That Was One Weird Hand

I recently played a session of $3/$5 no-limit at Muckleshoot, and ended up winning a hand I had no business winning (and, arguably, no business being in). It ended in a most bizarre way; providing me with an experience I’d never had before.

I was on the button in this hand. By the time action got to me, there were four limpers. I looked down to see 4h4d, the hand nicknamed “Barack Obama” (since he is the 44^th President). There were a few ways I could play this hand:

·       I could fold. However, even though this is such a small pair, I just couldn’t bring myself to make such a wimpy play. The opportunity to flop a set and double my chipstack (or more) was just too enticing.

·       A raise might be in order. However it would probably have to be on the order of a $35-$40 raise to clear away the deadwood, and from playing at this table I realized I wouldn’t be able to shake all of my opponents. A low pair is good for winning a pot preflop; but once the board cards start coming one generally loses.

·       I decided to go with the third option; the smooth call. This gave me the chance for a big score, while risking a minimum of chips.

Action moved on to the small blind. He actually DID take the opportunity to raise, to $40. He was a younger guy; extremely aggressive, but no maniac. It was tough having him on my left, and I knew whenever he was in a hand I would need to be extremely alert.

The big blind folded, and all the limpers called (this was precisely why I had decided not to raise). By the time action got back to me, there was a little over $200 in the pot, and I was being asked to commit another $35. I found these odds irresistible; and as I was closing the action, I decided to call.

The flop came Qh As Qd. At that point, I was done with my hand. I had failed to flop my set, and with such a dangerous board I just wanted to move on to the next hand. However, everyone mysteriously checked this flop; so I checked as well and bought a free card on the turn.

As an aside, the only opponent I was really paying attention to was the preflop raiser on my left, who was the first to act. When he checked the flop, I took all the hands which had an Ace or a Queen out of his range. Given his terrible position and such a dangerous board, I would have expected him to bet these hands if he had them (I know I certainly would have). When he didn’t, I realized he didn’t have those hands.

Things got worse on the turn, with the Jd coming. But once again, it was checked all the way around. I decided to remove Jacks and King/Ten from my opponent’s range, as these are hands he would be obliged to bet with such a scary board and myriad opponents.

The river card was the Jh. Now, the preflop aggressor suddenly came alive, betting $60 into this pot of nearly $250. All the field insta-folded, except for me. I decided to think it over for a bit.

I had already removed so many hands from my opponent’s range, what was left for him to value bet on this river? Pocket Kings? I suppose a monster hand such as quad Queens or Aces full. Or perhaps I had my ranging wrong; but I really didn’t think so. Aside from Kings, I couldn’t put him on a hand that beat the board. And his bet was so small, it was hard to take seriously as a value bet. So I called.

Almost immediately, a number of things happened in somewhat rapid succession:

1.       My opponent said, “You’re good,” and picked up his cards, preparing to helicopter them into the muck.

2.       I turned my pocket fours face up.

3.       My opponent mucked his hand, and the dealer immediately buried it.

4.       I said, “I play the board.”

5.       The dealer pushed me the entire pot.

6.       My opponent realized he’d mucked a tying hand.

And that, boys and girls, is how I won a pot of nearly $400 that I never should have.

The only thing that made this experience better was what actually happened: My opponent started to berate me for my call, enumerating all of the winning hands he could have had (which also happened to be all the hands I had removed from his range as the hand played out). The only reply I gave was, “I know. I’m a really bad player.” And I have all of your chips. It took me three hands to stack them all.

How a Poker Player Thinks

I’ve been spending this week playing at the Ameristar in St. Louis. I’ve been playing nearly all of the Heartland Poker Tour events (including the Main Event), but also plenty of cash games. These games are among the juiciest I’ve ever seen. Outside of Aruba and the Florida rooms, I can’t recall anyplace I’ve played where the chips came so easy. Here’s one hand as an example:

This was a 1/3 game. Having started with $300, I’d been able to grind it up to around $400 after a half-hour ($395 to be precise – see below to learn how I came to know that).  Lots of limping taking place; it wasn’t at all uncommon for six players to see a flop. This isn’t to say there wasn’t ANY preflop raising; on two occasions someone raised $100 into a pot with a few limpers. Both times, after everyone folded, they tabled pocket Kings face-up. Everybody respectfully and solemnly congratulated the winner on their immense skill and judgment for how they avoided a potentially dangerous flop. I felt like congratulating them on winning the absolute smallest amount of money humanly possible with poker’s second-best starting hand.

