seriously. There is a lot of questionable play going on out there. We played for about six or six and a half hours on Friday night, and over the course of that time ten people played. About an hour or so before we quit, there were only four players remaining, and everyone who had already left did so with no chips at all. In a cash game, this is unusual (well, at least in the Friday night game, it is.).
However, a lot of the players who went broke simply didn't have to. For instance, if there have been two, maybe three raises before the flop already and it's on you with the AJ suited, you should almost always fold if the stacks are deep.
Wait a minute, ace-jack suited is a fold, you say? In a word, yes. Think about it. If an opponent raises before the flop, it's possible you have them beat with AJ. A lot of players will bet with worse hands preflop. However, if it's been bet and raised, what could your opponents have? most likely, it's no worse than ace ten. So, if your opponent is reraising with ace ten, plus, AJ, AQ, AK, and every pair, you're best to fold the AJ. you're only a favorite against one of the hands he could be holding. AJ is a tie, you're a coin flip against the pairs 2's through 10's, you're 30% against jacks, and you're a 4 to 1 dog against QQ, KK, AA, AQ, and AQ. Save your money, and wait for a better opportunity, preferably when you can be the aggressor, rather than the caller.
This brings me to the next idea, which is this: Many weak players think only about their cards. This has been said zillions of times before, but let me put it another way. Many weak players ignore things that should be totally obvious, because they are blinded by the (seeming) strength of their hole cards. Players ignore their opponents' actions, and also ignore threatening boards that may signify that their hands are beat.
For example, in a pot from the Friday night game, one of the players flopped top set (three kings) on a QKJ flop with two spades. One of his opponents led out, and he raised. He was called in two spots, putting the original bettor all-in, leaving him heads up for the side pot. However, the turn was a red ace, and after he bet, his opponent raised all-in. He insta-called, saying, "well, I know I have Jake (the short stacked player) beat." I said, "probably not, unless you have the same hand (meaning ace ten for the straight)." He said "no, that's not possible," to which I replied, "well, then you don't have him beat, because he has ace ten. There's ace king queen jack out there." and then he groans and goes "oh, well that screws me then."
At this point, I was seriously shocked. From his body language, and the way our little conversation went, I could tell. He had no idea, and in fact hadn't even considered, that his opponents could possibly have him beat. Even though four parts of Broadway (the ace high straight) were clearly on board, he wasn't thinking about it. He didn't even know a straight was possible, probably. But the thing is, he's not going to get raised all in on fourth street if his opponent doesn't have a ten. Of course, Jake showed him the AT, and his other opponent the T4 of spades, and the two straights chopped his money when the board didn't pair on the river.
In poker, we have to strive not just to win a lot when we have the best of it, but also to lose the minimum when we have the worst of it. Saving and earning money are two hand-in-hand components.
The lesson here is just because they're pocket kings doesn't mean they are good no matter what the betting is and what the board is. You always have to think about what your opponents might have, especially on dangerous boards. In this hand, the KK improved to top set on the flop. Sometimes top set is no good. In fact, here, it was already beat on the flop. What is a set when there are four cards to a straight out there and two opponents have gone all in? It's a fold, that's what it is.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Sunday, May 18, 2008
lesson three: body language and focus
In poker, the player who makes the most correct decisions compared with their opponents will tend to win. One of the ways that players help themselves to make correct decisions is the observation of tells.
Tells are the subconscious clues that your opponents give out through their body language, voice, the way they handle their chips, etc. that "tell" you something about the strength of their hand. In Caro's Book of Poker Tells, author Mike Caro mentions several tells which are extremely valuable, including whether an opponent is looking at or away from you after a bet, or the classic "look at the hole cards then quickly glance at the chip stack" tell (a huge indicator of strength, generally).
I think that one tell that's really important to be on the lookout for is your opponents' level of focus. In almost every card game, the players' attention is divided between the game itself, and everything that's going on around them, such as the table conversation. It's important to figure out to what degree a player's paying attention to the game strategic vs. social/environmental factors, as this can often give you big clues as to their holdings. Here are some examples of some things I've observed.
