Zero To Sixty

Binds were $200, and I folded KJ suited to a $725 raise. If it was a loose player I had a handle on I would have called, but at a new table and an unknown entity… I folded.

After a few days of just drifting for one reason or another, I’m back in the swing of things with the Players Only Monday Night Football Freeroll. It’s a big money freeroll–$1000 with an extra $100 for every point scored during MNF. At first break I’m in 394th place out of 948 remaining players (3,000 players started).

I’m playing incredibly tight, sticking directly to card groups 1-6. So far I’ve won two all-ins with a triple and a full house and lost $500 to a bad beat where I had top pair (kings) and lost to pocket aces. That I didn’t lose all-in is the good message there and indicative of my pretty good play.  We’ll see how it goes.

I’ve been too busy to do more than just play casual poker over the past few days. Today was the exception, and I played in the Bodog $500 Freeroll. The key story here was that I hit an unbelievable number of bad beats in a row. I had an ace high straight beat by a flush and triple 4s beat by triple 10s.

What really lost me the tournament, however was some major money hands where I played decent pot odds that didn’t pay. I think I had a couple of straight draws and a flush draw where I was drawn in with the very edge of good odds… 4 to 1 or so. Four to one pot odds with a $200 bet can pay off big, but a few of those in a row that fail to pay off and you are looking at a dwindling stack. That’s what happened to me.

I’m thinking that I may start to err on the side of caution in the future. Some people stretch pot odds to account for various implied pot odds–people betting later, etc. But I’m finding that, at least in the short term, I may need to look at it from the opposite direction. Perhaps I’m not accounting for dead outs or I’m discounting other things. We’ll see. I can say this, however, my play will be a bit more conservative in the future in this regard.

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.

Dead money is a phrase that refers to money involved in a poker game where the owner has no chance of winning it. So the dead money is basically the “free” money that all the other players fight for. I’m playing in the Bodog $500 Freeroll right now, and in the room of nine players, seven of them aren’t seated. As a result, all of their hands are being automatically folded in the face of any bet. As a result, all the blinds that are placed by these missing players are up for the taking between me and the other player.

This “head to head” situation with extra money tossed in is very lucrative, and I sit at the first break with over double the tournament average stack. As I told my opponent… Let’s hope they don’t come back!

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.

Well, in the very first hand after the third break I was booted from the tournament. The hand is an excellent illustration of what happens when you have a tiny stack–you have no flexibility. You just can’t play a hand normally. Here’s what happened. I was dealt:

Now here’s the scenario: I have a stack of $3,804.88. The blinds are $800/$1600 with a $150 ante. So just taking part in the hand costs me $1600. I was under the gun, so my position was poor, but I also am facing the reality that the blinds are coming fast. I could barely get through the blinds, but doing so would put me with such a low amount of money that I would have to have an extraordinary number of successful all-ins to get back into the tournament.

So my only option is to jump all over a good hand. The hand above is certainly a playable hand, even under the gun, but it is hardly a powerhouse. My hope was that everyone would limp in to the flop, and I’d be able to hit something good or, if not, get out with only $1600 gone.

The key was for everybody to limp in. Well, so much for that–a player in late position raised to $4,000. And this is thus my dilemma: Normally I would immediately fold. But that would lower my stack to $2200 or so. If I got a good hand and doubled, all that would do is take me to where I am right now. And if I didn’t get any good hands, I’d be out quickly. The result is that the raise behind me pretty much forced me to go all in with A8. The good news is that if I hit, I would come away with over $7K, which I could work with better than the $3K I currently had. The bad news is if I don’t hit… I’m out.

My opponent turned over:

Ouch! The only good news is that I had an Ace. If an Ace dropped I’d be in good shape. Unfortunately, the odds of that happening are 15 to 1. Not good. Here’s what dropped:

And my pair of eights weren’t good enough against his two jacks. After over three hours of poker play I was out, finishing in 99th place, a mere 36 places out of the money, and quite good when you consider the tournament started with 4,059.

Still, my  bankroll stands at a depressing $0.00.

It’s not looking good for me. I hit a stretch of poor flops and then I played a hand where my brains must have left my head. It cost me about $8K in chips, and took me down to a very dangerous position with a very small stack. I currently sit with a stack of $3,800 and the tournament average is currently $43K. Unless I can double up a few times I will be out shortly.

There is an outside chance I could end in the money as the top 63 places pay, but it will be hard. Currently there are only 104 players still alive in the tournament. So… it will be possible to make it. We’ll see.

Standing with a stack of over $14K at the second break of the Saturday night Bodog $500 Freeroll. I had $4K about five minutes into the break, somewhat upset over the very lengthy run of poor hands I’ve been receiving when, boom, I get dealt AA. I turned that into a few thousand, and then, boom, one hand later, I get dealt QQ. I turned that into even more. After a couple more hands that I played strong, I’m in the second break with a stack higher than the current tournament average.

Bodog doesn’t show what your current rank is, but there are 341players left, and I’m certainly in the top half. Looking forward to the next hour of play.