Comfort Zones

Winning a major pot in poker is the ultimate high of the game, especially when you’ve outplayed your opponent to do it. I’m not talking about cooler hands, where you have set over sets, or *gasp* straight flush over quads! This actually happened in a live game played in the poker room I frequent. Check out a shot of it I managed to capture…

Have you ever noticed how some players manage to win huge pots on hands that contain a single pair, or some mediocre holdings like AT versus A4, when both hit the ace on the flop? Often times, players put wins like these down to loose cannon players and luck, but I believe there’s more to it. Many players, especially tight players, play weakly because they’re afraid of getting stacked by bad beats and cooler hands. They make puny raises, take down small pots, and wonder why the other player at the table makes 5 times his buy-in in the same amount of time he makes half a buy-in in profit at the end of the session. What’s worse is when they have a bad session and get sucked out multiple times, losing several buy-ins in the process. Imagine the amount of patience required to sit for hours at the table, making minimum profit and losing it all in a run of bad luck.

There are two ways to lose money in poker. Bad beats and bad plays. Whenever you lose, it’s either one or the other, and it’s important to identify which. But knowing why you lost is not enough. You have to know how to compensate for it. If you lost due to bad plays, you have no one and nothing to blame but yourself, and the remedy is simple. Don’t repeat your mistake. Bad beats on the other hand is a different story altogether. Beats are part of poker and instead of whining about how your bottom set got cracked by a two pair hitting a four-outer, think about how you can recover from it. Tight weak players will find this hard to do, simply because it’s rare for them to get a huge win (unless of course there are donkeys that pay them off regularly), and it will take many, many sessions of no beats before they recover from a downswing.

Which brings us to the topic at hand. Comfort zones. Every player has a comfort zone, and it is important thing to note of your opponents when you play a game, especially during live games, when there are no stats to help you make decisions.  The famous quote from David Slansky, which states that, whenever your opponent plays differently from when he can see your hole cards, you gain, and whenever you play differently from when you can see his hole cards, he gains. A simple example of this would be, if the player holding the quads in the picture above could see his opponent’s hole cards, he would fold his quads, and he would gain. This is pretty much the goal of poker, to make your opponent play differently from what he would if he could see your hole cards, that is, to make a mistake. The only way your opponent will make a mistake, is when he is pushed out of his comfort zone.

A regular player that plays at the room I frequent (who incidentally is also the person who held the straight flush over quads) is a very good example of such a player. He has a loose cannon image, one that’s well deserved, and initially lost a lot of money learning that players can’t be bullied out of pots by money and two rags for a hand. He is however, a quick learner, and all keen observers in the room would note that his play has improved tremendously. He’s quick to spot and prey on weak tight players, pushing up the stakes with a massive re-raise on their raise, forcing them to fold weak to mediocre hands pre-flop. Some of them try to counter this by flat calling, hoping to hit a monster on the flop, but more often than not, end up folding when his flop play pressures them to fold hands like Ace high. If they could see his hole cards, they would play differently, but having been forced out of their comfort zones, they naturally make mistakes they wouldn’t under normal circumstances.

It’s enough to observe from this that players can be pulled out of their comfort zones by hyper aggressive play, but there’s also a technique to it, and one can’t place a random huge bet into a pot and hope to take it down. I will write more about this in future articles, on bet sizing and value bets, that extract the maximum out of opponents, while maintaining a decent ratio on your “return on investment”. It’s also important to know that when you play within your bankroll, it is difficult to pull you out of your comfort zone, simply because your zone is so much… wider! Once again, more emphasis on bankroll management. So, till the next article, may you play successfully for bigger pots, and force opponents out of their comfort zone!

Burn Out

Can’t bring myself to go play poker for some reason. I’ve not played at all for almost 6 days now! That’s something new for me since I started the poker craze this year. Kind of weird feeling this way after playing so intensively for months. It feels exactly like when you’re at a job and you take a break to go on vacation, and when you get back, you just don’t feel like working.

Poker is a grind, and when you take all the glitz and glamour away from it, you see that it’s nothing but hours of sitting at a table, waiting for safe, decent hands. Still, when a guy like Joe Cada makes 8.5 million in ten days, it does make one dream somewhat. This makes me wonder though, when a poker player actually plays for a living, does it all become mundane for him? Imagine having to make your living playing poker for hours each day. Sure, they talk about travelling the world and such, but what does it really come down to?