The "start paying more attention suddenly" move:
Sometimes, during a hand, a player will abruptly seem to become more emotionally invested in a hand, either becoming quieter or more focused-looking. This often happens after a certain card comes out, or after a player makes a bet. In general, I've found that if you see a player do this on more than a couple of occasions, they're not faking their body language, and that's generally a big sign of strength.
The conversation bluff:
As a preface, I don't know if this one applies to as many players as the increased focus tell, but I've definitely observed it in a couple of the guys in my game. For one of them in particular, I'd say this tell is close to 90% reliable, every time. He likes to bluff a lot, betting and raising with air in many hands. Sometimes, though, he'll make a big bet (or raise), and while I'm taking my time thinking about my decision, he'll stop being focused, and often start comfortably talking with the other players, or in other words he becomes emotionally divested from the game to a degree. This rarely seems to happen to him when he wants a call, and I've reraised him with air and taken it down on several occasions. He'll appear focused for a while, but if you make him sit for a minute, pondering your decision, he'll (I suppose) get bored of looking focused.
I also think there's something worthwhile in paying attention to what your opponents do with their hole cards after they look at them, as far as placement, use of a card protector, etc. Do they do it differently in different hands? Do they protect/not protect (place their hand on top of) their face-down hole cards during a hand? Do they double-check them?
Do your opponents always announce their bets the same way, or is it different each time? It may seem picky, but I believe there is a difference between saying "raise" while tossing in 35 more in chips, and saying "I raise 35 more."
Of course, it's very difficult, if not impossible, to catch every subtle thing that goes on at a poker table. But knowing what you're looking for allows your antennae to be up, at any rate, meaning you're catching things at a higher rate than your opponents. Plus, the more practice you get, the better you'll become at it.
Tells are the subconscious clues that your opponents give out through their body language, voice, the way they handle their chips, etc. that "tell" you something about the strength of their hand. In Caro's Book of Poker Tells, author Mike Caro mentions several tells which are extremely valuable, including whether an opponent is looking at or away from you after a bet, or the classic "look at the hole cards then quickly glance at the chip stack" tell (a huge indicator of strength, generally).
I think that one tell that's really important to be on the lookout for is your opponents' level of focus. In almost every card game, the players' attention is divided between the game itself, and everything that's going on around them, such as the table conversation. It's important to figure out to what degree a player's paying attention to the game strategic vs. social/environmental factors, as this can often give you big clues as to their holdings. Here are some examples of some things I've observed.
The "start paying more attention suddenly" move:
Sometimes, during a hand, a player will abruptly seem to become more emotionally invested in a hand, either becoming quieter or more focused-looking. This often happens after a certain card comes out, or after a player makes a bet. In general, I've found that if you see a player do this on more than a couple of occasions, they're not faking their body language, and that's generally a big sign of strength.
The conversation bluff:
As a preface, I don't know if this one applies to as many players as the increased focus tell, but I've definitely observed it in a couple of the guys in my game. For one of them in particular, I'd say this tell is close to 90% reliable, every time. He likes to bluff a lot, betting and raising with air in many hands. Sometimes, though, he'll make a big bet (or raise), and while I'm taking my time thinking about my decision, he'll stop being focused, and often start comfortably talking with the other players, or in other words he becomes emotionally divested from the game to a degree. This rarely seems to happen to him when he wants a call, and I've reraised him with air and taken it down on several occasions. He'll appear focused for a while, but if you make him sit for a minute, pondering your decision, he'll (I suppose) get bored of looking focused.
I also think there's something worthwhile in paying attention to what your opponents do with their hole cards after they look at them, as far as placement, use of a card protector, etc. Do they do it differently in different hands? Do they protect/not protect (place their hand on top of) their face-down hole cards during a hand? Do they double-check them?
Do your opponents always announce their bets the same way, or is it different each time? It may seem picky, but I believe there is a difference between saying "raise" while tossing in 35 more in chips, and saying "I raise 35 more."
