Showing a hand

After seeing me play a big hand last night, Rob asked me to do a post explaining why I showed my cards when I didn't have to. This is it.

We were playing at Bally's. Short version of the story: I had suited Q-10 against an aggressive player's K-J. We both liked the K-J-9 flop, but I liked it a little better than he did. I bled him for about $105 before he cried uncle to my big check-raise on the turn. He showed his top two pair before folding, and in return I showed him my straight.

My default is not to show when it's not required, but that's not an unbreakable rule. See section 4 of this post for a brief rundown of various strategic ways of approaching the show/don't show question.

In this particular instance, there were two forces at work:

1. Social/informational. A couple of years ago I discussed the voluntary exchange of information that sometimes occurs at the conclusion of a hand that has not gone to showdown. This was such an occasion. If I don't at least occasionally reciprocate when another player initiates this kind of exchange, they will stop doing it, and I'll lose out on the information I gain from them voluntarily showing. I thought this guy was one of the most unpredictable players at the table, and I was happy to have a chance to mentally correlate how he had looked and acted during the hand with what he was holding.

2. Metagame. At that point in the proceedings, I was feeling that I was being called down a little more than I wanted to be, not being given enough credit for having a hand. This was a rational reaction for the table to take, given that I had been playing some marginal hands and had been pushing the trickiness a little more than usual. Showing the nuts was intended to regain some respect, so that I could resume using valuable tools such as the check-raise bluff and the light pre-flop three-bet. And I'm pleased to say that it worked. In the next half-hour or so, I picked up a few pots with aggression not supported by the cards I held.

So that's the answer. Not particularly brilliant, original, or exciting, but the truth.

Hitting the club royal

I was at Bally's again last night, had another profitable and reasonably enjoyable session. I might actually come to like the place, in spite of the noise factor.

The jackpot for hitting a royal flush in clubs, using both hole cards, is almost $12,000 now. Several times last night I had two of the five required cards in my starting hand, which makes one's heart beat just a little bit faster when the flop is about to come.

It got me wondering about the probability of hitting a royal flush, given two qualifying down cards. I just worked it out, using the assumption that I'll see a full board of five community cards every time:

Suppose I start with the Ac-Kc. I obviously have to get a board that includes exactly the Qc, Jc, and 10c. I don't care what order they come in, and I don't care what other two cards accompany them. After specifying the five cards that matter, there are 47 cards left in the deck, from which any two can come. There are 1081 different ways to draw two cards from 47, so there are 1081 different boards that win me the jackpot.

But how many total possible five-card boards are there? Well, I have two cards in my hand, so those are not available to come. You can calculate this in Excel by entering into any cell the formula =COMBIN(50,5). Doing so tells us that there are exactly 2,118,760 different ways to draw five cards from the 50 that are left in the deck.

The final step is to compare the 1081 boards that win to the universe of 2,118,760 possible boards. The answer is 0.00051, or about 0.051% of the time. It will happen only once out of every 1960 times that I have a qualifying starting hand.

Looks like it's going to take a lot of hours sitting in the noise.

Bally's high

(If you don't get the title of this post, you're too young, so see here.)

I was back at Bally's tonight, for the third day in a row. I don't play there often (primarily because the excessive noise there gets on my nerves), but a confluence of factors made me decide to make it my default room at least for the holiday weekend:

1) Somebody whose judgment on such things I trust had told me that, for whatever reason, the place had burgeoned in profitability the last couple of weeks.

2) There's a pool tournament going on there this week, and experience tells me that pool players as a group make excellent poker opponents; they seem to have far more confidence than skill, which makes for a juicy combination.

3) The club royal flush jackpot is now over $11,000.

4) I've been kind of neglecting Harrah's properties this year, and want to put a little effort into rebuilding my comps bank and tier points.

5) I can get to Bally's the back way, without having to drive on either I-15 or Las Vegas Boulevard, which on a big holiday weekend like this can mean a major time saving.

6) Several denizens of VegasPokerNow forums, some from out of town, were making Bally's their room of choice for this weekend, and it was nice to be able to chat with them.

7) Friday had been very profitable, and Saturday only failed to be because of bad beats and coolers. Today I wanted to get back in the saddle, rather than have a lingering bad memory of that last session.

So back I went. I played for about four hours, and left up substantially, so it was all good. Well, all except one thing: that's three days in a row I haven't hit a club royal flush, and today I even formally invoked my "ONE TIME" to get it, to no avail. It's so rigged.

A few interesting and/or amusing things happened to relate to you.

1. This little guy stopped by to play for a while:

What--you've never heard of dogs playing poker?

I sent this photo out over Twitter, and Shamus quipped, "Ruff table." I replied that it really wasn't, because he only played K-9. Besides, he always got his money in...as a dog.

[Rimshot.]

Actually, I'm pretty sure it's the same pooch I've written about having seen at Aria. I have a vague recollection that somebody told me the owner is diabetic and the dog is trained to detect by scent when his blood sugar gets dangerously low, but now I can't recall where or when or from whom I heard that.

2. As I was cashing out, Paul Magriel ("X-22") had just done the same ahead of me. I hadn't even noticed that he had been in the room. After he got his money, he stood at a table next to the cashier for quite a while, his back to the room. I couldn't tell what he was doing, but his green-and-white checkered boxer shorts were hanging prominently outside of his trousers and on top of the back of his shirt, which I thought was funny enough to take a picture of. Click to see it in full-sized glory.

Yesterday the cleavage shot and today this. I know--I'm a horrible human being. I admit it.

3. I made a mistake unlike any I've ever made before. Since it's the kind of tale I tell on others, it's only fair to turn the Stupid Spotlight on myself when I do something worthy of it.

