What's in a screen name? #25

I did a couple of Bodog tournaments this afternoon, and liked all four of these screen names:

Guess the casino, #892

To reveal the hidden answer, use your mouse to highlight the space immediately after the word "Answer" below.

Answer: Aria

No love

Not much interesting to report on today's WSOP seniors event. I increased my stack by nearly 50% on the first hand, making the nut flush to beat the nut straight. It continued going well for the first five hours, but then I got moved to a new table and ran aground. It wasn't that there was anything really different about the new table; that was just a coincidence. I went from having more than double the chip average to busto in a series of six hands, which included a mix of misreads on my part, suckouts, and lost races, none of them interesting enough to bother retelling.

Oh well. It was a nice adventure anyway. I was right in my pre-event estimation that this field would be even softer than that of the typical $1500 donkament. They were all playing a completely straightforward and transparent game, which left lots of room to take an edge with well-timed bluffs and catching some breaks with oddball starting hands that they never guessed.

One more license plate for you, spotted when I took a walk during one of the breaks:

Again, I was completely blinded by the sun overhead, so couldn't tell what was on the screen until later, which is why the framing is off. You'll just have to take my word for it that the plate reads, "AALLLIN."

Poker gems, #427

Chris Wallace, in Poker Pro magazine column, June, 2011, page 65.

This is why the players at the higher limits just nod and smile when a new player sits down and says, "I had to move up here where people play real poker, you can't beat that lower game where no one knows how to fold a hand."

If you can't beat the weak game, then you sure as hell can't beat the game you just moved up to, and the regulars all know it! When I see this happen I know that the new player is going to lose his chips, but he will be happier doing it at the bigger table and he will chalk it up to a bad run of cards.

Let go of your desire to make the table behave the way you want it to and start adapting to your table. Letting the game come to you, and taking advantage of the mistakes your opponents make, is both less frustrating and more profitable.

Guess the casino, #891

To reveal the hidden answer, use your mouse to highlight the space immediately after the word "Answer" below.

Answer: Sunset Station

More pokery license plates

Once again I had occasion to walk through the Rio parking lot on my way into and out of the convention center area, and once again there were several poker-themed license plates.

I do not have mad photography skillz, as I don't know how to keep my fingers out of the way of the lens. (In my defense, the sun was at a low angle and I couldn't see a thing on the phone's LCD screen. This was taken blind.)

Nice one on a big SUV from California. (Compare it to the second one posted on Pokerati here.)

I get the DB9 part--it's an Aston Martin. But QQ7? I have to guess that somebody won the last pot of a big 7-card stud tournament with QQ7 as his starting hand.

May or may not be poker-related. I choose to believe that it is.

Sorry for the crappy image. I had to use my little pocket flashlight to get anything at all to show up, but it was too good to pass by.

Definitely not poker materials. But I grew up in Champaign-Urbana, and attended the University of Illinois for both undergrad and graduate school, so I felt obligated to give this plate a little love.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends

I mentioned the other day that I was having ideas of getting myself into Friday's Seniors event at the World Series of Poker. It's my first year of qualifying by age, and I can't think of any better way to celebrate turning 50 than winning the bracelet for which I am now eligible.

So this evening I went to the Rio to see if I could win a seat via a satellite. You have to play a $125 single-table satellite to win a $1000 seat. I had to wait in line for about 45 minutes before getting into one, and then nothing went right for me in it--third one out. Back into the line. I was prepared to take two shots at winning, and if it didn't happen, well, I gave it a try.

On the second time, I actually entered a $175 satellite. The system there has one long line for all satellites of every level. When a table is freed up, they somehow pick one of the buy-in levels, and go through the line offering seats. I had waited about an hour to get near the front of the line, and when they came through saying the next one would be a $175, I decided to jump on it, rather than wait who-knows-how-long for them to offer up a $125 table. Because the prize for the $175 satellite is $1500 in tournament lammers, and I only needed $1000, I also figured that the extra would be a nice bit of cash for me, or, alternatively, I could use it as bargaining leverage if a two-way chop were contemplated. (I.e., if I had the chip lead going into heads-up play, I could offer to take two of the $500 lammers and give the other guy one of them, thus eliminating the risk of ending up with nothing if he accepted the deal.)

