Zero To Sixty

One of the things I need to find is a sense of balance. It’s pretty clear that as you play with erratic players and maniacs in freeroll tourneys that a looser approach pre-flop and a very disciplined approach post-flop can be incredibly lucrative. The trouble is that it is also fairly expensive. You go in on enough pots (and raised pots) in a row without that big payoff, and your chip stack is starting to look pretty thin. So a sense of balance is key.

That was one problem I had late last night on an Absolute Poker freeroll. I had a very long period of horrible cards and flops. I started out playing loose, but nothing hit so I had to tighten up considerable because my stack was dwindling. But nothing else came up over time either. Generally speaking, you can withstand these droughts because you will eventually hit a few big hands, but last night it went so long, and I had spent too many chips on loose plays early that I was in desperate shape.

As I said, I can’t really let this happen again. I’ve already identified my problem–calling too many big pre-flop raises. It’s one thing to call a 40 chip raise on a 20 chip big blind, but it’s another thing entirely to call a 120 chip raise on a 20 chip big blind. That’s just too much of an investment for the long odds involved, even for a potential full stack takedown.

One of the reasons I called these bets was that the sense of optimism involved in a big pre-flop raise generally means that they are willing to go all-in since they are confident in their hand. My plan is generally to call, hit the big flop, go all-in, and collect their stack. Again, hitting the flop is a long shot, but the effective implied pot odds of gaining a whole stack made it somewhat worth it. That is, if you have those chips to burn, which I don’t for any extended period of time in early rounds.

So I need to stop calling these big pre-flop raises unless I have a powerhouse hand. I still think calling pre-flop raises with mediocre hole cards that can improve to powerhouse hands is worth it… assuming your opponent is the type to go all-in at the drop of a hat and you can afford the chip outlay.

So balance is the word… not so many big raise calls and a tighter grip on “improvable hands.”

Okay, I’m incrementally getting better at taking calculated risks that return big investments. The trouble is that I’m still making mistakes. Some are little mistakes that have big consequences, while others are just bone-headed moves that have disastrous consequences. Today’s Absolute Poker freeroll had a good example of a small mistake and a good example of small risk with big payoff. First the small mistake.

I’ll cut to the chase: I faced these hold cards.

Formerly, I would muck this hand. But I had a big stack, and the blinds were small enough that I was playing a little more loose. Here’s the flop:

Having a big stack and the flexibility it brings is nice! Here I am flopping a set. Very nice.

My only concern was the flush draw. Without thinking I put in a half pot raise. The exact moment I put it in, I was cursing myself. A good player would see the potential of nabbing my stack with a flush and would call a small raise. The upside was just too juicy. The person behind me called instantly, and the turn fell:

I can’t believe it. I simply forgot everything I had been studying the past two days and it immediately comes back to haunt me! I made a big bet as a feeler (he could have been bluffing!), which was mistake number two, and he instacalled. The next card was another spade, so even if he didn’t hit the flush on the turn, he definitely had it on the river. Ugh.

Now let’s go back to a good hand.

Tenth hand of the tournament. Binds are 25/50. I face a preflop raise holding this:

It was a decent raise, but not extravagant. With two high cards and a flush draw, I decided to call. The flop came:

Pre-flop raiser raised double the pot, which was significant, but I had a flush draw and a backdoor straight possibility, so there was no way I was folding with the potential of pulling in his whole stack. Here’s what fell:

No flush, but now I had four more outs for a gutshot straight with the higher card. My opponent raised again, but with the all the outs I now faced, I was fairly certain I would nab his stack if I hit the 9 or the flush. I was thinking that my opponent had something strong, perhaps pocket kings, but not enough to confidently go all-in. I totally felt the risk was worth it. The river fell:

I had the nuts unless my opponent was holding KQ, which I considered highly unlikely considering I had a Q. My opponent went all-in, which was my goal all along, and I quickly called. He turned over:

I’m not sure why he went all-in with a straight on the board. My best guess is that he was trying to bluff me off the pot, making it look like he held a Q or even KQ. Unfortunately, he was facing someone… with the Q!

