Poker gems, #453

John Vorhaus, in Card Player magazine column, on playing suited connectors, May 2, 2012 (vol. 25, #9), page 50.

Know how suited connectors win? By betting the flop and having nobody call. That's pretty unlikely in a multiway pot, but much more likely when the pot is shorthanded or, in the best case, heads up. Then your 8-7 suited wins without a fight. You don't have to make a hand to win. You could have 8-7, 2-7, a pair of chickens, whatever. Here it is in a nutshell, folks: Since it's hard to make a hand in hold'em, your best outcome is not making your hand. Your best outcome is winning without a hand.

"See a lot of cheap flops"

My friend Josie posted about a big tournament she recently played at Foxwoods, here. She says, "My modus operandi was to try to see alot of flops on the cheap and early. My guideline for these cheap flops was that I had to hit better than one pair to keep going otherwise muck after the flop."

What follows is the comment I left on her blog. But after submitting it, I decided that I might as well post it here, too, since I spent some time writing it, and perhaps readers will find it useful.

You didn't ask for my advice, but I think that is a lousy plan.

One of the best gems of poker wisdom I've ever come across is this, from John Vorhaus: "There's nothing more expensive than a cheap flop." (http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2008/08/poker-gems-155.html)

The first problem is that if somebody raises behind you, you are faced with choosing between (A) abandoning the chips you already put in, or (B) playing a weak hand against a raiser from out of position. Not a very attractive pair of options, is it?

The second problem is that you are relying on hitting a hand in order to win. So is everybody else limping in. You have no better chance of flopping a monster than anybody else. Playing this way levels the playing field and eliminates whatever edge in skill you might have. You're turning a poker tournament into a game of bingo.

The third problem is that the great majority of the time you will not flop a monster, and you'll have to fold. This is a big leak of chips. Ever seen a water bill when you had a leaky faucet you didn't know about? Drip, drip, drip, one big blind at a time, your stack leaks down the drain. It is mathematically demonstrable that over the long run you will not win enough when you hit to make up for all the small losses you take along the way.

As a general rule, calling (preflop or postflop) should be your LAST option. There are definitely situations where it is the best route, but you should always first try to find a reason for an aggressive action (bet or raise), secondly consider folding, and only if it's clear that neither of those is optimal consider a call. You are turning that basic, sound, universal strategy on its head by making a call your first choice.

I defy you to find any well-regarded tournament strategy book or successful tournament player who advocates the approach you're describing. I'd bet you $100 you can't find one. There's a reason for that: IT'S A TERRIBLE STRATEGY THAT ONLY WEAK, LOSER PLAYERS EMPLOY!

Don't be one of them.

Now that I'm in my own forum, I can add a couple more thoughts.

Yet another disadvantage of this plan is how transparent it makes your hand when you do finally catch a flop. Opponents know that you're limping a lot, but you're presumably still raising with your best starting hands. Ipso facto, they know even before the flop that you don't have a big pair, A-K, A-Q, etc. They also know that when you limp, this is followed by a fold on most flops, which sets you up to be bluffed the 98% of the time that you don't flop two pair or better. If you do bet or play back at their flop bet, they'll know you have a real hand, and they can give up with only a small loss--which means only a small win for you.

Josie's post gave a concrete example of how this knowledge can be used, though in this case to her advantage. She had 10-6 on the button, with a flop of A-A-6. She called down a bluffer, confident that he didn't have an ace because he didn't raise pre-flop. Fine. But others can use exactly the same logic against you. You can't credibly represent having the ace the same way you could if you had raised on your button in that spot.

A far, far better strategy is frequent, small raises. Make the same size raises with, say, 20% of your starting hands, consisting of a mix of big pairs, unpaired Broadway cards, small pairs, suited connectors, and a few random fliers, and your opponents will never be able to know whether you're betting the flop for value, as a bluff, or on a draw. When they are reduced to pure guessing about your hand, they will make a lot of mistakes, which translates to chips going your way.

An alternative to making exactly the same size raise every time (say, 2.5 big blinds) is to vary it according to your position and the number of players who limped in ahead of you. That is, you generally want to play bigger pots when you have better position, smaller pots when out of position, all else being equal. You can also sensibly raise more after a bunch of limpers than when everybody has folded to you, because the pot has already grown, and you want to make the pot odds less attractive for the bottom-feeders. But the size of your raise should never be dependent on the strength of your down cards. Bet sizing tells are among the easiest for opponents to spot patterns in.

Limping begets limping. You may be excited when your 6-5 offsuit hits a 9-6-5 flop, but the guy who you let in cheap with 9-6 likes it even better, and may take your whole stack. He would have folded if you had raised with your little connectors.

Limping makes exactly nobody afraid of you. Limping never forces your opponents to make a difficult decision.

Finally, consider this: You never win the pot pre-flop by limping. You can never steal the blinds with a limp. You never induce a better hand to fold by limping.

