Tilt mode

Earlier on today I lost a big pot to trip queens holding KQ on a Qxx (2s) board, the player in question slow played the hand and hit and ran straight after. I dusted myself off mentally, switched tables and promptly made several questionable decisions, quickly losing another stack to a fish. To cap off this fantastic session I lost another buy in to the same fish who stacked me preflop with KJs vs my pocket queens. Once the King spiked on the flop I knew it was time to switch off the computer and do something else, as I was tilting and therefore incapable of making proper strategic decisions any more. It did not take long before I calmed down and reflected upon the KQ spot as bad luck, since I would play it the same way every time.  Apart from one all in 50/50 vs a fish’s range the rest of my plays were not big long term losing plays and heck, these things just happen.  At least it got me action!

 To appease my bruised ego and claw back some cash I decided to play one heads up match since the fields are often pretty weak for these games and If I lost I could not use a donk’s play or bad luck as the scapegoat. It is difficult to win a heads up match by luck alone, so I said my ‘small hand small pot, big hand big pot’ mantra and signed up for a match. I ground down a slightly tricky opponent in tight match where I got all my decent hands towards the end, so luck in a sense granted me a win on this occasion. A passive early-aggressive later strategy paid off as this particular player backed off after I gained the chip lead and folded too many hands later on in the match. I declined a rematch which is a little unsportsmanlike but I like to take a break between HU matches as they require a fair amount of concentration.

I decided to write this brief article on tilt since there is a right and wrong way to deal with the anger we all feel to some degree at some time in poker. I dealt with my tilt in almost the right way by quitting the game, but then undid all my good work by returning to the computer too quickly. Heads up is also the wrong format to play when tilted as a thinking player can tear apart my game, and as it was a weekday there are a greater proportion of winning/thinking players on the site that I use than at the weekend. The worst way you can deal with tilt is to let rip and berate your opponent, which you see a lot of in the chat boxes. Whilst scouting for heads up opponents I opened up a table and watched two donks spill forth the following diatribe. They manage to cover racism, homophobia, ageism and arguably (ac. to Singer) speciesism in a few short misspelled phrases. Idiots like this consistently feed money into the poker economy, so keep up the good work boys, just watch your fucking mouths.

A >>                f uck you

A >>                m0ng

B >>                A… the fag                                          

A >>                say what ********? (A uses racist slang here that I refuse to retype)

B >>                yer

A >>                what a maggot you are hahahaha

B >>                im winning

A >>                to a fish move lmao pathetic

B >>                lol

A >>                ahhh the good old ace raise ahahahaha

B >>                fishy

A >>                donk

A >>                lmao coming from you! ahahahaha fold til you have an ace little boy

B >>                yer

B >>                how old r u?

A >>                20

B >>                ur shiit

A >>                your a f ucking mug

B >>                ty

B >>                lol

B >>                probz playing ur whole bankroll

A >>                lmao says you whos in _ ahahahaha

A >>                stick to cod you little noob

B >>                 dont play cod

A >>                ha what are you ten?

B >>                18

A >>                ooo guess who has an ace ahahahaha

B >>                7 2

A >>                go to bed you mug hahahaha

B >>                no thanks

A >>                haha

A >>                knob jockey!

B >>                YES

B >>                HAHAHAHHA KNOB JOCKEY

And in classic style they get it in preflop with the better hand, player A’s pocket Jacks, losing out to player B’s Q10o. Lol donkamentsJ

Why I am awful at poker

I have won money at poker. The money I have won has not been life changing money, it has barely been weekend changing money.  Occasionally a decent cash in a tournament will resonate throughout the week if I buy a bus pass with a win.  This fact has kept me afloat in the game and blinded me to the reality of my flawed play, which if I do not improve means I can only ever break even at best. I am awful at poker, because I am not making enough money off my good hands, and not losing the minimum on my dominated hands. I say ‘dominated hands’ rather than ‘bad hands’ because I do not play bad hands. If I am in a hand past the flop you can guarantee I am well in the running with, at the very least top pair. When I discovered how to select good  starting hands for my position at a table I felt like I had arrived as a poker player, but when it comes to fundamentals my game stopped improving right there and then.  Every now and again I am felted by a superior hand that I could have got away from, but this is not my biggest leak in terms of profit. The fundamental mistake I am making is one of ‘missed value,’ or not making the maximum profit from my good hands. I shamefully present to you one of the worst two hands I have played in recent cash games:

      Exhibit A: weak 3c/6c, 6 max play from the blinds and missed value on the river:

Preflop: UTG (fish) limps, SB (tight-passive) completes, BB (abc/bad tag) checks KQs

Pot: 18c

Flop: TcKc8s

SB checks, BB bets 15:18, UTG calls, SB folds.

Pot: 48c

Turn: 9d

BB bets 25:48, UTG calls.

Pot: 98c

River: 4s.

BB checks, UTG checks.

BB shows KQs for top pair

UTG shows Q6 for queen high

Mistake 1. Not raising preflop.

This would have built a bigger pot and made more from the hand. In case you are wondering would UTG call Q6 to a raise? The answer is of course he would, he wants to see a flop so bad it aches a little bit and if he folds then that is a good result for my hand because I do not have to play a hand out of position.

Mistake 2.  Flop bet could have been pot size.

Facing a fish on such a coordinated board a pot or overbet is getting called all day long. I could have made more here. I have seen shoves called with weak draws on board like this at 1c/2c.

Opponent could have Axc, JQ , J9, Kx, small pocket pair, 79,and many more suited combinations  besides.

Mistake 3.  Turn bet could have been bigger, much bigger.

This is basic stuff to gain value from weak made hands and the myriad draws out there. Anyone with half a brain could have raised my turn bet and folded a tonne of my range here, luckily UTG is not so blessed and merely called my super weak bet. The nine only slightly strengthens my opponent’s range, giving some draws a pair and does nothing for mine unless I stumble across two pair at this point. If he did spike two pair I would have known about it on the turn.

Mistake 4.

By this point in the hand I was baffled. This was a mistake. I have played enough fish to know that they will chase all kinds of draws all day long and pay off with weak pairs just in case you are bluffing this time. I meekly decide to check the 4s (effectively blank) river for no reason at all.

This is such a big mistake and I miss value from draws that hit the 9. I miss value from pocket pairs. I miss value from A4c that spiked the 4. I miss value from so much of this player’s range that I should have chucked in a small-moderately sized value bet. Yes a tonne of draws miss on the river and he will not call if he missed those but so what?

It is for these reasons I am awful at poker and now you know. I may post another of these travesties, but for now I need to go and beat myself about the head with a blunt object and repeat the nano stakes mantra: value bet/value bet/value shove.