Of course, it's very difficult, if not impossible, to catch every subtle thing that goes on at a poker table. But knowing what you're looking for allows your antennae to be up, at any rate, meaning you're catching things at a higher rate than your opponents. Plus, the more practice you get, the better you'll become at it.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
a great call
In poker, you need to avoid being focused on the immediate outcome. If you lose a hand, take a step back and analyze the way you played the hand. Were all of your decisions correct when you made them? In poker, we can make the correct move sometimes, and not get rewarded for it. You need to recognize that fact and adjust your expectations. Sometimes you will play beautifully and lose. Sometimes you will play horribly and win. In the long run though, only good play will get the money.
Say you folded a flush draw with one card to come because you weren't getting the right price to chase. Now, the hand's over, but someone at the table says "Hey (to the dealer), can we see what the last one would've been?" and the dealer shows a card that would've made your flush. Did you make a mistake? Was it a bad decision because, as it turns out, the flush was coming? No, because you couldn't have known that.
Here's a hand from last night's Monday tournament that I went bust on that I think illustrates my point pretty well. At the beginning stages of a tournament, when the blinds are relatively low vis-a-vis everyone's chip stacks, you don't have to risk much to play a pot. You can speculate with the right hands when in position, but basically you are looking for a good spot to double up early, if you can find one. I didn't know it when the hand began, but I was about to be presented with one of those opportunities.
This looked like a pretty raggedy flop, but Marc quickly bet $1.20 into the pot. Again, I sensed weakness. The quickness of his bet, combined with the fact that I noticed that he seemed not to be fully invested with his attention in the hand, made me feel this way. I thought about it for a while, and decided to do something risky. If I were to raise it, I might be able to get Jake, who's a generally passive player, to lay down something that's beating me, leaving only Marc to contend with. I made it $4.25 to go, and Jake thought about it for a while. However, as soon as Jake folded, Marc announced, "all in."
I had only $5.25 left in my stack. I had him covered by ten cents. I agonized over it for a while. If he held a hand like two overcards, he was likely to make this kind of bluff, and I was getting something like 3 to 1 on my money. If he had AK, I was in trouble, and if he had an 8 or a 9, I'd hopefully have two streets to suck out at 3 to 1. However, given my preflop read on Marc, and my knowledge of him as a loose/aggressive player, I felt strongly that my hand was good. I thought for a while longer and said "I'm probably gonna look silly, but I call." I turned over my ace high and Marc showed his hand.
MARC:
!!! For jack high, with backdoor straight and flush potential. Imagine, then, my disappointment when the jack of diamonds peeled off on the river, leaving me with only ten cents.
However, that's the whole point of the story. It doesn't matter what the turn and river cards were. It matters what was out there when the chips went in, and whether I had the best of it or not. The fact is, no other player who was at the game Monday night could have made the call with the AQ in that spot, and that fact alone is worth sustaining a loss in a tournament one night. If I'm able to play better than my opponents, I know I'll get the money in the end.
Say you folded a flush draw with one card to come because you weren't getting the right price to chase. Now, the hand's over, but someone at the table says "Hey (to the dealer), can we see what the last one would've been?" and the dealer shows a card that would've made your flush. Did you make a mistake? Was it a bad decision because, as it turns out, the flush was coming? No, because you couldn't have known that.
Here's a hand from last night's Monday tournament that I went bust on that I think illustrates my point pretty well. At the beginning stages of a tournament, when the blinds are relatively low vis-a-vis everyone's chip stacks, you don't have to risk much to play a pot. You can speculate with the right hands when in position, but basically you are looking for a good spot to double up early, if you can find one. I didn't know it when the hand began, but I was about to be presented with one of those opportunities.
In the second ($.10-.20) level of the tournament, I had $10.10 in chips after posting my big blind, which is basically the starting stack. Jake, under the gun, limped, and the players all folded around to Marc in the small blind, who called. I knew Marc would call with almost any hand in that position, and that Jake's limp probably represented weakness rather than a trap. I looked down at my hole cards.