I had A-K and raised to $12. A short stack in the small blind was the only caller. The flop was 9-J-Q with two clubs. My opponent put out two red chips in what I thought was a conspicuously weak, tentative manner. It left him only about $30 behind.

Normally I would either just fold and be done with it or call and hope to hit one of my overcards on the turn. With him having a stack that small, I would usually judge a raise to have essentially zero fold equity, even though I had a squeaky clean/tight table image. After all, nearly half of the stack he started the hand with was now in the pot. You can't expect a guy to fold after leading out betting in such a circumstance. But something told me that this was different, that he wasn't feeling pot-committed, even though he probably should be, mathematically speaking. I sensed that his bet was saying, "I've got a little piece of that, and I'm hoping you have nothing, because I'm not very confident of this situation."

On the basis of that read, I calmly pushed out two of my $50 stacks, so that he would have no doubt that I was gunning for all of his chips, and hopefully feel intimidated by it. He got a pained look on his face and asked, "Why so much, man?" He thought for maybe 30 seconds, and just when I thought he was going to fold, he shook his head, resignedly said "All right," and put in his last chips.

I showed my cards. He turned over 9-10 offsuit--bottom pair and a straight draw. At least I had the reward of knowing that my read of his body language and bet size had been correct. I misjudged that he would fold a weak hand, but I was pleased that I hadn't been misled by somebody feigning weakness when he actually held a monster.

The turn was an 8, which made his straight. He smacked his hands together triumphantly and yelled, "Yeah!" I had time only to register that a 10 on the river would put a straight on the board and we would chop it, and as soon as that thought had passed through my age-enfeebled brain, BOOM--the dealer dropped a 10.

The other guy let out a moan of disappointment. I figured he was mad because he had lost half of the pot. But then I got confused because the dealer picked up the other guy's chips and put them in front of me.

I protested: "We have the same hand, playing the board--it's a chop."

The dealer and several other players all at once pointed out my oversight: I now had an ace-high straight--the nuts. I had been so focused on seeing the queen-high straight on the board that I had completely forgotten that my king and ace meshed with those cards rather nicely. In fact, I had the rare seven-card straight!

I confess to feeling rather foolish that (1) I thought I was playing the board when I held the nuts, and (2) I had actually tried to tell the dealer that he was making a mistake in giving me the pot.

See what terrible things happen to your mental capacity after you turn 50?

4. My last big hand was a rather pleasing one, so I'll end with it. I had 8h-10h in the big blind. Nobody raised, so I got to see a free flop. It was a nice one: Jc-9h-2h, giving me both a flush draw and an open-ended straight draw. I bet $10, about the size of the pot. One very passive player in middle position called. A 60-something guy one off the button raised to $30. He had been at the table for nearly an hour, during which time he had played very few hands and I couldn't recall ever seeing him raise two opponents like this.

I decided that my draw was good enough to merit a call. I didn't like it when the other guy called behind, because I thought that meant that his most likely hand was a better flush draw. I secretly wished to make my straight and not my flush.

I guess once in a while the poker gods decide to throw me a bone, because the dealer turned an offsuit 7, giving me the stone cold nuts. Even better, it was thoroughly disguised. The raiser would probably put me on a flush draw, which had missed, and he might bet big to dissuade further drawing. On the basis of that reasoning I checked, as did the other guy. Sure enough, here came the raiser again, this time with a $75 bet. He was now unquestionably pot-committed, having only another $50 or so behind, so I dropped the hammer and moved all-in. The other player thought a while, but then folded.

As predicted, the older guy instantly called. I was greatly surprised to learn that this ultra-tight player had only A-J offsuit--top pair/top kicker. Given how long he had gone without showing this kind of aggression, I had assumed that here he must have flopped two pair or a set. He was actually drawing dead on the turn. The irrelevant river was an offsuit queen. I'll take that money now, please.

Four to five hours is typically the longest I can play and keep my A-game going. After completing that orbit, it had been 4 1/4 hours, I was up a goodly amount, and I was feeling pleased with my play (excepting the one lapse into momentary stupidity), and so decided it would be a fine time to call it quits for the day.

As the post title suggests, I left on a Bally's high.

DMLCP

I started in at Bally's a little after 3:00 pm yesterday, part of a new table that was opening. As usual in this situation, there's a lot of down time while everybody gets seated, gets chips, gets cards swiped, the dealer gives the cash and leftover chips back to the floor guy, cards get inspected and shuffled, draw for the button, etc.

I got bored with the waiting, and from my spot in Seat 1 snapped this picture of the women in Seats 3 and 4, sending it to Twitter with the message (referring, obviously, to Seat 3), "I wonder if she has any poker weapons other than distracting cleavage."

What I didn't know at the time was that I had left out of the photo the player around whom the game would revolve--the guy in Seat 2. (I guess I didn't completely leave him out; you can see his hands.) But I had definitely noticed him. In fact, immediately before sending the photo, I had Tweeted, "Game hasn't even started, and the guy next to me already slammed down a whiskey before starting on his beer."

I'll refer to him as DMLCP, because he was a Drunk Maniac Luckbox Creepy Perv.

The Drunk part is self-explanatory.

The Creepy Perv part he earned by trying ridiculously to hit on the two women to his left. Every time he would say anything to either of them, it was accompanied by reaching over and touching them on the hand or arm. This happened half a dozen times or so until, after the two friends exchanged a disapproving we've-got-to-stop-this-ickiness look, Ms. Cleavage said to him, "OK, that's enough with the touching now." He then apologized ten different times or so over the next half hour, repeating himself as drunk people tend to do.