I certainly understand the appeal of the "see a lot of cheap flops" approach. It's low-risk, loses chips only slowly, and once in a while scores you a big pot. It also is relatively simple to execute, requiring few hard decisions. But it simply cannot succeed over the long run. When it works, it's by sheer dumb luck going your way. That's no way for a skilled player to take on the game.

Not only does this make you look like a weak player, it actually turns you into a weak player. I don't think there is a single thing to recommend it.

My thinking on this subject was changed forever by reading a great column by Ed Miller, back in December of 2008. It's available online here, and I highly recommend it. He's talking about cash games, but the same principles apply to tournaments. Choice excerpts:

So, your [limping] strategy must rely mostly on making a hand and getting value for it. Unfortunately, that's the same strategy that your opponents will have. And that's the fundamental problem with overlimping; it creates situations in which you and your opponents are all playing roughly the same way. When everyone is playing the same way, no one has an edge....

The bottom line is that when you overlimp, you're mostly hoping to make a hand and win a big pot, and yet it's hard to stack someone or otherwise win a big pot when the hand starts out limped seven ways. And to top it off, your opponents are also hoping to make a hand and win a big pot, and they're almost as good at doing it as you are. So, you just don't have a whole lot of edge....

When seven people see the flop in a limped pot, everyone is playing "make-a-hand" poker, and you don't have it much better than anyone else. But when you raise preflop and only one or two people call, often your opponents will be playing make-a-hand poker while you will be playing "I win if you don't make a hand." This scenario can offer you a much more significant edge over your opponents....

Overlimping is not at all universally bad. It keeps you in the hand and gives you some chance to win a big pot. And in very aggressive games where people are raising and reraising like crazy, overlimping can often be your best play.

But when the game is passive and many pots are being played five-, six-, or seven-handed for the price of the big blind, overlimping often handicaps you. It forces you to play primarily make-a-hand poker, and therefore it deprives you of many of your potential edges. Try raising instead. Doing so can tilt many pots to your advantage and enable you to exploit much larger edges. The bigger your edges, the more money you'll make.

When I first read this, the phrase "make-a-hand poker" instantly struck a chord with me. It's one of those little nuggets that lodged deeply inside my brain. I will occasionally now catch myself playing this way (especially if I've stayed at the table for too long and I'm feeling fatigued), and that phrase will leap to the front of my mind as a self-scolding: "You're playing make-a-hand poker again, aren't you?" It will usually cause me to either return to my tight-aggressive baseline game, or decide that my A-game is gone and it's time to go home, both of which are much better choices than to stay in the loose-passive rut.

So, Josie, if you find this way of thinking about the "see a lot of cheap flops" game plan enlightening, divide your thanks between Ed and me.

Skirmishes in the information war

This post is in the form of a letter to Tony (yes, the same Tony featured in the previous post's silly story), but because the problems I identify are common, I hope there is value to my readers in letting you all peek in on it.

Dear Tony:

Last night was the longest time I've spent in a cash game at a table with you, and it gave me my best chance yet to observe for myself something that many others have commented on in your blogs after playing with you for a while: You give away way too much information. It's not entirely clear to me if you understand the extent to which you are doing it, or the damage it does to your bankroll, so I'm going to try to lay out some concrete examples from last night and explain how they can hurt you. These are just a few of the things I saw; there were dozens more that I could chose from, if I wanted to try to make an exhaustive catalog.

My intention here is not to embarrass you or say that you're a bad player. You obviously do well enough to get by. But you could do so much better if you closed off some of your leaks, and many of your worst leaks relate to control of information.

It should also be noted that none of these are unique to you. In fact, they are things I see commonly in many players--which is exactly why I think it might be valuable to readers to list them here, because they may see the same problems in themselves. But I would expect somebody who aspires to be a professional at the game to have a better handle on these things than the average tourist. Moreover, an aspiring professional should want to improve where he can. Though I have to point out specific things I think you're doing wrong, in order to make my points, my goal is to be helpful, not just condemning.

These are in no particular order.

1.

You freely told people at the table about the current size of your bankroll. I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with you writing about this on your blog, and once in a while you'll have somebody at the table who reads your blog and therefore has this information. But to give it out voluntarily is, I think, a terrible mistake.

The most obvious problem is that it invites potential crime. Somebody might think that you mean that you're carrying all that money with you. I know that you're not, but what I know doesn't matter. Just the idea that you're carrying a ton of cash could set you up for being assaulted and robbed. You worry about that possibility enough as it is. Why add to the potential?

The second problem is that nobody cares, unless they're (A) a friend, or (B) thinking of trying to steal your money. Talking about money is fraught with social problems. It makes people uncomfortable. In our society, we don't ask other people how much money they have or make, and we don't disclose that information to others unless there is some very specific reason. I'm pretty open about just about everything in this blog, but I have never and will never talk in concrete terms about how much I make at poker. It's nobody's business.

