURNEY. $1/2 cash NLHE (both live and online) appears to be a weak game full of rookies with the same gambling instincts as those who play $5-50 hands of blackjack. They are fish who play at that level because $3.50 pots offer no thrills. I hate these tables. You and Shawn can have them. I play cash PLOmaha and Limit Omaha 8/b, and I play them for practice against good players who understand these games.

A much better example came from Phil Hellmuth, who brought in a clip from the WSOP 2006 final table, a hand between Jamie Gold and Allan Cunningham. It is on YouTube and it was very instructive.

Cunningham is a very shrewd and observant player, and Jamie Gold a lucky amateur. Phil's example was how Jamie Gold butchered the set trap.

AC has A10 and opens for $900,000 against I believe $100/200k blinds. JG has a 5 to 1 chip lead on AC's 20ish million chips, but flat calls with 88. The flop is ideal, A-8-6 rainbow, and JG has position. There were 3 callers, leaving about $3 million in the pot, and AC, given his relatively weak A for the initial price he laid and his position, makes a conservative bet, $1m. JG just calls but he does so very quickly.

Phil did not comment so much on this play, so I will. Anyone who followed the 2006 WSOP knows that Gold talked too much and revealed way too much, and tended to bet a lot. Gold is very quiet and calls very quickly, actions completely out of character. There is no deliberation. There is no likely draw on the board, only a 7 -9 or 5 -7 straight draw, and while JG can play these hands in raised pots and does with his monster stack, the lack of hesitation in the flat call is inconsistent with the draw. That ace on board in a raised pot will limit any undercard straight draw to the turn. Any good player with the A will smell the draw and shot down the hand if the turn is favourable. Sure, a big stack can call $1m into $5m with 15% to hit the turn, but the quick call is fishy.

You can see that AC smells the fish too. He checks the 2 on the turn, and JG quickly checks back.

Phil was VERY critical of this play, and this might have been the most informative comment we got from him. Phil has seen this play as a tell indicative of a huge trap many times, and he was watching this happen live, so i doubt Phil is bluffing about his read. Phil indicated that the quick check indicates that Gold has already decided to check trap or call trap the turn card, and does not have enough guile in him to disguise it.


[But incidently, I tricked a very good player into PAYING OFF my flush when I had initially raised with A clubs Q, saw a low flop with three clubs, and BET the flop (continuation) GOT TWO CALLERS (like one had a good club) and then CHECKED the club which hit the turn. Then this very good player OVERBET 1500 (potsize) the river giving me only 700 more to go all in, and forcing a pot odds call. I call his bet an overbet because one typically value bets a checked flush, but, as a clever player, he was trying to be misleading. As a cleverer player, I had misdirected my draw by betting the flop and checking the nuts on the turn, to convince another club he was good. Had he bet smaller, I am not sure what my river play would have been, but probably a value raise if I was convinced he was convinced his flush was good.]

Back to Gold and Cunningham.

Cunningham is clearly uncertain about the strength of his hand when the river pairs the 6. The read I put on him here is that he will pay off a value bet, but no more. He bets out a weak $2m bet into a $6m pot.

And JG, who's brain is too actively connected to his mouth, just butchers this opportunity. NOW Gold talks, and he immediately goes all in and prepares to flip his cards on an assumed call. His adrenaline has betrayed him. He just simply lost his cool in this opportunity to knock out the best pro left against him. He says "I knew you didn't have it".

Cunningham folds immediately.

If your goal was to extract 25% of someone's short stack with a huge hand, play this like Jamie. If you want to get ALL OF SOMEONE'S CHIPS AND DOUBLE THROUGH after flopping huge, play like this:

[CAUTION: THE BELOW PORTION OF THIS BLOG ENTRY CONTAINS A GRAPHIC DEPICTION OF THE PHYSICAL CARNAGE OF THE ULTIMATE BAD BEAT. ANYONE WITH THE FLU, ON HEART MEDICATION, OR PREGNANT SHOULD READ AT THEIR OWN PERIL OF VOMIT, HEART ATTACK, MISCARRIAGE, OR GIVING BIRTH TO THE SON OF SATAN. THIS IS A TRAIN WRECK, FOLLOWED BY A CHEMICAL SPILL, FOLLOWED BY CHERNOBYL, AN EARTHQUAKE, AND GODZILLA AND RODAN BUSTING UP YOUR CONDO]

Back to the final table of the $100.00 Wednesday casino game where I "overplayed" my AJ clubs. We are now 7 handed, and our oriental female mark and I have nearly identical stacks of around 40k. Blinds remain 800/1600. I am in the SB.

Little Miss Mark (LMM) is in the cut off, the table is tight so far, and she makes a small raise to 4000. Pretty standard play, and this bet has been enough for the blinds to fold at this tight early final. Play folds to me and I see 77. This is a very good situation to see a flop. 77 is a solid starting hand heads up, my opponent is an open book, and my price is excellent. The BB also thinks so, and makes the pot-odds call (and why not, 2400 into 10000 will make any two cards look good).

The flop is perfect A 7 3 two clubs. I am not remotely concerned with the flush draw, and I have semi-instinctively put LMM on an Ace. While many would bet here small or large, I do not wish to represent the strength representing the most typical call, a decent Ace, because I put my LMM as a very unsophisticated player, and the last thing I want is my mark worried about her kicker.

I play this for what a Phil-Gordon style player will expect: I called to defend my blind, I hate the Ace. I check because it is expected I will check to the raise and the ace. The BB also checks, and LMM makes what would be, if she had the best hand, a good bet, 8000 into the 12000 out there.

Except for one problem. I was anticipating this. She has an Ace, 12000 invested, 20k in the pot, about 30k left, and believes she has what she wants.

I check raise another 10k, putting the put up to 38,000 when she has 30k left. She DOES NOT HESITATE when she reraises and I quickly move in. My reraise was calculated to create an irresistably huge pot against a very simple-minded player who simply did not have the experience or capacity to understand the usual flags of the check-raise.

(see what you can get done without seeing another street which might kill the action, such as another club?).

We are now both all in with me a 98.4% favourite.

That's right. 98.4%. As in LOCKED UP. I have now both doubled up to the chip lead while serving notice to the table that I am truly the POKER MONSTER.

turn is an 8
river....

an 8

RUNNER RUNNER GODDAMN 88. She had 5 outs and needed both of them. an A and an 8, or AA would also do. but I checked the odds out later on the computer.

I AM SICK

LITERALLY SICK.

QUEASY.

DIZZY.

I AM CLOSE TO PUKING.

I KNEW THIS TABLE WAS RIPE FOR THE PICKING AND INSTEAD OF RUNNING OVER THE TABLE I AM GETTING $360.00 FOR PLAYING PERFECT.

SICK SICK SICK

GOOD THING I AM NEITHER FLU-INFECTED, PACE-MAKER-EQUIPPED, OR PREGNANT.

What makes this the ultimate bad beat over when my AAAA got cracked by a royal flush, for example, is not the odds. It is the situation. When my AAAA got cracked, there was a flush made on the turn to my slowplayed set of A's (8 kicker) and I though I had lucked out with the river quads. It was not a critical point in a live tourney, it was online for a $20 buy in in the middle rounds where I could just find the next available game.

What begins as sickness slow turns to anger. Serious anger, made stronger when I did check the odds on the computer. 98.4% to win? That suck out was NOT MERE COINCIDENCE. IT WAS NOT COLLUSION. IT WAS THE HAND OF FATE. THERE IS NO GOD. ONLY THE EVIL HAND OF FATE, AND FATE HAS HATED ME FOR 2 MONTHS AND NOW FATE IS TRYING TO KILL ME.

FATE PAID OFF A WEAK PLAYER WHO DOES NOT HAVE THE SKILLS WITH A BIG STACK TO ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING AT A FINAL TABLE EXCEPT PAYING OFF BETTER PLAYERS AND DENIED ME MY DUE.

I'm joking? No, I am serious. This is my reaction. I was rewarded for brilliant play in a completely safe situation with OUTRAGEOUS MISFORTUNE.

I am in a tilt tank for 24 hours. I am talking to myself. I am shouting in my head. My faith is truly shaken. GOD MUST HATE ME PERSONALLY.

Until it finally hits me... How do you win a big tournament? You can put your chips in with AA all the time, but lets face it, I remember an online game where I had AA or KK seven times in 45 minutes and got action every time and lost 6 out of 7s. You need to put your chips in with at least coinflip odds and you have to win EVERY CRITICAL RACE whether you are forced to play A4,K 10, 33, or 10 10 for your life. THE ONLY WAY TO DO THIS is to tune in to the (a) (b) and (c) of THE ZONE and come to terms with the Ghost in the Probability Machine. Go with your reads and go with your gut. If you slowplay-limped AQ UTG where you normally raise, only to see huge action ahead of you, fold and see QQ vs AA, it's because the GHOST has WHISPERED and you LISTENED. When you announce the Royal Flush draw when QK diamonds is all in preflop against KK AND IT HITS...When your buddy can't help but declare the runner runner flush suckout against you when you had someone killed and trapped all-in on the flop, and YOU KNOW ITS COMING and IT COMES...or call the river card with 100% accuracy (all true events)....you stop having doubt. You begin to have faith. THE ZONE doesn't always tune in, but when it does, you have to play by it. Ignore it at your peril.

