A Small Stakes Crusade

Something has been bothering me in my poker tracker stats for a long time. I'm a lifetime loser at 1/2 full ring on Full Tilt. I've decided to rectify this situation, and will be playing in those games until I am no longer a net loser. This could take anywhere from an hour to several weeks, but it's just not acceptable to me that the tally number in that row shows up as red. I tried it out this morning and found myself very comfortable in the games, five tabling at one point and really only once getting into a spot where I lost track of what was going on. I also erased over 2/3rds of my deficit, so things should be back in the green shortly.

If only I could undo my no limit numbers :(

The Dance of the Fishes

I've written before about seat selection, and the musical chairs situation that comes up before prescheduled games such as the Oaks 30/60. But I feel another post is in order regarding which cushion your ass rests upon, mainly because they do it all different like down here. In the Bay Area seat changes at a table (not table changes, mind you....seat changes within a table) were handled in one of two ways:

1. When a seat emptied whoever spoke up first that they wanted it got it. This "system" was in place for small stakes games and to be honest works just fine.

2. A list is maintained at the table (usually on a pad of post it notes) and when a seat comes open the person highest on the list who wants said seat gets it. In theory that person is then cycled to the bottom of the seat change list, although in practice this just creates another grey area chock full of angles to be shot. Did he move? What order did they move in? Who's where on the list? He table changed and came back, shouldn't he be off the list? You get the idea.

So down here they employ a different "system", and I use the word very loosely. Whoever has been at the table the longest has priority for any new seats that become available. If you've been seated the longest, you can take every new seat that comes available until someone "challenges" you for the next seat. And I'm not even kidding, this old man (whose initials are BA, of all things) turned to me last week, after arguing with me over who would get the vacant 4 seat (I almost never argue for a seat with rare exception....if I am seated on the left of a man who does not chop in a game where chopping is coming up frequently, I have to move as quickly as possible) and eventually being convinced I'd been at the table longer than him (it wasn't even close....I'd been there for 4 hours, him 25 minutes) said "OK well I challenge you for the next one!" My face probably went expressionless as I tried to ponder what on Earth he was talking about before I eventually said "OK....sure" or some other such eloquent piece of prose. My new buddy (who doesn't yet have a stage name) was at the table and had to explain to me what was going on. I laughed and said to BA "You can have the next one sir, no worries". He promptly took my old seat (the funny part of this was that all I was trying to do was jump around him from the 3 to the 5 because he was the aforementioned non-chopper....later in the session when he posted a sb on the button he asked everyone if they wanted to chop and tried to back his way out of it claiming he only doesn't chop when there are 2 blinds but will chop 3 ways. This is completely backwards of what 95% of people do. It is common for people to chop 2 ways but not 3) and play resumed as usual, with him now 2 seats to my right. A little bruhaha ensued when the dealer tried to deal me in the very next hand (I wasn't entitled to a hand, I had to sit out one deal because I skipped one seat away from the button) claiming that the two of us had just changed seats and that if BA took a hand, I got a hand. This is actually the rule, any two players can change seats and if the one getting the worst of it (moving closer to the blinds) takes a hand the one getting the best of it gets a free hand. But technically we didn't switch seats, I changed then he slid over so I wasn't entitled to a hand and I just told the dealer to skip me and get the hand over with in less time than it would take for the floorman to come make a ruling. Anyway....

A few minutes later another seat came available and my buddy wanted to take it. BA was all over it, saying that he'd challenged for the next seat (he's actually using the word challenged) and since nobody had challenged him he was on top of "the list". But my buddy had been here longer than him....what was the protocol here? BA seemed to think he was entitled to the seat, which may have just been because he's 40 years older than my buddy, but my buddy really wasn't having it and just moved into the seat. BA got very upset, which is a pretty common occurrence for him since he plays for like 2 days straight and specifically yesterday bought chips at least 10 times ($200 or $100 at a time), and to be honest I don't even remember how the situation was resolved other than my buddy saying "You can have the next one, I promise".

Ah, Commerce.

More Online Hands

Playing online really generates a lot of "lol, wtf was that" hands in quick succession. Here are three that I enjoyed from tonight's hour of play.