If you can’t really begin to learn until you realize just how much you don’t know then I’m hitting that point with poker. I’ve memorized opening hole cards. I understand the concepts of pot odds and outs. I’ve mastered my emotions so that I have the discipline and patience to pick my spots, but after reading through Matthew Hilger’s Texas Holdem: Odds And Probabilities I feel like I’m still a rank amateur.

Looking over the concept of stack sizes, assessing effective implied pot odds, and the winning odds of things like backdoor straights and belly buster straights just adds a whole level of complexity that I didn’t even consider. I mentioned this in my “donk” post earlier, but it bears repeating: In no-limit, it sometimes makes sense to make plays that you normally wouldn’t.

This is going to be a real challenge for me, as it adds quite a bit of mathematical complexity. Imagine figuring out the odds of hitting a two gapped straight draw from the flop to the river with one overcard, while also assessing the implied odds of a stack going all-in including what the turn bet will be. Not easy.

One change for me is that I’m much more likely to play low pairs, especially against significant raises, as the odds of hitting a set, while low, can pay off huge in no-limit tourneys. In fact, this happened to me tonight, and while the result wasn’t what I hoped, the actual play was pitch perfect to my mind:

It’s early in an Absolute Poker Freeroll. I’m in late position with a bunch of typical loose freeroll players. Blinds are only $25/50 and the key players have early stacks in the $1500 to $2500 range. My stack sits at $1420. I’m dealt:

A loose player raises to $250. In the past I would fold 55 immediately. But it’s clear that I could easily win this guy’s whole stack if I hit a set and take him to the river. So even though the odds of me hitting a set are low with the pot size, the effective odds with me nabbing his whole stack (something like 25 to 1) are too good to pass up. I figure I’ll hit the flop, miss the set and fold. A player behind me also calls, and three of us go to the flop. The flop comes:

And just like that I hit my set. My next worry is to make sure it will hold. At this point I have two thoughts: Are there any traps for me and how can I extricate two full stacks with this?

I was relatively unconcerned about the flop. There are no flush dangers yet, and the only straight possibility is 34. While 34 is a possible holding I found it highly unlikely. Of course, there is always the possibility that he or the other person were holding 66 and have me beat with a higher set, but I found it more likely that I was facing something from AA to even JT from the maniac.

The answer to my second question came quickly: Loose player in early position went all-in. I pushed, and late position player also went all-in. Loose player showed:

Loose player went all in with top pair and mediocre kicker. His only hope is to hit the hail mary straight with an 89, 34, or 48 dropping. Possible, but a pretty big long shot. I, of course, showed my triple 5s, but then late player showed his hand:

Another favorable holding for me! Even if he hits a set I beat him. His only hope is drawing a 3 on the turn or river, which is around 4.5 to 1 against. I have a 70% chance of winning both stacks, and it happened because I called with this scenario entirely in mind! Unfortunately for me, here is what the turn and river delivered:

And late caller hits his hail mary straight on the river! I have to admit that it didn’t really bring me down. If I’m in that position 7 out of 10 times I’m walking away with two big stacks.

I need to do a lot more analysis and study of how various holdings can play out to the river with the effective implied odds, but my rudimentary knowledge has already improved my game, if not my results… yet.

We’ve all experienced it: A lousy player (a donk) makes stupid bets that go against all odds, and then hit their set, their straight, or their flush on the river, winning a huge pot. It is frustrating, and I have even written about these bad beats in earlier posts. But in reading over Matthew Hilger’s fantastic Texas Hold’em Odds And Probabilities you start to see why this works. The answer is effective implied odds.