My faith was confirmed about 2 weeks later.

I was playing a $150.00 online tournament and was simply surviving with the short stack. I had just survived a K high all in call against A high while pot committed in the BB to a raise to have a meager 7400 in chips with 600/1200 on the way and less than 20 left. Under the gun, I pushed with A10 because I felt I had to. A stack with similar problems called and so did a tiny stack.

I was up against JJ with my A10 (the small stack hand escapes me). I was 30% with 5 to go, but my heart sunk on the flop.

J 10 3. A set to an under-pair.

The turn...an A
The river...an A

I took down a pot worth 19k, good enough for 3rd, and would take out my opponent with the next hand, effectively knocking two players out and bringing the total to 11, guaranteeing a decent situation at a final table with a top prize of about $5400.00, buy crushing top set with runner runner Aces full of 10s.

My opponent....was furious. As if I had done it to him deliberately. He threatened he would come after me if we were at the same table again. I would have said I have never encountered such anger, not the worst Phil Hellmuth suckout rant, not Devilfish's suckout rant when Phil cracked AA with 99, had I not experienced it myself. Critical time. Huge flop. Guaranteed pot I must win. Outrageous misfortune. Fade to black...

I haven't seen my victim since. Did he see the light? Did he tune into the Ghost of Poker Karma? Or has he sworn off poker forever? I somehow think this was meant to be shared...so that others can find peace with the karmic reality of 52 card infinite probability, and tune in to its more complex algorithms....

Do not think that simply reading this blog will tune you in. This is a trial by fire. You need to feel that sickness. Feel that anger. Feel the shock of reality of the order within the chaos of near infinite probabilities...and allow it in.

All of the universe has order within the randomness. Physical and mathematical laws apply to create predictable outcomes from random interactions. Clouds of interstellar dust collapse into stars and galaxies due to the operation of relativity and gravity incredibly complexly but entirely predictably. It only appears a miracle to those who cannot comprehend the math. So too, apparently, 52 random cards applied to 10 or fewer minds trying to outwit the odds and each other with whatever chance offers them as their tools.

Incidently, my suckout success was SLIGHTLY better odds than my victimization. Runner runner QK for a straight was a 0.4% possibility as well. A full 2% to catch after he flopped the overset.

THATS JUST SICK.

I look forward to blogging about the Coast to Coast $1,000.00 bounty and $3,000.00 main event at the River Rock Casino in Vancouver, Canada May 7 and 9. Until then.

Lazy Monster neglects blogging

Crazy, fateful day today.

My online site decided to freeroll me into its big Sunday $200+9, 927 person, $200,000.00 guaranteed tournament.

I decided to accept said invitation. Its been awhile. Your Friendly Neighbourhood Poker Monster took down his biggest cash ever and period by coming into 6th for 8500.00 crappy, devalued US dollars (up Canada!). One lesson of live poker lost on greedy poker monster today: that quiet, cheap reraise =KK Drop those QQ and stay the chip leader! Or play to win, they are two ladies, my two ladies have NEVER lost at the casino (including major suckouts), and enjoy the extra x mas moolah, baby.

TOMORROW IS THE BIG EVENT

Not the main event, just the biggest live game I happened to be in $1100.00 buy in earned with an $85.00 satellite with top prize $125,000.00 good,hard, CANADIAN dollars.

Who loves ya Baby?

PROMISE TO TELL YA ALL ABOOT IT!

Three Final Tables: and is my AK good? revisited

"Don't play the cards, baby, play the player": Scotty Nguyen

Now that I've set the tone, I offer an apology for few and far between blogs. Life appears back to normal, and I can ruminate and masticate on the ups and down of my secret second life and alter ago PokerMonster more often again.

This one is entitled Three Final Tables to discuss three recent scenarios, two from online play, one from yesterday's live game. Each has a crucially different dynamic: the first, from a $6 online bounty game where I came to the final table the chip leader with cheap blinds, the second
from a tight $100+9 online game where only the final table pays out and the bubble lasted until the blinds were 400/800 with me holding average chip stack of 20,000, and yesterdays live $50+10 where the bubble burst at 1000/2000 blinds, similar average, but yours truly was again the big stack. In order we have big stack low pressure, small stack high pressure, and big stack high pressure, all creating different needs and dynamics.

Lets talk a little bit about the road to the chip lead at the final last night, a lesson in patience, luck, and making huge and correct preflop decisions.

Yesterday was a special event. Dub's birthday present was a freeroll into his first live $50+10. The guy has never paid more than $10.00 and only plays poker online except for the home game. By luck of the draw, I, Dub, and Bri, another live MTT virgin from the home game, whom we affectionately call Go Big or Go Home Bri, are all at the same starting table. Al found his way on another table, and Mag, our fifth who has played this MTT once, at a third.

Dub's game style is tight and patient. Bri is, when on, a loose-aggressive tactician. Both are a bit intimidated by the process, and are making mistakes. Dub is not prepared to steal a pot without a hand. Bri is making bets post flop, but small ones, too small to get respect. It's as if they are playing not to lose, not to be the first of the group out, but I am playing to chip up in PokerMonster style (Al will be in fact the first out when he flops two pair and pays off a set).

Dub still thinks Phil Gordon offers good advice, but Dub's tight image will equal one small pot taken down when his AK hits a AA6 board and he gets no takers.
.
PokerMonster is taking PokerMonster's advice and is playing scary. I am unpredictable.

In early position with 66, I limp in for 50 chips. A young player in position raises to 300 and I show him the 66 and tell him his 77 is good. One rotation of blinds later, I now have 44 in early position and limp in. Same player raises to 200, and I make the call. We check check on a 3 9 10 board, and then I check the 3 turn, let him bet 375, and check-raise him to 1200. I show my 44 after he folds.

Hands like that intimidate the hell out of players.

A loose aggressive player (a young, tall guy with a touque on: aka TT) has been up and down, he is currently up, and with blinds of 50/100 he minraises to 200. I see AQ in the BB and raise to 700 and he makes the call. The flop is 3 8 9 and I check. He bets 500 and I call. I think he has nothing anyway, but a Q hits the board on the turn and I push my 2500 or so chips all in and he has to fold.

I have successfully established table image by being able to outplay and outmanage out of position. Scary Image. TT will generally stay out of my way from now on. Others will learn from my management of TT.

TT has an interesting strategy which works well from him. Once the blinds get a little pricier, and the table rarely affords a cheap flop, on two occasions in early position he will limp in with KK and successfully trap a raiser and take his chips.

The result is that few people want to raise TT's limp ins for fear of a trap. This enables TT to see cheap flops with more hands, and he will catch big flops with garbage hands like Q8 and keep chipping up. This is his way of managing the table. More on him later.

At the first break I am chipped up to 5125, or doubled up (through grinding out pots, my preferred method over one big pot) while Al is out, dub has 1600, Bri 850, and Mag 850 (a bad beat hurt Mag I am told). Because its Dub's birthday, I will double him up early after the break after my limped in sooted A7 catches a flush draw, and he check raises me all in after betting 600 on the flop. Dub is a check raising bastard, and he will always have top pair when he makes this move, but I was 40% to suck out, it was his birthday, and I can afford it.

The consequence of my birthday gift was to put me in a tighter position and see very ew flops as I watch the table work. At this time I am exposed to the game of a player to TT's left, a 30-something guy with baseball cap, glasses, and bad goatee, aka Beard Bad, who had limped in UTG, and played a hand with TT's limp in. The flop had been A 5 3 and both checked. the turn was a 4 and Beard Bad min-check raised TT from 500 to 1000 for a call, with 3 diamonds on board. With a 4th diamond, they both slow down, and Beard Bad's 5-3 off suit falls to TT's set of 4s, no diamonds either.

5 -3 off suit limps in UTG? That is a player with no standards whatsoever. More on Beard Bad later. Fun to come.

I will, eventually, and just before the next break, manage to steal my way into reasonable shape, ultimately pushing 77 all in from the SB against a limp in. I got a feel she had a good starting hand that needed a flop, and therefore I could steal, and she might call for a coin flip. She called QK and didn't catch up, putting my at 9100 at the break, about to pay the BB of 600. Dub would make steal attempts too, end wind up getting a loose call against his 10J sooted-second worst hand in poker-and busting out. Dub usually knows when to pick his all-in spots, but he is very literally a fish out of water in this game.