Hand #1
Full Tilt Poker $3/$6 Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Pre Flop: (1.5 SB) Hero is CO with A J
UTG raises, MP calls, Hero 3-bets, 2 folds, BB caps!, UTG folds, MP calls, Hero calls

Flop: (14.5 SB) A Q J (3 players)
BB checks, MP bets, Hero raises, BB folds, MP folds

Final Pot: 8.25 BB
Hero wins 7.917 BB
(Rake: $2.00)

It is rare to see ANY of the following lines in a hand of limit hold 'em. Raise/fold preflop. Cap preflop, check/fold flop. Bet/fold flop. My three opponents in this hand took those three lines, letting me win an 8 bet pot with nobody even seeing the turn!

Hand #2
Full Tilt Poker $3/$6 Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Pre Flop: (1.5 SB) Hero is UTG with K T
Hero raises, 2 folds, BTN calls, 1 fold, BB calls

Flop: (6.5 SB) T 8 3 (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets, BTN calls, BB calls

Turn: (4.75 BB) 5 (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets, BTN calls, BB calls all in

River: (7.583 BB) 4 (3 players - 1 is all in)
Hero bets, BTN calls

Final Pot: 9.583 BB
Hero shows K T (a pair of Tens)
BTN shows K 9 (a flush, Ten high)
BB shows 9 K (a flush, King high)
BTN wins 2.333 BB
BB wins 6.917 BB
(Rake: $2.00)

This hand is mind boggling to me for the simple reason that I have 91.3% equity against two opponents while holding a single pair of tens with two cards to come. When the flop hit the felt I actually thought to myself about what kind of hands I wanted my opponents to have and how it would be nice if they were drawing really thin (something I don't usually think about). Obviously you can construct a situation that's even worse than this (if you just remove one of the diamonds my equity goes up to like 96%), but I can't recall seeing one recently. I was once knocked out of a sit 'n go when I ran red aces into QQ and QQ all in preflop. Four spades later, I was out in 8th place. I lost this hand, too, which is just plain silly.

Hand #3
Full Tilt Poker $3/$6 Limit Hold'em - 5 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Pre Flop: (1.5 SB) Hero is BTN with K A
UTG raises, CO calls, Hero 3-bets, SB calls, 1 fold, UTG calls, CO calls

Flop: (13 SB) 2 Q J (4 players)
SB checks, UTG bets, CO calls, Hero calls, SB calls

Turn: (8.5 BB) Q (4 players)
SB checks, UTG bets, CO calls, Hero calls, SB folds

River: (11.5 BB) 5 (3 players)
UTG checks, CO checks, Hero checks

Final Pot: 11.5 BB
CO mucks T 9
Hero shows K A (a pair of Queens)
UTG shows A T (a pair of Queens)
Hero wins 11 BB
(Rake: $3.00)

Danielle actually watched this hand finish and it was pretty hilarious. CO was a huge fish, something like 80/15 over 60 hands, who took forever to make every action. So she comes over to talk to me as I'm down to one table and about to quit and watches me check the "check/fold" box on the river and we wait like 8 or 10 seconds while discussing the UConn women's hoops team and all of a sudden cards are turning over and I'm not even looking at the screen and she's like "did you just win that hand?" and I have to click last hand to see what on Earth just happened. Humorously, my opponents were drawing very slim here, with UTG having just the three kings and the CO only the four eights.

The Worst Bad Beat Story I Have Ever Heard

Poker culture revolves around bad beat stories. I tell my fair share of them (especially on here), and I also listen to a good number of them. Listening to live players who don't have a clue what they're doing tell bad beat stories is really irritating. Even good players, myself included, often fall into the trap of bemoaning their losses more than they should. But that's just the way it is. If you play poker, people take bad beats, and if you have ears, they'll tell you about it.