But I won the whole thing with no chop.

I got my money in bad only once. With about 10 big blinds left, I open-shoved with Q-10 offsuit, got called by the big blind, who had K-Q. Ouch! But a 10 on the flop ended the matter and knocked him out. Other than that, I never got it in as worse than a coin flip. (I won one race, my A-K against another player's Q-Q, and turned a K.) I was really proud of my play--reading situations exactly right, and shifting gears between aggressive and patient quite well, thankyouverymuch.

Down to three-handed, I had a commanding chip lead--about 75% of all the chips in play. One woman was very short (2 big blinds). I was waiting for her to go out before offering a deal to the other guy, who was hyperaggressive, unpredictable, and very lucky--exactly the kind of player I had in mind when thinking about the offer described above, one who easily could defeat me by being stupid and lucky, leaving me with nothing to show for my work.

But as it turned out, I didn't have to offer anything. The woman shoved her last on the button, and both the other man and I called from the blinds. I had J-8 offsuit. The flop was 10-9-x rainbow, giving me an open-ended straight draw. The other guy pushed in the last of his chips, having hit top pair. It was 1900 to me to call, and I had started the hand with about 7500, with blinds at 200-400. I don't like calling to hit a draw when there are no additional implied odds if I get there. However, with my chip lead I wouldn't be crippled if I called and lost, and if I won, I would score a double elimination and it would, in the immortal words of Scotty Nguyen, "be all over, baby." I called.

BOOM! 7-ball on fourth street locked up my win with the nut straight. The woman had 9-5, and hit her second pair on the river, but it wasn't enough.

The double knockout meant that there was neither opportunity nor need to even talk about some sort of chop of the prize money. I earned $1500 in tournament buy-ins, plus $120 cash, minus the $40 I gave the dealer as a tip. (I have no idea how much of a tip is appropriate here. I'd appreciate comments from my dealer friends. They run these things with one dealer doing the whole satellite start to finish, and this one took about 90 minutes. I hope my stab in the dark at a number was appropriate.)

I went to the registration window and got myself signed up for the event. Noon tomorrow, table Pavilion Yellow 137, Seat 8. I know that several friends and readers are also in it. They had about 3500 players last year, so it's a big one.

Thanks to my pal Eric for railing me most of the way through.

(If the title of this post puzzles you, see here for a little cultural education.)

Guess the casino, #890

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Answer: Riviera

I'm very famous in libertarian circles, you know

Two of my favorite libertarian writers, Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie, have a new book out, The Declaration of Independents. As part of their promotional efforts, today they are having "Ask a Libertarian" day. People submit questions via their web site, email, or Twitter, and they crank out quick video answers.

I submitted one on Twitter, and they addressed it about halfway through the video here:

http://reason.com/blog/2011/06/15/ask-a-libertarian-lightning-ro

Here's the background story: Nevada Congressman Joe Heck recently said of the Social Security system, "This pyramid scheme isn't working." He has taken endless heat for this comment, and has been backpedaling like Lance Armstrong doing the Tour de France in reverse. He has also been staying away from the press (see here) and dodging the subject (see here).

But it is an undeniable fact that Social Security is a pyramid scheme, and it is failing--rapidly. We are in a weird political climate where a congressman accidentally blurts out an obvious truth, then feels obliged to deny and run away from it. Such political cowards deserve our scorn, and deserve to lose their elected positions. The first step to fixing the problem is to acknowledge that it exists. Anybody who can't do that should be run out of Congress on a rail.

Hence my question to Welch and Gillespie.

They got the "L" outta there

This is the lead page of the cover story of the June, 2011, issue of Poker Pro magazine. I'm not sure I've ever seen a typo in larger print in any poker publication.

Nice proofreading job, Poker Pro!

If you fire your copy editor and need to hire another one, I know some people. Let's talk.

Casino security abuse continues

Good story about it here.

Guess the casino, #889

To reveal the hidden answer, use your mouse to highlight the space immediately after the word "Answer" below.

Answer: Flamingo

Hatching ideas

The WSOP Seniors Event is Friday. I'm having thoughts. I could end up being the youngest Seniors winner ever. At 50 years and 2 months, that record would probably stand for a long time.

Hmmm.