TT has at this point chipped up to at least 25,000 chips, and he enjoyed the slower pace of 150/300/25 and 200/400/50 levels before the break. TT would fail to make the more aggressive adjustment. He would continue to limp in, and face frequent and significant pre-flop raises. He seemed to have no concept of folding to these raises. He would routinely make obvious feeler bets like 1000 into pots of 6000 or so after the flop and get raised big and have to fold. He would refuse to change his game, and he never presented the tells of strength that intimidated others. He was simply outplayed hand after hand and soon he was slowed to a crawl with a fraction of the stack he had built. When the table broke up I would not see him again.

My time after the 2nd break was miserable. No cards. Fold fold fold. With 30 to go and 9100 chips, I wanted to make some hands but it didn't happen. The table breaks up just after I paid the BB and had 3400 chips left with blinds of 400/800/100 ante and my new table position gave me only 4 hands until I paid the blinds again with the price going up.

Playing like Al gave me an Al like stack, but I don't wasn't about to pay off another 1800 chips through the blinds and have a 1600 chip stack. I employ a variant on my old ploy, the blind all in. I simply pretended to look at my hands and pushed the chips in.

Again, the glory of the blind all in is you can't give off any tells if you don't know what you have.

I happened to have 83 off-suit, and happened to get double-lucky: AK protected his hand with a 12000 chip all in and I caught my 8 to pull up to 8000 chips. Woo Hoo!

hand 1

In the BB, my crazy-go-nuts play and still short stack leads to everyone folding to the sb, who simply calls. I have the same hand, 83. I check for a flop. the SB puts 3000 out quickly, but I get a sense this was his intended move all along. I go all in with a 3 7 9 flop and he can't call. I show the 3 and he confirms my pair was good. I now have over 12,000 chips.

hand 2

After folding the SB, Beard Bad comes in early with a raise to 2500, and everyone folds to the man to my right, who goes immediately all in. I look down at my cards. AQ clubs. I immediately want a chip count on the original raiser, and in asking, I discover its Beard Bad! "Oh,, its you!" I declare with delight, and the chip count process confirms to me Beard Bad is weak as a kitten. When I call, the man to my right says good call, but I know it was a good call. he had put Beard Bad on a typical hand for Beard Bad, and he was better.

Now, the SB, a very short stack with only 1000 chips left to put in, makes an instant call, and I would too with the prospect of 6x his terrible stack being offered up and only two expected hands to beat.

Inexplicably, Beard Bad calls, and heres what we have, in order of who acted first:

• Beard Bad has J 8 clubs (?!?!?!?!?)
• Man to my right, AJ hearts (!!!!!!!!!!!)
• PokerMonster has AQ clubs (WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO)
• SB has K6 off suit (the only truly live cards in the bunch).

There are THREE pots, the small main pot of about 8000 for the SB, the first side pot of 32000 which is the top of my stack, and the second side pot of 3200 between Beard Bad and AJ. AJ is the only one with chips left of about 6000 not in the pot.

The flop is 8 4 9 (oh no!)(I'm not panicking)
The turn is a K (SB has made top pair, and the A is unlikely to hit, but I don't care about SB. I;m still not panicking...?)
The river is a gorgeous Noble Lady, the Q of Diamonds.

It will take them about 5 minutes between the dealer and the pit boss to sort out the pots. No one was knocked out, but I raked in the massive 32000 side pot.

hand 4

I'm not done. My recollection is foggy, but it might be 2 hands later when beard Bad, UTG, pushes his last 3000 into the pot. Play folds to me and with AK diamonds, say to Beard Bad, VERY casually, "I owe you a call", and push a stack of 10 1000 chip yellows into the pot.

And then something very interesting happens.

The BB goes all in.

The BB has a LOT of chips.

I have a fair amount to think about. I ask for a count, and his chips move forward and the dealer starts counting. I start talking about that I have a strong hand, not sure I can lay this down, etc etc, and I get a signal. Our all-in big stack looks concerned. I'm on a rush. I have a big hand. I make a huge call.

The BB has AQ.
Beard Bad has Q 8.

I had mislead the BB with my casual comment suggesting a loose call, and PokerMonster is a HUGE favorite. I don't care about Beard Bad's live 8. The odds calculator puts AQ at 12.8% to win the pot, and thats a 55,000 chip pot between us. The board hits all small cards, no 8, and I rake it all, knocking both players to the rail.

Hand 6

In 6 hands, I went from 3100 to 64000 chips, and 2 to 1 chip lead on any player at any table.

I have also managed to make mincemeat of the survivors of my massive rush. I will cruise gently and manage my stack while they grind precariously, step by step, to the bubble as blinds rise to 1000/2000. I will eventually burst the bubble when a 7000 raise leads to a 17000 all in reraise and I wake up in the BB with AA and push all in, pushing the raiser out with his 77 and knocking the all in QQ out for a stack of 90000 chips, and a 3-1 lead to open the final table.

So what if I didn't win hand at the final table and crashed and burned in 5th? From worst to first in 6 hands? The final table's a freeroll, baby.

We'll talk about that final table and the others later. Maybe after tomorrow's game.

The Lady of Luck loves ya, baby!

Chapter 9 point sumpin': More Final Table Talk

Hey ladies and gents. Bit tired today, working two jobs and all that. Made 4th at the final table yesterday, after walking in 40 minutes late for the tourney due to job #1, and, before I talk about some fine points of final table play, I just want to point out some awful mistakes I saw along the way.

Lets start with a "pot odds" "obligatory" call, discussed in detail in chapter 8.1, August 24. Wow this was a bonehead, "pot odds" call.

The player a few chairs to my left has been down on his luck and short stacked FOREVER. But he seems to have found a knack for survival, and is still here with 3000 chips after winning a pot from the BB with only 1/2 the BB left for s atck not so long ago. He may be desperate, but he has been playing survival poker well. When 3 players, including me fold to him, and 4 left at the table, he pushes his chips in, and the players fold to the BB.

The BB has 1500 committed to the pot, and with the SB, antes and the short stack's raise also in, the pot is 6200, leaving him 1500 chips to call for a pot of 7700, or what Mike Sexton would describe as 4:1 on his money.

But the BB has only 7000 chips left after making the call, and he has, well, OMG at least its suited..... 2 3 clubs. At least he goes into the tank, but he calls, strictly on pot odds. No other thought required, although he hates himself.

And when he winds up against JJ, I can't help but criticize his bonehead play. BECAUSE HE CAN'T AFFORD TO LOSE 1500 MORE. It's not like I put the short stack on JJ here, although he has often made his moves with any PPs, putting him on a hand is a factor.

If our caller had analyzed the short stack's game at all, it is clear he would push at least 50% of the time with a pocket pair, and the other 50% of the time, the short stack is guaranteed to have two overcards on against his miserable 2 3. ANY PP has 2 3 dominated to a 80% or better chance to win at least, and the only thing that gives 2 3 any hope is being a suited connector hand offering a 3% flush or 3% straight possibility. If we make the short stack have AJ, AJ is a 61% dominating hand, 63% if one card is a club. Similarly, if the short stack has one club in his PP, give his odds 2% more, and that is a 50/50 proposition too. A bigger suited connector of a different suit has 64% odds to beat 2 3 clubs and if clubs as well, gets 66% to win

So, if 50% of the time I am dominated by a PP and 19% to win, and the other 50% of the time I am 33% to win against ANY TWO RANDOM CARDS, I have 26% chance to win 6200 chips for another investment of 1500. Lets add to this the fact that the SB only pays 500 in this structure at my casino, and we are 8 handed, meaning 8 full hands until I have to pay a BB again. I am 74% likely to have 7000 chips left at the end of the hand, 26% likely to have 15700, and folding guarantees me 8500 in chips with a cheap SB which doesn't need protection.

Lets just call this "pot odds" vs "Al's Law". You will remember Al is the master of the short stack. Al folds here and so do I. We are in the final 16, and I may need 8500 chips to force a big stack in the BB to lay down when I have to steal to survive. 7000 or less might not cut it. And if I do get action when I get a hand, I want as big a stack as I possible doubled up.

Miller and Sklansky might break this down into "EV" values. If I am 25% likely to win 6200, my expected value for playing is 1/4 the profit, or 1550 in chips, almost precisely the cost of my investment. It is equally "profitable" to lay the hand down. EV says your move is good either way, basically, but of course an EV analysis is a cash game concept based strictly on probabilities, without any real consideration for the consequences of losing chips you can't rebuy. If you are in this scenario 4 times, it will pay of one of those 4 times, resulting in even money. Each time you will invest 1500 chips, for a total of 6,000, and one of those times you will get a return of 6200.