Many people know that the worst beat you can take in limit hold 'em (starting from after the flop...it should be pointed out that all "bad beats" need a relative starting point. Pocket aces can bad beat 32o, if you start the action after a flop of 332) is basically about a 1000 : 1 shot (actually 989 : 1), where in your opponent has 2 cards to improve in the entire deck and needs to hit both of them. Bravos took this beat once (although not technically, because I believe in his hand the opponent had a back door gut gut straight draw). It is rare and brutal, but it happens and when it does you really just lose about a rack of chips that should have been yours. WTK sorta did this to me once, making quads 3s on a flop of A52 or something when I had AA. To this day if you talk to the man about that hand he'll have a conniption over how few bets I gave him on the river. He swears he's the one who took the bad beat! That's the other thing about bad beats; they are relative. A $500 bad beat in a 20/40 game is pretty bad. A $500,000 bad beat on high stakes poker is another matter entirely. Yesterday at Commerce I was told the worst bad beat story I have ever heard, which was confirmed by several sources.

At the Commerce Casino there is a bad beat jackpot, which basically means if you have the "misfortune" of losing with a big enough hand, your table wins a bunch of money. The losing hand keeps 60%, the winning hand gets 20%, and the rest of the table split the remaining 20% in what is known as a table share. There are two forms of jackpot. I don't know their actual names, but let's call them grande and regular. The regular jackpot requires that aces full of tens lose to four of a kind or better. The most common way for this to happen is for AK to run into something like QQ and for three aces to show up on the board. In fact anytime two aces show up on the board the whole table starts murmuring "one more ace" and "one time" and the like. The regular jackpot starts at $20,000 and goes up from their like a progressive slot machine, which means that the "losing" hand gets at $12,000, which is nothing to sneeze at. The grande jackpot works the same way, except it requires that four of kind lose the hand, and the payout is always $100,000. That's $60K to the loser. That's a down payment, or an entire college fund. That's life changing money for most of the people in the casino. The catch for the jackpot is that both hole cards from both players hands must be used to make the qualifying hands. In the regular jackpot example above, if the board ran out AAA98 and someone held TT and the other player A5 there would be no jackpot. The A5 hand is only playing one card. So, on to our story, which is pretty short since I don't know the action. The game is live 8/16, and the players in question hold the following hands:

22

33

A5 of diamonds

The flop is:

322dd

That's right. 3s full of 2s, quad deuces, and a gut shot draw at the steel wheel (a five high straight flush). Some betting probably happens, although it's possibly that only the flush draw was willing to put in any action, with the other two players making expert slow plays.

322dd-4d

They hit the jackpot! Poor pocket 3s is going to get eviscerated and only a table share for his efforts, but he's really only going to lose like $200 and $20K/7 players is obviously a lot more than that, so it's OK. The quad deuces stands to win $60K. A jackpot already hit on the turn is almost unheard of. But wait for it.....

322dd-4d-6d

Catastrophe strikes! The A5 of diamonds still has a straight flush, but the Ace in his hand no longer plays! He has "improved" to a 6-high straight flush, but lost the jackpot. In an 8/16 game the guy with pocket 2s was fading two cards (the fourth 3 would have relegated him to table share, which still would have been almost $3K which would be a fair consolation prize) to win $60K. And he couldn't do it. All he got for his efforts was a grade A, almost untoppable, bad beat story.

Try Try Again

I had a couple of live hands today that Yoda might deem worthy of posting, so we'll try one more time to satisfy his voracious appetite for soul crushing destruction. Hand 1, which is painfully standard to me but got me several eyebrow raises from around the table.

It folds to me on the button and I open with AK of spades. This is a great situation because your range is just SO WIDE that even good hand readers have a real hard time putting you on really anything. The aggressive small blind three bets, and I just call, basically planning to show down almost no matter what. Yes strictly speaking I could cap for value, but I don't really see the point. He's gonna lead the flop no matter what if I call, and check almost no matter what if I cap. By not capping and raising the flop I'll be in the same spot as if he'd checked after my cap, but with my range still a fair bit wider. Anyway....the flop is a gorgeous one:

943r

He bets and I just call. Again, I probably have the best hand, but there's no point to raising, sorta for the same reason I made about not capping the flop and also because at this point I'd like him to barrel off with jack high. The turn is another gem:

943-3

That puts up a flush draw. He bets again, and I call once more. The river:

943-3-8r

And he says "alright" and checks. I bet basically in rhythm and he calls instantly. I turn over my hand and a few players at the other end of the table crane their necks to confirm that I don't have a pair. My opponent says "that's good" and mucks his hand quickly, seemingly trying to get the ordeal over with as few people noticing what just happened as possible. I thought this hand was pretty standard, but I did feel good after it. On to hand 2:

It's getting towards evening and I've been playing for about 5.5 hours. I just checked my phone and traffic seems to be good for once, and I'd like to get home early and finish Peanut Collector 7, hit the gym, and put in a couple hundred hands online. So while I'm contemplating my exit strategy "guy with surgical mask" opens in early position and I 3 bet him with KK. As an aside, guy with surgical mask openly told us that he's under doctor's orders to wear the thing if he wants to play poker with us filthy degenerates. He does look awfully old and feeble, so I can't really argue with the medical community on this one, and besides, I'm all for anything and everything that prevents the spread of germs in casinos. Back to the hand I have the kings and everyone else folds and the flop again rains down beautifully:

T84ss

And he donks. I raise. He calls.

5c

And he donks. I raise. He calls.

Qd

Ouch. That's pretty terrible, because IMR what's this guy got here? Jacks or Queens, right? He doesn't have aces unless well I don't know that'd be super weird. TT we'd have heard more from on the turn, so really only jacks, queens, and I suppose like maybe AT make any sense. Blessedly he just check/calls and fast rolls his hand. I am distraught, as a fast roll like that from a guy like this is often some preposterous monster (and admittedly he did keep trying to put in action) that is resigned to having been coolered. But no, upon inspection just the pair of jacks I was expecting to see. I drag the pot, rack up my chips, and head home on google maps approved green highways.

This One is For Yoda

Yodaman said...

you should post a hand where you totally obliterate someone.

like they triple donk and you triple raise for thin value and they pay your AA off with TPTK.

March 17, 2010 3:25 PM

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Pre Flop: (1.5 SB) Hero is CO with A Q
UTG calls, 1 fold, Hero raises, 2 folds, BB calls, UTG calls

Flop: (6.5 SB) 9 Q A (3 players)
BB checks, UTG bets, Hero raises, BB folds, UTG 3-bets, Hero caps!, UTG calls

Turn: (7.25 BB) 2 (2 players)
UTG bets, Hero raises, UTG 3-bets, Hero caps!, UTG calls

River: (15.25 BB) A (2 players)
UTG bets, Hero raises, UTG calls

Final Pot: 19.25 BB
UTG mucks K J
Hero shows A Q (a full house, Aces full of Queens)
Hero wins 18.5 BB
(Rake: $3.00)

Admittedly this is not thin value per say, but you have to admit that by the time I cap the turn it's a little curious as to what's going on here.

I would also like to add a rant. CBS is awful. I DVR'ed 3 hours of coverage this afternoon and upon getting back from the beach was looking forward to getting to see at least a fair bit of the Pitt Xavier game. I saw the first 5 minutes, before any other game was on, minutes 19 to 17 of the second half, and seconds 6.9 to .4. That's right, not only did they basically not show the entire game in favor of letting me watch Duke beat the bejesus out of Cal, they cut away from the game with .4 seconds left and Pitt about to inbound the ball from under their own hoop down by 3 to show me the final 30 seconds of a 20 point blowout with all the scrub seniors on the floor.

Even For Me

I felt this hand was out of the ordinary, even by my standards.

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Pre Flop: (1.5 SB) Hero is SB with 6 5
4 folds, Hero raises, BB 3-bets, Hero calls

Flop: (6 SB) 4 8 7 (2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets, Hero raises, BB 3-bets, Hero caps!, BB calls

Turn: (7 BB) 9 (2 players)
Hero bets, BB calls

River: (9 BB) J (2 players)
Hero bets, BB raises, Hero calls

Final Pot: 13 BB
Hero mucks 6 5
BB shows T Q (a straight, Queen high)
BB wins 12.5 BB
(Rake: $2.00)