Poker home game report: season two episode three

Players in attendance: Hitmanhead, TheConge, Pokerhontasz, KingTubby, Top_Jimmy

We changed the format of this week’s game to a cash game for a change of pace, which was originally KingTubby’s idea and I pushed it because the sit and go format can be boring if you play them all the time.  Everyone seemed to think a cash game was a good idea for a one off so we set the blinds at a wallet friendly 5p/10p and all sat down with £10 = 100bb. My girlfriend does not play cash poker online and initially baulked at the idea of me sitting down with a ‘massive stack,’ since in a way it forces everyone to buy in for the maximum. As a fan of Doyle Brunson she will eventually come to understand the logic of sitting down with the table maximum in any cash game. Your stack is your leverage to make decent sized bets and raises, and a shorter stack restricts your game to simply waiting for a made hand and then quickly getting it all in.  As a micro and nano stakes donkey I am not strictly bankrolled to play stakes as high as 5p/10p cash.  If I were to lose 3 or 4 buy ins in a row that would sting badly at these stakes and this can happen faster than you can say ‘Damn my aces just got cracked, again.’ That said I sat down with my stop-loss limit at 3 buy ins and got started on the cooking lager. In respect of the increased money on the table this week, I could have chosen not to drink alcohol, but I would rather loosen things up a bit than sit quietly and soberly playing one pot every 5 mins. I also chose to not take notes on key pots and avoid my traditional write up, since I think everyone is getting fed up of me commentating and judging their plays. Since I started this blog to help think about and improve my own game, instead I will judge a couple of my own plays…

I played a small ball game for the most part and got quite lucky, being dealt a few aces and broadway hands on the button which were mostly raise and take it down preflop hands.  Five handed play requires you to adjust your opening ranges so I was a little bit more liberal with my openers, without going into permanent raise mode. I played a tight, uncreative but successful game and I don’t think I even three bet once during the whole game. I faced one tough spot fairly early on with a flush draw/straight draw/overcard to the board combination that I played aggressively, but got reraised on the flop after donking out. I will often play these monster-combination draws aggressively as you have a lot of equity on the flop (I figured I had 15 outs twice if it played down to the end), but I have run into trouble playing this way online since nobody can ever fold a hand. If you are going to semibluff a draw by betting hard, then part of your hand’s strength is your fold equity. Gus Hansen talks about these types of hands for tournament play in ‘Every Hand Revealed’ and tries to plan a series of bets that still has a chance of folding out one or two better hands in an opponent’s range, whilst getting the most chips in when you have lots of equity. He achieves this by check raising an aggressive player or betting with the intention of four bet shoving a player who will likely get married to his one pair type hands. You have to know that your opponent is definitely going to bet with a large portion of his/her missed hands in order for a check raise to work. In this case I should have realised that was my best way to maximize fold equity, but since I accidentally donk bet and got raised I had to reevaluate the situation. As Gus might say ‘Fold-nope; Call-has some merit, allows me to keep the pot small and see if I can hit one of my many outs; Four bet-maximum rock and roll and definitely the most stylish move'.  I reasoned that there were more weak draws and weak made hands than missed overcards hand in my opponent’s range so if I four bet, I allow him to play perfectly by folding draws and weak pairs, and five betting strong hands. Another way of saying this is that in the event he was sitting on two pair or a set, keeping the pot small was probably a good idea.  I was getting 2:1 pot odds to call the flop with a 50% chance (by the river) of making my hand so I decided to call and try and take it away on any blank turn card, or put the pedal to the metal  if I hit one of my outs. The next card was a handy brick and I bet out again to take the hand down. The next time I flop the world I will be check raising a la Gus’ tournament strategy,  and hopefully I can avoid such a sticky spot against a good aggressive opponent!

The game had some interesting swings in dynamic and I found myself sitting on a modest profit for a while and nitting up during a spell of super loose play. Another interesting hand came up three way when I reraised two pair to a flop donk lead, hoping to take it down on a low connected board out the big blind. I was called behind by one player in position and the initial donker folded the sb. The turn card was an ace which reasonably improved some of my opponent’s range and clearly did not affect mine, so I blocker bet folded the turn which was probably a silly move. My donk rationale was that my opponent will call a bet with dominated one pair and other made hands better or worse, but will always bet out a larger bet size with 100% of his range so even though it was a small chance, I thought I could get a cheaper river card by betting than check calling. Cue QI style Klaxon noise!!! This is the effect of cooking lager ladies and gentlemen, the breakdown of sound rationale and a journey into the quagmire of foggy logic. In retrospect I should have folded what was the worst made hand possible on the worst flop since King Kong felt pressured on his wedding night. I was mildly tilted with myself after this hand but quickly recovered as I was still showing a healthy profit and the night was drawing to a close.  Within a few hands the second of our five players was felted and the game broke up.  I feel compelled to express the results in some form so with no rebuys the finishing positions were…

Pokerhontasz-doubled through+

Top_Jimmy-roughly a stack and a half

Hitmanhead-roughly a stack and a third-half

TheConge-felted

KingTubby-felted

Home game write up: season two episode two

Table layout: Me-Btn, TheConge-Sb, Pokerhontasz-Bb, Jennoi-Utg, Hitmanhead-Utg+1.

Early stage

Armed with bowls of space raiders, hula hoops and yorkshire mix plus a slightly larger than usual starting stack, we sat down to what we hoped would be a more aggressive than usual sit and go game.  Our freshly downloaded bwinpoker flashplayer poker timer added an efficient air to proceedings and with a missing 6^th player we adjusted the prize structure to favour first place. Hitman quickly established table captain status with a record number of raises, including a funky minraise out the small blind to turn lead on an AQ22 board. With the power of the increased stack I snuck through a preflop stone 4 bet bluff against TheConge in a battle of the blinds, with TheConge later confessing he also held the classic airball in his hand!  Pokerhontasz was simultaneously lucky enough to flop the joint and unlucky to have such a strong hand that there was little chance of a payoff.  She held AJ on a JJA flop, and called a lead bet by TheConge, checking behind another Ace on the turn. The river brought an 8 and TheConge disgustedly mucked to a bet from Pokerhontasz, claiming she must have drawn out against his made hand.  The Conge managed to get all his chips over the line in a massive overbet situation against Hitman, but my scribbled notes do not make sense for this hand: the board was (9hAsQs) in a minraised pot preflop I think.  After this hand I gave Hitman was an official warning for minraising which would later come back to haunt me when he  began making funny  open raises to 5.1X etc. Funny? Like a clown funny?  TheConge and Hitman were also involved in some creative play on a 5h Kd 3h (4d 7d) board:  Pre flop Dan minraised (again) from the CO and TheConge called in the small blind. On the flop Conge led for a potsize bet and Hitman click raised it back and was called. The turn went check-min bet-call and on the river TheConge led for a sizeable bet and Hitman called, proudly showing As 6h for a rivered straight, beating Conge’s A8h missed and triple barrelled heart draw..