The Maniac part comes from the fact that he raised pre-flop almost every hand--in the range of 90%--making it either $15 or $20 each time. As you can easily imagine, or perhaps have experienced, such a player completely changes the usual dynamics of a $1-2 game.

Luckbox? Well, if you've ever played with a guy like this, you have surely observed that drunkenness is highly correlated with being a card rack. There's a Nobel Prize for whoever works out the quantum physics by which a high blood alcohol level causes a temporary superhero-like ability to hit two-outers. He bought in for $200, and was up to $400 within 20 or 30 minutes, between his bullying and his card-catching.

His conduct had a predictable effect on the other players, who became much more willing to gamble than I think would be their usual tendency. Within the first half hour of play I saw a three-way all-in pre-flop with J-J, A-J, and K-Q, with K-Q taking the massive pot. (DMLCP started the madness with his usual raise, but bowed out after the reraises and shoves started.) The guy with A-J had been in Seat 6, and when he went away steaming mad, I claimed his seat, so that I didn't have DMLCP on my immediate left, where he was a real irritant in both personal terms and poker terms.

My first big confrontation with him: I had the button and Ks-Qs. Given his opening range, this was an easy call when he put in his usual $20 raise. Two limpers called, too. The flop was Kc-Qc-10c. I loved having top two pair, but three clubs and a Broadway possibility were obvious dangers. Both limpers checked. DMLCP bet $20. I raised to $60. Limpers folded. DMLCP called. This was significant, because he had shown a willingness to fold when somebody stood up to him and he had nothing. I didn't think he had a made flush or straight, both because he just called (I think he would have shoved with either made hand) and because it was just too unlikely to believe, even for a luckbox like him.

The turn was the jack of spades. Ick. While that didn't complete any one-card flushes, it did mean that if he held any ace he now had a straight. He checked, and I checked back, hoping to catch a boat card on fifth street. Before the dealer could produce it, however, DMLCP announced all-in dark. River was a blank, but I still had to decide whether to call off the rest of my chips, in the neighborhood of $200. There was $200 in the middle, plus the $200 (effectively) he was putting up, offering me 2:1 on a call. Given his undoubtedly high bluffing frequency, that was tempting.

I finally decided, though, that he most likely did have an ace, and that he had been planning on an all-in check-raise on the turn, which I had foiled with my check. That seemed the best explanation for his dark bet on the river, a move he had not previously made. So I reluctantly folded.

Bally's high-hand bonus for a club royal flush is currently sitting at over $10,000, with each player at the table when it hits getting a $599 share, so everybody was anxious to know if DMLCP had it. He flashed the ace of clubs before giving his cards back to the dealer, and I think we can safely assume that the other one was not the jack of clubs. In any event, it confirmed my read of the situation. It sucked, but I think I played the hand perfectly. I believe that if I had shoved the flop he would have called and I would have lost more.

(I'm not just being results-oriented in saying that pushing there would have been wrong. With an all-club flop, there was a real possibility that either of the limpers had flopped a flush and was trapping; I was prepared to fold if one of them moved all in after my raise.)

DMLCP's course followed that typical of his species. Like a meteorite, he burned brightly for a time, but then crashed to earth. Ironically, his downfall began when he had the best of it. He got into a pre-flop raising war with the table's other luckbox, the guy who had won the three-way with K-Q. They both ended up all-in, with the K-K of DMLCP looking good against the Q-Q of the other guy--until a queen flopped. An $800 pot went to the queens.

DMLCP rebought twice more, and lost both stakes on ill-advised bluffs that got snapped off. Sadly, I never had another bite at that particular apple before he left the table.

Within two orbits of his inglorious retreat, I got on the bad side of a set-over-set situation (first time that has happened in about a year, I think), and lost nearly my entire buy-in. The last $20 or so went in two hands later when I had J-J and lost to A-K with the classic ace on the river. I didn't feel like starting over again, so swallowed the $300 loss and called it a day.

I do hope to run into DMLCP again, though. Players like him make for an extremely high-variance game, but will be profitable for the smart, patient players much more often than not.

How long it lasts

I'm just back from an early session at Bally's.

I bought in for my usual max, $300. Early in the session I got up by about $130 by cracking jacks with 5c-7c when the flop came a lovely 4-6-8. Things didn't move much for a while after that.

A guy at the far end of the table was always inadvertantly flashing his cards by doing that stupid repeated one-over-the-other shuffle that so many players like to do. (Why, why, why, why, why? How can people be so oblivious as not to realize that in the process of lifting one up by its end to bring over the other, they're exposing it to at least half of the table? And what is the upside of this mindless revealing of your most crucial information? It's utterly incomprehensible to me. Look at your cards, put them on the table, cap them, and leave them the hell alone! Geez, people, it just isn't that complicated a process. OK, parenthetical mini-rant over.) I told him that he was showing his cards when he did that. A young woman two seats to my left asked me, "Are you a nice poker player?"--as if such a thing were mythically rumored to exist, but not to be expected in the real world. I replied, "Not especially. Just one who likes everything to be fair."

Maybe an hour later I took a restroom break, leaving just before my big blind, as is my usual practice. When I returned, the button at my seat said "Missed small blind." Ignoring that, when the next hand started I put the button and a single $1 into the middle, and another $2 in front of me, making up both blinds. The dealer tried to correct me: "You only missed the small blind." No, I told her, I missed both. She said, "Are you sure?" I said, "Absolutely." So she relented.

The same young woman on my left said, "You definitely get good karma for honesty." She was right. The cards were dealt, I had A-A, and won about $50. I wouldn't ordinarily show my cards just because of having aces, but given her "good karma" comment, it was irresistible. Everybody got a smile out of that.

