Texas Holdem: Not Another Bad Beat Story

This is NOT another bad beat story.  Nobody wants to hear about that anyways.  Suck-outs on the river, a term I just came up with - "River Boats", chasers, miracle inside straights, and the list goes on.  These bad beats are a fact of life in Texas Hold'em that serious players just have to be able to live with in exchange for long-term profits. I've taken some seriously bad beats in the last few months, but during that time I've also learned something very valuable about the reason for those so-called bad beats.  The lesson?  It's my own damn fault!

That's right.  Nobody else is to blame for the bad beats I've taken. Not the old man who sucked out a flush on the river at Winstar.  Not the all-camo guy who bluffed me off of pocket kings at Winstar (with pocket 4's).  And not the kid who "River Boated" me on Sunday afternoon.  It's not the guy at Friday Night Poker that loves chasing river cards either (actually the 3 or 4 guys - affectionately).

Most people don't actively calculate the odds of hitting that miracle card.  Actually, lots of guys don't even know how to calculate the odds.  We're supposed to love playing with chasers because the odds are so bad against them hitting and in favor of us making a profit.  I can live with it because the odds are against hitting for chasers.  The "rule of 2" says that to hit the river, you have to multiply your outs by 2.  So, to hit a flush on the river, you have 9 possible outs.  Times 2, that's 18% that your flush card will hit.  Put another way, you have an 82% chance of failure.

What about an open-ended straight draw AND a flush draw on the river (and forget that someone else could have already hit their flush at the turn)?  Well, here you have 9 flush cards and 8 other cards for the straight (at the most).  Now you have 17 outs!  Congratulations - you still have a 2 out of 3 chance to fail.  That's almost as good as it gets.  Don' get me wrong.  That's the kind of river I'm probably going to chase too, especially if I have an A or K that I could also pair on the river which would give me 3 additional outs (which is very unlikely to begin with).

So, with those river odds, I guess I want to play with a few chasers.  And now back to my main point.  It's not their fault when they hit and I lose.  It's mine.  I think it was Alan Schoonmaker, PH.D. who said that "aggression is the ultimate equalizer" in poker.  What an enlightening statement!

AGGRESSION IS THE ULTIMATE EQUALIZER

The guy who hit his river flush did so because I didn't bet him off of it after the flop.  His stack was way bigger than mine.  $35 wasn't getting that done.  All in!  The pocket 4 bluffer?  Something inside of me said he didn't have it, but the devil on my shoulder got me to fold.  That's because the devil on the other shoulder wasn't asshole enough to push All in!  The "river boat" was absolutely my fault.  I checked to maximize profit and the miracle river card hit.  Checking is weakness in Texas Hold'em.  I deserved it.  I let the remaining 2 sixes in a 52-card deck become a factor and he hit one of them.

If aggression is the ultimate equalizer in poker, then I'll use it.  I have to use it and I can't worry about it upsetting guys at the table (especially the loose-aggressive / loose-passive table I play at every week).  Why would I worry about it upsetting someone at the table anyways?  I don't know, but there's an interesting true story about it.

A few weeks ago, I came to play a very different game that I usually play.  I raised all of my premium hands.  Checks to me led to raises of 3 or 4 times the BB or 3 times the previous bet.  My initial bets were 1/3 to 1/2 the pot.  I took full advantage of my good hands and my good position.  This style worked.  My chip stack was nearly double the person in 2nd place.  Aggression was the ultimate equalizer.  I wasn't bluffing (at least not more than anyone else).  I was just playing my hands, position, and my reads on the other guys.

So, here's the point.  One of the guys was noticeably irritated with me and I happen to really like and respect him a lot.  I got pocket 6's and checked them on the button with some callers ahead of me.  The flop came Q, 6, and something else.  After everyone else checked around to me, I bet my set with a healthy raise.  The SB (whom I like and respect) angrily shoved all in.  He was probably frustrated because I was raising him off of his hands most of the game.  Everyone else folded back around to me and I did something that I will never do again.  Want to guess what that was?

I "contemplated" my hand, appeard to "struggle" with my decision, and folded my set face down saying, "I can't beat your set."  He showed me his bluff (of course I knew he didn't have anything) and I patted him on the back and told him what a great move he made on me.

I WILL NEVER DO THAT AGAIN.