The nuance that many people miss (including myself) is that betting down someone using pot odds is wrong. If the player is reasonably confident of pulling you into an all-in scenario, the odds aren’t pegged to the pot, but to your stack. Look at it this way: If my stack is $1,000 and I have a hand that I’m confident is the best, and I’m playing against a typical freeroll maniac, even pot-sized bets of $100 or more may not get them off drawing to a flush or straight. Why? Because if they hit, they will possible get my whole stack. This puts their implied odds much higher than the 2:1 odds that the pot shows. They are closer to 10:1, which is well worth drawing into for many big hands, from a set to a flush.

This is one of the reasons that freerolls are so hard to play. The implied pot odds can become staggeringly complex. Whether you can you draw this player into an all-in is actually in important question you need to answer when assessing preflop, as well as post-flop decisions. It also makes it quite lucrative to play much looser than you normally would, especially in early play.

Generally speaking I’m a tight player. But in early freeroll play, the implied odds are off the scale with players willing to go all-in at the drop of a hat. I would normally fold 22 or 33, but I’ve started playing those solely for the possibility of hitting a set. Why? The odds of hitting the set are 7.5 to 1, which is generally stupid for most pots pre-flop. But when you do hit the set, if you can ambush someone into an all-in, your odds are very much in your favor. I never thought of this until I read Hilger’s book.

What’s quite interesting is that last night I played 33 and hit a set on the flop. I called some big bets and called an all-in push on the turn. I ended winning his whole stack. These opportunities were completely lost to me before I started thinking this way.

The downside is that you can use the concept of effective implied odds to justify playing practically any hand at any time, which is a pretty big mistake. First of all, you aren’t going to get everyone to stumble into an all-in when you hit a set. Post-flop play thus becomes key. If a player bets high enough, you may have some very difficult decisions: It is quite possible that calling makes sense if he is going to risk his stack but doesn’t make sense if he gets out against a big raise. Secondly, stack size is also important. Taking a flyer on hitting a set is not the best way to use your chips if you’re stack is dwindling. Thirdly, position is important. Leading into someone is not as good as having position on them. You want them to feel like they are the aggressor and setting the tone. Otherwise, it will be harder to trap them into an all-in.

But let’s go back to those maniac donks who appear with massive stacks early in freerolls. Is that a good strategy? Well, it is in early rounds. When you consider practically any hand can win with significant (although not always good) odds, a donk only needs to catch 2 or 3 all ins in a row before they start rolling. If they hit 3 all ins, bet through and miss on 3 large (but not full stack) donk bets in a row, and then catch another all in, pretty soon they are making significant progress based solely on their stack size and the massive effective implied odds of people willing to go all-in.

Ironically, the best friend of donks are 1) other donks and 2) tight players who don’t appreciate the effective implied odds of a freeroll. It’s the second category that can really fuel a donk through the middle of a tournament. Powering through long odd bets after long odd bets against good players for the payoff of one all-in win is a strategy that can work.

Many decent players won’t respect the power of a draw and will just assume the donk is playing a middle pair or top pair with weak kicker. They are foolishly hoping for an all-in, thinking that when the river finally comes they can earn their payoff. When that third suit hits the table or a potential straight draw card falls, they convince themselves that this couldn’t possible be what the donk was aiming for. After all, the odds were soooooo long against it. So they go all-in and find that, indeed, the long draw was exactly what the donk was hoping for.

I did this a lot over the past few weeks, so I’ve experienced it firsthand.

What stops a donk? Well, when all the other donks start falling out of the tournament, the donk all-in bets will start to go against real hands and their stacks start to collapse. Also, when you get toward the mid to late part of a tourney those all-in bets with flush draws and straight draws on the board start to go away. As a result, the effective implied odds of a donk strategy plummet, and they start bleeding chips.

How about starting out with a totally donk strategy for the first 30 minutes or hour of a tournament and then converting to a tight solid play strategy? Well, there are places where I’ve seen this actually recommended. This is actually a decent idea for beginners, but a much better play is to use actual strategy and probability to guide your decisions. Make each decision tactical and dependent on the situation.