Middle stage

On the hottest October day on record it was not long before the game fully ignited and Hitman quickly 4 bet shoved Conge all in with K9s who turbo-tabled two black aces. The aces held up and Conge was back in the game despite a sweat when hitman turned a flush draw.  Jennoi began to get ‘some cards’ which she had been patiently waiting for and caused another consult the hand rankings chart scene against TheConge. On a board of 5c Kc 2s Ks 9s the actions were: bet-call, check-check, bet-phone a friend! Jennoi eventually tabled the surprising J4s for the winning flush against TheConge’s 1010. Since Jennoi is new to poker this could not be classed as a slow roll, it needs a name all of its own so I’m calling it a newb-roll: When a new player agonizingly or unintentionally slowly turns the winning hand, possibly after Googling a hand rankings chart on an I-phone!  Hitmanhead decimated  most of his remaining stack against Jennoi on a 6c Qd 6h board, reraising Jennoi’s lead bet and getting it all in on a Jc turn card to see his A4o bluff well and truly caught by her  top pair top kicker AQo.  When Hitmanhead put his last remaining few big blinds in under the gun Pokerhontasz called in the small blind, as did Jennoi in the big. When the board ran out Kc3h6hJh Pokerhontasz check raised all in on the turn, tabling AsKd to dominate Hitman’s 77 but sadly for her, not Jennoi’s two pair Ks6d. The river sealed the fate of both Pokerhontasz and Hitmanhead, and a retrospective analysis the hand revealed a yawning gap where Pokerhontasz’ isolation raise should have been preflop.

Late stage

Three handed play did not last long since the escalating blinds forced the action, and Jennoi had most of the chips in play. TheConge leant on Jennoi briefly and snatched a few chips to go into second place, but he quickly ran into trouble on a low connected board with a pair and straight draw, to lose out to Jennoi’s top two pair made on the turn. I did not think it would be long before I went out, but a combination of good cards heads up and a brief folding spell by Jennoi , put our chip stacks almost level. I may have even had the lead at one point but since my total stack was only worth about 16b and I was pretty trashed on cooking lager, I was looking to get it in rather than play through the streets.  I still mindlessly dusted off 6bb with a bluff attempt before shoving over a Jennoi raise with my next hand, AQo. Jennoi tabled KK and the rest as they say is history. I am writing this a few days after the game and I  spoke to Jennoi about her newfound but so far successful poker game and whether she now needs to alter her ABC stategy to avoid being too exploitable. The last raise in out game for example was her first big show of strength preflop all game, and perhaps I should have looked at AQo as ‘slightly behind’ or ‘way behind’ her likely range of 1010+ and folded. The fact of the matter is that even if your opponents know that you only raise good hands and fold or limp the rest, many cannot resist playing too many hands and trying to bluff you. In my case I was both too drunk to notice the significance of the raise and felt I was too short stacked to realistically fold AQ heads up.  It will be interesting to see how Jennoi plays next time and whether her evolution as a poker player results in any tricky plays to confuse and disorientate, and whether those who have lost to her over the last two games adjust.

Poker Glossary

Since my one follower of this blog complained about too much jargon here is some more gloaasry terms to help decipher the game commentaries:

Poker Glossary in no particular order

Structure-The timing and blind amounts determine the structure of the game. If it is too slow the game will be tight, too short and it feels like bingo. Extra forced bets for every player called antes are added to induce more action also.

Table draw-The card draw for seating positions determines who sits where. It is an advantage to sit to the left of any opponent and a big disadvantage to have a skilled player to your left. The money in the game flows clockwise so a player splashing his chips around will usually donate them to the player on their left or two seats to their left. This is all related to table position.

Position-Being in position means acting after a player post-flop. For example if they check then you are then in a good position to bet and take the initiative in the hand. If you are out of position you must act first, losing more chips if you bet when behind, and leaving yourself vulnerable to being bluffed when you are ahead. The small blind is the worst position on the table as you always act first after the flop.

Steal-Raising in position pre-flop with the intention of winning the blinds (and antes.) The closer your seating position to the button the more likely this is to be a garbage hand.

Soft-play-Not betting or raising when you are clearly ahead and your opponent is likely to call with a worse hand. Eg you hold 99 on a A924K board and your opponent calls flop, turn and you check the river even though their most likely hand is Ax.

Ax-Shorthand for Ace+any second card below a 10. This is the most badly played hand in microstakes /small stakes poker according to authors such as Dan Harrington. Vicky Coren also devotes several pages of her book ‘For Richer For Poorer’ to describing how she learned to stop automatically playing Ax hands on her journey to becoming a poker professional. In short, the hand is often dominated by a better ace, or makes a weak pair that is beaten by a disguised stronger hand.

Domination-A situation where a hand is ahead in numerical and maybe suit value. In a heads up pot AcQs dominates AdJh in numerical value and Kc10d dominates Qc7d in both value and suits.

Value-bet-A  bet that is designed to be called by enough hands in your opponent’s likely range of hands to make it a profitable bet in the long run. Eg you hold 99 on a A924K board and your opponent calls flop and turn. You should value bet the river because they will likely call with any Ace, 222, 444 etc. It is also possible they have AAA or perhaps, KKK or maybe even A2345 but there are more hands that you beat than not, so you bet for value.

The long run/the law of large numbers-Poker is a game of chance that is arguably beaten in the long run by more skilled players who play in an appropriately sized/skilled game for them. When considering any decision one must ask oneself ‘What will happen if I repeat this action 100, 1000, 10000+ times?’ If the bet or call or fold looks to be a profitable decision in the long run, then go ahead and make it. Poker decisions should not be made in isolation, nor played on whims unless you have a cast iron tell on a player that may tip a close decision one way or the other. In theory the law of large numbers should ensure that a 54% advantage for example results in profit in the long run, even if your opponent sucks out in the short term. Folding a hand can be the correct decision in the long term, since you profit if you lose less than you would have lost by calling if you were behind. This concept is linked to the variance of results since you can do the right thing and lose out 10-20 times in a row easily in poker. Some players go out of their way to avoid high variance situations with weaker players, preferring to profit more when they are clearly ahead, and not risk an ‘all in’ situation with a slight advantage in their favour. 

