Posted by Johnnymac 7:35 PM
Editor’s Note: Dr Fro and I are posting separate entries about the same subject. We have agreed not to view each other’s entries until both are posted so as to keep our own thoughts uninfluenced by the other’s. By design then, there is likely to be some redundancies... please read and enjoy

What happened this weekend, including a description of how I got busted out of my own tournament.

The Main Event was this weekend – Dr Fro and I had been planning it since July when we saw at another tournament just how popular ESPN and the Travel Channel has made poker lately. Previously, Fro had organized four tournaments over the past three years and they were all small affairs of 20-30 players 5-10% of whom we had to beg to show up after an equivalent number either was non-committal or just plain flakey when the time came to play. But this time was much different – there were so many responses that we had to put in a waiting list and even seriously considered allowing more players to play than we had previously planned. Before we even dealt the first card the tournament was a success – the winner’s piece this time around was almost $2,500! This might not even compare to even a small tournament event in Vegas or California, but for a bunch of dumbass guys in Houston, this was quite a bit of money.

One of the modifications we made from our previous tournaments was that instead of allowing players to take turns choosing from a list of different games, we decided this time to play nothing but No Limit Holdem (NLH) with escalating blinds. This was done for a couple of reasons: 1.) it’s easier and simpler to have one game with one set of rules, and 2.) this is the game that is played in the televised events today and thus it’s the game that many of the new players are going to want to play themselves. I think this worked out well for both of these reasons and was a wise decision.

Now anyone who plays a lot of poker knows that NLH is a very different game from normal limit poker in a casino, which itself is much different than penny-ante games around the kitchen table – the strategies involved are much different in each situation, with the most notable difference being that made hands are much easier to protect when large bets are allowed and accordingly, bluffs can be more effective, too. Similarly, many of the new players whose sole experience come from television don’t often grasp that the televised games are heavily edited and feature some of the best players in the world making some of the most advanced decisions and plays in the entire world of poker. While it may look like the pros are playing every single hand and calling and raising with just about any two cards, they’re not, and anyone who had played enough holdem can tell you that quality of hand-selection is one of the most key differences between good players and bad players. Altogether, the inexperience of many of the players was another one of the reasons we decided to switch the games, because it made for a more lucrative event for those players who are familiar with the game, including the organizers themselves. Yes Virginia, we were looking to take advantage of dead money, and there was a lot of it.

Now, before I give the wrong impression that this thing was like shooting ducks in a barrel, it most certainly was not. Fro and I only knew a handful of the guys playing, so there was the significant chore of trying to figure out who to respect and who to exploit among the strangers – this is a skill that I think I do well because I play with strangers so often in cardrooms. Sometimes it’s easy to tell right away – if someone comes out betting and raising on every hand it’s very likely that he’s a poor player and not very experienced either with holdem itself or playing in tournaments. And sometimes it’s difficult to tell right away, because a guy might fold ten hands in a row to the blinds and lead you to think he knows what he’s doing and then he’ll chase a gutshot straight to the river with a flush already on the board. In all situations though, I like to think that I can get a decent bead on a player’s skill pretty quickly and firmly after I’ve seen his cards just once. This is because those two cards are like the secret decoder ring to explaining all of the decisions he made leading up to the showdown, starting with his decision to play those particular cards in the first place, before anything else had happened. When I am in a game with people I don’t know, I am much more likely to respect the guy who folds often before the flop than I am to respect the guy who starts calling right away, and until I see his cards for the first time and thus can deduce the quality of all of his actions and decisions beforehand, I will continue to respect him. I feel that this was an edge that I had in the tournament, because I am more familiar with playing with strangers than most of the other people who were there.

(As an aside, this works both ways – I hardly ever EVER show my cards unless I am sure that I have the winning hand at the end – for people with a little bit of experience and a good memory for reconstructing hands, it’s just too powerful an insight into my skill and my game to be giving away such information for free, yet other people seem to be oblivious to this concept. There is also a divergence here between limit and no-limit, too – in limit holdem I might deliberate show a bluff to try and induce more calls whereas in no-limit I would much rather bully the other players into folding by always representing a strong hand... but that’s a different blog post for another day)

After saying all of that until I see some cards and until I get a read on the other players, the first few minutes of any new card game with a stranger or two is terrifying to me. Am I the best player? Am I a sucker in a trap? How do I know that the guy next to me isn’t some guy’s shill brother sent in from Vegas to clean-out all of those Houston yokels? In almost all situations, usually none of these fears come true and it turns out that, at least by the book, I’m either the best player at the table or damn close to it, but until I get a read on the strangers, I’m scared. This was the case on Sunday when I sat down.

Sitting at the table with me were my roommate and best friend, Chris C, whose ability has steadily grown in my opinion for the past two years, Jimmy #2, with whom I played in an earlier tournament and wasn’t especially impressed buy, and Ted, one of the absolutely worst players I have ever known or seen in my life. In addition to those two guys there were three strangers: Hood, Jason, and the Other Chris, and given that those guys all started out by folding regularly, I figured that it was going to be tough. Then I figured out that Jason really liked to play any A or K with any kicker and that Hood had a tendency to chase cards to the end. Shortly thereafter Hood chased two pair to the river and got busted by Ted’s nut flush, which Ted subsequently slow-rolled and almost induced the first fistfight of the night. Hood did not necessarily appreciate my explanation that Ted was just an idiot and not an asshole, but regardless, Hood was out and was not happy.