If you add "Al's Law" to an EV analysis, this is an easy laydown. If you put the pusher on a PP, and there was enough chat between them to get a clue, EV drops to 1178, making folding the More profitable move. You are 76 to 81% LIKELY (the different and worse value being attributed to a successful read that he has a PP) to simply lose another 1500 chips you can't afford to lose. If you had 25,000 chips, the price sounds fairer, but even so, with at best 33% to win (assuming an accurate read he has two open overcards and not a PP) you may knock a player out and get that much closer to the final table, you are still 66% likely to improve the fortunes of a player who has survival skills and could become a dangerous opponent later should this double up set him up for another one which turns him into a contender.

So, our short stack survivor limped into the final table with about 11,000 chips, and our "pot odds" caller who felt the need to defend his call from my criticism in the bathroom at the break, busted out in 13th.

I, on the other hand, played the final 20 patiently, having doubled through with QQ to get there with 20,000. After dropping to 15,000 for having nothing (and taking adavantage of some steal opportunities in the tightness of the final 20 to hold onto 15,000) I managed to double through again raising with AJ all in from the button, and persuading the BB to call by telling him the truth, that I had my "Lucky Hand". Her put all his chips in with QK and I rivered a J I didn't need.

And a marvelous thing then happened. I and the player to my right both had the big stacks at the table, he 40,000, me about 32,000, and we protected each others' blinds from steals as a result. In addition, my opponent having caught a swing of luck, knew he was good to go to the final and pretty much stopped playing. So when I was in the BB, everyone folded to us, and my chip leader without position gave me 3 walks in a row to snatch the blinds and antes for free.

As another example, this time from the correct side of "pot odds" play, at our final table a medium stack, the same fellow I just spoke about who gave me 3 passes on my BB at the prior table, who I know tends to raise with solid hands, especially in poor position, raises to 7000 with blinds of 1500/3000 in early position. He has about 21000 left, and the SB, to whom we all fold, is the chip leader and he asks for the count. He talks too much, and, while it is clear he has a hand, he is out of position, and elects to make the call, knowing the BB, also a big stack, has fantastic odds to call 4000 more and see a flop. He knows this because he says so, and I get a tell from him that he is deliberately building a bigger pot: in fact, maybe he is this clever, even if he shouldn't think aloud so much: He has built a pot size which exactly matches the remaining chips of the original raiser. The BB, a pregnant woman whom the people at her table have been respecting (for her game, not her condition) makes the call anyway, and why not, she is adding 4000 chips to a 18,000 chip pot, or 4.5 to 1 on her money, as Mr. Sexton is fond of announcing.

Lets keep in mind that this is NOT a showdown situation, all players can afford to fold, and the BB (Baby Bearer?) can flop huge with any two cards, possibly on a flop where either other player has top pair.

If I am the BB with her stack, I will lay down trash, but call any reasonable hand, and this includes some pretty weak hands like 10 7, J 5, just because a BB special cannot be read. If I have a HAND here, one capable of trapping with, like KK or QQ, or one with big flop potential, I can make a call here that LOOKS LIKE a simple pot odds call too and disguise my hand. In this scenario, a little PP make a perfect disguised call which could lead to a huge flop and big fireworks. In other words, the BB has CORRECTLY used pot odds to either see a cheap flop in a big pot or lay a huge trap in a pot that the original raiser may be very tempted to take a stab at, given that he can make a post flop bet in position in an amount which may be difficult to call, unless his opponents are in fact trapping.

Alas, if the BB was attempting a trap, we shall never know, as the SB who had been laying too much of a trap himself with his words and actions, makes the pot sized bet as first to act post flop, with a K high flop, and everyone folded. He will show QK. Clearly he isn't the sneaky, silent type, but taking a nice pot down after a nice flop is a solid conservative play that avoids, say, luring JJ to bet the flop and go all in only to catch his 2 outer or whatever. I think I check raise or bet a little less on the flop just in case someone has a trap to spring on me, like AK, AA or a lucky set on the flop.

While our talkative SB player with the big stack has been catching way to much luck, I think by talking too much, he missed an opportunity to win the bigger pot. QK is certainly a calling hand from the SB in that situation, and not likely a raising hand given the reputation of the original raiser and the so-so quality of QK as a showdown hand. You want to see a flop with it, and you want some indication of where you stand. PokerMonster makes a quiet call, and probably will check raise on that flop unless one of my opponents demonstrates a post flop tell that tells me top pair Q kicker is in trouble.

And here's another "pot odds" laydown, again at the final table, and this time I am in the hot seat, in the SB with 35000 chips, blinds 1500/3000 and the same Survivor who got 23 to call his JJ comes in for all his chips, 9000. I have QJ off suit, and strongly suspect I have two over or two live. A little bird is saying Survivor has a little PP. There is another short stack with 20,000 in the BB. I am looking at a pot of 15000, an investment of 7500, and its is just as likely my opponent has a modest Ace, giving me 42% to win, or a modest PP, offering me two overs and a coinflip, and some possibility that I am dominated for only 30% to win. Let's say the proportions are 45/45/10 respectively, but I really have a hunch he has a small PP. The less informed consideration of my odds still offers me odds of over 40% to win, if I can isolate from the BB. If I just call, I risk inviting the BB in, whom I know is something of an odds player, a good, tight player, but still one with a little less complication to his game than mine. He is a regular best noted for Phil Hellmuth-like rants after going in with the best of it and losing to suckouts, a regular occurrence. He will eventually go out of this final table calling a 95 sooted steal all in on his blind holding AK and watching both the 9 and the 5 hit.

But back to this situation. 43% heads up with Survivor minimum, very likely a coinflip and 3 to1 on my "money".

It's not money. My money is waiting for me at the cashier once I take this tourney down or bust out trying.

These are tournament chips I have earn back if I am wrong. Survivor has shown a knack for surviving. I don't want him to have 22,500 chips, and Ranting Man still has to act. A three way pot drops me down to 33% to win what is now a very large pot, and I won't have position or know where I stand post flop. My 33% to win is 20% to manifest itself on the flop. I can read my opponent but not the top 8 cards remaining in the deck. Just a call offers Ranting Man 6000 to pay to win 22,500, even better odds. A raise could run into something I don't want, and I'd prefer to keep Ranting Man small, too, not potentially double him up on an investment of 6000 chips or close to triple him up and cripple myself trying to push him out with Q high. Mike Sexton will also not tell you to bust out holding Q high. He is SO CONFLICTED.

I am less conflicted.

I fold.

BB calls with A8. I was dead right on my read of Survivor. He has 55. Running this scenario on the odds computer puts me at 37.1% to win if I play and Survivor calls. I would have to hit a J or Q while avoiding an A, 5 or, 8 8 to win. Given that Survivor may have read a call as a pot odds call, he may have pushed up with A high sensing weakness too. Losing this hand could have meant losing 7500 or 20,000 of my 35,000.

How was I to know the flop would have both a Q and a J? A8 can't catch up, and Survivor doubles up, but I still have 35,000 chips. I am an advocate of playing to win, but playing to win means playing smart not just getting lucky. I have plenty of chips to wait for better opportunities, and to ride out other busts if those opportunities don't materialize. In this case, my 35000 chips were enough to crash into 4th, even if good cards never materialized.

Here is another huge mistake. We are back to the final 20. There is a large fellow in seat one with a modest stack of about 11,000.00. In seat one, the dealer is to your right and you really can't see the players in seats 8, 9 and 10. Seat 8 had raised to 3700. Seat 10 had called. (The blinds had been 500/1000 at the time). Big #1 can't see that Seat 10 only has 5000 left. Seat #1 goes all in, and then looks sick while seat 10 goes in the tank after seat 8 folds.

Big #1 has 44. He was trying to re-raise-steal, I presume. Seat 10 calls with K J or similar, and catches up to 44 to double up while Big #1 cripples up. Just plain dumb.

Not only does the chip count request slow things down, and gets information not only in chip stack size but your opponent's confidence level, but you shouldn't even need the information here to lay down 44, or maybe just call. I don't think it is a very profitable call, with only 11% to catch your set while being out of position against players you can't even see, given the commitment to the flop is already 30% of your stack.

Player 8 may have a hand, or have attempted to steal. Player 10 may have a calling hand, or a trapping hand, or just intends to outplay the raiser postflop. But it is almost guaranteed that one of those two people have a good hand, and Big #1 has made a WEAK BET. It was OBVIOUS he was stealing the moment I put his chips in. He had a look of terror on his face. You didn't need to see him to figure out this bet was weak.

Compare this to our analysis of Al's bustout with QQ not so long ago, when Al and I both analyzed his opponent to have KK, Al just a second too late to avoid making the call. There is a clear distinction between the "I dare you to call" all-in and the "I'm fed up with losing hands" all-in. I recall such an all-in from a player at my prior table earlier in the game yesterday. He had come to my table, a table of tighter, more solid players (a bit ABC, and exploitable, but a strong table) with a very big stack. No matter what he did, he couldn't seem to win a hand. It had hurt further that he had been caught raising in early position with a weak sooted Ace early at the table, damaging his image. His raises kept getting action, and he kept missing flops and being outplayed postflop. He was a very average stack quite soon.