Tell-Players may betray the strength of their hand though their body language or actions. Mike Caro explained in his seminal ‘Book Of Tells’ and video seminars that if someone acts weak they are strong and vice versa. This is because they are consciously trying to deceive you but lack the acting skill to do anything other than the opposite of how they feel about their hand. If you think this is nonsense then ask yourself: have you ever picked up pocket aces or kings, slapped them down quickly and nonchalantly looked around the room, or perhaps quickly struck up a conversation with the player next to you?! Tells can be so transparent it is hilarious, even from professional players, so take Caro’s advice “Don’t look at the flop, look at the player looking at the flop”!

Three-bet-To raise someone who has already raised pre-flop. So-called because the first bet raises the big blind (two-bet) and the reraise ups the stakes further still to a three-bet. To three-bet you traditionally needed QQ, KK or AA in the pocket, but in the modern game it could be virtually any two cards depending on the dynamic of the game.

Home Game Report. Season 2 episode 1.

Players in attendance: Hitmanhead,Jeenoi,Top_Jimmy, The_Conge, Pokerhontasz.

With 5 players around the table, a well paced blind structure and a hot night I predicted explosive action from the first in a new season of our home games.  Jennoi arrived early to bone up on the basics as she had not played much before.  Jennoi was focussed and a quick study:  she had already memorized hand rankings and was asking questions about more abstract concepts such as how the value of hands goes up as the number of players decreases.  I told her that if she could raise her good hands, call her medium strength and fold her worst, then she would be playing better than most recreational players. Pokerhontasz also schooled Jennoi in betting procedures and some of the subtleties of the game and she listened and nodded with the intensity of someone who had come to play poker the strategy game, not poker the fun gambling game.  Hitmanhead is a new player to our games as well, although not new to poker as he plays limit holdem online.  As the only player around the table not quenching their thirst with bargain booze, Hitmanhead would likely gain more of an edge as the night went on.  The table draw put The_Conge to my left which meant I had to raise any unopened small blind, lest I be slapped in the face with one of his trademark pot sized raises. I realised after a while though, that Conge had brought his uber tight-aggressive ‘A’ game as he was giving up these blinds, but punishing the rest of the table in easier spots to quickly amass an early chip lead.

In the early levels Pokerhontasz quickly combatted Conge’s stealing antics and in a classic battle of the blinds set her stall out with a call; call; turn lead (to Conge fold) on a K853 board.  Pokerhontasz also bizarrely soft played Jennoi on a 79J94 board, checking the river out of position after a bet-call on the turn, and then tabling trip nines holding A9 to beat Jennoi’s checked-down 66.  I am not sure if this was a message of gender solidarity or if Pokerhontasz was taking pity on her new poker student, but I am confident the best way to teach the game in that situation would be a big fat value bet on the river!   Our first decent sized pot was between The-Conge and Hitmanhead:  Pre flop, Hitman raised; Jennoi called; and Conge called the small blind with a speech (”sigh…lets see a flop then!”) On a board of K,10,2 (rainbow) Conge led, Hitman called and Jennoi called. The turn card was Qc and after another bet –call, time stood still whilst Jennoi wanted to ask me an important question about hand rankings! This was no Phil Gordon style needle though, as she was genuinely confused and so passed me a note with a question on it.  After two back and forth note passes between us Jennoi was still none the wiser and as the table could be quite confident she was not strong, a fold was inevitable! On a meaningless river card of 6h The_Conge led for 400 into 600 and Hitmanhead made an anguished fold. Later on Conge claimed he held top two pair and I think I heard Hitman claiming A10.

In the next blind level Pokerhontasz accidentally spilled beer on our Subbuteo felt table top and wrecked my new WSOP branded Bicycle cards in one fell swoop! The Subbuteo set was given to me on long loan from my Uncle and he is going to be super tilted now the felt is mucky (not to mention all the players I’ve knelt on over the years!)  My own tilt over the precious Bicycle cards passed as a new deck gifted me some incredible luck, prompting cries of ‘cold deck’ from the rest of the table later on.  Beer intake was probably also responsible for Pokerhontasz missing a blind raise and performing an accidental (and disgusting) min-raise preflop, to which Jennoi called and a board of 4c8d5c came down. The flop and turn card of 3s were both checked and Jennoi bet half pot on a Qh river goading Pokerhontasz with a “See me” speech! In response, she revealed her tight (and honest) steak by folding 99 face up on the table. Jennoi, a quick learner did not of course show her hand.  Jennoi was demonstrating that she had come to play and would not be easily bullied out of pots.  She limp called my raise preflop and called a C-bet on a board of KK5 holding AQ . I of course checked the hand down as I only held A10 and she took it down with a better ace high hand. I was very surprised to see her not paired up, but upon reflection it was a good board to have checked the flop on.  I had showdown value against weak aces, and really only bloated the pot for the times when I was behind by a little or a lot.  Hitmanhead had a brief period of action, click raising me on a paired board and three-betting The_Conge preflop, both times picking up the pot with a combination of squeaky-tight  table image and measured aggression.

At the 100/200 level everyone was still left in the game and Hitmanhead continued to use his water tight status to pick up pots, in one hand click raising The_Conge preflop, but leaving 2.5 big blinds behind in his stack. For those who do not play poker online a ‘click-raise’ is one button click that raises any bet by the same amount again. In this instance The_Conge read the raise as pure strength and folded , putting himself in short stack mode, along with myself and Pokerhontasz who also trailed behind. By this point in the night I had consumed too much beer to accurately relate  hand details, but I managed to double through Pokerhontasz holding pocket tens, and (almost) triple-through her and The_Conge holding JQ which made top pair on the flop and held to beat both The_Conge’s K9 and Pokerhontasz’ last ditch napkins. This chip up was handy, but fell short of The_Conge’s mythological ‘octuple-through’ which I needed to realistically challenge Jennoi’s leading stack. I did not realize it at the time but I was winding the table up continually asking for chip counts at the shove/fold stage, but the problem I was having is that I was too drunk to store any information in my head for longer than about 10 secs.  I was also terrified of making a dumb power play with Jennnoi in the big blind and so I nitted up for a while until Hitmanhead was knocked out , even folding 22 at one point to his all-in. Heads up against Jennoi I had some unspeakable luck in all in pots.  I forget the hand that turned the tide, but once I had the chip lead I cheerfully put Jennoi all in holding 67s and she turbo called with pocket queens! The board ran out 45362 and my flopped nut straight sealed the deal.