A couple of hands later I was one of several players to call a small raise, holding Q-10 offsuit. The flop was Q-10-x with two clubs. I made a pot-sized bet. Guy on the button shoved all-in. It folded back to me and I called. He had Ac-9c for the nut flush draw, no pair. Turn: 9s. River: Ah, giving him a backdoor better two pair. Ugh.

That took away nearly all my profit. I was sitting at about $330. A couple of hands later, I limped with 10-10 from first position, then called a raise to $10 from the small blind. We were the only two to the flop, which came 10-9-8, two-suited. SB bet $2, something he was fond of doing whether he had nothing or the nuts, so the bet size told me nothing. I raised to $15. He raised another $20 on top of that. I raised an additional $50, he added yet another $100, I moved all-in, and he called. He had me covered by a small amount. He rolled over Q-J, and the board did not pair to save me.

To nobody in particular, I said, "What happened to the good karma I was supposed to have?"

The guy who had been sitting to my left said, "Sorry, it only lasts one hand."

Climbing out of the hole

At the end of July I published this brief observational post:

If you start off a poker session digging yourself a deep, ugly hole (as I did today), but manage to claw your way back first to even then to being up (as I also did today), walking away with what is objectively a pretty mediocre and pathetic $103 (which, yes, I also did today) feels like an absolute fortune in one's pocket.

If, conversely, one starts off like gangbusters, raking it in hand over fist, enjoys the pleasures of "stacks and towers of checks I can't even see over" (see here), then gives back nearly all of the gains, and one walks away with the same $103 net profit on the day, for the same number of hours of play, it feels like you've lost a fortune.

It's all relative. And, of course, it's all completely irrational. But like most of us, I have to confess to retaining pockets of irrationality in my brain.

I have, of course, experienced both sides of that relativity. But it's not often that I experience both sides of it in such close proximity as I did this week.

It was just Tuesday that I wrote up what had happened during my session Monday at Mandalay Bay, giving back virtually all of the profit I had accumulated. Today I got to be on the other side of things.

I went for an unusual (for me) afternoon session at Bally's. Bally's is not one of my favorite card rooms, but lately I've seen a spate of Twitter messages from Las Vegas Michael about his sessions there, and the seeming ease with which he has been walking away with ridiculous hourly rates of profit. This has made me think that maybe I should try playing there more than has been my habit. Hey, the Venetian is a much nicer place to be, but if there's a ton of low-hanging fruit at a less desirable venue, I'll grab for it.

Anyway, less than five minutes into the session, I had the two black aces on the button, flopped top set on a monochrome board, and ended up losing to a flopped baby heart flush. My opponent slow-played it until I was pot-committed; I basically had to call his all-in check-raise on the turn, because of the amount that was in the pot, even knowing by that point that I would probably have to pair the board to win. I didn't. That hand cost me about $145.

I spent the rest of the session digging out of that hole. It was pure grinding. Getting-back-to-even poker is never fun poker. But I did it. The pot that put me over the top ("the top" here meaning back to even) actually got me ahead by $21. My plan was to finish that orbit then head home, because I was planning to play in the Mookie tournament on Full Tilt. (See immediately preceding post.) But I got lucky and won two more small pots immediately thereafter and finished up the day ahead by $47.

At one point in the grind, I sent a text message to my friend Cardgrrl to apprise her of my status. After relating the AA/flush hand, I wrote, "Now up to -$85. Monday breaking even felt like a L. Today it will feel like a W."

And it did.

Now, trust me--I know that $47 for four hours of poker is nothing to brag about. But the strange thing is how triumphant it felt. After getting used to the fact that that money is gone and you can't reverse time and get it back, that becomes the reality. Then when one does get it back (not the same chips, of course, but they're fungible, so who cares?), it's like a gift.

But you know, even after writing that, I have to say that it's not quite right. There's nothing gift-like about it. In fact, that's one of the things that felt so good about the result: I earned it. I didn't go on tilt and steam off the rest of my chips. I didn't get desperate or despondent. I just realized--not especially happily, but at least with a quasi-professional equanimity--that I had a job to do and I'd better get cracking at it. And then I did it. I didn't get hit with the deck or anything, but I found the good spots to push and took them. I played well enough to get paid at a rate of right around $50/hour, which, in a $1/2 no-limit hold'em game is not too shabby.

Cardgrrl has written forcefully on several occasions about the feeling that results from this kind of cash-game grinding work (and let's not kid ourselves--it is work). See, for example, here and here. In fact, come to think of it, I wrote a similar post about a year ago, and rereading it just now I still like what I had to say there. Having a sufficiently even keel to recover from that kind of early knock-down is one of the necessary traits for long-term success in this game, and I take a measure of pride that on most days I possess that characteristic in pretty decent quantities.

Of course, it's a lot nicer when I can avoid falling into a hole early in the session. But some holes can't be avoided. When I'm in one, it's good to know that I have both the technical and emotional wherewithal to climb out of it and walk away a winner in spite of what was thrown my way.

An unusual tell

The chip above now holds a special place in my collection: It is the only $5 chip that has ever won me $150. Let me tell you how.

I was playing last night at Bally's. I had chalked up a substantial win at Planet Hollywood next door, but after sitting down at Bally's I just couldn't get anything going. Amongst all my folding, though, I tried to pay some attention to the hands I wasn't in. While doing so, I noticed something unusual about one of the most active players at the table.

Bally's doesn't have very many commemorative chips in circulation, so they tend to stand out. This guy had the chip shown above--no, not one like it, but that very chip--on top of one of his stacks. The peculiar thing was that sometimes he put it into the pot along with other chips when he was betting, but other times he took pains to put it aside before counting out chips to go into the pot.