When he opened the pot with 3x the blind and QK spades, he got a raise and a call, and, clearly exasperated, went all in. He got two callers, one was AK, the other a desperation J9. He got very lucky J 9 on the flop, (lucky?) and 10 on the river to catch a straight and suck out both the main and side pots.

Get to know the look of the frustrated player pushing all in.

I had to criticize Big #1 for his bonehead play. This is the final 20, and people make moves. He was guaranteed one caller, and like my last example, could have gotten two. 44 is 56% to win against ANY RANDOM HAND (including A-5 2, A-5 3 A-5 4, 2 3, 3 3, 2 2 a large number of hands it dominates) but down to a pure coin flip against two overcards, and in 18% territory against another PP. Again, the RANGE OF HANDS 44 will be up against here, is 50% likely a coinflip, and 50% likely a better PP. Our man had 34% chance to win the pot, since he had NO CHANCE of stealing preflop. But he thought he had a "legitimate hand", he whined against the fury of my scorn.

Big #1 will limp into the final table with 9000 chips and walk into my KK in the SB with Q 10 and bust out 9th.

You can play like Al, or play like the PokerMonster, but either way, the key to getting to the final table is to THINK THROUGH ALL MOVES and PICK YOUR SPOTS. If you are the first to act, bet according to the chip stacks of those in front of you and your goal, whether it be stealing or looking for action. If a raise comes to you and you see good looking cards, use the information weapons at your disposal to assess your situation. Twice at the final table yesterday, I sat in the BB against a raise and a call, looked down at something playable QK and KJ, and simply had to lay down and let the to players duke it out. Both times I would have been dominated had I played.

If we go back to my AJ double up, since I knew my opponent was unsure, I threw in a little speech about my "lucky hand", which sounds like I was warning him to off to fold, like In didn't want a call. I was, and that was what was so deceptive. I knew I was ahead because of his actions, and enticed the call expecting I had him dominated, and was close to right. Perhaps my hand was "lucky" because it needed a lucky flop, or perhaps it was a big PP which had a knack for attracting action and holding up, like QQ. I happen to have a whole range of "lucky hands", after all, it simply happens that my AJ has the additional cache of busting KK and AK in 30% situations. I wanted a call here, as I liked my odds of getting the double up I knew I needed for the final table.

And when the tournament director gave me credit for my consistency in reaching deep into final tables as I walked to the cashier to claim my prize, I can tell you it is the strength of my play in these crucial times leading up to that final table which have led to these results. Part of this is simply the understanding that comes with experience with a particular format of a tournament, to know exactly where I am at at any given time in the game, what I need to do next, and when I need to do it. Add to this finding the players and situations to exploit to get it done, and, as long as my head is in the game, and I avoid major suckouts, I get it done.

Okay, we took a step back, so now a step forward. We've made it to the final. Now fastforward. I have already blogged talked about early final table play. To summarize my advice: pick your spots while the short stacks get picked off, just like along the road to the final table, the difference being the table is big again until these players are out and hand quality has to be premium to very good in likely showdown situations. Let's now put us at my final table yesterday, down to 6 players.

Whether the final table is the more-action oriented casino weekly with the blinds and antes getting pricey, or the typical on line MTT with less pressure, there is now a lull, a brief time where chip stacks are relatively even, and everyone can afford the blinds and antes.

There is usually one or two bigger stacks and then the balance of stacks will be about the same. In the typical $100+9 online game with 100+ players and 2500 in starting chips, and this similar casino game, the decent stacks are now in the 30,000 to 40,000 range, a big stack may have 60,000 or more. At the casino, we are probably at 1000/2000 or 1500/3000 levels at this point. The average stack is only 10 x to 15 x the BB, but still can afford to fold that BB. Online, the level may be at 600/1200 or 800/1600, and we of course will see more hands between level increases in the online game, especially since we are 6 handed and the computer reshuffles a new hand in 3 seconds not 30. If you get a quality live dealer, that may be 20 seconds, and we had a great one last night, but the pace remains incomparable. You will simply have fewer hands to play in this time between 6 remaining and 4 in a live game while the level increases push at the same time against keeping all 6 alive. In either game, however, that slow down time is there, and is there to be exploited.

In this lull period, pots will shrink in size. Limp-ins and modest raises will be more common than all-in moves. SB and BB will often be heads up in unraised pots playing trash against trash.

In spite of the sudden relaxation of the game, this is both a fun time and a crucial time. If I am a big stack, I want to manage the smaller stacks and my own stack. If I just play tight and preserve my stack, others will catch up. If I am in the middle, I want to get big without getting into trouble.

Because we are now 6, 5, 4 handed, SB and BB come around quickly, and no one is going to give you action for a big pot when you have QQ anyway, You have to play your best poker here. Sorry Al, better get that stamina up so you are fresh for the final 6 next Monday.

All your opponents are good players, they deserve your respect. All have the same goal, to get someone else eliminated before them. Accumulating chips is a better strategy than simply being blinded and anted off while others play. As I discussed in my review of several final tables recently, the fatigue factor, present online as well, is huge live. Poker faces disappear, and if you are alert, you will be able to notice that they can't hide their fear or disappointment in their cards or the flop, or confidence, as well as before.

Lets also keep in mind that this lull in tournament pressure will not last forever. At the casino, we will be bank under the pressure of the blinds and antes after 20 minutes of this maybe 30, amounting to 12 to 18 hands, where you will be BB 3 times or likely more given that others will be eliminated. In the on-line game, the pressure is different. You have to convince your opponents to pay off worthwhile pots.

Either way, this amounts to two things: loosening up your starting hand requirements, playing more pots, seeing more flops, and playing solid trapping plays when you catch big flops and solid betting plays when you see an opportunity to take a pot down with weak cards or a weak flop yourself. This time of the tournament is the very element of the game of poker. Preflop and post flop decision making, and making the plays which count. It is real easy to call an all-in with KK. It is harder to play KK in a limped in pot and trap for value while protecting it too. Time to play your complete game. THIS is the time when image will come into play when you need a big laydown to survive a bluff for a pot you must win, when your poker face must be inscrutable, when you can munch on your fries non-nonchalantly while your opponent is in the tank sweating and wringing his hands over your bet, or go into acting mode to sell weakness to add value to your huge flop. In other words, all of the skills I have already discussed at length in prior blogs, playing out of position, playing out of the blinds, reads, tells, disguises, etc. have to be available to succeed at this point in the game, as opposed to merely treading water or watching your stack disappear through mistakes.

My experience playing in 10 and 6 seat SNGs, and playing the 6-8 player home game, which is a short stacked game, has been my best training ground for playing in this particular portion of the final table.

Here, not only am I looking to play my often discussed "mixed paint" and small PP's, usually on raises, but I want to mix my play up, raising with odd hands and limping with big ones. By big ones, I am talking about PPs, not big aces. You can trap in a small pot with a big BB, but you have to raise a decent ace or decent mixed paint, just so the SB and BB don't get a cheap look at a flop and catch something underneath. AJ has more value as a steal or a call in position a raised pot, than trying to trap with it in a small one. I have seen people play AK traps here, but I'm not fond of losing with AK to 10 7 which never would have seen a flop if I'd protected my hand.

In addition, I am going to play a lot more hands here. K- sooted and Q - sooted with kickers 7 and above will be played. I am back to interesting cards, like 10 9 sooted or J 9 or 7 8, hands I haven't been able to play since crisis time started. I want to see a flop with these hands, cheaply or for a price I can control, and with position on likely opponents.

I will feel more comfortable limping these hands in and playing against the blinds because these hands operate similarly to BB specials. They connect into medium flops, and often for big draws or made hands, which someone with middle or top pair from a blind might bet into. They can be played against modest raises when you have the chips to call, since, depending on the player, whom you should know real well by now, may very well be playing as I suggested, raising high cards while trapping with PPs, allowing you to see flop which may be much more friendly to your middle connected and semi-connected cards than AQ for the former, and letting you play a drawing hand capable of beating AA or KK trying to slow play trap for the latter.

To practice with these hands and this style or more open, creative play, the most obvious opportunity is the 6 man SNG online. I find the $10 games to offer up a nice range of decent short table opponents, and the turbo games (5 minute levels) to best simulate short final table pressure. A $5 SNG is a cheap place to start to build up the more creative side of your short-handed game with lesser opponents, but you will learn nothing playing cheaper except that you don't enjoy playing with rookies.

Okay, its a long blog, and this is only an introduction to this portion of the final table. Tomorrow is another day. And Saturday is another tournament. And open, creative, short table play is probably a book unto itself.

And the Lady of Luck is checking the time, sitting in the passenger seat of my car with the engine running, all dressed up with someplace to go, while I chat with you guys....