I know that you care what others think about you. Telling them how much money you have will pretty much have only negative consequences. Those who have a lot more money than you will look down on you for being nearly broke, as they see it. Those who have less might be jealous. Either way, you have sown negative feelings. Negative feelings about you from other players hurt you. You make more money from people who like you. (This is Mike Caro's most emphatic teaching.) Doing things that make people either resent or look down on you is self-destructive. Frankly, you sounded like you were bragging, and nobody likes a braggart.

Answer me this: What do you gain by sharing this information with strangers at the poker table? How does it benefit you in any concrete, identifiable way? I think the answer is that it doesn't, and the potential for several kinds of harm is real. The cost:benefit ratio here is infinite.

2.

You frequently discussed how a hand was played immediately after it was over. In one instance, you caught a pair (jacks, I think) on the river to beat a guy who had been ahead prior to that. You pointed out to him how his raise on the flop was so small that it made sense for you to call to try to catch a card. Then you told him that since you missed, if he had bet again on the turn you would have folded.

I'm not sure I can describe how awful this kind of talk is, in terms of long-term poker strategy. You were telling an opponent explicitly how to play better against you the next time! Why on earth would you do this? You should want him to continue playing as weakly as he did. That's how you won the hand, and that's how you would win the next one, too--except that you clued him in to precisely what he did wrong, and how to do it better the next time.

Frankly, I wanted to stand up and yell at you: WHAT ARE YOU THINKING???? The answer is that you weren't thinking at all. You were just reacting, with no filter between your brain and your mouth. Maybe the two dumbest things a poker player can do are criticize another player for his bad play and educate him as to how to play better. You did both at once. What did you get for it in return? A little bit of ego gratification. Was it worth it?

By the way, when you engage in such idiotic behavior as that, you cost ME money, too. If the guy smartens up and starts playing better, he will do so against everybody, not just against you. Your words are taking money out of my pocket, and I resent it.

There are plenty of resources that this guy and others can turn to if they want to learn to play better poker. It is not your job to educate him. Lots of recreational players aren't interested in investing time and work into getting better. They're just there to relax and have a good time, maybe win a little money if they get lucky. Imposing on them a poker lesson that they didn't ask for will tend to cause resentment. Sometimes they even leave the table, in search of a game where everybody is having fun and nobody will criticize how they play or make them feel stupid. Then we all lose out.

Tony, this kind of talk is self-defeating. It is precisely this kind of talk that is condemned with the common expression, "Don't tap on the aquarium--it scares the fish." There is absolutely no justification for it. It is a bigger leak in your game than things about which you have repeatedly expressed concern, such as how to play flush draws.

"The poker table is not a classroom. And you don't want recreational players to conclude that you're playing seriously. If you do that, they're likely to become self-conscious about their decisions and stop playing so liberally--which will cost you money." Mike Caro, Caro's Most Profitable Hold'Em Advice, page 242.

3.

You repeatedly told everybody at the table whether you were up or down from your original buy-in. Once you even said something like, "I have to get back another $62 and then I can leave."

First, again, nobody cares, in the sense of being sympathetic for you if you're down or rejoicing on your behalf if you're up.

Second, as others have told you countless times, you cannot play A-game poker if you're obsessed with always finishing up for the day. Chips are tools for gaining more chips, nothing more. In other words, you shouldn't even be thinking about being up or down for the day or for the session, let alone talking out loud about it.

Third, it opens you up to exploitation. Have you ever noticed the way that many players segregate their chip stacks into their original buy-in and their profit? As long as they're playing with their profit, they're fairly loose. After all, it's found money, free money. If they lose it, they're not really out anything, as they see it. But if the profit goes away, and they start cutting into the original buy-in stacks, they become much more serious. A player like that who is reaching into the original buy-in stacks to put in his raise is far, far less likely to be bluffing than if he is only having to play with his profit stacks.

You know that, right?

You don't keep your stacks segregated that way, but the effect is exactly the same. If sharp, observant players know the degree to which you are ahead or behind, and they know that it matters a great deal to you which side of zero you end up on (and the fact that you frequently call attention to your status makes it abundantly clear that it does matter a great deal to you), they will exploit that information. Now, I think that you're not as completely predictable as the chips-segregation guys, and sometimes you're more willing to bluff and gamble when down than when you're up. But that doesn't matter. All that matters is that it's information that smart players can use to gain extra insight into how you are thinking and playing, and thus play better against you.

I would ask again, How does it benefit you at all to tell the table how much you need to make to be back to even? In theory, you could do this to spread disinformation, knowing what people will think of you, then do the opposite of what they will anticipate. But I do not believe that you are doing this. I think you are just spewing the information because it occurs to you, because it's on your mind so constantly, and, again, you just don't stop to think about the consequences of opening your mouth.

4.

You show your hole cards unnecessarily. You do this a lot. You did it more than any other player at the table last night.