Deuce-Four for a bracelet

See the gory details of the final hand of the $2500 Six-Handed Limit Hold'em event here. Yet another excellent poker player--this time one Darren Woods--shows that he understood that two-outers are par for the course for the Mighty Deuce-Four.

(Hat tip: C.K.)

Poker for fun and profit

Last night I had dinner with two out-of-town friends, Jennifer Newell (aka WriterJen, previously written about here) and Jason Simon (aka Genomeboy, previously written about here). We ate at Burger Bar in Mandalay Place. I've been there a couple of times before, but this time had something different: "The Hawaiian," which is a marinated/grilled chicken breast sandwich with bacon and pineapple. Yummy!

From there, Jason and I went to the Aria poker room. We had to wait nearly an hour to get seats in a $1/3 game because of the long waiting lists. Jason jumped into a $2/5 game while we were waiting, and promptly lost $300 in one hand, all in pre-flop, when his A-K got four-flushed by another A-K. Sick.

But soon we were at the same $1/3 game. I left up $255 less than an hour later, all my profit coming in two hands. In the first I made the nut flush on the river (thanks, of course, to crubs), beating a flopped two pair. In the second, I got tricky with just 5-4 offsuit against the raise of a tight, solid player on my immediate right. The flop was A-9-4. I called his flop bet partly as a float (in case he had kings or queens, hated the ace, and would check the turn to me), partly hoping to hit trips or two pair. When the turn brought a second 9, he bet again, and I raised, figuring that he would put me on a hand like 8-9 or 9-10. He agonized for quite a while, but finally folded. Stole one!

I might have left about then anyway, but I was enticed away by several Tweets announcing that a cluster of poker media people had opened an alcohol-fueled $2/4 mixed game at Binion's. They included Pauly, Change100, KevMath, AlCantHang, and Kara Scott, plus PokerVixen, whom I've met on a few previous occasions. That just sounded like altogether too much fun to pass up.

The game only survived about 90 minutes after I arrived (most of the others having reporting jobs to perform in the morning), but it was a blast while it lasted. Highlights included:

• Kevmath open-raising from under the gun in 2-7 triple-draw, then drawing five cards.
• Al becoming the first person I've ever seen spill a capped bottle of water across a poker table.
• Vixen making a #1 in 2-7 and revealing her hand one street too early--which was seen by everybody at the table except Pauly, her lone remaining opponent in the hand, who continued to try to beat her.
• Bluffing Al off of a queen low in razz when I had secretly triple-paired, and showing the burn--shortly after we had talked about how fun it was to bluff in razz.

I lost only $3 in the game, and got 50 times that much enjoyment value out of it.

Guess the casino, #888

To reveal the hidden answer, use your mouse to highlight the space immediately after the word "Answer" below.

Answer: Rio

He was just figuring his pot odds

See video here.

Call or fold? Conclusion

If you haven't read Part 1 of this post, you should do so first, before proceeding further. In it I describe in detail a difficult decision I had to make and invite you to ponder how you would handle the situation. I'm about to reveal the end of the story, so if you don't want it spoiled, stop reading here and click that link to Part 1.

It's only once or twice a year that I take more than about 60 seconds to make up my mind. This was one of them. I didn't watch the clock, but I'm sure it was more than two minutes, and might have been three. I thought it was a very, very close decision.

The pot was about $281 before his push, and I had to call $136 more, giving me pot odds of 2.0:1. Shifting the numbers around, that means that if I had the winner 48% of the time, I'd break even on a call. (Obviously I'm never going to break even on a call for any one hand. What I mean is that if I face this same decision 100 times and I have the best hand 48 of those times, I will break even over the long run.)

Frankly, I thought that him having one of the two higher straights was more than 50% when just considering the cards and his shove, because, frankly, a shove with anything other than the nuts is terribly dangerous there, given the plausibility that I had the nuts. My first impulse was to fold. But the more I thought about the entire situation--the rapidity of his move, his frustration in the game generally, his desire to beat me specifically, his lack of a bet when given a chance on the flop--the more I discounted the two hands better than mine, and the more I found plausible his sets, two-pair hands, and bluffs.

After shuffling the number around inside my head for as long as I thought my tablemates would tolerate without calling the clock on me, I settled on it being right around 50/50--i.e., 50% he had a higher straight, 50% my third-nuts was good. I knew that the pot odds were right around 2:1, which meant that no matter what I decided, I was not making a large error. I could literally flip a coin and abide by its outcome and I'd be OK in mathematical terms.