Eventually I figured out what he was doing. It seemed that he was intent on keeping the chip as a souvenir, and the times that he casually put it into the pot as part of his bet were the times that he was strong and felt confident that it would be coming back. Conversely, though, when he was bluffing or unsure of where he stood in a hand when making a call, he would first remove that chip from the top of the stack, then use only the regular Bally's chips for his bet or call.

I have never before either seen or heard of a tell anything like this, but it was a fine one!

It paid off in the end. I don't remember the details of the hand, but on the river I had bottom pair and a busted straight draw. He had been betting every street, as was his habit in nearly every hand he played, and I had been calling. On the river, with the pot at about $100, he took the special chip off of the top of a stack of $50 (10 red chips), replaced it with another regular chip, then shoved the stack in. Aha!

I don't know whether he had air and I actually had the best hand, or if he had a better but still mediocre hand. I was quite confident, though, that he couldn't stand the heat of an all-in raise after he had shown me his tell of weakness.

I had about $155 left. I announced "All in," and he mucked before I could even move my chips forward, without even a few seconds of thought.

So how did I get his cherished chip? Easy. When I knew that I was on my last orbit and would be leaving after a few more hands, he bet the flop using the chip. After the dealer put out the turn card and was waiting for action, I pointed to the chip in the middle of the table and asked if I could buy that one from the pot. "Sure," said the dealer, as they usually do at such requests. I quickly made the trade, and the chip was mine.

My main reason for doing that was that it was one I didn't have in my collection. A second motivation was that the guy had annoyed me. Nothing terribly rude, but he was just more exuberant in his celebrations when winning pots than I think is cricket. It was enough to make me take a bit of perverse pleasure in sneakily depriving him of his little prize. Hey, pal, if you want to keep the chip, stick it in your pocket, or keep it at the bottom of your stack. Don't keep putting it in the pot. It may not come back to you every time that you think it will.

Finally, I wanted the chip as a souvenir of my pleasure at having paid enough attention to the game to spot an unusual tell, and use it to my advantage. That pot with him got me back to even for the night. It was 1:00 in the morning, and I was too tired to try to mount another big win, so after I won one more hand, I left with a small profit.

A small profit and a good story.

Flopping straights: The good, the bad, and the ugly

As I have repeated many times, this blog is not and never will be principally about either my poker results or the hands that I played in a particular session. Such blogs are BORING. But once in a while, something really, really unusual happens, and especially when a couple of such somethings happen in a short time frame--like, for instance, flopping a straight with junk cards--it seems like a natural subject for a post. Besides, when I get feedback from readers about my writing, the most consistent thing I hear is that people like stories from the tables better than my editorializing about poker news, rules, personalities, TV shows, books, etc. So here ya go.


I am making some feeble efforts to get the attention of Harrah's. As part of that, I am concentrating my poker time in their facilities for a while to see what happens to my accrued points in the rewards plan, and see if any offers for freebies start coming my way. Since last Wednesday, all of my play has been at Harrah's properties: Rio, Caesars, Imperial Palace, Bill's, Bally's, and Flamingo. (The couple of hours at Bill's probably gets me nothing, since they don't use or recognize the Total Rewards card there, for reasons that completely escape me. But I was in the neighborhood, so dropped in for a visit.)

At Bally's tonight, I bought in for the table max, $300. On my third hand I was in the big blind with 5-7 offsuit. Nobody raised, so I got the flop for free: 4-6-8 rainbow. Oh my. That looks pretty good. Kinda nutty, if you ask me.

There were maybe six people in the pot, and I wanted to starting getting more money in, so I bet $7. An early-position player two seats to my left raised to $15. My preliminary assessment of him is that he's completely solid. He's a middle-aged guy, and has one of the two biggest stacks at the table, so he has obviously been winning a lot.

Everybody else folds around back to me. My only concern is how to get the most possible money into the pot. I don't want to blast him out of the hand, when I don't have any feel for how much he likes his hand. Lots of $1-2 NLHE players will make a raise like this with just top pair, especially if he has an ace kicker, and a big reraise will, I fear, make him go away. So I decide to just call.

The turn is the deuce of diamonds--a second diamond. I don't really worry much about him having two diamonds, but it's a consideration. I actually hated the card, because I was sort of hoping he'd put me on just a straight draw, and if he did, he would now fear that I got there and shut down. Whether to bet here is a tough decision without, I think, a clearly correct answer. I decide to check and gauge his response.

He bets another $25, and my read is that he is still very confident in his hand, still liking it a lot. OK, dude, let's see if I'm right about that. I check-raise to $75. He pretty clearly was not expecting this, but he takes only about 15 seconds to decide to call. My best guess at this point is that he flopped a set and is worried about me having a straight, but he's willing to call in the hope that the board pairs, making him a full house.

Up until this point, I was a little concerned that he also had a 5-7 and we'd end up chopping it. However, that seems an unlikely hand for him to have played from bad position, and I'm fairly sure that he'd shove at this point if he had it. After all, if he thought I had 3-5 and had made my straght with the deuce on the turn, he would be convinced that I would now be willing to play for stacks, and would be glad to get it in with the nuts. On that basis, I'm now pretty confident that one or the other of us is going to take it, not chop it up.

River is the jack of diamonds. Unless he has two diamonds, which seems unlikely, I still have the better hand. Now the question that I consistently find to be the most difficult one I routinely face: How much can I extract from him? If he really believes that I have a straight to his set, he won't pay much, so maybe I should put in a irresistibly low value bet, like $40, to guarantee getting something more out of him. On the other hand, perhaps he has 8-8 for the top set, and is torn between me having a straight and having a lower set, so he will make a crying call for more. This is a tough, tough decision.