But that’s not easy to do.

I feel pretty good despite the fact that my bankroll is still pathetically low. The reason is that I can see some real growth in my play. All of these grind-it-out tourneys against maniacs and loose players seem to be a pretty good training ground.

On example of progress is in the Carbon Poker Funstep sit’n'go tourneys. These are play money sit’n'gos where when you get past the first two rounds, you actually play for $1 in real money in the third round. In the past I’ve had to play about 4 times or more in round 1 tourneys to win and move on to a round 2 one. Now I’m pretty much a lock to move on to round 2.

One of the differences is that I’m getting better at heads up play. Playing heads up over and over again is grueling, but I’m starting to see some real patterns develop and an underlying key strategy. It’s obvious but not easy: Minimize your losses from middling and poor hands and maximize your profits from big hands.

To my mind this often means folding against early raises. I guess if I think about it, favorable pot odds in heads up are hard, if not impossible. So playing for any kind of draw is dubious unless you have an extraordinary number of outs.

One side effect of this is that if I have a much bigger stack it can be incredibly demoralizing playing against me heads up. I just don’t call a lot of bets unless I have a good hand, and them I’d most likely re-raise. As a result, it takes someone a LONG time to make progress against me. I like that.

Anyway, I feel good. I’m getting better, and it’s starting to show in my results.

One of the key elements of poker is knowing your “outs,” which is to say how many cards can improve your hand. This is generally looked at in terms of calculating your own odds to win, but I hit a situation today where knowing the outs on the board would have prevented a mistake by myself.

The situation was that there was a flush draw and an open-ended straight draw in the flop. I had top pair and top kicker. Normally, this is enough to win, and with a big enough bet, this would be enough to weed out most draws. The problem is that with the flush/straight draw possibilities, even a big bet may not scare some people off. That was the case tonight.

I knew that the outs would create very positive pot odds unless I did something drastic, so I went all-in. The trouble is that there were just so many outs available that two other people went all-in with me. At that moment I knew I was lost. This was an important lesson–with so many outs on the board, risking an all-in is very unwise.

I generally use a reference of starting hands so that I don’t get too loose on my opening bets. I misplaced it and found myself just playing “off the cuff.” The result has been some pretty poor poker by me. I got very undisciplined and lazy. I was playing hands I never should be playing like Q8 and I was betting aggressively with middle pair in poor position.

The good news is that I quickly realized this was an issue and got back on track. I did break one of my rules and immediately got burned for it. I generally will never go all-in with unpaired cards unless one is an ace. A very loose player went all-in, and I had KQ. His range of hands could have gone everywhere from AA to T9. I put him on a mediocre hand and went all-in. He had A9, but it was the A that killed me… he won with A high, and my rule proved to be there for a reason: Ace high on all ins is a fairly common winning hand when pairs aren’t in the pockets.

This has happened to me twice in two days now, so I need to take a break and do some research on what I’m doing wrong. What is the issue? Playing pocket pairs strong, only to get beat by three-of-a-kind draws. The first time it happened to me with QQ in my hand and no overcards on the flop. The second time was tonight. I was in very good shape heading into the third hour of the Bodog $500 Free roll when this happened:

I’m in middle position with a stack of $9,420, well in the top half of the field and higher than the tournament average. Binds are $150/$300. I’m dealt:

Very nice. The binds are placed and the player under the gun raises $800. I peg him for a good hand. Probably AQs or AKs, maybe even QQ or JJ. I re-raise to $1,760, figuring that I still have the best hand. While it is possible he has AA, the odds are remote that he does. He calls and the flop hits:

This is where I believe my thinking went awry. I looked at the flop, and the first thing I thought was, “No ace! I have the top pair!” After having been burnt by flopped three-of-a-kind the previous day, I took a look and noted that there was very little chance that anyone would raise 22 or 33 or call a re-raise on 22 or 33. That left the jack. If he had JJ in his hand, I was toast. I clearly remember thinking, “What are the odds that he has JJ and flopped a J? Minimal.” His lead out bet certainly made a statement: $1,940.

