Bluffing for Value

Bluffing is an integral part of poker, and something a lot of players either over-do, or do too little. What exactly constitutes as “bluffing”? Simply put, bluffing in poker is to try and make your opponent believe that you have a better hand than he does. This is usually done in the form of bets, or the not-so-usual verbal connotations.

Let’s face it, the number of times you actually make a hand in poker is far and few between. A large number of hands you enter pots with usually end up missing the flop, and if you don’t “bluff”, you will usually end up folding when your opponent bets, simply because you believe he has a better hand than you do. This means that, most of the time, you will lose money by entering a pot, if you don’t bluff. A player that doesn’t bluff is also very vulnerable, as his hands are practically transparent to any semi-decent poker player, simply because he never puts money into the pot without a made hand. Thus, the easy way of countering these kind of players is to avoid paying them off, and fold most hands to them. How do these players lose money then? Usually by bad beats, mistakes, cooler hands and such, which all poker players face, but they can’t offset due to their meager wins.

Another reason to bluff is to disguise or rather, balance your play. If you occasionally raise with your worst hands, your hand strength will be hidden when you raise with your premium hands. Your opponents can’t simply fold to your bets anymore, or they risk getting run over. The key here though, is to keep a consistent betting amount for your bluffs and your premium hands. Some players bet overly large or overly small when they bluff, and do the exact opposite when they actually have a hand.

Bluffing adds value to your play, by forcing your opponents to pay you off when you have a hand. Make sure though, that you don’t keep bluffing at pots, so much so that you are called down by almost any player. Instead, limit your bluffs to times when you have an edge, like position, a board that’s friendly to bluff at, e.g. you raise with junk on the button and a rainbow disconnected flop with an Ace hits the board, you raise again to bluff opponents off their hand. Bluffing also adds value to your play, by giving you additional information about your opponents while keeping the strength of your own hand hidden.

An example of how bluffing can give you an edge happened a couple of nights before in a live game I was playing. Blinds were $2/$5, and I was on the button with Q9 suited. A few players limped into the pot, and I made a raise of about 6xBB. All players folded except one, a tight, and extremely passive player. His stack was relatively short compared to the pot, roughly 3 times the amount. The flop came 3s2c2h, he bet into me, and I re-raised him all-in. He calls with A3s, a Queen comes on the turn to put me in the lead and I take his stack. This was observed by all players at the table. After one orbit of play, I get J8s on the button, while there was a player who straddled. After the usual few players limped in, I again made a 6xBB raise. The blinds folded, and the player who straddled, went all in. His stack was again about 2.5 times the pot after I made the raise, which gave me the odds to call if he was making a move or even if he was holding two over cards. I chose to call to advertise my strategy. I lost that pot. Payback came when I got pocket Qs the very next orbit, once again on the button. I made a raise and a player shoved into me, I call, and my queens held up to take the pot.

Note that most of my “bluffs” were done from the button (the canonical position to bluff), which generally gave me a significant edge over my opponents simply because they would have to act before I did. Also note that you have to display your “bluffs” to let your opponent know you’re actually bluffing. Sometimes, if it doesn’t cost too much, it’s worth it to play to outdraw on your opponents, simply to do a bit of advertising, and get some implied odds on all future hands, e.g., you value bet the river as a bluff and get called, but your next value bet is for a monster made hand and you make the maximum amount.

This was a pretty unstructured article, but I hope I managed to convey the necessity and value of bluffing in poker. Till the next time, may all your bluffs succeed!

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!

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….

Limit Games

A couple of nights ago, a colleague of mine that played poker (found that out recently!) took me to a local card room to check out the games there. We were talking about the games he used to play all afternoon, so I was really looking forward to playing there.

When we got there in the evening, the place was packed. More than 20 tables, with 7 or 8 people waiting lists. It was great. At least until I finally got a seat, got 65s on my first hand and flopped trips, tried to re-raise the guy who bet in front of me 4x his raise, and found that it was a LIMIT game! No wonder their lowest stakes were $3/$6. Tried to adjust to the game, but man, it was tough. After playing no limit exclusively, playing limit games make you feel handicapped. The differences may seem slight to the inexperienced, but when you have played both, you know that’s not true.