Since that night, I've won 2 out of 10 games.  At various times in almost all of those games, I've had nice sized chip stacks too that I should have eventually won with.  I'm going to Vegas in less than 3 weeks and this crap I'm throwing out is going to get me killed!  Yesterday, I suffered 4 straight losses. I didn't sleep well last night, to say the least.  Who loses sleep over low-stakes poker games?  Me!  Most of the guys I play with play for fun.  I want the fun too, along with being able to hang out with a lot of really great men.  But I play to win and I would play that way even if there was no money at stake.  I just want to win. 

I don't think I'm God's gift to poker and that I should win every game just by showing up.  That's crazy.  I'm still relatively new at this game.  Rob and Chris are great players that make me want to be better.  Prescott's maniac game can put an entire table badly off balance.  I've seen Charlie make some seriously disciplined lay downs that I've learned from.  Spain's loose-passive style can trap you and his big hands will shut you down.  Cody's unpredictable and not scared to bluff and chase the river.  Brandon's hard to push off of a hand.  Keith is the most improved player at the table who's really starting to put a serious game together.  Larry can push a big stack around as good as anyone (and plays Q 3 like champ) and George could literally have anything in any hand.

But this is not another bad beat story and I'm not whining about my recent losses.  I'm grateful for them.  They made me wake up and pull my head out.  I'm not having fun when I lose 8 out of 10 games.  Losing SUCKS!  I'm going to start playing my big hands big - period.  My style has to be Tight-Aggressive.  I'll either wait for cards or position, and then I'll get the best of it.  If I get "rivered", so be it.  That river won't be free.  I'll still get my butt handed to me from time to time, but it won't be because I didn't do my best to equalize.

That's it.

Texas Holdem: 10,000 Hours to Achieve Greatness

I'm listening to the book by Malcolm Gladwell, called "Outliers".  In his book, Gladwell points out that throughout history, greatness has come from, among other things, 10,000 hours of practice.  He names several important historical figures that became great after 10,000 hours of working on their trade.  To this point, the most interesting 10,000 hour story that I've heard is Bill Gates of Microsoft, but plenty of others come to mind fairly easily:  Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Brett Favre . . . . Doyle Brunson.

I've only been playing poker for about 3 years.  Gladwell says that it takes at least 10 years to hit 10,000 hours, but that's about 3 hours per day, 7 days per week.  3 hours per day isn't easy.  Most of us have very busy lives.  And 10 years?  I don't know if I can stand to wait 10 years for greatness.  Anyways, I haven't put in 3 hours per day.  Gosh!

I've played live and online probably about 12 hours per week and I've watched poker on TV about 2 hours per week.  That's just 2 hours per day.  And, now I'm reading books on Texas Hold'em.  For what it's worth, I think about poker probably about 16 hours per day, on and off.  I even dream about it sometimes, but not about winning or losing.  My dreams are usually about playing specific hands - kind of hard to explain.

Anyways, I'm pretty sure that thinking and dreaming about something doesn't count towards my 10,000 hours, so I probably have about 12 long years of consistent practice before I achieve greatness in poker.  Bummer - 12 years of playing poker.  : )

If anyone wants to put together a regular Texas Hold'em game, count me in.  I need the practice.

Crazy Night on Full Tilt Poker

I've been playing around with $100 on Full Tilt Poker this week.  For the most part, I would say I've been up and down and with some huge swings.  Admittedly, I've been playing .10 / .25 tables, but my online cash game abilities need some work before I put in a lot of money.

I started the night being down 50% with just $50 of my original $100 remaining.  So, I decided to play 2 tables simultaneously ($25 each).  Everything was going along pretty well until I went all in with 2 pairs AQ on one table and lost to a sick set of 10's.  Didn't see that coming!

So, I was down to 1 table and by this time, just about $14 or $15 remaining.  30 minutes later, all hell broke lose and I was up over $75.  In 5 hands, I hit a full house and 2 Straight Flushes that were both 9 thru K.

As you can see, the 2nd was even on the flop and I only won .57 cents.  The 1st was the best because my opponent hit a full house and he called my all-in bet.

When I hit the full house, I actually picked up a set of 4's on the flop and then the board paired.  With that set, I had it all the way, but the guy I beat for quite a bit of money completely went on tilt.  This is him:

He made such as special (although completely ineffective) effort to piss me off and get me off of my game for the next 10 minutes that I thought I should memorialize him here.  At this point, half of the money I was playing with came from him anyways, so how could I be upset at him for being a total jerk afterwards.  It's safe to say that HE didn't see THAT coming either.

Anyways, I finished with $74 for the night and now I'm only down $26 for the week.  What a crazy night!

