Set alarm for 10:30 AM, and ensure I'll get at least 8 hours of sleep the night before. At 9:30 AM theres some construction literally the floor right above me and all I can hear is hammering and sawing. Whatever that's fine, I prepare myself and wait in the lobby for a shuttle that's supposed to take me to the venue. The shuttle doesn't arrive until 12:30 (although it was scheduled for 12), and the event starts at 1. No problem, we get there right around 12:55. Then we begin the registration process. God, for a tournament that has a million dollar guarantee you'd think they'd hire people with at least half a brain. Registration process for maybe at max 50 people somehow takes 30 minutes because they had no idea how to streamline this into a logical process. I finally sit, 30 minutes after the tourney started.
Seat 1 is a high stakes nit, the rest of the table are giant donks, so I'm happy. I realize I haven't eaten anything the entire day so I start asking for servers to get me some food. This was at 12:30.
Throughout the tourney some donk in Seat 3 just runs amazing. He's like this 50 year old Philipino dude who looks like a nastier version of Humberto Brenes. I bet his picture will show up on pokerstarsblog or somewhere because he's probably going to win the entire thing given how he's running. He was literally calling Seat 1's utg open (which is AQ/AK at the bottom of that range) with 42o in UTG+2, flopping 442 and taking a ton of chips off of what must have been KK/AA for Winfred. He'd c/c c/c AKxx boards with TT and river the T and c/r. He'd bet out bottom pair 6-way on an Ace high board and make trips on the turn. He was literally smashing every flop.
Throughout this I'm not doing that well. At the start of the first break I'm around 22k after I induce some donk to bluff into me but I can't get hands for the most part. It's 3:00 at this point and I still haven't eaten. The 5 servers I told "HEY, come to me next I'm going to order some food" never came. I get TT in UTG+1 and iso UTG, some silent japanese guy who never once uttered a word. Huge luckbox calls, and this Japanese dude limp/reraises to like 5k and he only had 15k to begin with. My raise was only to like 600 (its 100/200/25 at this point), wtf?? So I obviously have no plan to try to flip for 80bbs so I fold. Later on, he limps SB vs my BB, I raise it up with K6o and he calls. Flop is Q43r and I bet like 40% pot and he c/rs literally like 6x my betsize. I really wanted to make a play but who knows wtf he could have, so I folded (the only real counter against this is to actually just make a hand and let him hang himself).
Finally at 3:30 pm I finally get a waiter to help me out. I order some stupid continental breakfast. 30 minutes later he comes back and tells me they're out of those. I sigh and re-order. I end up getting my new order of spaghetti at 4:30 pm.
Before I can even finish my plate of spaghetti, my knockout hand happens: Old donk opens MP, Silent Japanese guy flats SB, I'm in BB with AsQs I decide to squeeze here and not call, I'm at around 40-50bb and I'm perfectly happy getting this in against Japanese dude and would've folded if the old donk 4bet me. Either way, it's HU to the flop with Japanese guy calling my raise oop. Flop Qc 5s 3d, and this was the first time all tourney I had actually flopped a pair. I bet 40% to induce another stupid ass c/r, but he calls. Turn 7x, he chk, I bet small again, finally he raises. At this point he has enough for roughly a 80% pot size jam on the river. I decide the board is way too dry for him to really call off anything here, so I tank (hollywood) call. River is the Ax, completely rainbow board. He jams, and at this point I only lose to a set. If he has a set, I have the only hand that even pays this off. Seriously, if he has like 33/55 here, I really don't know what he's expecting to get called by. But I digress, since I was SNAP calling his stupid ass anyway. I call and he shows 77, fuck my life.
I leave the venue and take a taxi back to my hotel. It's 5 PM and the peak of Manila weekday traffic. What must have honestly been a 10 mile drive took nearly an hour.
Naturally I am now in a pretty miserable mood - that I once again failed expectations of myself, my backers, etc. I have 4 more days here and I don't know what to do because my hotel is so far away from everything and it's dangerous at night and everyone wants to take my money one way or another.
Overall, I hate Manila, and I am never coming back. It's not being results oriented either; even if I won, I definitely wouldn't come back even if they freerolled me into the next one. It's an overcrowded, dirty city wherein random security guards have to pack ARs and big ass shotguns. I'll be staying away from live tournaments for a while, at least until WSOP or after WSOP.