First off, the blind structure is different. On a $3/$6 table, small blinds are $1, and big blinds are $3 (yeah, weird right?). You can’t raise more than 1xBB each raise. So say the game start off with UTG calling, UTG+1 folding, and another two callers before action is on to you in late position, you can only raise another BB. That means on a $3/$6 table, you can only make a raise to $6 (a min raise). Imagine only being able to min raise every time you want to raise. So what does the $6 in the stakes mean? It means that on the turn, the minimum bet is $6. The river minimum bet is also $6. And you can only min raise if you want to raise. I just had to repeat that. It needs to sink in…

How is that significant? It simply means that most of the time, if there are several callers in front of you, the pot odds become so good that it really doesn’t matter what you have. You’re almost obligated to call if you have anything decent at all! That’s pre-flop. And say there’s some one who wants to raise in late position with AA, and there are 4 callers in front of him, not a single one of the four in front will fold to his raise, simply because it’s only going to be a min raise. It will take a limp, raise, re-raise (and sometimes, not even then) to kick limpers out.

All that’s fine if you have a monster. Say you have aces and flop a set. Man, that’s when you have all the money flowing in cause you can only bet the minimum, raise the minimum, and the pot odds are so good that every one else will call with a decent draw or pair. The sick thing is that you can get out flopped, out rivered so often it makes you wanna rip your hair out. There was a hand where I had pocket 4s under the gun, I limped, and there were 4 callers behind me. Big blind raised (min raise) and everyone else flat called (obviously). Flop came Q64, and I made my set. BB raised, I re-raised (min raise again), and got three callers behind, including the big blind. Turn comes a J, and big blind checks. I bet and once again, got 3 callers. River came a T, and big blind checks to me, I bet, two guys fold, and big blind raises (min raise). I flat call, and guess what he shows me? Pocket tens. Ridiculous.

After playing a while though, I find there’s a method to all this madness. Limit games are not about bluffing. At least, you’re going to find it really really hard to make bluffs. Limit games are about making a hand, then milking as much out of it as you possibly can. This really reminds me of the no limit cash games I frequent, where players generally are loose enough to call down raises pre-flop with horrible positions and sub par hands just to “see the flop” and then pay huge amounts (that don’t add up in profitability) to draw on gut-shots. In any case, the real skill involved here is the milking. You need to be skilled enough to get the maximum value you can from your made hands, and you need to be able to lay down your made hands if you suspect a better hand so you lose less. This is different from no limit games cause sometimes, the pot odds are so good you’re almost obligated to call down if it was a no limit game.

This experience was interesting to say the least, and while I lost half my buy in, I found that it taught me yet another valuable lesson in poker. Namely, playing poker isn’t just about calling down with good pot odds. These marginal calls cost money, and the money adds up. Poker is about having several factors, i.e. pot odds, accurate reads, outs etc. add up to make a decision profitable.

Wish I took a few pictures of the place. I probably will, the next time I get to a new poker room. Look out for them. Till next time, do NOT call down with marginal hands! Or do, if you’re as lucky as the set tens guy…

To Be Lucky or to Be Skillful?

A few days back, a friend asked me a rather interesting question: If you had 100%, how would you distribute this on 2 stats, being lucky or being skillful. This brought out a small debate amongst us as he thought being skillful would give you the edge over the lucky person in most situations.

So, this prompted me to ask you readers, which would you rather be if you were playing a game of poker? Be Lucky or Be Skillful? Or maybe to some of you neutrals, be half lucky and half skillful?

The strange thing about a game of poker is no matter how good you are, or how skillful you may be, there will be days where you hit a bad run, or you just get constantly bad beat. And regardless the number of times you spin those scenarios in your head, hoping to see which plays you perhaps did wrongly, you find yourself confirming that you did everything right. You had the best hole cards. You hit the best possible flop you would ever dreamed of. You played the best way possible, every single step of the way. And yet you end up losing. How is that possible?

Interestingly enough, that very special friend of mine pointed out a game scenario to show me how a skillful person would easily beat the lucky person in a game of poker. Say for example we have Sean, a very skillful poker player, holding his AK non suited against Landon, our lucky person who was holding pocket J. Sean would start out manipulating the situation by raising preflop. Landon, being lucky and excited would just plainly call. You would not expect a re-raise from Landon here as he knows very little about the game. The flop comes out TJQ rainbow. This puts Sean in a great position here as he immediately hit his straight on the flop. Realising that he probably has the best hand here, Sean attempts to entice more money from Landon by putting in value bets. On the turn, a J is revealed letting Landon hit the quads. Now, this is where the debate is in full swing. My friend argued that Landon would fold if Sean put in a strong bet on the turn. His argument was solely based that a significant bet from Sean would indicate Sean has a strong hand and Landon, the lucky and non-skillful player of the game would fold on the reason that he thinks his pocket J is not good enough to beat Sean's hole cards. How many of you would agree this is true?