I finally settle on $125, into a pot of about $185, leaving myself only $83 behind. It's risky going that high, because I might get nothing, but a voice in my head is saying, "Value-bet the SNOT out of it!" I even considered a shove, but I couldn't bear the image of him snap-folding if I did. Even if I can't get paid off decently, I should at least get rewarded with a good, hard sweat from the guy!

He thought for a LONG time. It must have been close to five minutes. At first he looked like he would fold. Then he checked his hole cards a few more times. He asked the dealer how much was in the pot, but was told he had to count or estimate it himself. He asked how much I had behind, and I told him. He cut out the amount of the call and looked at what stack he would have left. He looked at me a lot.

Finally he slid the chips across the line. I showed. He winced, nodded, and mucked without showing.

I think he must have had 8-8. I think that with a lower set he would have folded more easily, because that would add more significant hands to the list of hands to which he was losing. I don't think he raised me on the flop with the lower straight draw.

Anyway, the point is, I made over $200 in one hand, about five minutes after sitting down. Some days, poker is EASY!*


On the other hand....

A couple of weeks ago I was playing at the Rio. I had the 3h-4h on the button, and joined several other limpers. A woman in the big blind raised to $10. I had been at the table for a couple of hours, so I knew her to have a completely predictable, straightforward, A-B-C style. Her range for raising out of a blind was limited to pairs and Broadway cards, especially A-K or A-Q. A couple of others called, so a pot was building. Given my knowledge of her limited range and my position, I thought it was a worthwhile spot in which to speculate with a call, even though I usually don't put much stock in the small suited connectors.

The flop was really quite lovely: 5c-6h-7h. I flopped a straight with a gutshot straight flush draw. It is extremely unlikely that anybody has a better hand at this point. The woman bets out--I think it was $20. Everybody folds to me. This fact basically eliminates any possibility that I am behind, because there is no way this woman raised from the big blind with either 8-9 or 4-8, even suited.

I raise to $60. She appears uncomfortable--nervous, even. But after thinking for not too long, she calls. I suspect she has an overpair; I think if she flopped a set, she would move all-in after my raise. Still, I hope she has a set and will therefore be willing to get it all in on the turn.

Turn is the 4d. This doesn't help my hand any, but I think doesn't help hers, either. Within the range of hands with which she might raise from a blind pre-flop, the only one that I am now behind is 8-8. But I can't let that possibility stop me. That would be "monsters under the bed syndrome." She checks to me. I shove for my last $75 or so. She calls immediately.

Yep. She has the 8-8. The flop gave her an overpair plus an open-ended straight draw, which is why she was willing to call my raise. (With just an overpair, she might have gotten away from it, and she certainly would have folded any two big unpaired cards to the raise.) She got there on the turn.

I don't think I did anything wrong here. Given that a relatively weak player might easily call off all her chips with A-A or K-K in such a situation (which, indeed, I would want her to do), and even a good player could easily double me up after flopping a set there, I think it would be ridiculous to fear the one hand in her range that had me beat on the turn and slow down the action. Besides, even if she had 8-8, I knew I had flush outs to come on the river. But it didn't happen. I lost all my chips to her and left for the day. It was a pure "S.I.G.H." ("so it goes" hand).

Some days, poker is HARD!



*I think it must be noted that this was another powerful piece of persuasion that buying in bigger may be better, contrary to my longstanding practice. Had I bought in for my usual $100, I would have made $100 (plus a bit from the limpers). As it was, I think I squeezed every last dollar out of the situation that I could.

Dealer shenanigans at Bally's

I just got home from a session at the poker room at Bally's. I ran into two consecutive dealers who just couldn't keep information to themselves.

In the first situation, two players (not including me) were contesting a pot. The board read A-K-Q-J rainbow. As the dealer put out the river card (some baby card that presumably didn't change anything), before either player had had a chance to act, she said, "If both of you have a 10, it's chop-chop!"

This is just appallingly bad form. It would still be bad if she said it after the action was complete, because you never know when a player might have misread his hand or the board, and the announcement makes him rethink a decision to muck his cards unseen, thinking that he had nothing. (For example, he has a 10-2 and mistakenly thinks that the jack is a second king.) But to say this before either player has had a chance to evaluate the final board and act on it is so unforgivably inappropriate that it would be grounds for disciplinary action, if I ran a card room. One warning for such conduct, and the next time it's a pink slip. There are way more dealers than positions for them, so no need to put up with one who queers the action.

The next dealer to our table accidentally exposed my second card as she was pitching it to me in Seat 1. It was a 7. She replaced it in the standard fashion and showed it to the table. I was first to act. When I looked at my cards, they were a 2 and a 7. I had not noticed which one I got first, so I don't know whether I would have a pair of 7s or just a different 2-7 if not for the flub. But it didn't matter to me. These things happen, and they're just part of the game. I pushed the cards back to her in exactly the same way I do every time I fold.

I said or did nothing that would provoke what this dealer did next, and it's something I've never seen any dealer do before. She peeked at my mucked cards, without invitation. Then, as if that weren't bad enough, she reacted with horror, nudged me with her arm, and said, "Oh, I'm sorry!"

So now, instead of everybody knowing one card that's out of play, anybody who was paying attention to her little song and dance now could infer that a second 7 was gone. It's impossible to know on any given hand, but this kind of improper information has the potential to cause all sorts of changes to the ensuing action.

If you click on the "dealer" label at the end of this post, it will give you a list of all the posts I've written on dealers who feel an odd compulsion to inject themselves into the game in ways and at times that they have no business interfering. I may never, ever understand what the hell their problem is. But based on my small sample today, it seems that Bally's is chock full of blabbermouths in the box.