I think to play poker, one must limit oneself to a certain time frame, say, 3 or 4 hours a day. That’s it. Win or lose, or break-even or maybe even a paltry win of 30 bucks. Leave, refresh yourself with other activities, catch some sleep, and come back the next day for another 3 hours. Come to think of it, this would probably be the best way to control tilt. Not by limiting your buy-ins, but by limiting the time you spend.

Just some thoughts. I’ll probably be back to full swing come the weekend, but for now, I’m burned out…

Reflections…

Took a short break from poker over the weekend. Reasons being, a night out clubbing resulting in a significant hangover the next day, and… some losses the day before due to inconsistent and just overall bad play. Gave me time to do stuff I’ve not been doing for a while, and of course, some time to reflect on my play.

I’ve always played a loose aggressive style of poker. So much so that almost everyone who’ve played with me has tagged me accordingly, and generally employ passive tactics against me in the hopes that I will bluff the pot (which I generally do!), and pay them off. Of course, when I run good and make my hands, people pay me off handsomely, but more often than not, it’s the other way around. Why? Simply because I’m a poor player, and generally make poor calls and bad decisions, some of them so obvious that when I look back, I wonder why I make them.

The LAG (Loose AGressive) play-style is a viable one in poker, but it takes a lot more skill to play successfully. In fact, it’s not just skill that matters but discipline, and proper bankroll management. I lack all three. Poker is not about gambling. I’ve said it many times, and I’ll say it again. Problem is, most poker players gamble, and that’s the bottom-line. The profitable ones don’t. I’ve recently read an article that said, playing poker is like being a fund manager. You “invest” in profitable situations, and avoid the high risk decisions that may involve significant losses. You avoid risking your capital (bankroll).

To play poker successfully, one should know one’s capabilities. Like a fund manager, a skilled one with foresight would make investments that would seem risky to his peers less adept than himself, while the less skilled would typically invest in rock solid, profitable ventures. Similarly in poker, skilled players may opt to play the LAG style, simply because they can manage the risks better, while their less adept counterparts just play TAG (Tight AGressive). I belong to the latter group.

What this means, is that upon reflection, I’ve not the skill required to play the style that I play now. That said, I will attempt to stick to the TAG style of play from now on, at least for a couple of months, to see if it makes a difference. Let’s see how long I stick to this resolution!

On and Off

Just finished a very mixed session of poker. Mixed in that I played both online and offline, both using the same strategies (at least initially for the offline play) and ended up with extremely different results, the strategy used being BSS. I made a significant loss in the live games, while enjoying a significant profit in the online counterpart.

Lesson learnt (that I realized much earlier, but apparently needed a refresher); Online poker and live poker are extremely, and I mean extremely different. Maybe it’s just because of my personality; a little hot tempered, and very impatient. These are two traits that are very bad for a poker player, simply because they are the exact formula for tilt. Suck-outs and bad play make me lose my temper, the latter being targeted at myself. Bad hands or flops, slow dealing and lengthy hands make me impatient. And together, both make me lose due to tilt plays.

My live game losses were only due to two major hands, both of which could be avoided. I was not getting any hands for about 3 orbits, and finally caught KJo, but was in early position. The BSS dictates that this hand should be folded, but I had gotten impatient after getting no hands, and decided to limp to see the flop. As usual, another 5 limpers called behind and the blinds checked. The flop came KQ6, two clubs, and small blind checks. Big blind over-bets the pot and action was on me. I frequently play with Big Blind, who’s a regular in the live games I play, and he has a tendency to play draws very strongly. I decide to raise with my Kings, and 3 bet him for 3.5 times his raise. Everyone else folded, and Big Blind says he’s all in.

I made several significant mistakes here. First of all, I failed to observe his stack, the remnant of which was smaller than my raise if he called. Secondly, his position as Big Blind gives me almost no information on his hand, him having checked, and thus could be holding almost any two cards, including K6 or Q6, both of which have me crushed. I then compounded both errors by thinking I was committed to the pot by calling the all-in, forgetting that in previous encounters, he hardly ever moves all in with a weak hand. I lost 3/4ths of my stack to Q6.

