A Sit-and-Go Just for the Purpose of an Update

I haven't updated this blog in a month.

Let me rank the reasons why:

1. Guitar Hero (I, II, and III)
2. Other work on the site Arabianmonkey.com
3. Work
4. Stuff around the apartment
5. School

Yet I digress- it's not like I just chose not to update. I have seriously played less that 12 hours of poker in 2008. Crazy, isn't it? I theorize that I will eventually get sick of Guitar Hero and my playing ability will plateau, leading me back to the poker table.

But since that hasn't happened yet, I purposely sat my ass down with my hand generator and this blog window specifically to write about a Sit-and-Go. So here it is, nothing fancy, just some simply hand analysis of a meat-and-potatoes $5+.50 NL Hold'em 9-player Sit-and-Go. I had to use the old hand generator because I forgot my password to the new-fangled one.


I folded through the first level. I took a flop with 66, whiffed and let it go. The table seemed pretty standard- nothing crazy happening. Then I picked up AsQs in my BB. UTG limped, so did the cutoff. SB makes it 200 to go, 5x the BB. UTG then shoves. What the fuck? Cutoff folds, SB thinks a while and calls. Easy fold for me, right? UTG must be looking for that classic limp and trap play with AA or KK. SB must have at least AK, right? It's been a while since I've played, so I guess I'm impatient. I call. SB has QQ, UTG has 88. Board bricks. I'm out. Did I say I was only going to play one tournamet? Hahahaha... LET'S TRY AGAIN!

ROUND 2

Things started out much the same, playing Texas Fold'em. I took a small pot in my SB with J9. Then in the second level a confrontation arose that nearly made this blog unworthy of posting. Check out the action...

I figured we might be racing. Shit, it was almost 2:30am- sleep isn't such a bad consolation prize.

Two hands later I woke up in the BB with AQ. The short-stacked button minraised, the SB called and I jammed it. It folded to the button, who promptly called, and I was racing again. Here's how it turned out.

With almost 4,500 chips under my belt, I was pretty set. We very quickly became 5-handed and things tightened up. I called a raise on the button with QsTs, hoping to hit a good flop against a pretty TAG player. It came down with the As and the Ks. I had a royal flush draw and a gut shot. He continuation bet, and I called, with the intention of jamming the turn no matter what fell and how he acted. The turn was an 8, giving me an extra 4 outs. He timidly checked, and I decided to push and take it down.

A little while later, this hand came up. I nearly folded the turn; I swear to God my poker senses kicked in and almost saved me some money. He made it so affordable that I had to pay him off though. The short stack played the hand perfectly.

I made it back later though. I wasn't too scared of AK here, so when I pushed I felt pretty safe. He seemed to pretend to think about a call before letting it go.

Ugh. This always seems to happen. I wish he had just folded.

You might say I had a pretty good read on the guy on my right. Check out the river action on this baby.

The blinds got higher and my opponents' stacks got smaller. Out of necessity I called the all in of the 4th place finsher, and the next hand I took out the 3rd place guy for the same reason- he was just too short stacked for me not to call.

After some back and forth heads-up action. I noticed my opponent was getting frustrated. I raised three straight hands and then picked up AA. He raised from the button, trying to steal his thunder back. I, of course, declared that this was my table and re-raised. He cold called and I checked him the flop to see if he would hang himself. Not yet. I even gave him a free river card when he opted out of suicide again. But I jammed the un-important river card and he called VERY quickly with King-high. What a bitch. Check out the hand- there's nothing better than ending a tourney with AA.

-The Gerk-

A Full Tilt Tournament

I played in a 90 person Sit-and-Go today on Full Tilt. I started by doubling up with 99 in the third level. Then I lost a huge pot when I got it all-in with 7h9h on a board of Th-Jh-Ts-6h. He had Ace-Ten and checked the flop. Of course he rivered an ace.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1491653
I moved to a new table, this was the second hand. The first hand I jammed the 7-J-7 flop with 44 and took it down.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1491662
Three hands after the KKKK hand, this happens. I was ready to give it up on the turn, which I was surprised he checked. I guess I can fold the river to a minraise, but it is possible he would be betting that flop with the lower straight draw. Idk, I'm not folding here.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1491694
I was sure I had the MP caller, but I was just praying the blind didn't have it.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1491724
Eeeeewwwwwww... I feel bad for him, but I'm not folding Blind v. Blind for 2BBs. Sorry.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1491759
The good ol' limp-re-raise. One of the best moves in my poker game. My style makes this look like a steal... but in reality, I'm stealing your chips.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1491778
He's not supposed to be button limping with JJ on such a short stack lol. But either way, better to be lucky than good.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1491802
Haha luck's way of letting me know I can't always win. Ride that 5% baby! I guess I was lucky it was a short stack.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1491921
This was the hand that burst the bubble. He ridiculed me for calling his tiny stack in my BB with A8. Moron.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1491948
My last hand. I should've raised preflop, but seeing how he played the hand postflop, he would've just called me and I would've busted anyway. At such high blinds, it's almost impossible to know that he's getting sneaky with AQ.