ME:
I decided I needed to raise it up here, to see if I could eliminate a player (or two), and to better define my situation. I made it $0.80 to go. Jake and Marc both called. Marc's call seemed almost impulsive, or rather stubborn. I felt like he didn't have much, but had decided he wasn't going to be pushed off the hand. I actually got a small feeling a bluff might be coming up. The flop got put out:
FLOP:
This looked like a pretty raggedy flop, but Marc quickly bet $1.20 into the pot. Again, I sensed weakness. The quickness of his bet, combined with the fact that I noticed that he seemed not to be fully invested with his attention in the hand, made me feel this way. I thought about it for a while, and decided to do something risky. If I were to raise it, I might be able to get Jake, who's a generally passive player, to lay down something that's beating me, leaving only Marc to contend with. I made it $4.25 to go, and Jake thought about it for a while. However, as soon as Jake folded, Marc announced, "all in."I had only $5.25 left in my stack. I had him covered by ten cents. I agonized over it for a while. If he held a hand like two overcards, he was likely to make this kind of bluff, and I was getting something like 3 to 1 on my money. If he had AK, I was in trouble, and if he had an 8 or a 9, I'd hopefully have two streets to suck out at 3 to 1. However, given my preflop read on Marc, and my knowledge of him as a loose/aggressive player, I felt strongly that my hand was good. I thought for a while longer and said "I'm probably gonna look silly, but I call." I turned over my ace high and Marc showed his hand.
MARC:
!!! For jack high, with backdoor straight and flush potential. Imagine, then, my disappointment when the jack of diamonds peeled off on the river, leaving me with only ten cents.However, that's the whole point of the story. It doesn't matter what the turn and river cards were. It matters what was out there when the chips went in, and whether I had the best of it or not. The fact is, no other player who was at the game Monday night could have made the call with the AQ in that spot, and that fact alone is worth sustaining a loss in a tournament one night. If I'm able to play better than my opponents, I know I'll get the money in the end.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
a good friday night game, and a tough hand online
Well, Friday's game went pretty well, as I made a $66 profit, surviving three tough beats early in the game. Today, however, I played a $5 + $0.50 sit n' go online in which I limped in early position with pocket fours (not a conventionally wise move). I did this because there had been a lot of limping in the tournament so far, and if I had to pay any more without a set I could just dump it. However, a fairly good flop came out for me. Here's the hand history, transcribed from the internet:
PokerStars Game #17356311263: Tournament #87979159, $5.00+$0.50 Hold'em No Limit - Level III (25/50) - 2008/05/11 - 14:16:22 (ET)
Table '87979159 1' 9-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: HomeyT-34C (1646 in chips)
Seat 2: d-nice_954 (1065 in chips)
Seat 3: bruno_judite (1727 in chips)
Seat 4: rhcp99 (1170 in chips)
Seat 5: Brixton Guns [that's me] (1830 in chips)
Seat 6: Steve1107 (1250 in chips)
Seat 7: leetpiet (2775 in chips)
Seat 8: RyanG84 (1420 in chips)
Seat 9: flicken84 (617 in chips)
bruno_judite: posts small blind 25
rhcp99: posts big blind 50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Brixton Guns [4h 4s]
Brixton Guns: calls 50
Steve1107: calls 50
leetpiet: folds
RyanG84: folds
flicken84: folds
HomeyT-34C: folds
d-nice_954: folds
bruno_judite: calls 25
rhcp99: checks
*** FLOP *** [4c Ac 5h]
bruno_judite: checks
rhcp99: checks
Brixton Guns: bets 150
Steve1107: raises 250 to 400
bruno_judite: calls 400
rhcp99: folds
Brixton Guns: raises 1380 to 1780 and is all-in
Steve1107: folds
bruno_judite: calls 1277 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (103) returned to Brixton Guns
*** TURN *** [4c Ac 5h] [Qh]
*** RIVER *** [4c Ac 5h Qh] [7c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
bruno_judite: shows [Qc 8c] (a flush, Ace high)
Brixton Guns: shows [4h 4s] (three of a kind, Fours)
bruno_judite collected 3954 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3954
Rake 0
Board [4c Ac 5h Qh 7c]
Seat 1: HomeyT-34C folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: d-nice_954 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: bruno_judite (small blind) showed [Qc 8c] and won (3954) with a flush, Ace high
Seat 4: rhcp99 (big blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 5: Brixton Guns showed [4h 4s] and lost with three of a kind, Fours
Seat 6: Steve1107 folded on the Flop
Seat 7: leetpiet folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: RyanG84 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: flicken84 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Tough way to go out (actually, I went out the next hand , as I was on the big blind and had only 100 in chips). Still, had I won the pot, I would have had a clear chip lead and been in ideal position to win the tournament, so I think it was okay to get the money in here. Here's a breakdown of the odds to win during the hand
Preflop, we would've tied about .82% of the time, I'd win 50.03%, and bruno_judite would win 49.15%.