The following hand happened while I was in middle position. By the time action got to me, we’d seen two limpers (including the older player on my right). I looked down to see pocket nines, and raised to $15. I’d been raising every pot I entered regardless of the number of limpers, which threw some of the other players off since it was so unusual. Not that it made that much difference; my preflop raises didn’t get much respect, and I knew I’d have to trust my post-flop game to be successful in this room.

My raise got cold-called in two spots behind me. The small blind folded; big blind called; and the first limper also called. Now action was on the player to my right. To recap: Four players plus me, with one left to act.

Suddenly, this player shoved all-in; nearly a $400 re-raise.

My first instinct was to fold. After all, pocket nines generally don’t play well in a hand that’s been three-bet preflop. But I decided to give the matter a bit more thought. I asked myself, what hand would someone limp/shove with … that could beat pocket nines?

We’ve already established that folks will raise preflop with premium hands at this table. This means that my opponent probably didn’t have Aces, Kings, Queens, or Jacks, because he would have raised with them himself. Maybe even Tens. So what hand would he reraise-shove with? Let’s say Tens, Nines, Eights, Sevens, and maybe Sixes. Against this range, 99 is a 65/35 winner. So I should call.

Let’s add a few more hands to his range. Assuming he’d also raise AK and AQ, that removes those hands from his range. So maybe AJs and ATs … KQs, QJs, and JTs. I can’t think of any other reasonable possibilities, and even these might be stretching it. But even so, I’m still 60/40 against this range.

Again, the key for me was his limp/shove, and what preflop raises tended to mean at this table. If he’d raised a reasonable amount himself preflop, I’d have just called (and given the exact flop, bluffed if checked to or folded to a bet). If he’d three-bet a smaller amount, I might have folded. But his shove, paradoxically, just looked too weak, and WAY too polarizing.

I called.

Everyone else folded, so it was heads up. The board cards were KKQJ4 rainbow. I showed my 99; he showed 77; and since I had him outchipped by around $5 (that’s how I knew exactly how much I had above), he was completely felted. I stacked towers of chips, while he rebought.

THIS …. (drum roll) … IS THE HPT.

I spent this past week in lovely Reno, Nevada playing my very first HPT tournament at the Grand Sierra. I’ve played here (and stayed here) before, done well, and had high hopes. Sadly, I finished out of the money, but it was a good experience nevertheless.

The Main Event was a $1650 buy-in, and the stars were definitely out. They had three starting flights, and I played the first one. The pros in the field included Howard “Tahoe” Andrew (on my left); Pendleton triple-crown winner Angela Jordison (on my right); Dutch Boyd; and 2015 November Niner Neil Blumenfield.

As is usually the case, my bust-out hand was rather inconsequential. I pushed AhQd against KK and lost. It was a previous hand which was actually the key hand. Losing it knocked my chipstack down to under 25BB, giving me considerably less maneuverability and preventing me from being a factor in the game.

With blinds of 250/500 and 50 ante, I was on the button and after several hours of solid grinding was one of the overall chip leaders with roughly 60k. The player under-the-gun limped in. He was a passive player, frequently limped, and quite honestly was what one would refer to as a calling station. He was way out of his league against these players, and if he hadn’t already hit a few miracle board cards he would have been long gone. As it was, he started the hand with around 40k in chips.

Cary Marshall was in middle position with the smallest stack at the table of around 10k, and he limped behind. He’s an older player; tighter than average and very tough. He had knocked me out of a previous tournament (which he went on to win), and I definitely did NOT like seeing him at my table. He’d lost a bunch of chips in a couple of bad beats, but I’d seen him grind it back up before and knew he was just as dangerous now as he was when he was chip leader.

The next player was Ian Steinman, a 25-year old pro from the Bay area. He had around 20k. He had a good, solid game; a bit on the loose side, but definitely good competition for this field. He thought about his action for a bit, and then raised it to 2.5k.

It folded to me, and I looked down to see AsKs. I thought carefully about what I wanted to do with this hand. Folding was out of the question. Should I raise to thin the field, or just call behind to see if I can encourage some additional players? AK suited plays well against many opponents, so I decided to just smooth-call and see if I could get more folks into the pot.

Everyone else folded back to the UTG limper, who also called (as I totally expected him to). Then Cary was next. He shoved all-in for a total of 10k. Ian thought about what do to next; it was pretty clear that he didn’t expect to see so much action on top of his raise. Finally, he folded. He told me later that he had Ace/Jack offsuit.