This is a complex area. There is no one clearly best strategy for deciding when to reveal your hole cards if you aren't required to do so. Some world-class players never do it. Daniel Negreanu, asked about this once for a World Poker Tour special feature, said that he does it occasionally, but always with a specific plan and purpose for what he wants his opponents to think and know. That's smart. Antonio Esfandiari recently noted in his live WSOP commentary that he never shows cards that reinforce an opponent's good decision. E.g., if they fold, he won't show them a winner--but he might show them if he was bluffing. He wants to spread disinformation and put opponents on tilt for having made a mistake, not give them a psychological reward for making the correct decision. Again, that's a perfectly justifiable strategy. It's a thoughtful way to decide what to show.

In Caro's Most Profitable Hold'Em Advice, the author spends several pages discussing how to selectively show cards in order to reinforce the erroneous tendencies of specific players. For example, show your strongest hands to players who are already inclined to fold too often when you bet. It will have the effect of making them think, "Yep, that guy always has the goods, just as I suspected." As a result, they will tighten up even more against you. Conversely, show your bluffs to players who are inclined to call you too often, in order to get them to call even more often. Again, this is a perfectly valid, well-reasoned approach to the question.

But I don't think you are following any well-thought-out strategy. I think you show when you feel like it, and there's not much more to it than that. That is unacceptable. That is unprofessional. That will cost you money.

By far the simplest approach is just never, ever show any cards unless the rules require you to show them. I think that should be your default plan. It may not be fully optimal, but it's never very much of mistake, whereas showing willy-nilly, the way you are doing now, is an egregious leak. If you asked me for advice on this point (and I realize that you didn't), I would say shut off that gushing pipe completely. Lock it down. Get in the habit of never, ever showing unnecessarily. After several months of getting used to that practice, then you can consider trying to find very selective, strategic spots in which showing your cards can increase your profits. But for now, just stop it completely.

You might also consider that the message you are sending is not the one you intended. I caught a very keen insight from Olivier Busquet the other day when he was doing live WSOP commentary. One very tight player raised, got everyone to fold, then showed some high pocket pair. Busquet was asked what it says about a player when he shows cards like that. He responded (paraphrasing here), "It tells me that he's weak and afraid. He is trying to tell the table, 'When I raise you shouldn't play back at me.' Why doesn't he want people to play back at him? Because he's afraid of tangling with them." I think Busquet is on to something there. It was a revelation to me. I had not thought of it that way before, but it's worth considering that when you intend to convey strength, it accidentally comes across as weakness.

5.

You freely discuss what you will do with certain hands in certain situations. For example, at one point last night you showed something like an A-8 that you had raised with, and said, "I'll raise with hands like that, but I won't call if somebody else has raised first."

That was another occasion on which I wanted to yell at you. What possible good is that doing? The smart, observant players will file away that information to use against you. The really bad players, who only consider hand strength and not situations, perhaps have never considered that there are hands with which one might sensibly raise, but fold if somebody else raises first. Why are you giving them an education? They didn't ask for it, and if they learn to play better, it makes it harder for you to win their money.

For about the umpteenth time I'll ask, what could you possibly hope to gain by sharing with others exactly how you play certain hands?

6.

I'm sure you'll remember the hand in which you had Q-Q and the other guy had 2-4, and hit a gutshot on the river to make a straight and win the large pot. I'll dispense with pointing out that 2-4 is the most powerful hand in poker and always wins. My point here is that you went on and on about this. You repeatedly said, "Goddammit," and other such things. Even half an hour later, long after that player had left the table, you were rehashing it, talking about how much money he had put into the pot when he was drawing nearly dead.

This is another example in the category of things you shouldn't even be thinking, let alone saying.

When I hear somebody droning on about a hand that was over half an hour ago, I know that he is not focusing on the present. I know that he is more likely to call than his baseline. (Never try to bluff a player who is obviously on tilt.) I know that he is going to be playing more hands than usual in an attempt to get back what he perceives as having unfairly lost, and will be more likely to bluff or overplay weak or mediocre hands. When you expose your feelings to the table like this, you unintentionally inform the better players what to expect from you and how to play more accurately against you. This will cost you money.

The best thing would be to get to where you don't care about the outcome, as long as you made the right decision. If you can't manage that, at least make it look to others as if that's where you are. Never let 'em see you sweat.

7.

You played a hand with, I think, A-Q, then immediately afterward asked me if I thought you played it right.

I will never discuss poker strategy or tactics at the table with you--or with anybody else, for that matter. (OK, "never" is too strong there. But it's almost never. And when there is a rare exception, it is sotto voce, when seated next to somebody I know and trust, not out loud for all to hear.) It's just plain bad for the game.

It is a bad mistake to clue in the recreational players that there are layers of depth to the game that they are not seeing. It is unwise to let them know who among their opponents are the most thoughtful and experienced and analytic. The fact that they can't figure that out from just watching hands is part of what makes them bad players. (You know the old saw about not being able to spot the fish at the table in the first 20 minutes.) It is self-defeating to let them listen in on discussions about how a hand could or should have been played.