After the flop comes down 4c Ac 5h, things change and I become a favorite to win. It's now 73.54% win for me, 25.56% for him, and still less than 1 percent to tie. He's still beating me one out of four times, but I'm in great shape on this flop.
On fourth street, he has only one more chance to hit his hand, since he missed here. Now it's 81.82% for me to win, 18.18% for him, and no chance of a tie. He beats me almost once in five times on average here.
Unfortunately this was one of those times, but I'm confident that if I keep getting my chips in when I'm in spots like these, that I'll be able to succeed in these tournaments.
PokerStars Game #17356311263: Tournament #87979159, $5.00+$0.50 Hold'em No Limit - Level III (25/50) - 2008/05/11 - 14:16:22 (ET)
Table '87979159 1' 9-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: HomeyT-34C (1646 in chips)
Seat 2: d-nice_954 (1065 in chips)
Seat 3: bruno_judite (1727 in chips)
Seat 4: rhcp99 (1170 in chips)
Seat 5: Brixton Guns [that's me] (1830 in chips)
Seat 6: Steve1107 (1250 in chips)
Seat 7: leetpiet (2775 in chips)
Seat 8: RyanG84 (1420 in chips)
Seat 9: flicken84 (617 in chips)
bruno_judite: posts small blind 25
rhcp99: posts big blind 50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Brixton Guns [4h 4s]
Brixton Guns: calls 50
Steve1107: calls 50
leetpiet: folds
RyanG84: folds
flicken84: folds
HomeyT-34C: folds
d-nice_954: folds
bruno_judite: calls 25
rhcp99: checks
*** FLOP *** [4c Ac 5h]
bruno_judite: checks
rhcp99: checks
Brixton Guns: bets 150
Steve1107: raises 250 to 400
bruno_judite: calls 400
rhcp99: folds
Brixton Guns: raises 1380 to 1780 and is all-in
Steve1107: folds
bruno_judite: calls 1277 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (103) returned to Brixton Guns
*** TURN *** [4c Ac 5h] [Qh]
*** RIVER *** [4c Ac 5h Qh] [7c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
bruno_judite: shows [Qc 8c] (a flush, Ace high)
Brixton Guns: shows [4h 4s] (three of a kind, Fours)
bruno_judite collected 3954 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3954
Rake 0
Board [4c Ac 5h Qh 7c]
Seat 1: HomeyT-34C folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: d-nice_954 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: bruno_judite (small blind) showed [Qc 8c] and won (3954) with a flush, Ace high
Seat 4: rhcp99 (big blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 5: Brixton Guns showed [4h 4s] and lost with three of a kind, Fours
Seat 6: Steve1107 folded on the Flop
Seat 7: leetpiet folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: RyanG84 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: flicken84 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Tough way to go out (actually, I went out the next hand , as I was on the big blind and had only 100 in chips). Still, had I won the pot, I would have had a clear chip lead and been in ideal position to win the tournament, so I think it was okay to get the money in here. Here's a breakdown of the odds to win during the hand
Preflop, we would've tied about .82% of the time, I'd win 50.03%, and bruno_judite would win 49.15%.
After the flop comes down 4c Ac 5h, things change and I become a favorite to win. It's now 73.54% win for me, 25.56% for him, and still less than 1 percent to tie. He's still beating me one out of four times, but I'm in great shape on this flop.
On fourth street, he has only one more chance to hit his hand, since he missed here. Now it's 81.82% for me to win, 18.18% for him, and no chance of a tie. He beats me almost once in five times on average here.