A quick note while I am away

Hey all, or some, or none! My last blog seems to leave you hanging on a line, and then life intervened. The Poker Monster is yet to turn pro. I has a day job, and it's occupied too much of my time lately. Not enough poker for me, although I do promote a little balance in my life. There are other things like than work, poker, and blogging...

So I'm making excuses while promising to do some blogging this week to talk more about either the last big tourney (subtitled how I went from suckout to big stack bully and back down to earth in 5 short hours) or more final table discussion, or both.

In the meantime, a question to my readers. I have found, as a matter of routine, that following a very big payday such as the $4000 made in two days 2 weeks ago, that I become a bad beat magnet for some time after. I once suffered a full month of putting my chips in with the best and seeing river after river catch lucky.

This past week it was flopping a set of 10s calling a small raise with 10 10, A high, and seeing my opponent cash in-all in catching one of 4 Queens to river a straight, yesterday it was slow-trapping AA from UTG against AK on a K 8 8 flop, knowing I was still good on the turn card J, and then having to slow down and pay a value bet of 500 on the river K to make his 2 outer full house to cripple my stack, on only the second hand I'd played post flop, and knowing that any other card on the river would have allowed me to trap him for a double up....

Sigh. Bad beat stories are not for sharing, and I WON'T SHARE my story about how my quad Aces got beat by a Royal flush once, but I do ask of you all....any one else share this experience of a big win/bad beat dry spell. We are all looking for the ghosts in the machine, after all, that unifying theory of poker which explains the universe...I invite your comments.

That Lady of Luck, until then, remains a pleasant if capricious enigma.

PM

Another Interlude: Big Tournament and Small Tournament Stories: Bluffs, Mistakes, Suckouts, Big Stack Glory....and more? We'll see.

Hello, to both my small loyal following and any lucky or unlucky fool who has stumbled upon me. I refrained from wasting my poker stories in the casino bathroom tonight. You are the beneficiary of my restraint.

Yes, I busted out early tonight. Some crackerjack thinks its a smart thing to do to limp AA UTG with blinds of 50/100. To a minraise of 200, I decide to push around the raising short stack when I wake up in the SB with 10 10. To protect in, I go all in assuming the BB and the limper can't call 3500 chips. Eventually, I will have to push with A high UTG again, and fall to quad 7's in a otherwise happy 3-pot. The minraise trap with AA UTG works well at an aggressive table in crisis time, but is a sure way to get a 5 way pot out of position on a scary board in the first hour. I don't know how many times AA has in fact fallen to a BB special 2 pair by limping in and getting no raises. Did someone at the back of the room say "every time"? I think so. You can't remotely know where you stand post flop letting two random cards see a flop. You want to rely on 3 random cards on the flop, not fear them. Gah. See earlier blogs on BB specials. Terrible play got rewarded.

Overplay 10 10? Push early with A high UTG short stacked and fall to a monster hand in a three-way pot? Is there an echo here? Oh yeah, that was my fate on Saturday. But that was after over 7 hours of poker, not one, and there is a lot to tell and a lot for us both to learn from. I learn a lot by reviewing and reliving my war stories, and if you get something out of it too, fantastic. Bad poker stories are pretty boring, except to the addicted.

There were three young buddies at my table this evening all live MTT newbies. Two made some mistakes and busted out early, but the third got short stacked, and then settled down. First live tourney for all three, and for I know, the last short stacked, who pushed his chips in with AQ diamonds on a 10 high 2 D flop, got called loose by AQ off suit, and freerolled the 3 of diamonds on the turn to chip up, is still sitting at the table now and I'm chatting with you guys. I could tell from the three of them that he was the most ready. One of them overplayed 10J, caught a 10 high flop, and paid off a very well handled short stack holding KK, to go short and out. Amigo 3 seemed to have the concept of the bet preflop which leaves enough in the stack for
a credible bet postflop.

Amigo #1 got busted first, but had the sense to glom onto me and ask questions. This blog really is for you guys, who play with your buddies, play online, see live tournaments on TV, and want to, but don't know how to, make the transition. When I played my first live tournament a few months ago (has it really been just a few months?) I knew I had the math and the understanding of the game to do well, but, of course, my live play reading skills were in infancy and my abilities to disguise big preflop or post flop hands to maximize value or to sell a hand and make a huge bluff or semi-bluff pay off were not there.

PokerMonster does not bluff very often. I do not consider a good read of weakness followed by a correct bet that correctly matches the point where your opponent can't call, without making so large a bet that it is suspicious or so small it must be called, a "bluff". It is as legitimate a poker play as slowplaying a monster flop. Betting correctly is betting correctly, whether you hold the goods or not. Period. Sklansky and Miller's book on poker theory may be a cash-based theory book, but it is all about the math behind the correct bet. Slide that "pot odds" and EV based math into the additional factors in play in a tournament, and you have it made.

As an example, let's say I have AK, the flop comes K 8 9 two diamonds, I am not sooted, it is early in the tournament, the price preflop was only 10% of two equal stacks, 150 each, and I am reasonably sure the player, who I have yet to fully figure out, quite possibly called my initial small raise with a decent suited Ace. I am concerned about the flush draw, but I would also like to see some additional payment, as well as additional assurance I have someone on the hand I suspect. A little more money for the short term, a little information for the long term.

If I, as first to act into a 300 pot, make a 200 bet, I am offering my opponent a price of 200 to make 500, or roughly the same odds as him MAKING THE FLUSH BY THE FLOP. In a cash game, that is an easy call. In a tournament with starting chips of 1500, I have my man on the brink of calling and folding. Depending on the chip depth in the tournament and the size of the buy in, the opponent with the flush draw could (if very tight) fold, could (if he likes to double early, float, semi-bluff, or otherwise gamble ) raise me, perhaps all in, or (most cases) call. If we are in a 2500 chip game, the correct play is always to call, as the price is low enough to be basically risk-free in the long term game. 2150 left offers me plenty more flops with leisurely levels and cheap blinds. Had I made a 400 bet in a 1500 game or a 500 bet in a 2500 game, those bets are a pretty big commitment for anyone playing anything with a hefty buy-in, and could induce a flush draw gamble in a lower priced game.

What is interesting here is that a very good player with Ace-diamonds in position could still push that flush draw depending on where he thinks he is in the hand. That very good player will read, from my various post flop bet options:

• 200: my opponent is either unsure of himself, making a continuation bet, or caught a huge flop (KK hits set) and is betting for value, and may not realize he just offered me the correct odds to call my monster draw to the nuts;
• 300: (bet pot button on line). This is an amateur bet by an amateur player. He may or may not have caught the flop, and if he did he has a pair only.
• 400 or 500: My opponent caught his K, and it trying to take the pot down right now. He is not willing to gamble with the prospect of a flush beating his AK or AA. What he has is obvious. I am beat now.
• A check on the flop? No way do I offer a free card here without any information back to see where I stand. K high no draw? Sure, I can check trap post flop.
  

That player will respond to these bets with the following variety of moves:

• 200: No matter what he has, he is offering me the right odds to beat him. I don't have enough information to know if he has nothing, top pair, or a set. IF I put him on a continuation bet (and both live and online there are serious tells available), I may just push the envelope with a bet which commits us both to the pot if he calls. IF I am at all unsure I just call.
• 300: Weak bet. Amateur player. He will not get away from his AK if he has it. Not enough information to know whether I have him beat already or whether I am 35% through 5. I am inclined call and see if he slows down on the turn, and this will dictate my next move.
• 400 or 500: How did he know I had two diamonds? If I feel lucky, lets rumble! If not, I fold.
• no way I check here, but if I did, it would because I expect my opponent to stab at the pot, and would do so to check-raise, not float call. If I attempt to represent the flush draw when my opponent has the flush draw, he will see right through me and take the opportunity to check-check to the river as I foolishly attempt to trap. With a flush draw in position, the free card is often the best move. Sklansky and Miller discuss this from a scrictly mathematical perspective in terms of a better positive EV. To hell with EV values and explaining that cash-game gobbledy-gook mumbo-jumbo here, they just mean you will more likely make more money hitting that draw later than bluffing at a small pot now in the long run based on pure probability. I add to that dry concept the additional effect that checking back offers me as the UTG AK no information to assess where I stand on the turn card. This is particularly so if a 10 high flush draw sees the K of diamonds on the turn, or my K high hits the A of diamonds (QJ diamonds being a legitimate in-position preflop call here as well). With AK out of position and blind to my opponent, I may bet the turn and bet the flop and not figure out how dead and stupid I am until I am raised for value or all in on the river. The check on the flop into the potential flush draw simply concedes all the power in the hand to the player with position. He can now REPRESENT the flush draw if it hits and he doesn't have it or represent something else when weakness is exposed.
  

Let me give you an example of s similar hand where a check conceded the power in the hand to me.

We are midstage in the weekly Monday game 300/600, and the button elects to limp as first in the pot, the SB calls and I, in the BB with 63 diamonds, check to see a free flop.