Texas Hold'em Game Transformation

Over the past several weeks, I've been literally fighting against myself in Texas Hold'em.  My game has evolved from very tight to super loose and then back to variations in between.  For too long, my cards were see-thru.  When multiple people could call my hand, there's a serious problem.  That's what instigated my current situation.


I began changing up my game and that brought win after win after win for weeks.  But then, winning wasn't even satisfying.  My game started being about something more than just winning.  I had nights where I was in the money in all 3 games and I would drive home picking my bad moves a part.  I had one game where I ended up with every single chip on the table, but all I could think about after a while was the game I got 2nd place in.  What if I would have bet big instead of check?  How did I misplay pocket A's so bad?  Did I get bluffed on that one hand?  Why couldn't I see the bluff?  Even with an over-whelming winning percentage, something was wrong.  I still wasn't good enough (and I'm still not).


Then, a series of things recently happened that turned it all upside down.  I played a cash game at Winstar and lost $300 in a rushed effort with my wife waiting.  Then, I went to New Orleans and played 6 hours only to lose $300 more.  And last weekend, I went to Shreveport and lost $100 over several hours.  Lose, lose, lose!!!  I lost $700 in about a month's time, not to mention just barely breaking even in Friday Night Poker.  You would think this probably didn't help matters very much, but it actually changed me.


These cash poker games are very aggressive.  Sitting down with under-sized chip stacks and losing $700 over the course of about 12 hours opened my eyes to the fact that not only could I sit in there with big players, but I'm just on the cusp of being a big player myself.  I feel like I'm very close and I learned that the #1 thing I'm missing is the thing I love most about poker - poker psychology.


I'm missing most of the tells and giving off most of them back to my opponents.  I'm still an open book and my cards are still see-thru, but not for long.  I had a chance lunch meeting with at attorney who just played in the WSOP main event and he placed in the top 10%, getting him into the money.  We hit it off instantly and he recommended that I read Caro's Book of Poker Tells.  In fact, he had it delivered to my office a couple of days later and I read it for the first time that night.  Yes - I read it cover-to-cover that first night.  I couldn't believe how badly I was crippling my game by giving off and not recognizing obvious tells.


So, last night I was playing Friday Night Poker with the guys and I spent most of the evening watching for tells.  I still didn't win either game last night, but I did pick up some tells that saved me a lot of chips.  One guy was sizing up his chip stack after seeing the flop.  He had a good hand and I folded.  He had me beat.  Good fold.  Another guy saw the flop and immediately glanced down at his chips - huge tell.  Then, to add to it, he appeared to be indecisive as to whether or not to bet.  That made up my mind to fold - good fold.  He had it.  Then, my favorite one took a little friendly manipulation on my part.  I had pocket J's and the flop was all cards lower than jack, so was the turn.  I bet fairly big and was raised on the flop and the turn.  So, I said to the other guy, "I have a pretty big pocket pair, so if you're raising me, you must have an even bigger pair."  It took a few seconds before he couldn't hold in his smile.  It took even less time for me to fold my Jacks and he had pocket Kings.  I'll keep watching for tells and I'm going to read the book a couple of more times too.


Finally, tonight I sat down to play a Full Tilt Poker tournament (90 players) and for the 21st time this year, I made it to the final table and ended up in 4th place.  I was pretty happy with that outcome.  My game purpose was to get back to "basics".  I tightened back up some and primarily played a range of about 15 to 20 starting hands.  I raised about 30% of the time that I bet, made some good position bets, and put in some strategic bluffs that paid off.  I even loosened up a couple of times to suck out on the river, which I guess you have to be able to do sometimes.  Tonight, I just needed to be reminded that I could still get it done if I needed to back away from the game transformation.  But then, what am I really thinking?  Back away from the game transformation?  Now, I have a "range" of acceptable starting hands, a calculated % of raises, strategic position bets and bluffs.  My game is evolving to a mix of tight and loose, aggressive and calculated.


I have no idea where my game will go next, but I do know one thing:  I'm very competitive and there is nothing that I hate worse than losing at poker.  But poker energizes me, so I'll weather the losing until I start winning consistently again.  Hopefully a winning streak is coming.

Texas Hold'em at Harrah's New Orleans

Generally speaking, I don't enjoy cash poker as much as I do tournament poker.  Tournament poker is essentially "knock-out" poker, but cash poker is just that - CASH poker.  Getting knocked out in cash poker means something entirely different - specifically, it means that you're broke. 