I also don't want to be spotlighted at the table as a player whose advice you seek and value. That hangs a big sign around my neck telling the inattentive players that maybe they should watch out for me more than they had previously been inclined to do. That, in turn, may make them less willing to play hands against me, and therefore cost me money. It's bad form all around, and reduces both of our expected profits for the night.

Mike Caro again, page 261: "It's a very bad idea to discuss serious strategy with weak opponents--at the table or away from it. Doing so makes them self-conscious, and helps them recognize that there are levels of poker they don't understand. They are apt to play more cautiously as a result, and, worse, they may even learn to play well!"

8.

While sitting in Seat 1, at least one time you showed your cards to the dealer before mucking. The player in Seat 10 was still in the hand and saw them, though he didn't say anything about it. I know you didn't mean to show them to that other player, but you did. You might have influenced how the hand played out, because now that guy had information about what cards were out, information that was not available to his opponent(s).

It is generally really difficult to control exactly who can and cannot see your cards when trying to expose them selectively. It's just a bad idea.

Yet again, I have to ask: What possible gain is there from showing your cards to the dealer? He doesn't care what you had. If he is good at his job, he is not going to react and reward you with sympathy (which I assume is what you are seeking). He is going to act like he saw nothing. The best dealers, in fact, will turn their eyes away and refuse to look when a player is trying to share his cards that way, and explain that he doesn't want to take the chance of influencing the action by giving away anything with a reaction to what he is seeing.

This kind of action not only gives away to another player what you were willing to fold to his bet, but directly and adversely affects the integrity of the game. This was a serious breach of protocol. To be blunt, there is no excuse for it. There is nothing to be gained, and much to be lost.

Some general thoughts:

I like what John Vorhaus wrote in one of his columns: "They say that information is power; in poker, it's cash, just cash." Information is money. You should not give it away when you don't have to.

Even better is Tommy Angelo's extended discussion of poker as an "information war" (Elements of Poker, pages 86-92:

I play poker on a need to know basis. I need to know the thoughts my opponents are thinking. I need to know the feelings they are feeling. And I need to know the cards they are playing. Meanwhile, I need them to know as little as possible about me. I call this relationship the information war.

The information war is fought on two fronts--sending and receiving. To win it, send less information than they send, while receiving more information than they receive. By controlling those differences, you control information flow....

The information war at poker has an arms race, and if one were to take it to its natural extreme--which I have--one would play a style of poker I call "mum poker"--which I do.

On the outside, mum poker is the classic poker face, extended to the entire body, and maintained through sixth street. [Angelo coined the term "sixth street" to refer to everything that happens after one hand ends and before the next begins, most especially the players' discussion about what just happened.] On the inside, mum poker is no complaining, no blaming, no regretting. Mum poker is stillness. Mum poker is readiness....

Or you could just think of it as sit up and shut up.

Today, when I am playing primarily for profit, I play mum poker.... I do not speak unless spoken to, and even then, I do not react to questions or comments about poker.

I have found that the less information I send, the more I focus on the game. And when I am focused on the game, I send less information. When I employ mum poker, I fight on both fronts of the information war simultaneously....

Mum poker is not about not talking. It's about not talking about certain things, namely, poker things. Mum poker means not talking about poker plays, poker thoughts, and poker feelings, especially the recent ones. And it means not talking about poker players, especially the present ones.

Mum poker means not saying certain words and phrases when you play. Words like ace, king, queen, spade, heart, pair, straight, gutshot, river, etc. Mum poker also means not being a dickhead. If someone asks you if you like your food, answer. If someone asks you if you like your cards, don't answer. That's mum poker....

There's a big difference between ignoring the people and events in a poker game and not reacting to them. Ignoring is when you react on the inside, but not on the outside. Not reacting is when nothing happens, inside or out. Not reacting looks the same as ignoring, but it feels better....

Everything everyone does is a tell. What they wear is a tell. How they sit is a tell. What they say is a tell. What they don't say is a tell.... It's all a seamless trail of tells. And what do all these tells tell you? It depends. Tells might tell you about your opponent's thoughts. Tells might tell you about your opponent's feelings. Tells might tell you about your opponent's intentions. Tells might tell you what your opponent's hole cards are. It all depends on what you are doing. Are you listening? Or are you telling?

To the extent that there is identifiable motivation for why you do these things, I think it is chiefly that you very much want others at the table to respect you, to think that you're a good player. To that end, you try to show them that you understand the game more deeply than they do. But sooner or later you have to ask yourself what is really more important to you--controlling what nine strangers think of how you play poker, or maximizing your profit? Those two goals are mutually exclusive. You cannot give away information without giving away money. As it stands, you are giving away information on a nearly constant basis. That means that you are giving away money. I don't think you can afford it.

