Zero To Sixty

If you play poker long enough you will certainly win hands you deserved to lose, but that still doesn’t make the sting of losing a hand against very poor play any less maddening. Tonight I basically got booted out of the Bodog $500 Freeroll due to losing a triple all-in which featured two players pushing all their chips ahead with very dubious hands. Take a look:

It’s early in the tournament, and the blinds are small. None of the stacks at the table are dangerously low. In fact, it looks like a normal early tournament hand. I was dealt a very nice:

I play pocket aces various ways, depending on thet table and how I’ve been playing. As a rule, I make an effort to vary my play. In this instance, I did a standard preflop raise of half the pot. Two other players called. Here is P1’s cards:

This is a fairly weak holding, especially against a preflop raise. However, the player was in the big blind, so I will give him credit for defending his position. In that position, it’s certainly a defensible call.

P2 had the following:

Again, this is a fairly weak holding, but against a preflop raise and another call, it’s a very dubious call.

Obviously I’m heading into the flop with a massive advantage. The only real concern would be a flush draw, and I was very prepared to raise the pot odds to make chasing a flush draw unfavorable. Here’s the flop:

I have three worries here: Someone was holding some kind of straight combination in their hand (Q9, 97), someone is holding 88, TT, or JJ, and the potential spade flush draw. Frankly, I generally see drawing a set as so unlikely that I ignore the possibility. I may need to re-address that situation, as I got burned by it in an earlier hand, but at the moment I wasn’t considering that as an option. So, I have to consider a flush draw and a straight.

I honestly didn’t think anyone would play even Q9 against a preflop raise (although, again, this was a pretty big error in judgement… I have to remember that one of the persons in the hand is defending the big blind, and he may have been doing that with a somewhat lesser preflop hand like Q9), so my mind only considered one thing: Bet out the flush draw.

P1, he of the A2, checked, and I bet the pot. To my utter astonishment, P2 went all-in and P1 quickly followed. A good poker player would have folded at this point, I must admit. The big blind could easily have the straight, and going all in after a flop like this was a BIG indication of someone flopping a set. I didn’t think that far ahead, however, I was looking at my AA overpair and simply decided that my opponents were playing stupid.

As it turns out, they were playing stupid. P1 went all in with nothing more than a flush draw (talk about gambling!), while P2 went all in with, goodness, nothing more than a pair of tens! While my rational for calling was very weak in the face of two such signs of strength, it turns out I had the strongest hand. Then came the turn:

And P1 hits his flush draw! The odds of him hitting it at either the turn or river were less than 35%, so making an all-in bet was quite foolish, but he hit it. As to poor P2? He was still sitting with a pair of tens. The river was academic, but the following card fell:

I lost a very large amount of chips, P2 left the tournament, and P1 came away in very good shape by rolling the dice on a long shot. Such is poker.

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.

Tonight was my first attempt to earn money to start my voyage to $60K. I entered the Bodog $500 freeroll. First prize: $120. I started out well, and up until the first break I was near the top. I then hit a series of setbacks. These weren’t major setbacks but smaller ones. I would call them small mistakes. Some weren’t even really mistakes. Here’s a good example:

I was in the big blind with a stack of $8,470. Big blind was $100.00. I was dealt:

One player raised to $200, and here was my first mistake. With a crap hand, I called. So we go to the flop:

This was much better! I had top pair, and the possibility of a flush or straight was minimal. Granted, I had a lousy kicker, but there was already a second pair on the board. The only thing I had to worry about was a pocket pair Js, Qs, or Ks (and 9s!). I didn’t worry too much about a 9, as it was quite unlikely that anyone would raise preflop with a non-paired 9 in their hand, and the odds of a flopped four of a kind is astronomical. Still, there was that chance of the pocket royals.

I led out with a bet of $100, figuring I had the best hand at the table. Mr. “preflop raise” reraised me $100, and here is where I made another small mistake. At that point I should have re-raised something big like double the pot or just folded. With my strong hand, raising big was probably the right play. If he calls my big raise, I know he has a monster, and I can get out quickly after a check. If he doesn’t that means I won the hand. Instead, I called.