The psychology of poker changes from tournament to cash poker too.  In cash poker, guys (and girls) can force you to make decisions with all of your money.  Mis-played hands can lead to going broke very quickly.  Two days ago, at the Harrah's Casino, in New Orleans, I played beside a young guy that was throwing $100's down like they were $1's.  I wanted to try and keep track of the money he was losing, but I lost count at around $800, and he was still there after I left.

I've played poker and won at the Bellagio.  I've been up an down at the Chumash in Santa Ynez, California.  The Winstar, in Oklahoma, is still keeping a few hundred dollars of mine warm.  But my time at Harrah's New Orleans is by far the most memorable poker I've ever played.  The Bellagio is my favorite venue so far, but the experience in New Orleans was the most educational poker I've ever played.

I played $1 / $2 No Limit Hold'em starting in the late afternoon / early evening.  All day leading up to that, I didn't drink any alcohol.  I took a power nap before walking to the casino.  While I was attending the educational sessions earlier in the day, all I could think about was poker.  This day, I was finally going to really get to do what I went to do - play uninterrupted poker (see my previous blog about Poker in New Orleans if you want those details).

So, I sat down at the table.  I had a great spot at the very end of the table, to the right of the dealer.  I could see everyone.  I could watch and observe everything.  Lots of people like to sit directly in front of the dealer, but not me.  I want to see my opponents without needing to turn my head and make it so obvious.  Immediately, I found out that this was going to be an aggressive table.  Bet, raise, re-raise, fold (me).

There was a very old guy at the table, probably about 85 years old, give or take.  He was the clear big stack at the table.  He appeared to have about $1,000 in front of him when I sat down.  Some smaller chip stacks at the table, at that time, averaged about $400 and the larger stacks (other than the old man) averaged about $600 or $700.  Me?  I sat down with $300 and an immediate and very obvious disadvantage.

Throughout the evening, I played at this table with around 25 different guys.  Nobody sat down with less money that me.  Many of them were locals and knew each other.  Those guys clearly played together regularly.  I heard several of them talking about something that happened last week and saying they would see each other again in a few days.  It felt like that scene in rounders when Matt Damon and Ed Norton went to the casino and sat at a table with some other guys they knew and took money all night long from lesser players.  Was I the lesser player?  Probably.

In New Orleans, I played with some of the best players I've ever played with.  Aggression was the theme of the table.  No free cards.  No limp-ins.  But still, lots and lots of draw chasing.  I couldn't believe all of the guys betting $50 or more after the turn, hoping to hit their draws on the river.  It was really maddening.  Once, I flopped 2 pairs and made big bets at each stage with 2 callers.  After the river, I didn't believe my final opponent, so I bet, he raised, and I called.  He hit his INSIDE straight.  So sick!

The old man was taking everyone's money all night long.  He was either hitting everything or he was bluffing often.  I figured him for bluffing often.  So, in another hand, I flopped 2 pairs and made a large bet.  He called.  There was an Ace on the flop (not one of my pairs).  So, I had him on an Ace with a big kicker.  Turn was insignificant.  I bet, he called.  River was even less significant.  I bet, he raised, I re-raised all in.  I won and I was up for the first time all night.  (By the way, he had AQ off).

After that, I lost fairly consistently.  I made bets, but ultimately my hands weren't good enough to continue calling ridiculous raises and re-raises.  So, I donated quite a bit until I finally got pocket A's.  Thank God for that hand because it kept me in the game for a few more hours.  I played the way I had played all night long - relatively weak and irritated.  I was the small blind.  By the time the betting got back around to me, it was at $30, and I very uncomfortably just called.  (Just the be clear, the only think actually uncomfortable was the idea of other people folding.)

Flop:  A 2 2.  Unless someone was holding pocket 2's, this hand was mine.  I'm first to act.  So I checked with that look of discomfort.  Another guy bet $30 more and the guy on the button raised it to $50.  I thought about my options (again very uncomfortably) and finally just called after what seemed to me like minutes, when it was actually only about 15 seconds.  The other guy folded and it was heads up for the turn and the river.  I checked the turn and "button boy" bet $40.  I hesitantly called.  The river came and I bet $40.  By this point, I had about $65 left and "button boy" raised me all in.  I VERY uncomfortably (wink, wink) called and said, "I hope you don't have pocket 2's." 