I have a serious suggestion for you, and for any of my readers who recognize similar problems in their own information wars. When you first read this, you'll think I'm just exaggerating to make a point, but I'm not. I'm deadly serious and completely literal in this suggestion: If you really want to plug these information leaks, you have to make your brain equate information and money in a very explicit and automatic way. I suggest that every time you catch yourself leaking information--showing a card that you didn't have to show, talking about strategy, criticizing how an opponent played, cursing about a bad beat, rehashing a hand that is long over, discussing your bankroll, telling people whether you're up or down for the day--punish yourself by giving the dealer a $5 chip as a tip. Giving away information is giving away money, and you've got to learn that association down to the deepest fibers of your being. The way to ingrain that lesson, I submit, is to make it hurt, and make the information=money connection explicit to yourself along with the pain.

I don't know whether any one piece of information that you give away is worth more or less than $5, and it really doesn't matter. What matters is that you come to grips with the fact that when you leak information, you are giving away your chips. It is literally true, whether you acknowledge it or not, so make it literally true and concrete for yourself. I predict that if you do that, it will not take long before you learn to keep your information to yourself--and all those red chips, too.

If your reaction is that you can't help yourself, that these things just happen, I will have to disagree. Suppose I offered to pay you $100,000 if you played poker for one hour without a single unnecessary information leak. Could you pull it off? Of course you could. These leaks are things you choose to do--every single one of them, every single time--and you could choose not to do them if you wanted to, if you had sufficient motivation. The question that remains is whether you will decide that making more money is sufficient motivation.

I hope you find these observations and suggestions helpful. I wish you success, my friend.

Poker gems, #429

John Vorhaus, in Card Player magazine column, June 29, 2011 (vol. 24, #13), page 36.

I know of no truer truth of poker than everything's harder out of position. It's harder to bluff, harder to control the size of the pot, harder to get the right price for draws, harder to protect big hands, harder to know where your opponents are in the hand--harder, harder, harder. And yet--all day, every day--we see people making promiscuous calls and audacious raises from early position. What are these people thinking? That their 9-8 suited is going to flop a straight or a flush? That their A-Q in the blind is worth calling a raise and a reraise because both of those other guys are liars? That their skill edge is so great that it can overcome their positional disadvantage? Well, it ain't. Hey, Mike Caro once said, "Everyone takes turns making mistakes in poker. The trick is just to skip your turn." By analogy, everyone takes turns playing out of position. Why not just skip your turn? If you're in a good game, you'll do fine just waiting to play hands in position. And if you're not in a good game, playing out of position becomes geometrically worse.

Poker gems, #407

John Vorhaus, in Card Player magazine column, January 12, 2011 (vol. 24, #1), p. 62.


There are no good hands. There are no bad hands. There are only the hands that we have. We don't deserve pocket aces. We don't deserve 7-2 offsuit. We don't deserve anything other than exactly the two cards that we're dealt, and exactly the attendant opportunity to make the right choice.

Poker gems, #406

John Vorhaus, in Card Player magazine column, January 12, 2011 (vol. 24, #1), p. 62.


Or, let's say that you're the one with the aces.... You raise, of course, yet somehow manage to attract three callers. Now, the flop comes 8-7-6 in suit, and all hell breaks loose. The action goes bet, raise, reraise, and now it's on you. How good are your aces now? Good for nothing, right? Not exactly. They're still good for a good decision, a handsome laydown.

That's the chance that you have, the one that you always have--the chance to make a good decision, without expectation, without resentment, and without ego. Can you do that?

Poker gems, #393

John Vorhaus, in Card Player magazine column, October 20, 2010 (vol. 23, #21), page 74.


They can't figure out your strategy if you don't have one.

Shoe clerk

I was just reading the column by John Vorhaus in the June 30, 2010, issue of Card Player magazine (vol. 23, #13), p. 74. I was intrigued by his use of a term I don't recall having run across previously:

[Y]ou open an unraised pot for $20, which is not a bad raise with pocket aces,
since you want to thin the field, ideally to just one player, and a bet of four
times the big blind will drive out most of the shoe clerks.

It's not hard to tell the intended meaning from context, but I wanted to see if this is something idiosyncratic to Vorhaus, or more widely recognized. I quickly found this definition, here:

shoe clerk
(n phrase) 1. A player who does not stay for a raise
(with the implication that he is dropping out of fear) or, particularly in a
no-limit game, for any large bet. 2. Someone who is not serious about playing a particular pot, and thus will not call a raise. For example, for
definitions 1 and 2, you might hear an aggressive player say, “Let’s raise and
get the shoe clerks out.” Also known as ribbon clerk. 3. A weak player.

So there ya go.

Where did it come from ? I don't know. The obvious guess is that a shoe clerk is somebody who is always bending over, reaching to the floor, so by analogy a player who has dregs for a hand. But perhaps it came from the insinuation of weakness, a shoe clerk not being considered the manliest of occupations.

Poker gems, #347

John Vorhaus, in Card Player magazine column, March 10, 2010 (vol. 23, #5), p. 64.


The type of bluff that you can successfully run is utterly dependent on your table image. Therefore when bluffing, to bastardize Shakespeare, "To thy known self be true."

Poker gems, #324

John Vorhaus, in Card Player magazine column, November 4, 2009 (vol. 22, #22), p. 92.