It's dangerous to talk oneself into a call, because we all want to win, and folding means automatically not winning. One of the most common mental errors in poker is to overestimate the probability of an opponent having a hand we want him to have--i.e., one that we can beat--and underestimate the opposite. I have certainly made bad calls due to that bias, so I try to guard against it.

But in the end, I felt the balance was tipped by the smaller, subtler considerations of his state of mind and his timing tell. On that basis, I made the crying call.

He said, "Two pair," and flipped over 9-10 suited.

I showed the winner.

There's a coda to the story. As the dealer was pushing me the pot, the guy said, with obvious disgust, "It took you long enough to call." He then stood up and stormed off.

Well, tough beans, buster. Even if you can't understand why, that was very far from an easy call to make. It will probably rank as one of the ten most difficult decisions I'm faced with this year. I offer no apology for taking the time to consider in detail every scrap of information I had and every one of his possible hands, along with the arguments for and against them, just as I've laid out in this retelling. He might think he got slow-rolled, or just think that I'm an idiot who didn't know that a straight should be the best hand there. If so, he's wrong--period.

Guess the casino, #887

To reveal the hidden answer, use your mouse to highlight the space immediately after the word "Answer" below.

Answer: Orleans

Poker gems, #426

Steve Zolotow, in Card Player magazine column, June 15, 2011 (vol. 24, #12), passing along comments about Black Friday that he has heard from various unnamed online poker players.

I can play Texas hold'em in Dublin, but not in Dallas. I can play Omaha in Norway, but not in Nebraska.

Rethinking the Mirage

The first two or three times I played at the Mirage, I found the games surprisingly tough to beat, with smart, aggressive players. This was a few years ago, when I was new in town. Because of that early experience, I've mostly avoided playing there. In my mind I grouped it with the Wynn and Red Rock as being one of the few most challenging poker rooms in which to make money, and therefore didn't visit much.

Still, once in a while I would decide to test it out again, or there would be a private tournament there that I was going to be in, and I'd play a cash game before or after it, or a friend from out of town would want to play there and I'd go along.

My recent experience has been far different from my early experience. Maybe I've gotten better, or maybe the games have gotten softer there, or maybe my first couple of times were just a statistical anomaly, and nothing has really changed. Whatever the explanation, my last handful of visits there have been not just profitable, but easy as well, with high hourly win rates--including a quick $122 uptick in just under an hour this afternoon.

It is certainly plausible that the player mix has changed rather dramatically. A new poker room manager, Chis Coffin (who I like a lot) took over a year or two ago, and he has instituted major changes. I have not talked to him about this, but I'm making inferences from his actions. Mirage had long kind of coasted on its past glory as the central hub of Vegas poker, and continued trying to be one of the "big boys," competing with Bellagio, Wynn, Venetian, Aria, etc. As such, the poker room refused to implement such "tawdry" player perks as a comp-tracking system and jackpots/bonuses. Those were pooh-poohed as being what the trailer-park poker rooms did to bring in the riff-raff.

Mr. Coffin seems to have taken the logical approach and bowed to reality. The room was much bigger than could profitably be supported, so he cut tables and dealers. They were losing business to other rooms that provided the perks that create low-stakes player loyalty (food comps, bad-beat jackpots, and high-hand bonuses), so he implemented them. They had a lousy, unreliable system of communication between the desk and tables, so he has recently had the Genesis Bravo system installed.

I'm not sure whether these changes are what has turned a difficult, marginally profitable room for me into one that now appears to be soft and juicy, but I'm feeling inclined to start spending more time at the Mirage than I have in the past.

Strange line

The buy-in to last night's AVP tournament included a $20 food comp. The ticket was stamped with an expiration time and date 24 hours after it was printed, so I decided to go back and use it today, despite having been told by a usually reliable source that I could safely ignore the expiration. I had long wanted to try the California Pizza Kitchen there, and today was my opportunity. I had their original specialty, the BBQ chicken pizza. Very tasty indeed. I can see why the place became so popular. I love free food.