We'll always have Paris--and Bally's

Tonight I decided to hit up two casinos that I have previously been in only once each: Paris (last visited June, 2007) and Bally's (September, 2006). I had a short, profitable session at each ($101 in 1.5 hours and $222 in 1.2 hours, respectively--not that anybody really cares, other than me).

I'm not going to try to do full room reviews, because there just isn't that much to say.

Paris is a nice little room, which I would visit much more frequently except for two prominent black marks against it: First, there's often little or no action going on. Second, it's difficult to access, in terms of getting to the place, parking, and one of the longest walks from the parking garage to the poker room. I'm too lazy for that.

Incidentally, every time I make a comment about the walking distance, somebody in the comments will ask why I don't use valet parking. Hey, those 25-cent tips add up! Actually, I just prefer the sense of independence. When I'm ready to leave (especially if it has been a bad session), the last thing I want to do is stand around waiting for the valet. I also have a perhaps overly developed territorial sense about my car; I just don't like other people driving it. But admittedly, when it got stolen last summer, I certainly wished I had used the valet that night. I assume that it is much less likely that a car will get stolen from the valet lot, because there are a lot more eyes that would notice an interloper breaking in.

Other than those two handicaps, the Paris poker room is a pretty nice place. Perhaps a bit louder than my preference, but not horrible. Good service, good dealers, soft games.

I left France and went to Bally's. My one previous visit had been on a Sunday, and I had to wait for them to get even one table going. I kind of assumed it was always slow like that, so I was surprised to find tonight--approaching midnight on a Monday night--no fewer than nine tables going. Either the place has become a lot more popular in the last 18 months, or I just caught it on an unusually slow day before.

The cigarette smoke wasn't quite as bad as I remember it being, but the noise was. It's way above what I'll tolerate for a long stretch. I couldn't make myself heard to players at the other end of the table. Dealers have to yell to get a player's attention.

Nearly all of the money I made at Bally's came from one maniac who was in every pot, raising with nothing. Ironically, for the biggest pot I took from him I had nothing--I bluffed him with a scary board, which was turning his own favorite weapon against him. This is the opposite of the way I would usually recommend trying to extract money from a maniac, but it worked out OK for me this time.

Sorry to be boring, but nothing else noteworthy happened.

With so many other poker rooms around, Bally's still won't be one of my first choices, but it wasn't as awful as I remembered it being. Because it's another place I can get in a two-fer (lock up a profit from one place, then hit another room, without having to drive in between), I think I probably won't wait another year and a half before going back.


The display below is at the point where the path from the parking garage bifurcates to hallways leading to Paris and Bally's. It's one million dollars in cash.

Nice idea, but didn't Benny Binion do it first, like about 50 years ago?

Should one speak up when not involved?

Reading through my old emails today reminded me of one I wrote a year ago about a quandary I faced when, on two consecutive days, I witnessed with a situation in which a rule violation by one player put another at a disadvantage. The dilemma for me was whether to speak up about it or not, when the dealers didn't correct the situations. There is something of a tradition in poker that players not involved in a hand should keep their noses out of it. That's certainly correct insofar as giving advice to those involved, but I don't believe it should also extend to sitting by silently when a rule violation hurts a player.

I'll describe the situations, briefly explain my rationale for non-involved players taking the initiative to speak up, then open the question to readers for comments.

Story #1.

A $1-$2 no-limit hold'em game at the Las Vegas Hilton. After the turn card is dealt, Player A bets $15. Player B moves all-in for $25. Player C calls. The dealer turns back to A, who immediately pushes all-in for around $90. As the dealer turns to C for his action, I speak up and point out that A does not have the option to re-raise there. Before anybody can react to my comment, though, C calls (for a little less than what A had put in). It turns out that C--a fairly weak and inexperienced player--was on a flush draw and missed. He then left the table.

After the hand, Player A acknowledged that he was wrong. He had had a very strong hand, and was eager to get all his chips in. I believe that his mistake was inadvertent. The dealer also acknowledged that he missed the fact that B's all-in was not a full raise, and therefore A could only fold or call. OK--everybody makes mistakes, and the actions happened so quickly that it would be easy to miss.

But what bothered me most was that Player A and two others at the table chastised me for attempting to intervene when I wasn't involved in the hand.

Story #2.

The next day I'm in the same type of game at Bally's. Player A raises. Player B pushes all-in for a substantial re-raise. Player C reluctantly calls. Player A appears equally unhappy about the re-raise, but eventually calls, and as he does so asks C, "You want to just check it down?" C agrees. The dealer does nothing. This time I didn't speak up, largely because the damage was already done: clearly, even if the dealer tells them that such an agreement is in violation of the rules, they'll both officially rescind the deal, but check anyway.

But I think that part of why I didn't protest was having just been criticized the previous day for intervening when I wasn't in the hand, and I didn't feel like being the bad guy twice in a row. I did get up and talk to the floorperson privately about the situation. He came to the table and asked the dealer about it. The dealer said he heard the collusion, but it had happened so fast that he couldn't stop it.

My general thoughts.

To my way of thinking, no player can help another make a decision, but every player has a duty to the integrity of the game, and the integrity of the game includes giving every player the full protection of the rules.

In my first scenario, if the illegal re-raise had been halted in time, I suspect that Player C would have been happy to be able to see the last card for the cheaper price, and save his last money if his draw didn't hit. In the second scenario, Player B would presumably not be pleased with the agreement between A and C, since he would prefer to have one of them push the other out of the pot, and thus only have to beat one other hand at the showdown, rather than two.