Look, no one plays perfect poker. It's a dream we can chase, but not a goal we can ever achieve. In the face of this reality, I find that it helps to be patient and impatient at the same time; that is, patient enough to forgive my mistakes, and impatient enough to demand better of myself next time.

Poker gems, #305

John Vorhaus, in Card Player magazine column, August 12, 2009 (vol. 22, #16), p. 80.


It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop. [Attributed to Confucius.] Impatient to move up? So impatient that you'll imperil your bankroll? Confucius would tell you to take a chill pill, or Confucian words to that effect. Life is long, and as long as you're seeing an upward trend in your learning curve, you can afford to take your time. Let's face it, poker is hard, and it gets harder the higher you play. Some people advance more quickly than others, but none of us can arrive anywhere before we get there. To jump philosophers for a second, John Fortescue said, "Comparisons are odious." Your path is your path, not mine or anyone else's. If you're satisfied with your progress, that's enough.

Poker gems, #303

John Vorhaus, in Card Player magazine column, July 29, 2009 (vol. 22, #15), pp. 87-88.


Your Problems + Denial = Tilt.

...

[Y]ou can't master poker if you can't master yourself.

Poker gems, #291

John Vorhaus, in Card Player magazine column, June 17, 2009 (vol. 22, #12), p. 70.


We know that there's such a thing as The Law of Conservation of Fun, which states, basically, that if one person... is having all the fun in a poker game, the rest of the players are having none at all.

Poker gems, #246

John Vorhaus, in Card Player magazine column, May 6, 2009 (Vol. 22, #9), p. 64.


There's a real danger in seeking to categorize your foes too firmly. Try to put everything into pigeonholes, and all you'll end up with is a bunch of squished pigeons.

Morning poker

If you pay attention to the time stamps on these posts, you may knit your brow in puzzlement at why a short time ago I posted about coming home from the book store. As I type, it is 1:35 p.m., which is usually about the time I'm hitting the shower after having been awake for maybe 30 or 60 minutes. But for once, I'm not only out of bed, but have already been out into the world, played poker, and come home again!

I think this is only the third time in almost three years of playing now that I have tried a morning session. The idea is to catch those who have been playing (and, often, drinking) all night. They will often be desperately tired, stressed out, drunk, and/or losing badly and trying to get back to even. The down sides are that (1) it can be difficult to find a game, and (2) many of the local retiree nits come out of the woodwork at those hours, and they are not the target audience. One time I tried this at Caesars, with good success. Another time I tried it at MGM, and failed. There was a game going, but I stupidly failed to adjust my tactics to the opposition, and attempted a couple of big bluffs at people that I should have known were basically unbluffable because of exactly the factors (as listed above) that made me seek them out! D'oh!

I sat down at the Venetian poker room at 9:05 a.m. Yes, surprisingly, the world actually exists at that hour--who knew?! You can see from the photo above that it was pretty dead, even though this is one of the busiest poker rooms in the city and they are in the midst of the Deep Stack Extravaganza, which vastly increases the number of players on an average day. There were four tables in operation.

This was my first time playing since Saturday. I ran into a pretty bad spell the last couple of weeks of March. I was starting to feel the same horrible mental wooziness that I was trapped in last August, when I was in the midst of my worst-ever losing streak. I decided that I needed to take more than my usual one day off to reset, because I had already done that two or three times, without anything improving. So I took an actual vacation from poker (except for a little online, mostly for funsies). I did other stuff that had been neglected: taxes, reading, Netflix movies, watching TV shows I had videotaped but not viewed, cleaning, grocery shopping, catching up on other blogs, etc. It felt pretty good not to play for a while, but the last couple of days I have definitely been getting back my itch to play, so today was the day. I thought the change to a morning session might feel sufficiently different from my usual evening play that it would help the whole situation feel new again. It did.

There was only one drunk guy, not half a table, as I had kind of hoped. But he was drunk enough for the whole table, so that compensated. He annoyed everybody with constant, repeated, loud, profane, and looney diatribes about the Federal Reserve system, 9/11 conspiracies, and one-world government. I quickly put in the ear buds with Elvis as my respite. He was sitting right next to me and kept attempting to engage me in his madness. I just kept pretending I couldn't hear him, and he eventually gave up, and returned to trying to warn the rest of the table about the impending collapse of civilization as we know it.

I left WINNAH after less than two hours. In this kind of situation, it's pretty important to my psychological well-being to take the money and run, rather than give it all back and chalk up yet another L in the spreadsheet (I first wrote "ledger" there--but who am I kidding?) via a bad read or an unlucky turn of a card.

My entire profit came in basically two hands:

1. I was on the button and looked down at the nappy-headed hos. I had raised both of the previous two times I had had the button, and had won both hands with a continuation bet on the flop when it was checked to me. Once was with garbage that hit bottom pair, once with two Broadway cards that completely whiffed, but were apparently good enough. I knew, therefore, that any attentive players would be highly suspicious of a steal when I put in a button raise (to $13, I think) for yet the third time.