This is my April Metagame column I wrote for Baller Magazine (www.ballermagazine.com). If you want to read my other articles you can check out my previous blog entries. I originally wanted to name this POWER RANGERS but there might be copyright problems with that so in the actual magazine they're renaming it "Balancing Act" which isn't nearly as good. Since I don't have to fear anything on this blog I am gonna keep it as power rangers :D Remember to keep in mind that my target audience includes beginners, so this may not be entirely relevant to a lot of you. Cliff notes: I talk about why overbalancing is bad, then I talk a little about range protection.
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“Balance” is a word thrown around the poker community, often without much thought. On the surface, balance is as easy as making sure that whenever you raise a flop continuation bet, for example, you have a range with which you do it for value and a range with which you do it as a bluff. If you never raise as a bluff in this spot, and therefore your entire raising range is comprised of value hands (for instance, sets and two-pairs on an A 7 3 rainbow flop), you are considered unbalanced in this spot. Players like to think that optimal play and balance go hand in hand.
In an ideal world, this would be true, but often isn’t the case in practice. A great online high-stakes player once told me, “Think all you want about your line. Just remember that, in the end, you’re playing against a human being.” Your ranges might be unbalanced in a certain situation, but that doesn’t mean your opponent is cognizant of that fact; most players just aren’t as observant as you’d think. When it comes to balance, overcompensating can lead to suboptimal play.
To put this into a concrete example, consider this scenario: You’ve been playing for an hour now and have noticed a strange tendency that the player in Seat 3 has. Every time he calls a pre-flop raise out of position and then leads the flop, he has a hand that is at the very least two pair in absolute hand strength. He never considers folding after leading.
In the next hand, you raise pre-flop. Seat 3 calls out of position, and the flop is T 9 5 rainbow. Seat 3 leads. What is your range of hands with which you raise here?
Correct play dictates that the worst hand you raise here should be roughly 5-5—perhaps even T-9, but that may be dominated by sets. Balance would dictate that, if your value raising range in this spot is top two pair and better, you must also raise with air or draw-type hands. This would usually be true—if your opponent actually knew that your range was that strong. In this situation, however, raising a holding worse than T-9 would be a disaster for your stack. If you raise QJ (a very powerful draw on this board against most holdings), you risk putting yourself to an expensive decision if Seat 3 decides to re-raise. You have no hope of bluffing any two pair or better hand on this flop, so raising air in order to bluff would be a disaster as well. Even with pocket Aces, you’re never ahead of Seat 3’s range according to your read, so you should either fold or call, depending if you have sufficient pot odds and implied odds to “chase” with your aces.
There are other circumstances in which you can disregard balance. If you’re playing online and know your opponent is playing over 12-24 tables at a time, he probably isn’t paying attention and making intricate notes of your ranges in various spots. Likely, he’s just playing the strength of his hand and not bluffing very often. Thinking “this bluff should work because I can have a set here, too” is chip suicide if your opponent has no intention of folding. Counter his tight strategy by bluffing in spots where his range is weakest, e.g. when he raises pre-flop and checks a 9 8 7 two-tone flop to you. Stack him in spots where his range is strongest, e.g. when you make sets against his top pairs and overpairs.
How you balance depends on how your opponents perceive you. You do not need to balance against those who do not pay attention or care about critical hand reading. If you find yourself playing a high stakes game against some really tough regulars, your emphasis on balance should increase. Beyond how your table perceives you, consider the metagame, how every other player at your stakes or venue perceives each other to be playing.
I can’t speak for live casino games because the play styles vary tremendously and my expertise is in online cash games, so bear with me if you don’t play online. Mid-stakes online cash games are some of the most aggressive games in the world. Most regulars are rather competent, and most make enough to support a very comfortable living. Due to that, they know certain tricks, or common lines to take that are generally ways to make money in small pots through sheer aggression. A common line might be:
Aggressive regular (AR) opens from the button like he always does. Weak player (WP) calls from the big blind with a wide range of hands. The flop is 7 5 3. WP checks, AR bets, and WP calls. The turn is an overcard—let’s say an Ace. WP checks, AR bets, and WP immediately folds.