I was next, and once again I was facing the same question: Re-raise to (likely) get heads-up against Cary, or just call and let the UTG player tag along? I really felt that I had a premium holding, and getting as many chips as possible is so important in a tournament, so I went with the call. I felt that if I missed the flop completely, I could just release if I came under pressure. UTG called also, so it was three players to the flop (one all-in).

The flop came Kh 8d 3d. Immediately, UTG shoved all-in for his remaining chips (around 40k total). I knew instantly exactly what he had. When a player acts quickly, it almost always means that he is on a draw. If UTG had a set or some other big holding, he’d have thought about how to play it for a bit before acting. I was convinced that I was ahead, so I called without much delay.

Sure enough, UTG had 9d 6d. Cary had Kc Qs and was drawing nearly dead. I had a huge lock on the hand. The turn card was a brick, but the river was … another diamond. Cary was knocked out of the tournament and I lost over half of my chipstack and was nearly crippled.

I’ve given this hand quite a bit of thought, and here’s what I’ve concluded:

I really don’t like the way Cary played this hand. King/Queen offsuit is not a good preflop holding -- as this hand makes obvious; he was completely dominated. He hit top pair and was still behind. He should have folded and waited for another opportunity.

On the other hand, I really like Ian’s play. He took a stab at the pot with a good hand, and then released once he realized that he was beat. I can’t fault his play at all.

At first, I really didn’t like UTG’s flop shove. I thought it was way too spewy, and he’s only called when he’s behind, such as with this hand. But after thinking about it some more, maybe this judgment is a bit harsh. Although he’s behind, the pot is laying him pretty much the correct odds to make a play like this. I still think it goes against ICM strategy, but mathematically it’s not a disaster. On the other hand, deciding to play 9/6 suited under the gun is not the kind of thing I would do.

So that leaves my play. The only adjustment I could reasonably have made at some point pre-flop would have been to re-raise (or over-shove) rather than just call. But I think the preflop call, overall, is going to have a higher +EV than those alternatives. (At no time did I consider a fold.)

Using Tells ... Reverse tells, that is!

The way I define a poker tell is: A detectable reaction your opponent has when they realize what their hand is. Tells can be subtle (a momentary pupil dilation when another player likes what he sees); or profound (a heavy sigh and headshake, followed by a huge bet … which indicates a monster hand). But most poker-playing tell experts will admit that much of the time there’s a can’t-quite-put-my-finger-on-it quality to detecting tells. The immortal Doyle Brunson says that evolution has provided us with this skill; it kept our caveman-era ancestors from wandering into the wrong place where a bear was waiting to devour them. (Given his age, perhaps he knows this firsthand.) You ignore these hunches at your own peril.

Detecting tells is a valuable skill to have. Numerous books have been written on it. But giving off false tells can be even more useful … if your audience is attentive, and can process what they’re seeing.

I was playing a $3/$5 cash game and had around $700 in front of me. The table was pretty passive preflop, with lots of limpers and callers seeing every flop. This hand was no different. I was in the big blind. The player on my left (who was first to act) had a stack of around $400. He led out with a raise for $20. It was a bit unusual to see a preflop raise in this table; but what happened next wasn't at all unusual, which was watching five other players call. I looked down at the KsTd. I had a $5 chip already in play, so it would only cost me $15 more to enter a pot that had $125 in it. King/Ten offsuit is not a good hand, but the pot odds were irresistible. I tossed in three more red chips, and seven of us saw the flop.

The dealer spread As Qd 9h. I had a gutshot straight draw, but I couldn’t see going any further with this hand if the flop was bet into. The small blind checked, and I checked behind. The next player to act, the one on my left, was the initial raiser. He put together a handful of chips as if to bet … but at the last minute, he checked also. The rest of the table also checked, so we got to see a free turn card.

Yahtzee! The turn was the Jc, so now I had the nut straight. This time after the small blind checked, I assembled a bet of around $75 and slid it across the bet line. Now, the UTG player came alive, raising my bet to $175. The remaining field quickly folded, and action was back to me.

I had the nut hand. There was no flush possibility. I was ahead of every other possible holding. My only risk was if my opponent had a set or two pair, he could fill up on the river. I saw that my opponent only had around $250 left behind, so I went ahead and put him all-in.

My opponent tanked. He knew he was dead to a ten (unless he had one too). Did I have one? He was trying to figure that out.