Now instead, try looking at it this way. Landon being only lucky and having no skill on how to play the game would figure he has 50% chance in any hand and he should just call all the way. He doesn't understand why one would raise so he would just merely call. The flop TJQ has no meaning what so ever to Landon. He has no thought that his opponent may hit the nuts. He has no idea what his opponent really has. To Landon, Sean's hole cards could be anything from QQ to AA or even 23.

So, how should Sean play from pre-flop, to the flop, and all the way to the river to win this hand. The answer would be regardless how Sean manipulates each betting round, he would still lose.

In a game of poker I played just recently, UTG and UTG+1 limps in pre-flop. There were 2 folds in between me and UTG+1. With pocket Aces and on the button, I raised 6xBB pre-flop. SB and BB folded. UTG folded. UTG+1 called. The flop opened out 6T2. UTG+1 checks and I raise, he shoves all in and I call. My opponent showed me a 62 off suite. The final turn and river cards were irrelevant. So, in this example, my raise of 6BB pre-flop didnt mean anything to him while holding 62 off suite. On the flop, he got lucky and hit 2 pairs while I played as if I had him. Bummer!

I only wish I was the guy with the 100% luck.

Bad Beats and Bad Luck

Well, I'm being restricted from depositing for an unknown reason. Its probably for the best, but having played online poker for almost a month during all my leisure hours, it does make you look for stuff to do when you're all out of the essentials. I have sent the guys up there an email on this, and given the typical response times, my account should be reinstated by today.

So, speaking of stuff to do in the meantime, what better can a poker addict do than write about poker? :)

What is luck? As defined on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luck);

Luck is a belief in good or bad fortune in life caused by accident or chance which happens beyond a person's control.

Good or bad fortune caused by chance, something that applies to every single hand of poker. Given that all games of chance involving money are considered gambling, poker is perceived likewise. I am, however, of the opinion that poker is not gambling. As quoted from the excellent movie, Rounders, "why are the same people always at the final table at the World Series of Poker?".

I define luck in two words; short term.

Statistics! Luck is what happens when you are statistically at a disadvantage to win at roulette when you bet on a single number (37 to 1 or 2.7%), but the ball jumps and drops directly on the number you bet. Since roulette gives you 36 to 1 odds on the bet above, you would have made $36 for every $1 you wager. That would be a profit of $35 if you hit the number the very first time you bet $1. Now, the more you play, the less luck becomes a factor. So, in a similar situation, if you make 100 similar bets, you should statistically make $94.5, and lose $100, effectively losing $5.5 for every 100 bets.

With a more poker related example, this was a hand that I played a couple of days back. I had 7c7s on the small blind. This was played at a $0.5/$1 full ring table. UTG folds, UTG+1 calls, folds to cut-off who raises to $3, button folds and I decide to call with my mid pair to see the flop. Big blind folds, and UTG+1 calls. Flop comes Ks10s7d, giving me bottom set. I check to UTG+1, who checks, CO bets $3. I decide to slowplay as the CO has stats of 29/25 and is pretty loose and aggressive player in position, and also to induce UTG+1 to call, so I call, but UTG+1 folds.

With a possible straight and flush draw, I believe this was the prudent decision to control the size of the pot in case CO had a monster like KK or 1010. Turn comes 10d, giving me the full house and putting a possible diamond flush draw on the board. I check once again to CO who bets half the pot. I raised him 3.5x his bet, and he shoves me all in for my remaining $89. There are only two likely hands that could beat me in this scenario; KK and K10. The way I read it, KK would not shove me all in, but would flat call as he already had the nut boat and any other hand except 1010 would be drawing to a 2 outer at best, with position no less. A possible shove hand would be QsJs, Ace-x of Spades reading me for a K pair or a 10, or K10 due to the possible but unlikely repeat of K on the river. I can't lay down my boat, so I call, and he shows me K10. I don't think there is any way for me to lose less on that hand as he flopped top 2 pair. The best scenario would have been for me to re raise his flop raise, I 4-bet and he folds. But that is very unlikely.

Was it luck that he hit a four-outer on the turn which incidentally made my boat as well? Yes, but in the long term, replaying the similar scenario of bottom set vs top two pair, I would be the favourite to win about 91% of the time. Which means that I would definitely profit if I played all similar scenarios the exact same way.

Was this a bad beat? I think not. I am of the opinion that bad beats are like when your opponent calls your bets when behind with Ace high pre-flop, Ace high on the flop, and Ace high on the turn, to hit his Ace on the river and beat your KK. Donk calls that eventually pay off in that one hand, but would lose money in the long run. This was just plain bad luck.