I don't know whether the disadvantaged players in these games didn't know the rules, weren't paying enough attention, or were too shy or intimidated to speak up. But even players who don't know all of the intricacies of the rules are entitled to their protection--and if the dealer doesn't act to enforce the rules protecting one player from the illegal action of another, it seems to me that other players should do so. It's just the old golden rule: I would want somebody else to speak up if I were being disadvantaged by an action I didn't know was illegal (because of being inexperienced, distracted, or whatever), so I should do the same in return.

I would also argue that it's better for the game in the long run if weaker players are protected by the more knowledgeable ones; if they know that their inexperience isn't going to be taken unfair advantage of, they'll be more likely to keep coming back.

These two stories occurred shortly after I had bought and read Cooke's Rules of Real Poker. One of the points that had caught my attention in that new book was rule 16.17: "A player should speak up immediately when he sees an error such as an incorrect amount going into the pot; a pot that is about to be awarded to the wrong person; a card going to the wrong person; or a flashed or marred card."

Comments?

If you are so inclined, dear readers, I would appreciate any comment you might have on whether I was right to speak up in the first situation (although I wasn't quite quick enough to prevent the damage from being done), whether I should have said something immediately at the table in the second situation (versus just keeping quiet, or going to the floor person after the hand was over, which is what I settled on). Also, if you like, comment on how there developed in some circles an unwritten rule that players not involved in the hand should keep quiet about any perceived irregularities, and how we can change that part of poker culture (assuming that you agree it should be changed), or why we should keep such a practice (if you think that players not in the hand should keep mum).

"Let's just check it down"

One of the most egregious--but common--violations of the general rule about not discussing the hand while it's in progress is two players agreeing to "check it down" (i.e., not bet against each other) once they have both called the all-in bet of a third player. I've witnessed it once before in a casino game (at Bally's--and the dealer heard it and did nothing about it), and often in online games, but I had never been the object of it until today.

It happened at the Hilton. I was getting tired and was about ready to go, when I found pocket 9s. The two players to my right were extremely loose, in almost every pot, so when the first of them raised it to $12 and the other called, moving all-in for my last $30 or so seemed the obvious move. The action was folded around back to the original raiser and caller, both of whom called. Then one asked, "You want to just check it down?" The other agreed.

I protested to the dealer. He said, "What's wrong with that?"

He's fairly new, but he's been dealing since July, and he actually went to dealer school, so he should certainly know what's wrong with it. Fortunately, the floor person intervened. But, of course, the damage is already done, because even if the two players are required to officially recant their agreement, there's the wink-wink, nudge-nudge knowledge that they're going to abide by it anyway.

That's why if I had my own casino, the penalty for making and/or accepting such an offer would be that the player's (or players') hand(s) would be declared dead, and they would forfeit any interest in the pot. No exceptions, no explanations, no mercy. I think players would learn pretty quickly not to try it.

In today's case, I won the hand anyway. One player was very apologetic, and clearly didn't understand that it was against the rules, and when I pointed out the reason for it, immediately understood. I'm confident that he gets it now, and won't do it again.

The other guy (the original raiser), however, was annoyed that I was accusing him of collusion. He showed me his 7-2 offsuit, and asked, "If I was trying to collude, why would I do it with the worst hand in poker"? Well, you idiot, maybe because you have the worst hand in poker, and don't want anybody betting into you! If you had a strong hand, you probably wouldn't feel the need to get an opponent to agree not to give you a hard decision to make! What a moron.

In case any reader doesn't understand the problem with this situation, I'll try to explain. One of the fundamental principles of poker is that every player must make all of his own decisions without assistance, and must make them in his own best interest--not in the best interest of any other player. When you enter an agreement not to bet against another player when one is already all-in, you are conspiring. You are reducing you own potential gain (because if you developed a very strong hand, your best interest would be served by making another bet and hoping an opponent called with a worse hand, making a side pot you could win). And you're doing so at the expense of the all-in player.

Look at it this way: if you're all-in against two opponents, wouldn't you love it if one of them made a big bet and drove the other out of the pot, so that you'd only have to beat one other hand at the showdown? Even better, wouldn't it be great if the person betting was really stupid and was bluffing with nothing, and drove the best hand out of the pot?

In tournaments, particularly in the late stages, players will often check down a hand when one is all-in. There's nothing wrong with this, as long as it isn't made an agreement. In a tournament, each player's interest in knocking another one out of contention for the title may well be greater than their interest in winning a particular pot, so in such a situation each player is still acting in his own best interest. But that's not true in a cash game, since a losing all-in player will either just buy more chips or be replaced by a new player bringing new chips into the game; there is no countervailing interest to take into account. If you want to maximize your chance of winning the biggest possible pot, you don't agree to "check it down." The effect of the collusion is that each of the agreeing players shares the risks and rewards--they trade off maximum chance of winning the biggest possible pot for a reduced risk of losing what they've already put into it.

Occasionally when there is a bet and everybody folds except the last player with the option to call, that player will make an agreement with the bettor: I'll call if you agree to check it down after this round of betting. That is, the potential caller says that he's only willing to call if he doesn't have to risk any more of his money. Although I think this isn't good form, it doesn't have the same problem of collusion. The bettor can accept the call on the terms offered, or decline it and take the pot as it is. Either way, he's making a decision based solely on what he thinks is best for him. There's no conspiracy against a third player.

So if any reader didn't know before, now you've been told: agreeing to "check it down" when a player is all-in is collusion. It's against the rules. It's cheating. If you do it, you're a cheater. Dealers who don't know this are incompetent. Casinos that don't enforce this rule are facilitating cheating.

It really is that simple and stark.