Then I went into acting mode. I took my hand and put it over my mouth. Tell experts will say that players will do this when they are bluffing. Bluffing, after all, is a form of lying. Humans aren’t hard-wired to lie. So a mouth-to-the-hand gesture is sort of saying, “I just said something that wasn’t true. Don’t ask me to say it again.”

I followed this up by gently rubbing the side of my head. Again, another strong tell. When players are nervous, they will “hug” themselves as a way of making themselves feel better. I’ve seen opponents rub the back of their neck, their shoulder, even their arm. They do it when they’re weak, and worried about what might happen next.

My opponent tripped all over himself calling my shove. I turned over my straight, and he turned over Ad Qs, for top two pair. The river was a brick, and my opponent was down to the felt, and reaching into his wallet for a re-buy. I’m convinced it was my acting job that earned the call.

The only other comment to make about this had has to do with the player’s flop check. Clearly, it was a huge mistake. He started to assemble a bet with his top two pair, but at the last minute checked, obviously hoping for the opportunity of a check-raise. It didn’t happen, and he gave away any chance of taking down the pot. Had he bet, I would have folded. Lesson: Don’t slowplay your monster hands out of position.

Reflections on Pendleton’s Spring Poker Rodeo

Poker is a game of skill. It is not gambling – at least, if you define the term “gambling” the same way I do. “Gambling” is putting money at risk when you have absolutely no influence on the outcome. Craps is gambling. Lotto is gambling. So is sports betting, roulette, slots, and just about everything else in the casino. That’s why whenever I enter a casino, I pass by all those tables and loud machines without even a glance and head straight to the card room, and I stay there until it’s time to leave.

Poker is a game of skill. Want proof?

Allow me to introduce you to Angela Jordison. Angela won the very first poker tournament held here this particular season. Now, there were 537 entrants in that tournament, and so for Angela to win (assuming poker is all luck and no skill), the chances of this happening would be 1 in 537 or a little less than two-tenths of one percent (0.2%). Not bad, huh? But also no big deal. After all, somebody has to win that game.

The next day, Angela entered the second tournament of the series. There were 448 players, and … Angela won that one too.

Wait a minute … the odds of the same person winning two tournaments in a row? Again, assuming it was all luck and no skill, that would be (1/537) * (1/448) or … four ten-thousands of one percent.

But Angela wasn't done. The next day, she entered the third tournament, which had 214 total players. You probably know where this is going. Yep, she won that one too. Three tournaments, three wins, one winner. That drops the odds of this happening randomly to less than two one-millionths of one percent. And that’s a mighty small number.

Just as an aside … she was on my direct right in another tournament (not one of these three), and she was without a doubt an excellent player. She came to my table with substantially fewer chips than I had, and was still there long after I had busted out.

This is one of the biggest accomplishments of this type that I can think of, and it happened because poker is a game of skill, and Angela was one of the very best players in that room.

---

It goes without saying that I played a lot of poker this week while I was out in Pendleton. Far more hours at the tournament tables than the cash games (and I scored one cash in the four tourneys that I played). There are quite a few hands that are memorable to me, most of which I played really well, including some that I lost. But I think this particular hand stood out for me.

It was fairly early in the tournament. Three players were in the hand, and the effective stack sizes were about 15,000 chips. Blinds were 200/400, and there weren't any antes being collected yet. A young aggressive player who was pretty good (although a little loose) opened the hand in middle position with a raise to 900. I was on the button with the Ten of clubs/Ten of hearts, and just called. Sometimes I would raise with a hand this good, but having watched this player for a while I realized that it wasn't likely I’d get him to fold out, and I didn't want to bloat the pot preflop only to have to release it later. Basically, I was playing to set mine, and willing to drop the hand if I missed. The big blind called the raise, so we went three to the flop with a pot of 2900 and stacks of around 14k.

The flop was Ace/hearts, Ten/diamonds, Three/diamonds. So I flopped middle set on a wet ace-high board.

I looked over at the big blind, and I could see that for some reason he had a tough decision on his hands. He was an older player who had not gotten out of line, so I was intrigued by his hesitation. Finally after some delay, he merely checked.

The initial raiser followed up with a bet of 1500 chips, around half-pot size. I expected him to have an Ace much of the time, and if he did I thought he might call a raise. But I decided to check instead, because I thought maybe the big blind might raise himself given his odd behavior, and I’d be happy to have those chips in the pot too. But much to my surprise, he folded. So the pot was at 5900 and our stacks were at 12.5k.