Being a competent player, AR knows that this is a spot where he’ll pick up the pot a very high percentage of the time. What’s WP’s range? It’s likely made up of mid pair type hands like 7-6, 6-5, 4-3, 22, 44, 66, 88, etc. He knows that the bulk of the made hands that can comfortably call the flop cannot stand additional heat on the turn ace as the strength of those mid pair hands dramatically decrease. Note that AR doesn’t even need to have a made hand at this point to take down the pot. He could just as easily have Q-2 for absolute junk. However, it’s the perception of the weak player (“He might have Ace-King! He’ll definitely bet again on the river, so I should fold my 88 now”) along with the perception of the aggressive player (“That card has got to make his entire range uncomfortable. I’ll bet again and take it down.”) that allows this to be such a profitable spot for AR.
You can use these perceptions to your benefit by protecting your range. How can WP protect his weak range here? Instead of check/raising his strong hands like two pairs and sets or straights on this flop, he can choose to check/call them. There are multiple benefits to this slowplay, but the one we’re most concerned with when talking about ranges is that WP now doesn’t have to fear a bad board run off like 7 5 3 A K, which would otherwise make a hand like 76 feel very uncomfortable on the river facing many bets. Slowplaying a big hand like a set allows you to put in a check/raise on later streets when your opponent thinks your range is weak overall. If you end up showing your hand down one way or another, it prevents an observant opponent from barreling you in the future, as he knows he may be barreling into a monster.
Protecting your range is actually a byproduct of balance. Although it’s not what people immediately recognize as balancing, I consider it to be more important because it’s your weak made hand range that tends to be the hardest to play. For those that weren’t happy with my examples, use your own experience to realize what common perceptions your opponents may have. Optimal poker isn’t necessarily balancing your ranges for balance’s sake, but rather knowing when you should and shouldn’t based on your opponent’s perceptions—or lack thereof. Remember that, in the end, you’re playing against a human being.
I have a new coach, that I don't know if I want to out right now or not. I will probably in the future, not that it's supposed to be a big secret or anything. I've just been thinking lately that maybe I shouldn't disclose so much stuff in my blogs now that I'm a stars msnl reg. So maybe I'll hold off on that. I guess I don't mind outing my name though, it's [edited from the future]. If you've played with me or play stars msnl and just wanna talk about other regs, hands, anything feel free to pm me for my contact info.
Also I'm playing some SC2 beta on the side, I play mostly 2v2. add me panorama.teamliquid if you wanna play some 2v2s or something.
Going to Macau (like 4th time within 6 months) in a few days for the start of the 2010 Macau Poker Cup season . I've been doing pretty solid as of late and every aspect of my game (tourneys, cash, mental) has improved so I'm really excited for this year. GL all.
As I mentioned previously, I write a "metagame" column for Baller Magazine (www.ballermagazine.com) every month. It's a relatively new publication, and I'm a bad writer and not an immensely good player but I consider myself a good teacher and I like helping people. The general audience of the publication is comprised of beginners so don't expect anything phil galfond-ish here if you're already a good player, but hopefully newer players get something out of it. My February article can be found here (on tilt control): http://www.liquidpoker.net/blog/viewblog.php?id=839275
I should also mention that I have an extra sc2 beta key which I'm considering selling for $200. Only to relatively known posters on LP (no 1 post lurkers), and I'm not for sure selling but if I decide to then I'll do a first come first serve type deal. PM me if interested. Edit: No longer selling
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While each poker hand begins before the flop, it’s only after the flop that the story—the overlying, strategic line you take with your hand—truly begins. Just because you raised pocket Queens preflop for value doesn’t mean that you’ll be sticking to a pure value-oriented line on the flop. Your opponent may do something unexpected, or the flop may come unfavorably. Poker is a variable-oriented game. There are many options to choose from whenever we play a hand on any street.
Something I’ve implemented with my students is what I like to call “The Daily Floption”, meaning the daily flop option. Lame humor aside, every day I create a preflop and flop scenario, then ask my students what they think is the most optimal flop action to take given the circumstances. The flop is something people take for granted far too often. Just because you only have 9-high doesn’t mean you can immediately disregard your hand, and just because you have an overpair doesn’t mean you can blindly start betting and raising.