I needed to get back home and start in on an unrelated project (from which writing this post is providing additional procrastination value), but I decided I could take time for a quick hit-and-run session in the poker room first. One hand stood out for me. In fact, it's so odd that I've been thinking about it on and off since it occurred about two hours ago, and I still can't make sense of it.

A gentleman appearing to be in his late 60s opened from the 2-hole. It was the first raise he had made in his 20 minutes or so at the table, and coming from one of his demographic, from such early position, I had to suspect a big ace or a big pair. I had pocket tens one off the button, so I warily called with set-mining in my devious little heart.

The flop was Q-J-J. He checked. I checked behind. I figured that if he had flopped huge (with, say, Q-J, Q-Q, or A-J, J-J) I would find that out sooner or later, and I didn't want to get check-raised. Besides, if he had A-K, I was not worried about him catching a 10 to make his straight, since I had half of them in my possession.

The turn was a 9, giving me an open-ended straight draw. So when he checked to me a second time, I bet $15. He called quickly.

The river was a lovely 8, making my straight, with no flush possible. Now he bet $15.

What could he have?

(1) I did not believe he had a 10 in his hand, which would be necessary to make any straight. The nut straight would be with K-10. My experience with the geriatric set is that K-10, even suited, is not strong enough for them to come in for a raise from such early position, especially his first raise of the session. 10-10 was statistically improbable, since I had the other two of them. A-10 was a possibility, but not one that I cared about, since we would chop the pot.

(2) I also could no longer put him on quads or a full house, because of how timid his play had been. If he had a boat, he pretty much had to have had it on the flop, excluding the small possibility of pocket 8s or 9s, with which I think he would have been more likely to limp pre-flop. And if he had a full house on the flop, I think he would either lead out on the turn or check-raise it. Even failing that, surely he would try to extract more value than a measly $15 river bet into a $50 pot, wouldn't he?

So if I exclude him having quads or a full house, and exclude him having a straight, then I must have him beat.

Now the question was how much he might be willing to call. If he had A-K and missed entirely, he wouldn't call any raise, so it didn't much matter if I made it $30 or $300. If he had A-Q, he might call a smallish raise, but with a paired board and four to a straight sitting out there, he would probably get scared easily and wriggle off the hook. A-J was probably the one holding that would pay off the biggest amount, but I couldn't put him on that with any confidence, because of the line he had taken.

I was really baffled. But I felt about 90% sure that I was ahead, and about 90% sure that he couldn't pay off much. So I settled on a number part way between a min-raise and a standard 3x raise: $40.

He thought for maybe 15 seconds before calling, which makes me think I must have come close to squeezing him as hard as he would tolerate. I showed my 10-10. He got a look of relief on his face as he confidently flipped over A-J. Even though he didn't say anything, from his actions and body language I'm pretty sure he misread the situation at first and thought he had won, until the dealer announced my straight.

As I said, I'm still puzzled by the line he took. He flopped trips with the best possible kicker and slow-played it on two streets, showing a little aggression only on the river, when he was beat. What in the world would cause him to check-call the turn but then lead out on the river? His hand had not improved, but mine well might have. If I was just bluffing the turn, why not check and let me bluff again on the river, since I couldn't pay off a lead-out bet?

And was his checking the flop and turn out of fear or our of wiliness? If he were trying to trap me, why did he never spring the trap? If he was scared, then of what? The only hands that beat him on the flop would be Q-Q or Q-J. Was he suffering from "monsters under the bed syndrome"? If so, then why the lead-out on the river? If that was a blocking/defensive bet, then the logical response to my raise would be to fold.

Frankly, not a single action he took in this hand, after the initial raise, makes any sense to me. As you can tell, I've turned it over and over in my mind, and I just cannot deduce what he was thinking.

Anybody want to take a stab at psychoanalyzing his play?

Guess the casino, #886

To reveal the hidden answer, use your mouse to highlight the space immediately after the word "Answer" below.

Answer: Imperial Palace

Call or fold?

This is another in my occasional series of presenting you with a difficult decision I had to make during a poker session. You can figure out what you would do before I tell you the end of the story. (However, in this case, if you follow me on Twitter, I kinda already blew it there, before I decided to present it this way.) In case you haven't read any of these puzzles before, sometimes the answer is that I got it right, sometimes that I got it wrong, sometimes that I'm left wondering because I folded and didn't get my curiosity satisfied.