The second loss was when I had AQs in middle position. I raised and the guy to my immediate left raised 3x my initial raise. He’s generally a loose player, playing almost any two suited cards from any position but only aggressive when he does have a hand. I should have folded the AQs, being out of position and likely dominated, but once again, I have had very few hands, and the earlier bad play I made was making me impatient to win a big pot. I called. The flop came 554, two diamonds, which gave me 2 overs and a flush draw. I decided to play this slowly to gain more information, and checked. He bet half the pot, and I decided to 3 bet him to see if he had a pair or was simply betting with AK. He went all-in, and I snap-called, a huge mistake. The pot was barely giving me 1 to 1 odds, and I was 50/50 at best against a pair under Q, and a huge underdog with any other higher pair that he would make that move with. He had Jacks, which held up to take my entire stack.

Rebuilt my stack somewhat later on when I loosened up and played more hands, but made money on good plays and reads. The last hand of the day was an extreme cooler hand where I had straddled, and the guy on my left double straddled. I caught Kings, but the guy on my left had Aces and I lost a large pot (though not as large as it could have been).

Heading home feeling very frustrated, but aware of my mistakes, I decided to continue grinding it out online. I profited 4 buy-ins in 2 hours, playing 21 tables of NL50 using BSS, and that was even though I encountered 3 huge cooler hands which involved set over sets. That’s a BB/100 of about 10 for this session alone!

Fact is, BSS doesn’t work with live games. Playing too tightly gives you no action when you have monsters, and makes you lose a lot on beats, suck-outs and bad plays. Online games differ simply because you see so many more hands online, up to several hundred times more in my case, and thus, you make a decent profit just by winning blinds alone. Live games are so slow that you barely see 25 hands per hour, and you typically need to make money in that 25 hands or you’re just wasting a lot of time. You’d be better off waiting tables to make a living. This means that you have to loosen up, play more aggressively and read more accurately. This also leads me to believe that a profitable live game player is very much more skilled than his online counterpart, since it requires looser play (high margin for error) and accurate reads.

I learnt many lessons today. Seems like everyday I play poker brings new lessons to learn, some really expensive ones. I guess the key is not to have to learn the lesson twice.

Migrating from SSS

Moving on from the SSS (Short Stack Strategy) to the BSS (Big Stack Strategy) officially just yesterday. Reasons for moving being that the SSS is just too robotic, and while profitable, just doesn’t teach you very much, and soon gets extremely dreary.

Kept a steady BB/100 of 1.37 while playing SSS and found it hard to move any higher, but my initial attempt at BSS was pretty decent, holding on at 0.35, and moving up to 1.29 late yesterday. Dropped down to –0.2 today when I made several bad calls. I find that I’m learning a lot though. Maximizing value when you have a monster and learning to fold medium to strong made hands, sets for example.

As a side-note, several of my friends have made it to the top 20 of that local tournament I talked about in my earlier post! Yay them!… heh. Hope they make it to the big money. For those who are interested, check out the reports at pokerevents.wordpress.com.

I’ll be working more on playing BSS online in the weeks to come. Check back for updates!

Plugging away…

Couldn’t join a big local tourney that’s on going right now due to a player cap the organizers imposed on the event, so am entertaining myself joining online tournaments on PokerStars and Fulltilt. Got a whole bunch of friends playing at the event though, hope they do well…

It’s a good time to reflect a bit on my tourney play though. In a $26 tournament on Fulltilt, I was doing pretty well with an average chip stack early in the tournament. Got AKo on the button and cutoff raised to 4xBB. I decided to play it passively and flat called. Everyone else folded and it was me and him to the flop. Flop came AsTh9h, and cutoff bet 2/3rds the pot. I flat called and the turn came a Kh, which gave me top two pair. Cutoff checked, and I bet 1/3rd of the pot. He called and the river came an 8h. He shoved all in. I folded.

I probably played it horribly wrong from the flop, but I was thinking to wait till the turn before making any decisive actions. Sigh. Poker hasn’t been too kind to me. Raised again from the button later with ATs and got a call from big blind and an earlier limper. Flop came KQ5 and action was checked to me. I was short-stacked, slightly more than the pot, so I shoved all in. Limper calls with 54o.

Joined yet another tournament, and lost when I raised with KK, got a caller on the button and the flop came 679. I bet heavily and he called. Turn came a 2, and I went all in for 2/3rds of the pot. He calls with a set of 7s.