I got just one caller, the big blind, a guy I've played with once or twice before and I know to be smart, with no shortage of bluffing and trickery in his arsenal. Before calling, he asked how much I had behind--about $120, which he had covered. This made me think that he had some kind of speculative hand, and he was wondering about his implied odds. Unless his question were a deliberate attempt at deception (always a possibility), this suggested that he was not slow-playing kings or aces.

The flop was A-J-5, rainbow. He checked. I bet $25. I was not at all suprised when he check-raised me, because I knew that somebody would be wanting to challenge me on my third button raise/c-bet combination. Normally I would just give up at this point, but because I had been expecting an attentive player to draw a line in the sand with me pretty much no matter what he might be holding, and because this was definitely a smart, attentive player, I had substantially less reason to fear him having me beat than I usually would. Besides, he only min-raised me, which could be begging me to make a move, but could also be just sticking a toe in the water to see if I was full of it. Hard to say which.

This was a tricky spot, given the stack sizes, because if I shoved all-in, he would be getting better than 2.5:1 on a call--another $70 to win a pot of about $195 (about $25 pre-flop, plus my $120, plus his own $50). That's not enough if he has, say, a medium pair and he becomes convinced that I have an ace or a jack. But it obviously won't get him to fold any set or two-pair combination, and he might not even fold either an ace or a jack. It was really hard to gauge what my fold equity might be.

But I pushed it anyway. He called quickly. Lucky for me, the queen of hearts on the turn settled essentially all of my worries. He flashed a 5 before mucking his cards. It's hard to believe he would have called me pre-flop with J-5, and with either 5-5 or A-5 in the hole, I think he would have shown both cards rather than just the 5. So my guess is that I really was ahead the entire way, and didn't need the third queen, but I'll never know for sure.

2. Big blind with 5-5. A bunch of us all limped in. Flop was a very lovely 7-5-7. Yes, that's how talented and experienced I am at poker--I can flop a full house whenever the mood suits me. I am a skillbox.

I was first to act, and bet $6, about 2/3 of the pot. My goal was twofold: (1) Sniff out who might be sitting on a 7, and (2) convince such a person that I didn't have a big hand, on the guess that he or she would expect anything beating trips to slow-play it. Ding! A middle-aged woman new to the table called. Everybody else folded. The turn was a king. I bet again, this time $15. She min-raised me to $30. Oh yeah, baby--we've got ourselves a 7 out there!

Of course, with the lowest possible full house, there is always the possibility that she has 7-5 or 7-K or will hit on the river with whatever her kicker may be--or, God forbid, 7-7 in the hole. But the situation is so likely to be in my favor that I have to be willing to get it all in here, or not bother playing no-limit. I stalled a bit, trying to look as if I'm trying not to look worried (I wish I had videotape of myself in these moments, so that I could see whether I really pull off such acting), then called, with what I hope was just a shade of faux reluctance.

Of course, if I were genuinely concerned, I would follow that call with a check on the river, no matter what came. So when a 10 hit (no straights or flushes possible to scare her), that's what I did--think a bit, then check, trying to appear as if I would welcome her to check behind. She bit, putting out another $30. I had hoped for a little more, but decided that she was practically pot-committed (another $90 or so behind), and moved all-in. She insta-called and showed me 7-4.

I'll take those chips now, please. TYVM!

Not exactly rocket science, but very satisfying. I scored me a decent W for the session and felt pretty much back in the saddle again.

Giddyup!


Addendum

I forgot to mention something. When I saw the Q-Q and knew that I would now be raising the button for the third consecutive time, I had a flashback to this column by John Vorhaus about this exact thing: opponents anticipating a pattern of yours the third time you execute it, and how you can and must be prepared to exploit their attempt to exploit you.

Poker gems, #227

John Vorhaus, in Card Player magazine column, March 11, 2009, (vol. 22, #5), p. 95.


[T]he best opponent at the table can never inflict as much damage on us as we can on ourselves.

Poker gems, #199

John Vorhaus, in Card Player magazine column, December 17, 2008, (vol. 21, #25), p. 74.


Some players find laughable the notion of ever folding a pocket pair [before the flop]. These players are known, colloquially, as losers.

Poker gems, #193

John Vorhaus, in Card Player magazine column, December 3, 2008 (vol. 21, #24), p. 92.

So--can poker be beaten? Sure ... if you have talent, instinct, courage, awareness, and an unrelenting work ethic. Otherwise, not so much.

Poker gems, #170

John Vorhaus, in Card Player magazine column, September 24, 2008 (vol. 21, #19), p. 94.


[T]hat's a fact of poker (and possibly of life): No matter what you do, you're going to look stupid to someone, sometime.

Mike Caro once wrote that in poker, everyone takes turns making mistakes, and the key to success is simply to skip your turn.

Poker gems, #155

John Vorhaus, in Card Player magazine column, July 30, 2008 (vol. 21, #15), p. 105.


There's nothing more expensive than a cheap flop.