15th place is okay, but I wanted to win it. Damn.

-The Gerk-

Tilt Talk, A Huge Hand

My PLO excursion over the last week has been filled with ups and downs. Some days I felt like I was playing pretty well, given my relative skill level, and I would squeeze out a buy-in or two profit. Other days, I would be tilting pretty hard, without ever taking a beat to encourage such bad play, and I would drop 2, 3, maybe 4 buy-ins before I finally signed off in shame.

Let's talk about tilt for a minute. "Tilt" is a word generally used to describe the frustration of a player due to any number of causes, and the resulting effect on the way he plays. Most times, a particularly bad beat will send a player into tilt mode, causing him to try to recoup his losses as quickly as possible, by playing more hands and pushing all-in with very modest holdings. Sometimes, when a player is tilting badly, he just wants to bust and get away from the table. It is important for a successful player to understand who at his table is steaming so that he can adjust his play against that player. When a bad beat doesn't tilt a player, any number of things might alter the way he plays- fatigue, boredom, hunger, frustration, table talk, or the need to be somewhere else are just some of the factors that can cause tilt.

Back to my talk about PLO. In Hold'em, I find that I only tilt when I'm frustrated or take a big bad beat that would've greatly changed my chances of winning a tournament/ making money in a cash game. However, in Pot Limit Omaha, I sometimes find myself tilting IMMEDIATELY upon sitting down at a table. I'm playing too loose, making too many crying/hero calls, and just all around not playing the game the way I need to play it in order to win. I'm unsure what causes this- maybe it is the huge emphasis on draws as opposed to legit hands like in Hold'em. When I sit down, I feel like the best way to make money is to get my stack in with the nut flush draw and suck out- but clearly that is not the best way to profit in Omaha. It feels like I'm tilting in one way or another 75% of the time at a PLO table. But that other 25%, I don't think I'm a bad player, just inexperienced.

I had worked my roll on UltimateBet up to 105.00, from the 75.00 I started with. I have played almost exclusively .10/.25PLO, but I have also sat down at a .25/.50 NL Hold'em table and a .01/.02PLO table (While I was waiting for a .10/.25 to open up). I lost a couple buy-ins Wednesday, a couple buy-ins Thursday, a couple buy-ins Friday, made a little on Saturday, and lost 2.5 buy-ins Sunday before making a push. I was down to like 20.00 in my account besides the 10.00 I took to the PLO table. I had about an hour to screw around, and before long I had doubled up. Then, just like that, I turned a set and completed my full-house to bust a guy and was up to 35.00 at my table. Common sense told to me to just leave the table- I had to be at my parents at 7:00 for my dad's birthday and I hadn't even gotten him a card yet. It was 6:15 and I needed to shower, but I felt like I was running well so I didn't leave the table. Then a monster hand came up, an incredible only-in-Omaha hand... that I will break down in it's entirety during my next blog posting. :)

(A CLIFFHANGER ENDING?!?!? WTF?!?!?)

-The Gerk-

The End, and a New Beginning

In case any of you are curious, here's the pot that the rest of my bankroll went into: http://www.pokerhand.org/?1380872

Although it's not a total cooler, that is a very, very bad spot to run into, seeing as my two pair is virtually dead (no redraw for a full house, only quads). I still had nine hearts though, but none came.

So now that your Pokerstars Cashier says that you have exactly $0.00, what are you going to do now? Well, I'm going to deposit two checks into my account today and then take some of that and deposit it on at least two, maybe three sites. Pokerstars for certain, UltimateBet is probable, and so is FullTilt. If you have any suggestions or bonus codes, now would be a good time to leave them in the comments. I'll see you at the tables again this weekend. :)

-The Gerk-

The Analysis of a Hand

If you haven't read the comments section of the previous blog post, refer to them first before reading this one. In summary, this particular hand decided a 5-handed NL Hold'em tournament that some friends and I played on Friday. My opponent seems to believe that the call he made was correct, and that I shouldn't "gripe," but the objective of this analysis is to prove that it was not only an incorrect call, but a VERY incorrect call.