At this point, I should have folded. Why didn’t I fold? I was thinking that he had QQ or even TT. Clearly this was a stupid assumption when you consider his play. Being as aggressive as he was, he either had AA or JJ in his hand. Nothing else makes sense. Unfortunately for me, both of those pocket cards are winners. Being in denial, I raised him to $4,380. He went all-in, and I (for the second time in a row!) didn’t appreciate the poewr of his hand and called. With all-in called, he showed:

Three-of-a-kind jacks, and he has me beat cold. The next two cards were:

And with a couple hundred in chips left, I was basically out of the tournament.

I still am not entirely sure why I have such trouble playing big pocket pairs that lose. Earlier in this tournament I folded QQ against a strong bet with an ace on the table, but that was pretty clear: An overcard on the table is a fold waiting to happen. The difference here is that I simply couldn’t appreciate the reality that sometimes the momentous odds really do go against you.

I need to learn not to overvalue my hand, clearly. Whare are the odds of flopping a J with JJ in your hand? A ridiculous 23 to 1. But it happens, and when it does there are plenty of indicators. Re-raising a huge raise after the flop is a pretty clear indicator. These “betting indicators” are harder to appreciate because the opponent very well may be bluffing, but sometimes it’s just obvious. It was obvious here, and I just ignored the signs.

So in the future I need to stop overvaluing my hand. I’m doing that well gainst overcards. Now I need to take that lesson and apply it to strong betting indicators. It will make me a much stronger player and save my $9,000 top shelf stack from dwindling to near nothing in one hand.

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.

Okay, obviously the first thing I need is a bankroll. I can’t start making money at poker if I don’t have any money to start with. That means I have only two options: Freeroll tourneys and earning the $1 via Carbon Poker’s fun tournaments. I’ll be working on both. Once I have some money (even 1 dollar), I’ll start working the small stakes cash tables.

Freeroll tourneys are just that: Free tournaments that actually pay you cash if you win. Usually it is a relatively small amount, but it is something and definitely a start. I’ve looked over about a half dozen poker sites, and only three have a significant number of freerolls: Carbon Poker, Absolute Poker, and Bodog. Absolute Poker and Carbon Poker have $50 freerolls, which award you around $5 if you come in first place. Bodog has a daily freeroll with a $500 prize fund. First place there is actually a decent chunk of change.

So my first plan is to focus my efforts on Bodog’s nightly 8:40 PM (central time) $500 freeroll and finish in the money (ideally in first!).

Another possibility is Carbon Poker’s “fun” sit’n'go tourneys. These are tournaments where you trade play money for a coupon that let’s you participate in level 1. Level 1 is a 6 seat tournament, with the winner receiving a coupon for level 2. Level 2 is another 6 seat tournament, with the winner receiving a coupon for level 3. Level 3 is a 10 seat tournament, and the winner gets (drumroll)… $1.

That’s right, if you can make it through three tournaments against relative new poker players, you can earn a buck. Sounds like nothing, but since I’m starting with zero, and I could use $1 on microstakes tables, I could actually build off of that.

The good news is that Carbon poker is constantly running the fun tourneys, so you can take part at any time. This is ideal for me, since I am focusing my major efforts on a single freeroll tournament, the Bodog $500 one in the evening. I can then play the smaller Carbon Poker fun tournaments whenever I have some free time or am bored.

So here’s my starting strategy: Play as many of the $500 Bodog nightly freeroll tourneys as I can, with the initial goal of finishing in the money. Once I do that I can move onto the next stage of my strategy, which is building my bankroll via cash tables. The same time I am focusing on the Bodog freeroll, I will play in the Carbon Poker “fun” tourneys, with the goal of winning $1 here or there to start another bankroll.

While I gave myself no time limit, I would hope that I have at least $1 within my first week.