He threw down 2 3 suited and was certain he won with a set of 2's until I showed my pocket rockets.  Full House!  I was up BIG at that point and the other guys at the table who seemed to all know him and each other gave him hell for the next couple of hands to follow.  I tried to hold in my excitement, but I'm sure it showed in my shaky hands as I folded the next hand.

Later, I played A K off really big and got folds all around to win about $75.  Other than that, I won some small hands and lost some small and big hands.  I won't lie to you.  By the end of my night, I was busted out.  I walked away from that table with zero (although I still had plenty of money to throw back down if I chose to). 

Here's the thing though.  Even though I lost, in my 3 days there, $265 total, I sat at that table Tuesday night for 6 hours and played with some of the best players I've ever faced.  It took these guys 6 hours to take me out and you better believe that I told them all that very thing as I was standing up with a smile on my face after being finished off by a pair of queens over my 10's.  "Well guys, you got me.  It took 6 hours though.  You better practice up for next time."  It got a good laugh, but I'm still smiling today - 2 days later.

I could have quit half way into my evening and been up relatively big.  Then, my story would be about going to New Orleans and winning.  That would have been a good story, but this one is better.  I never thought I would walk away a winner anyway.  That's just me being honest.  I wanted to sit back and play for hours and I got to do that.  What I realized throughout the evening is that I just wanted to stay in the game and keep playing with these guys that were way better than me.  I wanted to last as long as I could last.  I stayed in the game for 6 hours.  I didn't get up to go to the restroom.  I didn't get up for drinks.  The waitress brought me water and Sugar Free Red Bull throughout the night.  The Chinese place delivered egg rolls to me at my table.  I sat there and played undistracted poker for 6 hours.  I got my good plays in and I made some stupid plays.  It was a great education in aggressive poker and I'm still smiling.

Poker in New Orleans

I'm so excited because I'm leaving tomorrow for a 4 day business conference in New Orleans.  I should get to my hotel around 4pm, listen to a speaker, and then hit the casino.  My hotel is 0.2 miles from Harrah's.  My plan is simple and relaxing:  put $200 on the table, kick back, and fold hand after hand until I get good starting hands.  No mid-level hands.  Sure as heck no low hands.  Pocket pairs, suited face cards, AK, probably AQ, maybe even 10 J suited.  I won't have to rush.  I can play as long as I feel like playing.  My co-workers won't need to wonder where I am if I'm not with them.  Just find me at the poker room at the Harrah's.  I hope there's plenty of coffee at the conference each morning and I'll need to find a place to buy sugar free Red Bull.

Where's Chris?  He was just standing right here.

Texas Holdem Game Adjustments

I haven't written anything in 2 or 3 weeks.  During that time, I have just broken even in Friday Night Poker, while having probably my 2nd worst game streak in over a year.  My winning prior to that could best be described as total dominance, but I've been rattled by distractions that turned my poker brain upside-down.  Lately, when I've won, it's been ugly and when I've lost, it's been a result of stupid play and an utter disregard for my own personal "rules".  But, I've been lucky to break even.

I've used this down time as an opportunity to grow my game and I've made some mental adjustments that should be very helpful in the long-run.  I have been playing a lot of online cash poker and I spent a few hours in the poker room at the Winstar Casino.  I've also done my normal routine of watching every hand played on TV.  A primary adjustment that I'm making is aggressive betting - raising and re-raising, but not only with predictably good hands like, KK, QQ, AA, or JJ.  I've paid special attention to the game style of Tom Dwan.  Now, I understand that his style alone probably is not going to have long-term benefits, but it does serve as a nice change-up.  I might, for example, play 6-8 suited like it's a pair of Q's, especially in the right position.  Unpredictability is another game adjustment that I need to make.  This style of play should be particularly good for that change-up.

In the past, I've shown too many of my hands after winning hands and I've confirmed when other players called my hands correctly.  That has to stop.  From now on, I'll only show my hands if I feel that doing so has some strategic value.  Otherwise, you have to pay to see.

Finally, I'm going to try to play fewer overall hands.  I read once that Hellmuth said that you should only be in about 20% of flops.  So, I'm going to fold a little more often, but I also read that when betting, roughly 50% of bets should be raises so that you're not playing against so many opponents in a hand.  Both of these things will help me with unpredictability and aggressiveness.

Of course, we'll see how this ultimately plays out at the table.  The distractions are mostly gone now.  I'm acutely aware of my recent stupid game-play.  And, I've run my losing hands thru my head over and over and over again.  So, I think the winning should start back up again.  We'll see.

Stay tuned.