Unfortunately this was one of those times, but I'm confident that if I keep getting my chips in when I'm in spots like these, that I'll be able to succeed in these tournaments.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
lesson two: some very basic odds
For anyone reading this who's relatively new at poker, or doesn't have a good idea about the math of it at all, here's how often you'd get some example hands if you were dealt 5 cards from a standard deck:
Pair - four times out of every nine hands
Two Pair - once every 21 times
Trips - once every 47 times
A Straight - once every 255 times
A Flush - once every 509 times
A Full House - once every 694 times
Quads - once every 4164 times
A Straight Flush - once every 64974 times
A Royal Flush - once every 649740 times
So what does this tell you? Well, a few things. If hold'em is primarily your game, you'll have to adjust these a bit, since you're potentially seeing seven rather than five cards. However, they give you a feel for how relatively often the different hands occur. Also, as you might have noticed from the "pair" statistic, Most five card poker hands are weaker than one pair. This is extremely important, as it illustrates that not only is it difficult to obtain a hand that beats a full house, it's hard to have a good hand generally.
In hold'em, as well as in other poker games, an indispensible odds concept is the concept of outs. Without a solid understanding of how many outs you have, it is very difficult to succeed as a player.
Say you're in the following hand:
YOU:
YOUR OPPONENT:
and here's the board:
Your opponent is first to act, and the pot is $100. He/She bets. Should you call? Well, it depends. Of course, king high probably isn't the best hand here if there's been any sort of action during the hand. In fact, if you had to guess, you'd say you're probably up against something like AQ (top pair, top kicker), though it could be as weak as a pair of jacks or as strong as two pair. However, a lot of cards could come that would make you a definite winner. Those cards are called outs. In this case, our outs are the remaining clubs in the deck, which would make us the best possible flush, and the tens, which make us the ace-high straight. That's the four tens, plus eight more clubs (13 in the deck minus the K and Q in our hand, the A and 2 on board, and the ten which we already counted as an out.). That gives us twelve outs. With 46 unaccounted for cards, our chances of about 26 or 26½ percent to win on the river. So, whether or not we call is based on whether we're putting in more or less than 26 percent of the pot to call. Therefore, if we were facing a bet of $20, we'd likely call, but $35 or more would perhaps be a fold. After figuring all this out, we adjust slightly if there's a likelihood of getting paid off when we hit, or contrarily having to call future bets to draw.
This seems like a lot to remember, but it's easy to count outs, and it's okay to round all of the math and use more manageable numbers. if you have 9 outs (a flush draw) and one card coming, , 9 out of 46 cards are good. well, 45/9 = 5. In other words, you'll only make your flush once every five times. That's 20 percent, or in other words 4 to 1.
Pair - four times out of every nine hands
Two Pair - once every 21 times
Trips - once every 47 times
A Straight - once every 255 times
A Flush - once every 509 times
A Full House - once every 694 times
Quads - once every 4164 times
A Straight Flush - once every 64974 times
A Royal Flush - once every 649740 times
So what does this tell you? Well, a few things. If hold'em is primarily your game, you'll have to adjust these a bit, since you're potentially seeing seven rather than five cards. However, they give you a feel for how relatively often the different hands occur. Also, as you might have noticed from the "pair" statistic, Most five card poker hands are weaker than one pair. This is extremely important, as it illustrates that not only is it difficult to obtain a hand that beats a full house, it's hard to have a good hand generally.
In hold'em, as well as in other poker games, an indispensible odds concept is the concept of outs. Without a solid understanding of how many outs you have, it is very difficult to succeed as a player.
Say you're in the following hand:
YOU:
YOUR OPPONENT:
and here's the board:
Your opponent is first to act, and the pot is $100. He/She bets. Should you call? Well, it depends. Of course, king high probably isn't the best hand here if there's been any sort of action during the hand. In fact, if you had to guess, you'd say you're probably up against something like AQ (top pair, top kicker), though it could be as weak as a pair of jacks or as strong as two pair. However, a lot of cards could come that would make you a definite winner. Those cards are called outs. In this case, our outs are the remaining clubs in the deck, which would make us the best possible flush, and the tens, which make us the ace-high straight. That's the four tens, plus eight more clubs (13 in the deck minus the K and Q in our hand, the A and 2 on board, and the ten which we already counted as an out.). That gives us twelve outs. With 46 unaccounted for cards, our chances of about 26 or 26½ percent to win on the river. So, whether or not we call is based on whether we're putting in more or less than 26 percent of the pot to call. Therefore, if we were facing a bet of $20, we'd likely call, but $35 or more would perhaps be a fold. After figuring all this out, we adjust slightly if there's a likelihood of getting paid off when we hit, or contrarily having to call future bets to draw.