The turn was the Ace of diamonds. This brought the diamond flush on the board, but also a full house for me. At this point, my opponent checked.

Now I re-evaluated his hand range. While an Ace was still a possibility, given that there were now two on the board, it seemed less likely. I also couldn't put him on the flush. I considered that he probably had a high pair himself, or perhaps an Ace that he didn't want to bet because he thought he might scare me off whatever it was I had. I couldn't see myself getting any more of his chips with a bet at this point unless he had that Ace, so I just checked behind.

The river was Jack/hearts. The villain put out a smallish, 3000-chip bet. I decided to raise it to 8000 from my 12k stack. A shove just seemed too much here, and what I was hoping for was that he would shove on me instead with his Ace (or, less likely, his flush). But instead, he folded his pocket Kings face up, congratulating me on slow-playing my Ace/rag.

I just thanked him warmly, and collected the chips.

---

I didn't play a lot of cash games this trip, but I did play some. I helped open up a new 2/5 table which became populated by folks who (like me) had dropped out of the tournament rather early on. More than a few of these players were tilted, willing to sling a lot of chips around in an attempt to win back the entry fee of the tournament they’d just busted out of.

As luck would have it (and not particularly good luck), the three players on my immediate left were all extremely loose players. They seemed to make every bet in increments of $100 … or more. And they tended to tangle with each other more than the rest of the table, which was fine with me (and also entertaining). Since I've been around the poker room a time or two, I've learned how to play back at players like this. So I just nitted it up to maximum, and played pretty much nothing at all. Every hand had a raise, every raise had a re-raise, and frequently all this was preceded by a straddle which bloated the pot even further. The only hands I played were pocket Aces, pocket Queens, once pocket Eights which flopped a set, and maybe an Ace/King or Ace/Queen. I actually busted the guy on my left; and the guy on his left at one point asked me, “Haven’t you lost a hand yet?” I replied, “I only want to play those hands that I am going to win,” which actually was fairly accurate. After a brief four-hour session, I’d won more money than I had in a month at my last job.

Poker is a game of skill. And on top of that, it’s fun.

Some Recent, Random Experiences from the Table

We've all seen them; those hyper-aggressive players that bomb the pot on every street, frequently winning a hand by doing nothing more than bullying the opposition out of the way. And we just know that they can’t have a real hand every time they do this; but whenever we try to fight back, we discover that (at least that particular time) they in fact do; alternately, we chicken out before we get to the river.

These players used to befuddle – if not downright intimidate – me, but nowadays I know how to fight back effectively.

It was early afternoon, and my opponent had been playing all night long. He had a stack of nearly $10,000; a respectable showing in a 3/5 game when the max buy-in is only $500. And he was one of these hyper-aggros. Helpfully, he was in Seat 1 and I had Seat 4, so I at least had position on him. I pegged him right away for who he was (his gigantic chip stacks were something of a clue), and assembled a strategy for how to play against him, should the occasion arise.

For the most part, we stayed out of each other’s way. When he came into a pot, I’d generally get out; and if he passed on a hand, I found myself more likely to stay in. But inevitably, the big confrontation took place … and I was ready for it.

I was in the big blind, and he was in the cutoff. This being a Seattle room, the field limped in with hardly any folders, until it got to Aggroboy. He tossed in a huge two-fisted raise, and it was folded to me. I looked down at a pair of black sixes, and thought, what the heck? This was, after all, exactly the kind of hand I was looking to go to war with. I called, the rest of the table folded, and it was heads-up.

The rainbow flop came Ace, Queen … Six. Precisely the kind of hand to hit the Villain’s range, and of course I had just struck Yahtzee. I meekly checked. Villain cut out a monster, pot-sized bet. I hemmed and hawed, and eventually called.

The turn was a three, completing the rainbow. Once more I checked. Once more, Villain bombed the pot. Once more, I hemmed and hawed and called.

The river was a seven, and now was the time to drop the hammer. After a brief, respectable delay, I softly said, “All in” while tossing in a single white chip, and waited. Villain visibly melted. He knew exactly what was up now. However, he also knew that he just had to call; he’d watched me playing for some time now, and he realized that the river bluff was part of my repertoire. His Ace-Jack was no match for my flopped set.

While I was stacking my double-up, I saw that he was muttering to himself. Not in a mean way; he was primarily beating himself up over how he played his hand. Then, just slightly louder, he said, “Well, you hit your hand and just sat back and let me bet it for you.” I said, “Yep, I appreciate that.”