In the post game analysis everyone was very impressed with Jennoi’s debut, she played a tight but aggressive game when it mattered the most, especially in the later blind levels when she raised frequently.  She received a small profit on her stake and a thrown in VHS tape of ‘An American Werewolf in Paris’ courtesy of Pokerhontasz!  Hitmanhead was very unlucky to miss out on the 2 money spots as he played disciplined poker and eventually got it all in good with A9 only to see Jennoi table a better AQ, which is pretty much a cooler three handed. Even a flopped 9 could not stop Jennoi rivering a straight to knock out the Hitman.  Pokerhontasz has also been very unlucky in the shove/fold stage of our home games and an early shove with a marginal King hand did not pay off on this occasion.  Given Pokerhontasz’ tight table image, it is this sort of high-blind aggressive play that should, in theory lead to good long term results.  The_Conge proved he is probably the strongest tournament player of our circle, and was incredibly unlucky to get knocked out early. He stole pots frequently, avoided getting stranded out of position and value bet big when he held the best hand. I myself played o.k but I had to dance between the raindrops with regards to lucky cards and at one stage I blinded down to down to 6.5 bb.  I also disgraced myself by getting drunk and being annoying later on in the game so once again I am sorry everyone.

Maniac mining

I have been facing quite a lot of maniac players online and just accidentally beat one heads up. Looking back at some of the hands I know I made crucial mistakes because of the constant pressure from bets and reraises. Once you realise that a player is maniacally aggressive you have to work out if they are doing it in response to your play or not. If your opponent is responding to you then they will change if you change. If you begin to fight fire with fire, then they should, in theory tighten up a little. I just faced a player who ramped up the aggression even more when I fought back.

I knew that I had the post flop skills to outmanouver this guy but I was getting crushed preflop. Every time I picked a playable hand I was faced with the options of: limp call a raise; raise call a three bet; or raise with the intention of 4 betting/jamming or just open jamming. I settled upon mostly limp calling to keep pots smaller but then this left me without the initative on the flop, which is basically handing your money to maniacs.  I therefore decided to pepper in a few small raises for initiative, which he quickly stole with 100% 3bets anyway. I also four bet a few hands for value and increased my range to do this, whilst trying to avoid getting pot committed with a raggy ace. I was basically all at sea and having reflected on the match I think a 100% limp strategy may well have been the way forward because we ended up in some pretty big pots without a great deal.

I said at the start of this article that I won accidentally, because the turning point was an ill timed 4bet jam I pulled, when I should have seen the insta-call coming. I sadly tabled 57s only to see my maniac friend holding 45o. My hand held up, as it often will, but I felt like the naughty micro donkey that I am for pushing so hard with a mediocre holding. It was a case of 'right read, wrong action' since I want to keep the likes of 45o in bloated pots, not try and push them out preflop. Or if you are results orientated it was the right action for the wrong reasons, since I ended up getting it all in ahead. I shall try not to make a habit of stubbornly 4bet jamming and if I am going to do it against maniacs, at least expect a call and put ace-rag and suited Kings  into this mostly value range. The game turned around after this point and I spotted a couple of steal spots when I noticed he played more cautiously to my limps, if I had folded a couple of hands previously. I also pulled a hero call in a spot where I was content to check down AQ high for good showdown, but the board ran out double paired so my kicker became the golden bluff catching card, and he obligingly shoved his airball on the river.

Should I be playing a more trappy game against such players? A lot of players might think so, but since this guy had such a willingness to put his money in the middle and gamble I should be looking to still value raise and valuebet good hands (with a wider range than normal), fold my worst and limp the rest. I know this sounds exploitable but this is probably the only way to see pots with position and the likely best hand most of the time. I do not want to bloat pots to the point where we are suddenly playing for stacks at the earlier stages of a heads up sit and go.  At around 20bb I should be willing to stack off with maniacs with all of my raising range since at this stage they will likely overadjust and shove with a range that includes trashy hands they would have three bet previously. I have come across a lot of erratic play so far at heads up, and survival seems to be a big factor since sooner or later they will blow up and make a daft play. I was just lucky that this time I made the daft play but got away with it.  I also think I just advocated a calling station approach to playing maniacs!! Hmm...maybe this needs more research...

Every bet tells a story

When you play a game of nlhe poker every bet has some significance in the game, which for weak players is a product of their personality, level and playing style.  A person's hopes, desires and moods often drive them forward in the game and when you can appreciate a player' s motivation, the story their bets tell will lead you to make better decisions about your hand. Deep down many people desire to exercise some control over the randomness of life and their game play reflects this. Have you ever seen someone get angry when throwing a dice and a number one comes up three times in a row? They want natural justice to put different numbers up each time, and they are probably simultaneously rooting for a six (depending on the game.) Poker is the same and people often bet because they want their hand to be the best, not because it is. I have been playing a bit of heads up no limit to see if I can adapt my water tight game and loosen up a bit in a forum where my edge might show a more consistent result. A key theme which is coming up already is that players do not want to let go of any ace, no matter how it connects with the board. They also seem to want a quick end to the game and make horror calls for a 30bb stack hoping to get lucky with QXs or whatever.

Converesley some people have such a strong desire to get paid off, no matter how small, on the river that they will bet the nuts curiously small in situations where they might as well stack off.  In a recent game I managed to flop trips and not lose all my stack to a rivered full house when an opponent did just this and raised only a little on the river. This particular move flabbergasted me: I flop trip 9s on a 99x board and check the flop figuring I am way ahead or way behind in a limped pot holding 94. This was a mistake which probably saved me as it happens, since my opponent holds 98. The donk checks behind on the button and I bet a queen turn and get called. The river is an 8 so I overbet, praying he has 10j or Qx and I get click raised (or thereabouts) so in my befuddled state I call. Donkeys rarely raise the river without the pure nuts and this was no ace mistake, since they would get AK in on the turn if they were too stubborn to fold missed overs. The only hand he could possibly do this with is another 9 or 88 and sure enough he tables the boat 99988. The psychology of this situation is interesting since there is no way he fears I have a better hand and 'bet to induce' is not a concept that figures to be in his game, this bet is a 'suck' bet so he can definitely show down the hand and suck me in for a few more bbs. The move is product of his desire to control and profit from randomness and he wants me to see it, so much so that it cost him around 10bb. As a thinking player I have to ask myself 'Should I have bet the flop?' 'Should 94 be in by bluff raise preflop repetoire since it is good to bluff your weakest hands as it puts more value hands in your value raise range?' Should I have bet more or less on the turn?' 'Should I have shoved the river?' As a non-thinking player my opponent probably took a screenshot of the full house to show his friends the awesome hand that got paid off by some idiot who was bluffing a lot.
;)