In my head I felt I had the best hand, and I reasoned that an extra $100 was a small price to pay to move ahead. This isn’t an unreasonable thought, but the reality is that he isn’t re-raising unless he is bluffing or has something substantial, and with what was showing on the table, it had to be a pocket pair of jacks or higher or, goodness, even pocket 9s. Still, I forged ahead. The next card dealt was:

I tend to be aggressive in certain spots and one of those is when I think I have the best hand. I still held out hope that was the case here, so I led with $120 bet. This was mistake number three. Leading with a check here and seeing how strong his raise would be was absolutely a better play. The raise should have been bigger and occurred on the flop. But here it was a mistake.

As it is, he re-raised me again a small $120. I called, which was clearly another small mistake. By now, he was making it clear that he had a big hand. A queen dropped, and he didn’t even bat an eyelash after I bet. So it is likely he had KK, AA, or 99. All of which blew me away. Still, I forged ahead. Next up came…

This was a total nothing card, but it made it clear that there was no flush and no straight in play. In hindsight, a spade here may have worked in my favor, as the flush draw may have succeeded in scaring him out, and his reticence to bet may have solely been based on worrying about the flush draw (although I think it more likely that he was slow playing me into death by papercut!).

At this point, it was down to my top pair and whatever he had in his hand. Only five hands beat me: Pocket aces, Kings, jacks, a queen, or some 9 combination. I very foolishly felt that it was unlikely he had any of these. I bet $440. Clearly I wasn’t reading all the signals over the past few cards. He definitely had one of these! What was I thinking? Any way, he raised the pot (now standing at $1,930), and I folded.

In poker terms it wasn’t a disastrous hand. I lost $960, which was significant but not overwhelming when you consider I started with $8,470. The trouble is that I had just played a few hands like this, and my stack, which was near $10K after the break, was now down to $7510.

Psychologically, these small losses did a number on me, and this is one thing I absolutely need to improve upon, because these small losses led me to just chuck the whole tournament a few hands later. Feeling depressed at my stack getting smaller, I was dealt:

This is an very good starting hand. In fact, it is the 22nd best starting hand in hold’em. I felt good about finally winning some chips back. Unfortunately, a fellow to my right went all-in before the flop. Now he had a large stack, so it is remotely possible that he was trying to bully the table (and I faintly tried to convince myself of that), but the reality is that he had a strong hand, and most likely an extremely strong hand.

However, I saw his huge stack (he had over $18,000 to my $7,000), and I could think of only one thing: Doubling up! All of the small losses had beaten me down, and–despite the fact that I still had a stack more than double the tournament average–I felt I had to make a statement. I simply wanted the death by papercut to end. It was all or nothing! In short, I lost confidence in my ability to put together some small and medium-sized wins to climb back into the upper echelons of the tournament.

So I went all in.

Everyone else folded and we were mano y mano. He turned his cards over, and–no surprise–they were big:

In head-to-head situations, pocket pairs are monsters. This was worse because we shared a queen. So even if I paired up with a Q that dropped, he would still win with 3 of a kind. So I had only three hopes: A king to drop or four hearts or clubs to drop. Needless to say, the odds of either of those happening were very very slim. Here’s how it played out:

Any hope of a flush was now gone. My only hope now was a K.

One last hope.

And I was out of the tournament.

One of the most important skills in poker is willpower and self-control. You need to steadfastly play the right way, even when you suffer a series of setbacks or you can’t seem to catch a break. Just when you try to “break the rules” or bend them to fit your circumstances is when you start to really careen out-of-control. That happened to me today.

So, as a result, my first step toward $60,000 ends with me not having actually moved at all.

My bankroll still sits at $0.00.

I’m not sure if I’ll have time to participate in the Bodog free roll tomorrow night, but I am planning on starting tomorrow. One of the funny things about large freerolls is that in the early rounds, a lot of people join with the idea of just rolling the dice and building large stacks of chips in the first few hands. They do this by putting all their chips into the middle of the table for their first bet, even if they have lousy cards. If they win and get that large pile of chips, then they continue playing normally. If they don’t, then they are out and no money lost (after all, these are freerolls!).

I’m not a big fan of this strategy, but I certainly am open to taking advantage of the situation. If I get a powerful set of hole cards tomorrow, I’ll go all in and collect the chips. So, let’s hope that my first two cards are…

That would be nice.