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.