Strategy stuff: weak aces shorthanded, out of position

I have been trying to refine my shorthanded play to turn more of my 3rd place finishes into 1st place finishes. There comes a point in any sit and go when you have around 15-21 bb and have to tread very carefully, often there will be 3 or 4 people left. I have traditionally played very passively at this stage and whenever I get a sniff of a hand it is always out of position, in the blinds. The question I have asked myself is this: is it right to check or call a raise with a weak ace in the small blind when you could raise or fold? The further sub question is: am I wasting the value of the hand by not three betting these hands if I just call? It seems like the hand should have some instrinsic value but you postion is poor and makes post flop play difficult. I have ran some scenarios based on three handed play (where I often crash out by the way) when you are dealt a weak ace in the small blind and face a min or standard raise from an active player (who has correctly widened their pre flop raising range). It seems as though with the increased blinds three betting preflop is too risky as you cannot afford to play a fattened pot after the flop. You could stop and go shove post flop but this will be into two players and is way too risky to be a play with positive expectation, especially since better aces often call this move down. You are therefore in a call or fold situation when facing a raise. Post flop if you call a raise, most of the time you miss the flop (surprise surprise) and are stranded three handed because the big blind will have trailed behind for the good pot odds. Some of the time you will hit your ace and you need to commit and bet hard for value, assuming that your hand is best. This is he only way this play can be profitable in the long term. Most of the time you look at a dryish flop and may be tempted to donk lead/bluff, but this is never profitable enough and essentially ruins your chances of checking down to the river with the best hand, which will happen some of the time. It is important to play straightforwardly at this point to get the value from the hand when you hit and to avoid all other plays. Once in a blue moon you can pick off dodgy river bluffs and beat a bluffed king/queen high hand. All of these scenarios are based on calling no more than a min raise preflop. If the button opens for a standard raise it is important to suck it up and fold the hand preflop. The pot will become too big post flop (compared to your stack) if you call a 2.5x+ raise and the number of times you can proceed with value bets post flop will not make up for the pre flop losses in calling the raise in the long term. It hurts to make this play, but the best overall response is to ignore the pretty ace and raise wider on the button, stealing more blinds with some junk hands and all your high card combos. So to answer the two questions I put to myself: it is right to call a minraise with a weak ace, but not a standard raise, and the value of the hand is based solely on the ace.Your position negates the value of the hand so do not reraise preflop and trap yourself, wait for the button to turn up the heat.

Sit and go funk plus some strategy stuff

I have kind of lost my way with sit and go tournaments and strayed from the path of concentrating on them to build my bankroll/improve my play. I am a recreational player and I do not always have time to set aside 1.5 hours to play a full ring game.  I have been dabbling with limit cash, to try and improve my post flop hand reading skills, but that seems like a waste of time at the lower limits, since players are apt to play most hands, bluff frequently and overvalue the hands that they do make.  I am basically in a bit of a funk with nano stakes online poker so I have tried slightly higher stakes cash to get the buzz back.  Even though I am only rolled for the lowest limits the money has stopped meaning something to me and I am missing the live action since our home games have been on hold. I have also become isanely weak passive at certain points in tournaments, and sometimes in cash games, especially when facing players who never fold. If I limp another ace shorthanded I will have to resign my post as a tight-agressive Dan Harrington-wannabe!

Strategy bit:
On a more positive note I have made 2 important poker discoveries lately: the first is that cash game players who min bet flop and turn usually have missed overcards (even if they limped in) or a small pocket pair that missed the board. They will often call a reraise with all of these hands so you can raise for value with just about any made hand and best or bear best overcards, on any street.  If they bet heavy on the end you can fold anything below two pair, as this is never a bluff online. They are esentially betting the strength of their hand allowing you to play perfectly. I spotted a player who was doing this today, who was betting 2x (his version of the min bet) at any checked flop so I check raised AKo for value IP on a ragged low flop. This move bought me a freecard on the turn, then I spiked an ace on the end and was able to bet for value as he held on and called with his 3rd pair or whatever.

My second discovery is that in a sit and go if you have 30bb+ the optimal raise size is between 3 and 3.5BB to gain maximum value without offering the blinds too favourable pot odds or betting a silly mount that dimishes your stack. In other words any less is too easy for the blinds to call and mess with you, any more is costing you too much if you are correctly widening your range to blind steal at this point in the game. At $25/50 level this would be around $162. It has the added value of being a confusing amount, and when people are confused they make bad decisions;)

Notes to self…

If you play poker to win, to really win consistently in the long term, many modern theorists argue that edges are tough to find and so the mental game is where a bankroll is built or demolished. In the latest issue of Poker Player magazine extracts from Tommy Angelo’s book ‘The Elements of Poker’ focus on topics such as game selection and tilt. These extracts got me thinking about my entire process of evaluating players and the value in note taking when playing online. To some extent the note taking process is a waste of time at the stakes I play at, since the players are so erratic and their patterns of play are often not based on the cards but their whims and moods.  However I am trying to form good habits that will stand me in good stead for the future when playing for more meaningful money, so I have come to examine my thought processes when observing plays. Typically I will notice a few limps, and then check folds or check calls and immediately label a player as a ‘calling station’ or the opposite, ‘aggro donk’ when I watch a player go in too heavy with raises and bluffs. I have come to conclusion that my notes are little more than brain farts, and a product of my need to feel superior when I sit down at a table.

I often lack confidence in myself and question everything I do, which should in theory make me a terrible poker player and probably would do if I sat down at a live table of decent players. In online microstakes poker though I can become someone else, I can leave my personality in the lobby and focus on making good decisions at the table.  I can use my natural inquisitiveness to learn more about the game and observe the play of others to work out how to avoid their pitfalls.  The mistake I have been making is that in observing the play of others I have become quick to judge, not because it will help me win, but because it will make me feel superior and more able to play a confident (and therefore more likely to win) game. My note taking has become little more than a scapegoat for my bad plays and a reminder of what I am not. I am like the teenager who adopts a hard line stance in music/fashion criticising others to mark themself out as different, but is in fact asserting only their difference and nothing of substance at all.