This seems like a lot to remember, but it's easy to count outs, and it's okay to round all of the math and use more manageable numbers. if you have 9 outs (a flush draw) and one card coming, , 9 out of 46 cards are good. well, 45/9 = 5. In other words, you'll only make your flush once every five times. That's 20 percent, or in other words 4 to 1.
Friday, May 9, 2008
I'm back
So, my computer broke, but it's fixed now. As a result, I haven't posted in a while, but here's an update on what's happened since last time:
I ran pretty bad in the monday game on 4-28 and 5-2, scoring no points and losing my buy-in plus a rebuy each time. However, I did okay in the cash games in between, with a $98 win, a $28 win, and a $21 loss. Also, the office closed down, and the location of the game moved, with varying degrees of enthusiasm/skepticism from the players.
Last Monday, I placed second in the tournament to Marc, who held AA against my QQ. We got it all in preflop, and his aces held up. However, there were two great things about this tournament, the first of which being that I played extremely well (in my opinion), dodging some major bullets later in the night, folding AQ vs Marc's AK, and later folding jacks to Chris's QQ and Lee's AA, before the flop.
The second great thing about Monday was the cash game which took place afterwards, a $10 dealer's choice cash game with $0.10/0.20 blinds. We were very short-handed, with only Eric, Marc, Jake, and I playing. Marc played for less than an hour, and left with about $7.50. I continued three-handed for about three hours, stacking Eric four or five times in the process (which was awesome), playing hands of Hold'em, Pineapple, Omaha, Omaha hi-lo, Stud, 5-Card Draw, and even 5-Card Stud. Eric left, having been felted, and Jake and I continued playing for about an hour until I captured his remaining $5.
Tonight is the Friday night game, and hopefully it will be a good one. Eric, Justin, Andrew, Marc, Dale, myself, and possibly Trey, John, and (less likely) Chris, Chip, or Jake will be playing. I played very loose in the last cash game against that crowd, and, based on my tight table image, was able to do pretty well, aggressing in the right spots, playing position, etc. I'm not sure that that will be my strategy tonight, however - we'll see how the game develops.
I ran pretty bad in the monday game on 4-28 and 5-2, scoring no points and losing my buy-in plus a rebuy each time. However, I did okay in the cash games in between, with a $98 win, a $28 win, and a $21 loss. Also, the office closed down, and the location of the game moved, with varying degrees of enthusiasm/skepticism from the players.
Last Monday, I placed second in the tournament to Marc, who held AA against my QQ. We got it all in preflop, and his aces held up. However, there were two great things about this tournament, the first of which being that I played extremely well (in my opinion), dodging some major bullets later in the night, folding AQ vs Marc's AK, and later folding jacks to Chris's QQ and Lee's AA, before the flop.
The second great thing about Monday was the cash game which took place afterwards, a $10 dealer's choice cash game with $0.10/0.20 blinds. We were very short-handed, with only Eric, Marc, Jake, and I playing. Marc played for less than an hour, and left with about $7.50. I continued three-handed for about three hours, stacking Eric four or five times in the process (which was awesome), playing hands of Hold'em, Pineapple, Omaha, Omaha hi-lo, Stud, 5-Card Draw, and even 5-Card Stud. Eric left, having been felted, and Jake and I continued playing for about an hour until I captured his remaining $5.
Tonight is the Friday night game, and hopefully it will be a good one. Eric, Justin, Andrew, Marc, Dale, myself, and possibly Trey, John, and (less likely) Chris, Chip, or Jake will be playing. I played very loose in the last cash game against that crowd, and, based on my tight table image, was able to do pretty well, aggressing in the right spots, playing position, etc. I'm not sure that that will be my strategy tonight, however - we'll see how the game develops.
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