The flop is A diamond diamond. I have the flush draw and from the BB my special is completely disguised. I can check here and have nothing, a draw, or a monster BB special. When the SB checks, so do I and so does the button. I am delighted by the free card.

The turn is a black 7, SB checks, I check, button minbets 600. SB folds I make the cheap call.

The river is another black 7, there is almost 4000 in the pot, and my opponent looked perplexed by my call. He has no idea where he stands, so I elect to represent the 7 and push all-in for 6500 chips. He simply can't call and will show A5 hearts. I will muck and rake. I can make that representation because my call was as consistent with someone who thought his 7 might be good as the draw I was trying to hit, and the failure to bet on the flop allowed me to fully disguise my BB special.

As you can see, the value bet of 200, because it confuses a good opponent as to whether I am weak or strong (set vs continuation bet), and his best response tends to give away his hand, particularly if there is a pause to reflect on my bet. Beware, however, of the quick smooth call. That is not a flush draw. That could very well be a set. One of my poor rookies kept bluffing his A5 against a 10 7 7 flop through the river from the SB position and paid off 1000 chips to A7 smooth calling him.

The top pair checker in my example, in trying to "trap" with his weak ace, instead surrendered the lead, indeed his entire soul, to me. Ace high, SB and BB check to my limp, I BET to end the pot whether I have that A or not. Top pair is just too weak to let an opponent catch up.

With a value/blocking/information bet if 200, the information offered by the most likely response with the nut flush draw, a call, gives me the read which dictates my next move. This, subject to the pause test, which again is no guarantee. So much of this advice is player specific, and under no circumstances am I advocating following my "rules" like a puppet instead of keeping your head alive and in the game. If and when I am sure my opponent is drawing flush, I have just squeezed 350 of his chips in on what is really an 18% chance to beat me for the next turn. I need these extra chips, early and really can afford both the 18% risk and to fold if the next card should be a diamond, because I will already know I am very likely beat if it comes. The whole betting behaviour determines my read, not just whether he called or not.

Let's reverse this and put us in the driver's seat, first to act in a pot we raised, but this time we are holding the AQ diamonds. I have already told you what each of the above bets represent, but here we have to decide either how to win the pot on a semi-bluff, control the situation to get to the river nuts, or, as I did with the runner runner 7's find another way to pull the trigger correctly and win the pot.

What I don't recommend here is checking into the caller intending to check-call float to victory. Actually I do to a point, but I do like to bet my flush draws, especially if the board was unlikely to assist my opponent, like the 10 high draw our last of three new amigos doubled up with today. The check-call says "I have a flush draw" a little too much, killing your action if the turn card makes the flush and killing your investment when it doesn't. If the turn is bad for you, if you check he pushes you out with a bet he know you can't call with 18% and one card left if he has the hand. Of course, if he checks back, he may have been just bluffing the flop and you get either a diamond on the river of a chance to represent like you had it all along if the river hits you another way or could not have helped him.

I don't like the check simply because we do not have the information to KNOW whether a check-call is the right move until he responds to our check. If the game is live, and you have a tell to work with, a sneaky check followed by a suspicious bet that suggests strongly uncertainty in your opponent, may in fact provoke a check-raise semibluff from you that might have achieved both extra money in the pot and an opportunity to take the pot down. That check raise is tough though. At the very least, you have serious outs if called. These are moves that I have done and will still do. It is best if you have already done a good check raise move in the tournament, especially if you were trapping. See earlier blogs on play out of position for more details.

I find the SAFER and MORE EFFECTIVE move is to bet into the man in position. But how much? Keep in mind that in this scenario YOU have JUST A DRAW and you have no idea where you stand in the hand. You need information, you need to disguise the true nature of your hand, and you, above all else want to win the pot, not stumble into a big mistake. It is early, your opponent just called your initial raise, and he could have ANYTHING.

Obviously the BIG BET (400 or 500 or similar amounts which have now committed a 1/3 of your stack to the pot) can and will be raised all-in by a big flop hitter or overpair, committing you to a choice between 35% of your stack given up or 35% to win big, assuming he holds top pair only. On the other hand, a VERY GOOD player who has caught a set may just call you, because you sure haven't represented a flush draw here, you've represented AK or AA protecting itself, and the set WILL PAY OFF the misdirected flush. You may even be able to check check a bad turn card and see a free river simply because his JUST CALL has given away his hand. IT IS TOO BIG A BET TO JUST CALL WITH A FLUSH DRAW so he does not represent a flush draw with the smooth call. If you check the turn he MAY EVEN VALUE BET the turn (like 200 or 250) now offering you fantastic odds, given how deeply committed you are already. Well, pretty good odds. With 4 cards on the felt, only two diamonds, you have 2 dead diamonds which could pair the board and make his obvious full house. In fact, that big bet will more than likely expose the reality of you running into a monster flop pretty quick, like my all in with 10 10 exposed the AA without needing him to turn over his cards today, but this is a very expensive mistake.

Let's keep in mind that the is only 11% chance your opponent has FLOPPED A SET, but that big bet is designed to PUSH OUT an opponent, not improve value, so you wind up winning a small pot, overcommitted to a reraise if your opponent has AK, and down to 25% with two to go if your opponent has a small PP which flopped the set. While those possibilities are out there and seem unlikely, the problem is that the "just caller" pre-flop can easily have AK, K high paint sooted, or that small PP we all like to see flops with and catch that 11% for the big pot, particularly in position.

We are back to the "correct odds" bet of 200. The one designed to confuse the enemy. What you are doing is a "blocking bet", which Miller and Sklansky describe but seem to fail to really enunciate its good use. A VERY TYPICAL blocking bet is the weak min-bet right off the flop. You see this weak play all the time online. I only see oldschoolers do it live. I WILL DO IT sometimes when I have flopped a set in poor position in a limped in pot, when my set is perfectly safe, just to see if it's weakness will attract either a multitude of overcard drawers or a raise, but I hate it. I can't make a real bet and the check call or raise gives my hand away. GAH. It usually just improves a small pot to a slightly less small pot.

200, good blocking bet. WHEN IT IS NOT OBVIOUSLY A BLOCKING BET. This is the irony of the play. You are MAKING A BLOCKING BET TO DISGUISE IT AS A VALUE BET IN ORDER TO PROTECT ITS VALUE AS A BLOCKING BET. By disguising the blocking bet so, you manage the price of the next card while representing that you have something, but not what it is, and, hopefully, not giving away the fact that you are blocking the flush draw. It will take an experienced player to be confused by the blocking bet. Mr. Phil Gordon Reader will just raise with top pair. He is too afraid of the flush draw ghost not to protect his AK. This is why I use the VALUE BET DISGUISED AS A BLOCKING BET to get paid on a flopped set, particularly when I am out of position, and have my ABC opponent on a hand, whether it is an overpair against a small flop or the flop hit a big card like an A and PP hit a very innoculous set. This bet may very well induce the ABC player to play "chase the ace" and see the next card cheap too.

Obviously the response to the blocking bet will provide you with the information you need. Even the VERY GOOD PLAYER should be confused by the blocking bet. In fact, the ABC player with AK will just read it for what it REALLY IS, weakness, and push. I find that the 2/3 small pot blocking bet is more used and more effective live than online, which seems to either do that weakass minbet garbage or not at all.

What you really want is to induce the floater to float along while you either fish to the nuts, find the opening to bust his bluff back, or get paid on hand you know he has beat. The bet you choose is based on your goals, of course, but flush draw control is best done with effective bet management and the best way to control the behavior of your opponent is to confuse him and cast doubt as to where he stands in the hand.

Mixing up the play adds to the confusion. The same post-flop bet you used to get paid in full on a flopped set 12 hands earlier will put anyone in the pot with you on yellow alert, which is of course the goal to manage your draw and maximize the opportunity to win the biggest pot possible with or without hitting that nut draw.

Okay, the theory lesson is over. Thank god! Lets put some of this into practice.

Yay! (or yawn) Real Poker Stories!

The Saturday tournament is a format I have played and talked about before 10,000 starting chips, 30 minute levels starting at 25/50. A format designed to give all players a lot of time to make their stacks for their $300+30 investment. There are 250 players, and, as usual, play is tight.

Early on, I have played a semi-loose preflop game, calling modest raises with drawable hands, but catching no flops, and losing about 1,000 chips. I then get a small but blow limping in A10 for 100, seeing a A -K _J flop, and putting in about 1300 more calling a min check-raise from my initial 400 flop bet, a 500 turn bet, and check checking the river to see that my man out of position had limped in AK. I had been suspicious enough of the check min-raise to realize I may be drawing for the Q. Ouch, but I'm not dead, just down to 7500 chips, and annoyed because the play is cautious, the pots small, and just grinding back to 10,000 will be a chore.