What am I doing wrong….

Justifying the 50/50

Poker has always been linked with gambling. It’s ingrained in the perception of the general public that any game of chance, no matter the skill required, that involves placing wagers on outcomes of luck is gambling.

Fact is, most poker players do gamble. They’d like to tell you otherwise, but when you look at the number of times players have to make critical decisions based on odds of 50/50 (or less!), you know that gambling is part and parcel of the game… or is it?

What exactly is luck? I like to define luck in two words, short term. Placing a bet on a single number in roulette gives you 37 to 1 odds of hitting, less than 2%. Hitting the number on your very first bet just means you got lucky. If you manage to repeat the feat, say, 30 times in a row, that goes against the odds and you’re either cheating or psychic (because betting on a single number requires no skill), not lucky. Simply put, something that goes against the odds in the short term is luck.

This applies to poker. Winning with AQo against KK all-in preflop once or twice is lucky, but you can’t do it all the time. The odds are just not in your favor. Hands like 66 vs AK is a different story though. This is what poker players call a coin flip, or 50/50. Betting on odds of 50/50 is gambling, and these situations happen a lot in poker.

I strongly believe, after going through the roller coaster ride that is poker, that to be a successful poker player, you should never gamble. But does that mean you should never call an all-in push from AK with QQ? No. Simply because there are situations that justifies playing for 50/50 odds. Let’s take an actual coin flip for example. If a guy offers to pay you $2 every time the coin came up heads, and you pay him $1 if it comes up tails, you’d be foolish not to take up that offer. Statistically speaking, the coin should come up heads 50 times out of a hundred coin flips, while the rest of the 50 are tails. So if you played this 100 times, you’d be $50 richer.

But let’s say you only had $10. You play this game 10 times and it comes up heads 9 times out of 10. You would be down to your last 3 bucks and have 3 more flips before you lose all your money. Since there’s no history involved in coin flips, i.e. each subsequent coin flip is not affected by its predecessor, you have no guarantee that you will make money. What this proves is that you will need more money than $10 to withstand the bad luck (short term) so you can profit from your statistical advantage (long term).

Which brings us back to our topic, justifying the 50/50. In poker terms, betting on 50/50 (or better) is justified when you have better than 1 to 1 odds on your money. You will also need a decently sized bankroll to withstand the swings in luck, so you can profit from your statistical advantage. The better the odds, the lower your required bankroll, which in any case, should be able to allow you to lose 20-30 “flips” in a row without you blinking an eye.

There is an exception to this rule though, best illustrated by this example; You’re in a satellite to a high buy-in tournament, which offers 5 seats, with 8 players remaining. You have roughly 35 big blinds left and are among the 5th in stack size. You’re dealt pocket Qs. You raise 4xBB from early position preflop, and you get re-raised all-in by a guy who out-stacks you. You’ve seen this guy re-raise with AK several times before, so you know that you are in all likelihood up against a similar hand, and have a 50% chance to win. Should you call?

The answer is no, simply because you are roughly 60% to win a seat if you fold and wait, while you’re 50% to win if you call. If you had KK and you believe your opponent had AK, you would be a 65% favourite, and that would give you a better shot at winning a seat than if you folded, and thus would justify a call.

In closing, I’d like to give an example from a personal tournament experience. This was late in an online $11 buy-in tournament. The payout was to the top 162 players, and there were 181 players remaining. I got pocket 7s in mid position and decided to raise after action folded to me preflop. Button called, blinds folded, and the flop came 2s3d3c. I raised, and button reraised. At this point, after committing the chips to the preflop and post flop raises, I still had about 30 big blinds remaining, a decent amount to make the money. I decided I was good, and shoved all-in with my over-pair. Button called and showed pocket 10s, which held up to take the pot and knocked me out.

The right move there imho was to fold the pocket 7s preflop since my “sticking around” equity was much higher than my chances of winning with 7s since of all the pocket pairs that would call me preflop, I would only dominate 5 of them, and lose to the other 7 (lower than 50%). I would be, at best, a 50% coin flip against two over cards, or a 4 to 1 underdog against a better pair.

Hope this rather lengthy post illustrates my view on how the 50/50 “gambling” decisions are justified. Till next time, may all your poker decisions not be based on a gamble!