I do not think I will buy Angelo’s book when it comes out since I prefer reading strategy books and cannot justify the cost at the moment, but I am going to try changing my note taking (as Angelo suggests in the extract) to only write a note if I can articulate out loud how it will help me in a future situation. For example if I notice the patterns of play associated with a ‘rock’ type player I will write ‘tight range approx 10% vpip’ and go over a mental checklist for the best strategy to defeat them. I might decide to 3bet top three hands only for value, fold marginal hands out of position to them, open raise virtually any two cards in position/blind on blind, and treat their position raises as genuine value raises not steals. I will also make a mental note to observe how they alter their pre flop range as the blinds rise or their stack diminishes, since they may open up preflop as the pressure mounts in a tournament, but continue to play fit or fold post flop.  This style of mental extrapolation should help me to avoid pigeon holing players and stay close to the path of good decision making. It may even help me to adopt a more humble approach to the game and less likely to tilt spew my money away when I should be thinking about what players are doing, why they are doing it, and what the best counter measures should be.

Poker Friday

Players: Pokerhontasz, Pete, KingTubby,TheConge,Hadrosaur,Top_Jimmy

This week’s home game was moved to a Friday to suit players, and resulted in a 6 handed game with two new faces. Known simply as ’Pete’ our first new player caused some discomfort around the table when he loudly announced that he had a problem with ‘benders’. Pete has a serious issue with an allegedly perverted minority of people (myself shamefully included) who bend their hole cards slightly to view them secretively, and this tilted the lad from the start. Pete also took issue with the low stakes of our sit and go, but since these regular games are a new thing we want to make them as friendly and welcoming as possible to all our friends.  Our second new player is known as Hadrosaur (spelling?) and cast a much more unassuming presence at the table, possibly due to jenk cards for the first few rounds.

The first hand of the night prompted a steward’s enquiry regarding shuffling, since the flop brought JJJ with a turn 8 and river 9. This was a classic ‘battle of the blinds’ when KT limp-called a BB raise preflop. The turn actions were: bet-call and river bet-fold. TheConge later claimed he folded an ace which seems to fit the action and since KingTubby was first seat after the dealer, it seems likely Pete (KTs buddy) bottom-dealt him the case jack in his hole cards lolz! The early action saw generally passive play and Pete hitting some long-shot backdoor draws.  In one of these multiway pots Hadrosaur probe bet a draw heavy board to get HU with Pete, hit trips on the turn, but then lose to Pete’s straight on the river. TheConge noted, and I commented on the value of Mark’s so-called donk bet but on reflection a true donk bet is out of position into a preflop raiser.  Since Mark had position and probably the best hand, a probe with a good underpair is more of an informational bet, especially since the board only contained one overcard and was checked around to him.

With an imposing chip stack Pete became ‘table captain’ for a while and attempted to three bet my UTG raise at one point. I called preflop and on a Kxx board I checked with intent to call what would be an obvious bluffing spot, but Pete checked back. A blank turn resulted in check-check and I took it down on the river with a value sized bet. Looking back on this hand in the light of Pete’s later actions I am fairly happy with my play, since I was clearly WAWB (way ahead or way behind) but ultimately confused, since three-bet pots are usually pitched battles of doublethink post flop and Pete smiled unnervingly throughout the hand.  The other move that unnerved me early on was TheConge folding and showing top two pair after Pokerhontasz raised pre and led out on a monotone flop. The erstwhile overbetting monster had clearly brought his Ultra-tight A* game to the table and I felt like I was in a parallel universe, either that or TheConge was still hurting from King Tubby’s suck out against his top-two last time! I think Pokerhontasz must have used her WWDD (What would Doyle do?) mantra to dig deep and come up with such a genius bet against the only player on the table who could have laid down a hand in that spot!

Our first big blow up of the night started with Pete limping the HJ and TheConge announcing ‘call’ on the button but putting in a minraise. Conge should have been forced to only call the bet but we mistakenly left it as a raise, and this betting accident motivated Pete to reraise when it folded around to him again. Conge responded with a massive 4 bet leaving him with roughly a pot sized bet left behind.  Pete did not spend long in the tank before 5 bet shoving his mega stack and TheConge called faster than ‘A crack whore on giro day’ (thanks Charlie Don’t Surf for that one) and tabled KK. Pete threw down the mighty Q7s, dominated in spades. The board ran out Kd,Ac,4s,4h,6d and TheConge became overwhelming leader of the stack. He also later claimed he was ‘angle-shooting’ to induce spew with the miscalled hand so we will be looking to penalise the lad next time he pulls one of those stunts!

An interesting hand developed between myself and TheConge who minraised UTG and I 3 bet in position. Conge called and on a flop of 3,4,10 (two hearts) Conge bet and I shoved him deep into the tank.  The deeper the tank the worse the hand of course, and Conge eventually found a fold. He was representing a difficult decision with JJ but in fact was holding two napkins I am sure, since I can read Conge’s soul with Hellmuthian accuracy;) It was not long before we reached the bingo stage of the match and to cut a long story short there was a tonne of flips; plenty of cooking lagers; a row between me and Pokerhontasz when she slow-rolled again; a dodgy blow up from me calling way behind Hadrosaur’s stop and go’d KK; plenty more cooking lagers; an anti social early swerve from knocked out KingTubby and Pete and yet more cooking lagers.

Heads up actually featured a little bit of play on this occasion and the match was between a fairly short short stacked, sober Hadrosaur and a huge stacked-but-well-oiled Conge. The players quickly swapped stacks when in a limped pot Conge’s Q3 hit middle pair on A23 board, prompting Conge to shove a second Ace on the turn. Hadrosaur insta called holding A9 and a river 3 brought a comedy double take with talk around the table along the lines of ‘He’s made a full house, oh no it’s the second nuts, no hang on its quads, no its not!’ TheConge was a little shell shocked and stared at a board for ages, trying to magically turn his hand into the nuts!  It was not long before Conge preflop shoved one too many hands and Hadrosaur called down with K2 to beat 57 to victory. Hadrosaur’s ‘virgin victory’ moment was rendered in ink by Pokerhontasz,included below.  I think she has captured TheConge's confident table steez well. I will also include a bonus self portrait Pokerhontasz doodled in down time between hands, which needs to become her table icon online if we can hook that up somehow:) Also this post is way too long for a glossary, so I am sorry if anyone is befuddled by any new terminology.

How to react to mistakes

How To React To Mistakes (in full ring sit and go games)

1. Note mistakes during a session for review later
2. Afterwards review and confirm what was/was not a mistake
3. Make positive to do lists before a game to avoid repeating mistakes

 1. I have taken to making quick notes on key hands or decisions on a pad and then looking at these in more detail at a later date. This helps me to quickly forget about mistakes and concentrate on the task in hand. At the higher blind levels you may need to quickly calculate your stack, relative stack size and M-zone etc. You cannot do this with regret or questions on your mind. If I have made a note on the pad then it can be put aside and dealt with later.