Every time the action is on you, you have the opportunity to play your hand in the single most optimal way possible. With that in mind, doing these flop exercises is an “off-the-table” approach to studying poker that will help any player’s game, from beginners to advanced players.
Try this: Grab a deck of cards, shuffle it, and deal three cards face up—the flop. Let’s say you’ve dealt yourself a flop of Jc 3s 5c.
Before the more detailed analysis, it’s best for novice players to first get acquainted with reading flop textures. There is a substantial difference between an Ac 7s 2h flop and a Th 9h 8c flop. “Dry” flops are flops that don’t contain many draws (straight draws and/or flush draws), whereas “wet” flops are flops that contain many draws.
Dry flops are very straightforward. Wet flops require a bit more understanding; wet flops can be “slightly wet” to “significantly wet”, with many levels of sogginess in between. An analogy would be driving down a street. For a slightly wet street, maybe it rained a bit the night before. You might have to deal with a few puddles, but for the most part, your driving will be unaffected. If it’s still pouring rain, however, your driving might be exponentially more cautious. There may be more hazards to consider, your visibility may be affected, and your tires may not work as well. The same can be said for your play with a hand. Having Ac Ts on Th 3d 2c (a dry flop) is substantially different from Ac Ts on Th 9h 8h (a significantly wet flop).
Now back to our randomly-dealt flop. I would classify Jc 3s 5c as semi-wet. The flush draw is present, along with a few gutshot straight draws (7-6, A-4, A-2) and two open-ended straight draws (6-4 and 4-2). Now imagine a scenario in which you have a hand—be it a draw or a made hand—and are up against an average, good, or bad opponent (maybe with some more specific details like his or her tendencies post-flop), with x amount of big blinds as the effective stack, and either in position or out of position. With this in mind, you now decide upon which play is likely to be the most optimal given the circumstance you’ve created.
“In a $5/$10 game, a loose, aggressive, but not particularly good player raised $30 preflop from the Cutoff. We called Ac 4c from the Button, the blinds folded, and against the Cutoff we are 100 big blinds deep. On the flop, our opponent bet $50 into a $75 dollar pot, what is the best play now?”
With this we are limited to three options: raising, calling, and folding. Each option has its own inherent expected value (EV). Folding has an EV of 0. Calling probably has a positive EV because we have sufficient pot odds and implied odds to call. Raising is probably positive EV because we fold out better hands enough of the time, and we still have the capability to win a big pot if we hit our flush or straight. The question is now whether raising has a higher EV than calling.
Since this is a metagame column and not an actual strategy column I won’t go into detail about the specific hand. I just wanted to demonstrate the beginning thought process involved in good, objective decision-making. Every professional considers these factors when playing a hand. With the options laid out, I then ask my students to rationalize what they think is the best option. It’s one thing to blindly choose the correct answer. It’s quite another to understand the reasons behind it.
Having and knowing good reasons for your play in poker is what makes you a good player, not accidentally stumbling into the best play. I then rate their reasons for validity and overall relevance. Sometimes there are some large disputes over what the most optimal play actually is. Ultimately, these disputes are what make poker such a technically beautiful game. In a game of hidden information and millions of possible variables—we haven’t even discussed the turn and river yet!—lies the opportunity to play optimally in the millions of possible circumstances presented to you.
Just changing a slightly wet, two-tone flop to a dry, rainbow flop has ramifications on how you may ultimately decide to play your hand. Note how much strength our hand loses if our example flop is changed from Jc 3s 5c to Jc 3s 5h.
Run a flop exercise like this every day and you’ll be amazed at how well you’ll improve your understanding of Hold’em. Talk to your poker-playing friends about these scenarios you create and what they would do. Recognize and consider flop situations that you frequently have trouble with but have never bothered to try and solve. (A tough one for my students was the common “pocket Kings out of position on an Ace-high flop” scenario.) After that, change the flop texture a bit and see how vastly different your new answer may be. An enhanced understanding of flop textures will allow you to better extract value from wet flops and minimize your losses on dry flops with marginal holdings.
thanks to exhilarate and spicy for railing/witnessing the run good of a sun god. seriously binked a million flips and even an insanely crucial QJ > AQ. i feel incredibly dirty, but i was by far the best player in the remaining like 100 players in the field so w/e. i had 15 knockouts too lolol.