After that, Jason chased his own two pair to the river and got busted by Chris C’s Q-high flush. The hand that, incidentally, I didn’t play, but which had 5 other players call at least $150 apiece and thus gave Chris his first big pot when he won and was a big step towards his eventual tournament win.

By the time we were down to 5 players, the other tables had been losing players as well and the tables were consolidated. Two more players joined us, one of whom got knocked out on the very first hand he played. The other player who joined us, Junior, knocked me out shortly after that.

Here’s the story:

I was in the $5 big blind with AcTs. Three players called including Junior, who was in the small blind. I raised $20 to thin the field and only Junior called.

Flop is Kc-Qc-6d. Junior checks. I check.

Turn is Ad. I decide to make a play right away and I move all-in. Yes, all I have is top pair with a decent kicker, but I have a draw to the nut straight and I figure that top pair with a decent kicker is good enough to try and steal the pot against Junior’s check on both the flop and the turn.

So I make my bet and without flinching, he calls me immediately. I was surprised to hear him utter the words, and I was even more surprised with turned over Ks6h – two pair. I was sandbagged all the way.

I had just 9 outs on the river and I was gone when it came blank.

Now Chris C and Dr Fro and I have debated this hand quite a bit the past few days. Both of them seem to think that I might have overbet, but they also agree with me that he likely would have come over the top anyway and in the very best scenario I would have been looking at a short stack and a looming escalation of the blinds in 20 more minutes. I had never played with Junior before, and this was the first time I had seen his cards – a little too late for my smug attitude about playing with strangers to kick in, but I can at least offer a little bit of analysis in hindsight.

First, frankly, I’m not impressed that he would call my first raise with nothing but K-rag from the small blind, then much less not even stop to consider all of the possible hands that I could have made on the turn when the A came with the cards already on the flop. Chris said that Junior called because it was pretty obvious that all I had was A – and thus he was correct to call with his two pair, and I admit that it obviously was the right decision because it was the winning decision. But how could it have been THAT clear SO QUICKLY that A was all I had? There were 2 diamonds and 2 clubs on the board and a big straight. Certainly, I didn’t have any of those hands, but his quick call belies the assumption that he knew all I was holding was an Ace.

Second, Dr Fro does know him a little bit and Fro says that he likes to be “tricky” sometimes. Could this have been a bad tricky play that got lucky one time? I am leaning towards that answer based solely on how quickly he called. He didn’t pause to consider anything on the board or the size of my bet – he just called immediately, which tells me that he was married to this particular tricky play no matter what card came or how much I bet. Had he waited a little bit before calling, shown some sort of prudence, reflected some sort of comprehension of the circumstances at hand, then I might respect the call a little bit more, but the simple fact that there was no hesitation makes me lean in the direction of “bad tricky play that got lucky” rather than “savvy expert poker play”. Yes, it worked this time, but Mike Caro likes to warn about “fancy play syndrome” and the risks of trying to be to cute rather than trying to win when ahead. Sometimes slowplaying is a good idea and a great weapon to maximize the size of a pot, but middle two pair against an overcard with both a straight and two possible flush draws on the board isn’t one of those times.

Then again, when it was over I didn’t have any chips and he kept on playing, so that’s that and I could be full of shit. That’s also likely.

Once it was over, I went into Tournament Director mode and ran the tournament for the rest of the day. A few observations:

1. Bluffing is not as effective unless the foolishness of big calls is learned the hard way

This is a corollary of the common truism that it’s pointless to try and bluff unsophisticated players who don’t know well enough that they might be beat. One of the most fun things in poker is to sniff out a bluff and steal a pot with a bad hand. In limit poker and penny-ante games, this comes cheaply – sure he may not be bluffing, but it only costs an extra bet to find out for sure and that’s all that’s lost if he’s not bluffing. In NLH, sniffing out bluffs is just as fun, but it’s a lot more damaging if you’re wrong and call against a big hand. Not only did I notice this with Junior, I also noticed it with many other players, too – many mediocre hands called a lot of big bets mainly out of habit, I suppose. Play NLH long enough and you start to appreciate the significant risks of making a big call if your bluff radar is wrong – namely, you’ll get run out of the tournament or at least crippled. But if you only play NLH once a year and small limit games the rest of the time, the calling habit will remain and a lot more big bets will be called when the Main Event comes around.

2. Big stacks of small chips are preferred over small stacks of big chips.

This one is simple and it goes both ways – a player with a mound of chips in front of him is less likely to be called when he bets and is also more likely to bet more aggressively. This is garden-variety psychology and was demonstrated time and again by some of the players I watched.

3. Winning in cash games requires skill, winning in tournaments needs a little luck, too

All of the big poker pundits repeat this one, and it was demonstrated again on Sunday. Chris C took over the chip lead about 2:15 in the afternoon when his QT flush held up and he never relinquished it. Once he got the big stack he was able to dictate the action and force other players into bad situations and he did it very well. Of course, he needed to be lucky that one time to get the big stack started. This one is a common lesson, but it’s always interesting to see theories put into practice.

So that’s it from the tourney. I’m sure more observations are forthcoming. For now, I’m done. More info on the next tourney will be out soon. Email me with any questions.

0 Comment(s):

Post a Comment