2. It is important to actually do your homework on sessions, as many mistakes are quite subtle and some so-called errors turn out to be the correct move even if you get bounced from the tournament or lose a big pot. I am finding that a handful of small errors, particularly on marginal hands is my biggest overall leak. In a sit and I have wasted chips calling instead of folding JJ to a raise for example, because in the heat of the moment you are aware that a reraise is pointless in the early game, but you do not think to fold such a pretty pair. However the same hand in the mid game becomes a shoving hand, a kind of steal with decent equity if you happen to get called by the initial raiser. With so many variables at stake a session review allows you to make for example a ‘pocket jacks’ positive action plan, so you are armed the next time you are dealt that cursed hand!

3. A session ‘to do list’ follows a review of key hands and mistakes. You can compile such a list before a game to mentally prepare for battle. It is far too easy to log on and register for a game, but you should have a poker mindset that you adopt beforehand, otherwise you run the risk of playing in the same style as your current emotional state.  I find that making 3 bullet points of things to do with certain hands or situations, allows me to enter that state and log on ready to make good decisions. My confidence is also boosted going into a game because I am mindful of not making the same mistakes I made last time.

Glossary

M-Zone

Your stack divided by small blind+big blind (+ any antes x number of players) gives you an ‘M-ratio’ number, usually between 5-40. These numbers fall into zones 0-1,2-5,6-10,11-20,21+, which dictate a certain style of play which will be the most profitable for that particulalr zone. Invented by Paul Magriel, a backgammon and poker guru.

Marginal hands/situations

Some hands look great but are difficult to turn a profit from, and some situations look amazing but are borderline losing plays. These hands and situations are fluid concepts related to the M-Zone and type of game you are playing. Top pair with second-best kicker is an example of a very marginal situation early in a tournament but will often be the nuts heads-up.

Equity

I am still a little mystified by the concept of equity but it seems to be your potential share of a pot represented  by a percentage. You see equity percentages on WSOP telecasts above the hands on screen. You will have decent equity in a hand if you shove JJ over a 3 bet in the middle stages of a tournement since an opponent's range for 3 betting will feature less pairs above JJ than below it plus AK,AQ type hands.  A big pot and attractive odds of more than 2:1 will  make calling with high cards or  medium/low pairs tempting to the 3 bettor, who will find him/herself on the wrong end of 43%/57% or 20%/80% equity share.

Hot pots! Home game write up #3

Players round the table: Top_jimmy, King_Tubby, The_Conge, Pokerhontasz, Valhalla.

The latest in our series of no-limit home games got off to an inauspicious start. An hour before kick off I had to bus it across town to check out P.A. equipment for my band and a couple of last minute drop outs left the attendance looking like it would be at most, 5 of us. It all came together ‘field of dreams’ style though because if you build it (a pot that is) they will come. In the balmy summer heat action was quick to ignite around the table and our first key pot was pretty much a hero call by TheConge: On a board of 10s,5c,Ah,(Tc,Qd) Conge bet the flop and was floated by Valhalla in the big blind. On the turn our hero was check raised by Valhalla who had picked up a flush draw with the arrival of the 10c. The river brought a small (blocking?) bet out of position from Valhalla who backed into a pair of Queens and TheConge called, showing down a winning Top pair no kicker with A4s.

Pokerhontasz showed her true colours as a trigger happy loose aggressive when faced with the assertive small-ball tactics of Valhalla. She responded to a preflop 3 bet and flop float on a Q,9,6,(J) rainbow board  the only way she knows how; by insta-shoving the turn!  Valhalla folded and charitably showed 88 afterwards but Pokerhontasz did not return the favour.  Having observed her play on many occasions I can safely put Pokerhontasz  on ‘any-two-cards’ for her to ship it in that spot!  I must have been downing the cooking lagers pretty quickly by this point because my notes from the night get progressively messy and difficult to interpret. The next major pot was a total shocker which changed the dynamic of the match, decimated my table image and kick started KingTubby’s best performance so far in the series. On a board of K93 with two hearts TheConge bet, I donk-raised a crap flush draw and KingTubby called behind, prompting a Conge shove, then me (sheepish) fold, and all-in call from KingTubby. The Conge tabled top two pair with K9 and Tubby showed top pair crap kicker K10. The turn brought a Jack, and the river a heart piercing Q for KingTubby to runner-runner a straight and claim most of TheConge’s stack.

Not long after this sickener I got it all in against a slightly tilting Conge in an AQ  vs his 88 race situation and in keeping with my insanely lucky streak (in all in pots) I spiked one of my 5 outs (an ace had already been folded) to leave him with about 8 big bets left.  We discussed the merits of his shove afterwards and my reasons for calling and his shove is definitely more defensible than my call, but both moves are more or less ‘standard’ as they say given the rapidly escalating blinds. The game picked up loads of pace after this stretch and TheConge was inevitably first out to one of my magical all ins even though I held two pieces of cheese instead of cards. What surprised everyone was how quickly I then donked off my stack in one of my classic ‘blow ups.’  I forget exact board details but Pokerhontasz flopped the nut flush, played it slow and allowed me to make a double live gonzo mistake. I put her on top pair (don’t ask me why) and got it in on the turn with straight and flush outs, drawing completely dead since Pokerhontasz held the nuts, including my magic straight flush card. Whoops!

Valhalla hung on for a little while with around 4 big bets and then KingTubby lost heads up fairly quickly to Pokerhontasz’ constant  min raise barrage. I got slightly annoyed when either of them folded the small blind and I went into my annoying ‘professor’ mode which is how these nights tend to end so sorry again guys.  Pokerhontasz pulled a heinous Hellmuth style speech to ‘ensure’ that she got a call with her final AJ preflop shove but KingTubby was destined to call with KTs anyways. I called it a slow roll but in actual fact it should just be filed under ‘moody’ or ‘unsportsmanlike’ conduct. The best thing about this particular game is that KingTubby got a reward for coming in second, and Pokerhontasz won in such convincing style: true to form results for both playersJ

 Glossary of terms-since I have been accused of being too jargony

Float-call a flop bet with no hand, usually with the intention to steal the pot on the turn or river

Blocking bet- a small river bet with probably (but not definiltely) the second best hand, that is likely to be smaller than the bet you would call if you check and your opponent bets (therefore saving money at showdown)

Donk-bet/raise- an out of position bet/raise with no plan for the hand, it is just fun to bet/raise yeah!

Slow roll- to slowly reveal the nut winning hand

Out of position-having to act first post flop, which is a disadvantage in the order of play

Hellmuth-Phil Hellmuth Jnr 'the greatest no limit holdem player ever' (snigger)