Flying back to America tomorrow for a week or so I can't fucking wait because I miss the homeland way too much. Small update because I just wanted to share some garphs, and to also announce my plan to bink an FTOPS this coming season oh baby
Today's session: I don't know, maybe I'm just destined to be even or lose 1200 today, such a fitting cycle today:
The month so far has been going well, I was up a lot previously but I guess the heater just evened itself out.
Ran massively above EV but I don't feel like I ran that amazing completely, or maybe I'm just deluded. For what it's worth I feel like this is just my EV evening out from 2009 . Either way I'm satisfied with the month, although this ends up being the worst january of my career (2008's January was +16k, 2009's January was +20k). Still though, if I can just clear 10k months consistently and hope to bink a tourney or two along the way I'd be amazingly happy and be able to hit my 200k year goal. I blame lackluster results on me spending a lot of time trying to figure out Stars' games and regs though, so hopefully I can do better in February now that I'm a lot more prepared for these games.
I'm the type of person that puts a lot of emphasis on motivation. You read those stories about sports or musical prodigies who just seemed to have been born with that knack for whatever they were doing and surely enough they became successful. Growing up I was weak, not that good at basketball, found refuge in playing video games all day, and generally just did not have any talents or was never fated to be good at anything in particular. Overall I struggle with my future prospects, mostly with regards to this game and how my work ethic and skill directly correlates with how much I can make. Many times though it's really hard. Naturally I have some motivators that I try to keep in mind every waking day, here are some I'd like to share.
1. By far my favorite quote, even though I don't listen to much Lupe.
(Line starts at 3:22 in yt link) "Just the freedom was better than breathin they said"
Kick push is a song on the first level about skating etc. but on the 2nd level is actually about grinding (or specifically drug dealing). The line represents what I want in life, to be able to be "free" due to my exploits, instead of doing the normal thing and going to school, starting at an entry-level job, etc. "breathing"
2. Chris Paul
Chris Paul is the most talented player in the NBA imo. He's a stand up guy, plays his heart out, but it sucks that he has a terrible team. It doesn't help that people like Rajon Rondo who just luckbox their way into playing with some of this generations best players antagonize Chris Paul for never being able to get a ring (at least in his current situation). I have a CP3 jersey hanging above my bed, and everyday I wake up it's a reminder for me to try my absolute hardest, no matter my circumstances.
3. Young Jeezy
Jeezy raps a lot about the drug grind. Jeezy isn't my favorite rapper and is far from being on the same level of greatness as e.g. Tupac, but I like what he writes about which relates heavily to the poker grind. A lot of what he says is a reminder for me that the ends justify the means. "I say I grind like there's 10 of me, I swear to god there's just one of me,
Look I know I ain't there yet, just know that I'm gonna be" - Hustlaz Ambition
4. Conan O'Brien
If you've been following the drama as of late then you'd understand. I don't want to write too much but for those who know what I'm talking about, you'll know that Conan is a great person, who prides of his work and has ridiculous passion for what he does. So much, that he'd rather step down than let higher ups tarnish the name of his work. Watching Johnny Carson as a kid, he had a dream to be the host of The Tonight Show, and through decades of work he finally made it there. "Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard, and are kind, amazing things will happen. I'm telling you, amazing things will happen." - From his final speech on the Tonight Show, just a couple days ago. "Fall down. Make a mess. Break something occasionally. Know that your mistakes are your own unique way of getting to where you need to be. And remember that the story is never over." - Harvard Commencement Speech in 2000
. I've been doing pretty solid as of late and every aspect of my game (tourneys, cash, mental) has improved so I'm really excited for this year. GL all.
. Either way I'm satisfied with the month, although this ends up being the worst january of my career (2008's January was +16k, 2009's January was +20k). Still though, if I can just clear 10k months consistently and hope to bink a tourney or two along the way I'd be amazingly happy and be able to hit my 200k year goal. I blame lackluster results on me spending a lot of time trying to figure out Stars' games and regs though, so hopefully I can do better in February now that I'm a lot more prepared for these games. 
