How Poor Players Can Make Things Difficult
Posted by: Jake // Category: Freeroll tournament, Overall strategy
First, let me note that I made my first money today. I joined a Full Tilt Poker $50 Freeroll on a lark, just to get some practice in. In fact, after the first break, with a stack larger than the tournament average, I left to go get some dinner for the family. I was gone long enough that the advanced round blinds had eaten up my stack. After a couple more hands I was out. However, I finished in high enough place that I earned 25 cents.
The down side is that Full Tilt Poker doesn’t have .02/.04 stakes games. So it will be difficult to build off of that without winning more money from freerolls or very small stakes tournaments. Still, I’ve started this journey with zero, and I’m not at zero anymore!
One of the hands in this tournament is a great example of how difficult it can be to play against poor players sometimes. It started with me with a commanding chip lead. The blinds are $150/$300 and antes are $25. I’m in the small blind, and I limped in to see the flop holding this:
Not a bad drop for the small blind. If I get anything decent on the flop, I continue. Otherwise I fold, and my big stack is fine. Note that I’m playing very aggressively at this point, using my large stack to bully several players out of what were most likely better hands than mine. Here’s the flop:
I have the top pair (although with a very weak kicker) and a flush draw. This is where a big stack can really come in handy. Going out with a large bet in this situation can clear the decks or get you a good indication of where things stand. Against any other flush draw I’m a loser, as I am against any other ace. So, I needed to get all the hands that are remotely improvable out of the running. I decided to lead with a pot-sized bet and see what would happen. In my eyes, the only people who would remain would be those with an ace or a flush already in hand. Anything else would be a dubious call.
I bet $750 and the person in the position behind me called.
I had been watching him for some time, and this player tended to overrate his poor hands… doing things like raising on lowest pair or middle pair against a strong bet that was clearly made by the top pair or better. So while I would take his call somewhat seriously, I had to not just chuck my hand based on his call, especially as he didn’t raise me.
The next card fell and was a:
On a certain level I had to fear the chance of three 9s, but I also knew my opponent as a consistent bluffer. I pulled out a big gun and dropped a $1,200 raise on the table. This was probably not the best technical play with a flush draw staring me in the face, a low kicker with my ace, and the real possibility of triple 9s, but my stack was quite large, and I didn’t feel that my opponent’s previous call on my $750 raise was a sign of strength. My bet was also by design: My opponent had little more than $1,200 left in his stack, and it also made the pot odds of going for a flush draw if he didn’t have one in his hand already very risky. So I was basically forcing him to go all in with a real hand or back down. Somewhat to my surprise he went all in.
With over $4,500 in the pot, my stack still quite large, and his reputation as a bluffer, I called the final $155 rather than fold. The next card was:
The flush draw hits! Let’s see how it played out. My opponent turned over:
And can you believe it? He was dead lost on the flop where I bet the pot, but he hit on the turn with triple 9s. To make matters worse, he hit his flush draw on the river! My instincts on reading him were spot on. He called the $750 bet on the flop with middle pair and a flush draw. The pot odds were way against him on the flush draw (as I intended it to be), but he did it anyway. This is the mark of a poor player, and it can really do a number on solid players. When the poor players get lucky and take a chunk of your stack (as happened here), it can make you want to just scream. In worst case scenarios it can lead you to lose your focus and then make poor decisions.
Of course, the good news is that in most of these situations the solid player comes out way ahead. This hand was the exception. To put this in perspective, the odds of my opponent hitting his triple 9s were 11 to 1. As to hitting the flush after my $750 bet, the odds were 4 to 1, odds that equate to a 20% chance of winning. Combine his odds of hitting the flush or the triple 9s, and you come up with 3.3 to 1 against, or 23%.
A full 77% of the time he’ll end up losing big, and you and I will end up with a big chunk of chips.
My official tally now stands at $0.25, but I will need to win some more out of freerolls to really be able to leverage the cash tables effectively.
Tags: all-in, donkey, fish, freeroll, Full Tilt Poker, winnings