In the tournament in question, there were five players and two rebuys, with each player starting with 20.00 in chips. Therefore, there are 140.00 of chips in play. We are heads-up at this point, and I have just doubled up to take a VERY slight chiplead when my TT held up against Ax all-in preflop. After I lost the pot in question, I was all-in with my BB the very next hand- my opponent called in the dark and we played the hand with the hole cards face up. Therefore the stacks were approximately even, with me having a 6.00 (or one BB) chiplead. The hand went as follows.

The Douginator (67.00): Posts BB (6.00)
The Gerk (73.00): Posts SB (3.00)

The Gerk: Moves all-in (73.00 total)
The Douginator: Calls all-in (67.00 total)

The Gerk shows Ac7d
The Douginator shows QhJd

Flop: 9-x-T
Turn: 8
River: Q
Board reads: 9-x-T-8-Q

The Douginator takes the pot (134.00) with a straight, 8 to Q.

Since some of you may not understand what "pot odds" are, let me explain them to you. Pot odds are calculated, generally when making a call with a draw, to determine whether or not a player has the proper equity (or return on investment) to commit a certain amount of money to a pot.

For example, lets said you had a flush draw on the turn of one particular hand, and would thus have 9 outs to the best hand. If the pot was 10.00, and I bet 8.00, you would not have the proper equity (ROI) to call the bet, seeing as calling 8.00 into a 18.00 pot would only be giving you a 2.5:1 ROI. The odds for you to make your hand are roughly 18% (or 4:1), making it improper to call. I would have to bet a maximum of about 3.25 in order for it to be a proper call with your draw (and you should always look for situations when you're getting BETTER than the proper odds on your money, i.e. getting 5:1 on a call with a 3:1 lead)

In our example, The Douginator had committed exactly 6.00 into a pot that became worth his entire stack. In other words, he had to call 61.00 in a 73.00 pot (the BB is considered no longer his). He was getting roughly 2.2:1 on a call, that is to say, you need to be 100% sure that your QJ is AT LEAST a 66% favorite in the hand in order to call (we'll ignore the fact that he is making the call for his tournament life, or 15.00 real money.) Pot odds do not necessarily imply to to this pot, because he is calling off his entire stack before the flop. But if they did, he would still not have the right price to call- QJ is a favorite against only about 50% of hands (Q8 is the exact median), not even close to the 2/3 advantage you would be looking for.

And he certainly wasn't pot committed, seeing as after his BB he still had 61.00 (10+BBs). While this would be a relative short stack in many tournaments, if I had just stolen the blinds, I would only have 12BBs.

You may be asking, but what should he have done with QJ in that spot?

FOLD.

If he had any read on me whatsoever, he would know that I was never pushing with less than QJ. Although I was being very aggressive with the blinds so high, and I was moving with QK, Kx, Ax, any pair, as well as any big hand, I was certainly not going to risk my tournament with a dead average hand. He would need to put me on a completely random hand in order to justify a call (not based in any way on pot odds, as he assumed). My range would have to include smaller Jacks and smaller Queens, as well has hands he had a smaller advantage over, like 8-5 and 3-4. If you would like to input a range of hands to determine whether or not a call was justified, please google poker odds calculator or visit flopturnriver.com and have at it.

In the comment post he claimed he "needed to make a play." A play implies that he is the one doing the betting, not calling off his stack with a very average hand. If he wanted to make a play, he could have very easily folded QJ and pushed all-in in position when he had the button the next hand, and 9 times out of 10 taken his BB back.

And to say that the QJ hand did not decide the tournament is completely ignorant- a hand that gives one player a 134.00 to 6.00 chiplead is a pretty consequential hand. And it would have been avoided had he not fallen in love with two facecards.

I'm not saying QJ is not playable- but it is definitely not playable when facing an all-in. It should be folded in EP and MP at a full table. In LP, it is acceptable to limp with it as long as there are other limpers and hope to flop a set or a straight. On the button, it is profitable to raise with it in hopes to steal, but if you are reraised, you are almost certainly way behind. In blind v. blind confrontations, raising is best since many SBs complete with inferior hands as bad as J2 or 83.

For more on pot odds, getting proper ROI, implied odds, and the minimum starting requirements to call an all-in bet, please look up ZeeJustin's blog (I'm too lazy to provide a link). He goes into great detail about how and why it is not only profitable but essential to push in blind v. blind confrontations. He also breaks down what hands you would need to call such a bet, and QJ is obviously not among them.

And a note to all:

Although I am more than willing to admit my mistakes, especially in a game of incomplete information such as Hold'em, make sure you know that you are correct before you post about it. Before you reply on my blog and accuse me of not knowing what I'm talking about, get your facts straight and MAYBE learn what the terms you're using actually mean.

-The Gerk-