I was playing at the Mirage, waiting for the allvegaspoker.com tournament to start. I was in my favorite seat, #1. I had been playing tight and straightforward, so decided it was time to throw a curveball. One off the button, I raised to $12 with 7-8 offsuit. The button called immediately, as did the guy in seat 10, who had just limped.

The flop was Q-10-6, two suits, giving me a gutshot straight draw. We all checked.

The turn was a 5, improving me to an open-ended straight draw, but now also putting two flush draws up. Seat 10 bet $15. I called, as did the button.

The river was an offsuit 9, completing my straight. Seat 10 checked. I bet $35 into a $76 pot--small enough that I hoped to pick up two calls. To my surprise, the button quickly announced all-in for an additional $136. Seat 10 folded. I had at least $250 left in front of me.

Call or fold?

My hand was the third nuts. The problem was that the two hands that beat me (K-J for the nut straight and J-8 for the second nut straight) were quite plausible for him to be holding. J-8 was less likely, because he would have been calling on the turn with just a gutshot, but still plausible if he had one of the flush draws to go along with it. K-J for the nut straight was the real problem, because it's a hand with which a large percentage of players in such a game will call a raise in position, especially if the cards are of the same suit. He would have flopped an OESD, taken a free card when offered it, been happy to pay a bit on the turn for a pull at the nuts (especially, again, if he had one of the two flush draws to boot), then hit his gin card on the river. It was entirely plausible from start to finish.

But a few things gave me pause. First, he was clearly frustrated. Things hadn't been going his way. In fact, I had picked off a river bluff from him a short time before. The only hands that I could put him on in that case had been draws that failed to materialize, so after thinking a while I had called him very light, with just third pair. Turns out I had nailed it--a busted draw. He seethed out a grudging "Good call" for that, but I sensed that being forced to show the bluff had embarrassed him and he was looking to put me in my place.

Second, there was a potential hole in the story he was telling. Why wouldn't he have bet the flop with his OESD in position when I checked if he had K-J? I sure would have bet in that spot, though I realize that not all players play the same way. If he had the flush draw to go with it, all the more reason to bet in order to either take the pot right then or make it bigger; if he didn't flop the flush draw with it, he would not want to give either opponent with a flush draw a free card to get there. If he had J-8, I think he would not have called pre-flop unless it was suited. Again, hitting a flush draw plus gutshot is plenty of reason to bet there, and even just the gutshot should be tempting when the original raiser gives him a green light.

Third, his all-in move was instantaneous. If I'm holding the stone-cold nuts in that situation, I have to take a little time to figure out what both opponents have and gauge how much they'll be willing to part with. He might still settle on a shove, but I think he would have to take some time to decide that that was his most profitable option.

Were there possibilities other than a higher straight? Sure--he could have yet another busted flush draw. He had learned that a smallish river bet earned a suspicious call from me, so maybe he decided to do this one in grand style when he missed, with the plan to rub my nose in it when I folded. Alternatively, maybe he had flopped or turned a set, had slow-played himself into deep doo-doo, and seemed so confident because he didn't suspect he was in trouble. After all, he's not going to put me on 7-8 after my pre-flop raise. (Exactly the reason, of course, to occasionally raise with that kind of hand--when it hits, it's well outside the range that opponents suspect of me, so they tend to disbelieve that that's what I have.) But he certainly should be wondering whether I was the one with K-J who had just made the nuts. I tended to discount the range of sets and two-pair hands precisely because of that; if he had any brains, he would have hated seeing the river 9, fearing that he had just experienced a horrible suckout. In theory, that should make him cautious enough to just call rather than shove. Conversely, though, he might be frustrated enough that he was blinded to having been outdrawn, and decided to forge ahead with a flopped set in spite of the obvious danger.

After considering all of the above, K-J seemed not just plausible but his most likely holding, despite my niggling wonder about why he had been so passive with it. Maybe he's just not one who likes to bet draws, out of fear of a check-raise, and was especially gun-shy after having had a series of hands go bad on him. Still, there was enough doubt about a set, two pair, or a busted flush draw that I had to really take some time to decide what to do.

So what is your move if you were me?

As usual, I'll go write part 2 of this now, and set it to publish in about 24 hours.