To add to this frustration, the next pot I played, I raised AK UTG, got 4 callers, including the BB, saw a K Q 9 flop two clubs, and pushed all in against the BB's post flop bet of 1500 (very much needing to protect against a draw given that I had 1500 in added value to the 1600 pot, a big stack left to push with, and 2 more players to get past) to get called by the BB, also holding AK, splitting the pot to a meager payoff of 700 chips profit. Ugh.

Around this time, a player about 5 seats to my left who has been confidently throwing larger chunks of his stack around than the table average and inducing folds for moderate pots makes a critical mistake which I will later exploit.

This player looks like Beaver Cleaver just turned 40. He projects a straightforward image. He blows it on this hand. He has position on a UTG raiser and simply calls. The flop is K high, relatively high cards, two diamonds. The UTG makes a feeler bet, and Beaver makes the call. The turn is another diamond, and UTG makes a weak bet, Beaver makes a weak raise, and UTG calls. The final card is another diamond, and UTG is clearly pissed off, and just checks.

Here's the critical mistake. Instead of the value bet that I KNOW UTG can't call on the 4 flushed board, Beaver proudly announces "I have the flush!" and even more proudly shows his winning hand...6 of diamonds, 7 of hearts. No, not A 6 diamonds, 7 high off soot. Beaver had been floating through the whole hand with no pair, and runner runner dirt-weak flush draw.

That's only the first half of the mistake. Raking in a pretty damn big pot, he decides to brag to the whole table about what a brilliant player he thinks he is. He's just so damn full of himself. His bizarre ego requires the whole table to acknowledge his outplay. He not only exposes himself as a floater, but also an idiot who thinks he's a savant.

If I am that overstretched but caught my flush, have position, and see that my opponent screwed up a value bet slow play and is disgusted with the river card counterfeiting his hand, I make the bet he can't call and muck and rake. This is why I only prefer to semi-bluff than bluff, so I can not be ashamed of my showdown with I hit if I have to show it down.

He is not ashamed. He has brazenly brayed to the table. What the hell do you get when you cross a beaver with a donkey? This guy, I guess. Which one was his mother?

Soon after this our Beaver/Donkey will suckout lucky against a much better player for another big pot.

Let me talk about this player. My very first weekly MTT, this player was at my starting, late, and final table. A semi-loose player who plays excellent post-flop poker, and can make a huge call with a weak Ace post-flop. A very good player who needs some excess chips to play his game. He has a Russian hook to his nose and a vague accent so let's call him Czar Nick. Czar Nick took down the first weekly I played, and always had the big stack. Every time I see him at the casino, cash or tourneys, he has a big stack.

This time the whole table seemed to see him coming and he is getting played back at over and over and over and losing chips 1000 at a time. Beaver/Donkey will suck out on him for 1/2 of his last 5000 in this handm raising on the cutoff to open the pot to Czar Nick, who makes the call.

On a Q 2 2 flop, Czar Nick will bet the flop and Beaver/Donkey will float the call. With a 4 on the turn the same will happen, to the tune of 1500 of Czar Nick's chips committed to the river, another 2. Czar Nick checks, Beaver/Donkey value bets 1000, and the frustrated Czar Nick makes the call. Beaver/Donkey oh so proudly displays Q3 clubs for the full house, and a despondent Czar Nick will muck what was most likely 10 10 or a similar PP.

Beaver/Donkey chipped up, glowing with the confidence only stupidity along with a borderline personality disorder can bring. Czar Nick is on tilt, and I get to carve a chunk out of both of them, starting with the Czaz, when the button comes back the Czar two hands later.

The sneaky bastard who slow played AK raises to 500 UTG, and I make the call in the middle with KQ clubs. Not the best hand in a raised pot, but I have position on the raiser and some urgency and a good price to see the right flop. Czar Nick, with position and on tilt, makes the call. I am not concerned with Nick because he is on tilt and desperate to make a pot.

The flop is J 10 4 one club two spades, giving me the straight draw and overcards. The Sneak checks and I check, and Czar Nick throws his last 1850 at the 1725 pot. I like this, because it was enough to induce the Sneak to fold gave me two things: knowledge that Czar Nick caught a pair only and I have a great price to call what I am sure are two overcards and a straight draw, or 14 outs, to win a pot which improves my fortunes at a price I can live with if I don't. If we give the Czar some outs to improve should I catch a pair, it is basically a coin flip with 2 to go.

See my very early blogs on monster draws for great detail on the subject of odds to win these draws. Bottom line is I simply can't lay down such a sweet draw for a closed pot and such terrific pot and implied odds. I can't give up the opportunity to win the pot I know I need, so I call.

Czar had 10 8 off suit, and I couldn't ask for better, AJ still gives me great odds (see the prior blogs) but with any A, K, Q, or 9 all good and ALL LIVE! I river the A for the stylish bust, and secretly feel both good and bad. I enjoy playing hands with the Czar, but I have kicked a dangerous player to the curb while demonstrating superior poker savvy to him and the rest of the table which may tilt the scales next time we are at a table together. Excuse me while I kiss the sky.

I had given the Czar too much respect the first encounter. I was cautious enough against his big stack to push all in with AA on a 7 8 8 flop instead of slow trapping him on one hand early, and let him outplay me on a limped pot when the flop hit 10 7 7 two clubs, I have the J9 clubs for the straight flush draw, and just called each bet flop and turn to his bets just to miss the river and be bet out, I would show my monster draw and he would show me his J9 off suit. We would laugh about it, but I lost 10,000 chips on the approach to the final table, limiting my resources to a short stack at the final to finish 5th and watch him take it down.

Knowledge is power and revenge is sweet. The table may very well be turned between me and the Czar. His skill was being very difficult to put on a hand. Seeing him being outplayed and frustrated is very powerful information.

Okay, enough about Czar Nick. The Beaver/Donkey is next.

Anytime you can find a player to target for chips in a tournament (see the Donkey to my Right blog) is WONDERFUL.

It is not long after adios to the Czar that I wake up early to see QQ and raise to 400: the blinds remain 75/150. I am very pleased to see Beaver make the call, less pleased to see an A 3 2 flop.

I check to the Beaver. The Beaver checks back.

The turn is another 3. I decide to test the waters, and bet 1000, the size of the pot. Beaver/Donkey elects to minraise to 2000. Oh Please Lady of Luck do not let this donkey suck out on me too! I scream silently, but there is no way I am going to let this fool outplay me holding QQ just because of this flop.

The river is garbage, like a 7 or something, and I check. Beaver bets 2500. I don't really know if I am simply pissed off, have a read, maybe from the checked flop, or just refuse to give this guy credit for anything other than 7J. "I just can't put you on an Ace" I say as I make the call, show the QQ, force a disgusted muck, and look like a hero to my fellow mumblers at the other end of the table. Lets just say I had no spidey sense tingling me to trouble, just a gut that said don't lay down to this braying, big eared, bucktoothed, paddle-tailed freak of nature.

"Easiest pot I ever took down," I choose to brag, Beaver/Donkey style, but it wasn't. I can't put him on a hand, but I can't put him on an ace when he is simply playing his float pattern predictably on me too.

This hand helped define my table image, and put Beaver/Donkey on semitilt. With an ordinary stack, his style exposed to the table, and a COMPLETE INCAPACITY TO SHIFT GEARS, his opponents know exactly when to push back and force him to fold. 3 hands, and not very long between them, later, or Beaver/Donkey is done, and I broke the donkey's back.

That 2500 bet wasn't a bad bet mind you. For him, he was forcing me into one of those threshold calls I was talking about at the beginning. For, assuming I was certain I had him, I really couldn't have extracted more. A minraise probably induces the fold, as does an all in, and effectively the 2500 bet makes a good stab and a nice pot without putting the rest of his stack at risk. But I really got much better overall value to my own reputation as well as destruction to his by calling and showing QQ on an A high board and forcing his muck. If I was Beaver, and had a lower PP there, I probably show my hand so I can at least save some face that I thought my opponent had no ace and missed the flop, I suppose, but with no draw on the board for me to credibly represent, and I know he had far less than a PP, he really was hung by his own predictability. There were only two kinds of hands I could have had, both of which are in trouble on that flop out of position, the good PP and the suspect A high. If he said he thought his 99 was good, nobody would believe him and those who did would think he's a rank amateur used to playing $5 games online.

Beaver/Donkey is probably a Greg Raymer fan. Mr. Raymer bluffed his way to a WSOP bracelet, but watch him play on the PPT and see how his bluffing floating style fails against a table of experienced pros and you get my point. I'm a Gus Hanson fan. Truly unpredictable play which disguises and masks and confuses. He's too crazy for me, but I am experimenting with some more aggressive play while still freerolling from last week.

Okay, how to bluff and how to bust the bluff....introductory....its late, and it was a long tournament, so this will continue soon.

When the Lady of Luck comes in riding a donkey, offer her a ride.