He ended up moving to Seat 6 as soon as the opportunity arose, so that my positional advantage would no longer be there … but by then, the damage had been done.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Different day, different players.

I was at a table blessed with a textbook fish; a rich noob with a bottomless supply of $100 bills, giving away stacks of chips at a time to whoever happened to be in a hand with him, and happily rebuying whenever he hit felt.

The player on my left, on the other hand, was quite good; and ultimately found himself heads-up against our generous Villain. The Hero had turned two pair, and shoved all in. Villain called with his flush draw, and had at most seven outs (roughly a 15% chance to win the hand). As sometimes happens with really bad players, Villain hit his hand on the river and doubled up. Once the hand ended, as my neighbor was cutting out the chips he needed to make the pot right, he said (only half-joking), “I hate you. You know that right? I mean, I really hate you.”

This got some chuckles from the rest of us at the table, so he continued: “I mean, if you got hit by a truck on the way out of the card room, I wouldn't miss you.” I very quickly chimed in, “Well I would!” This brought more laughter from the rest of the table.

Poker humor. You either get it, or you don’t.

Poker in the Caribbean

It was not a surprise to discover that the poker room, while an integral part of the casino, was completely vacant for most of the day. Although the Hollywood Casino, right on the campus of the Simpson Bay Resort on Dutch Sint Maarten, opened its doors each day at 1pm (more or less), there wasn't a soul to be found anywhere near the four baize-topped tables until after the dinner hour had passed. Sometime after sundown, a sign-up list appeared on a clipboard atop one of those tables, along with a pen, inviting would-be rounders to indicate their interest by adding their name. The pre-printed data on the form promised that the $2/$5 game would begin “around 9pm”, and only required a minimum buy-in of $100, with no maximum. I added my name next to the Seat Two line, and since Seat One was already claimed by a punter named “Steve”, I signed as “Devo” – my college nickname – to  identify myself more uniquely.

At precisely 2100 hours I dutifully returned to the site of my upcoming triumph … to discover that it was still vacant. (“Island Time” is the term I came up with to describe the punctuality of the St. Maarten residents.) A subsequent visit fifteen minutes later was only slightly more fruitful; a terminally bored dealer had materialized, sitting behind three full chip racks (one each for $1, $5, and $25 chips). Arrayed around the remaining circumference of the table were three would-be players, looking equally bored. I joined them to become the fourth.

The next fifteen minutes I spent amiably chatting with the lady in Seat Five (Angela from Chicago, so it emerged). A fifth player then grabbed a seat, and as this was apparently the magic number, the dealer and her floor manager began buying our American currency, exchanging it for the equivalent in clay-composite chips, and we were shortly underway. Most folks, including me, considered $300 to be sufficient ammunition for the battles to come.

As I anticipated, actually getting the cards into the air served as the siren call for the rest of the players to join us. At 51, I was clearly one of the youngest at the table; it soon became equally clear that I was the best.

The aforementioned “Steve”, at Seat One, turned out to be a rather chunky guy, laden down with gold jewelry to a point just this side of tacky. He was accompanied by a varied posse of attendants who came and went throughout the evening. He was not left alone for a single moment, conversing with one companion after another throughout his entire time at the table occasionally slipping into some Slavic language (Greek? Croatian?). I pegged him as a big drug dealer; perhaps mafia. Contrary to the rest of us, he bought in $1000 at a time, proceeding to give it all away on a consistent basis.

Steve quite literally played every hand dealt to him. Regardless of whether a pot had been raised (or even re-raised) ahead of him pre-flop, or if he was the tenth limper, he had to see every flop. It goes without saying that this is what led to his disastrous results (of which he seemed quite oblivious). But what I found annoying about his style was the pace of his play. Each action on every street required excruciating deliberation. He’d look at his cards; cut them several times; look at them once more (his thumb flipping their corners with a satisfying “fwap”); cap them with a chip; count the rest of his chipstack; cut out calling chips; cut out raising chips; study the board cards carefully; reassemble his chipstack and look at his cards again …

But worse than that; the rest of the table, clearly looked at Steve as some sort of poker model to be imitated (and he certainly looked, if not played, the role). Consequently, every single player (save me) went through the process of carefully contemplating every move. A pre-flop fold holding 7-2 required a Solomonic degree of consideration prior to acting. I marveled that these people were even capable of selecting “paper or plastic” at the grocery store check-out.

The other troubling aspect of the game was the overwhelming rake. Winning a hand in the States will set you back 5% of the pot, capped at a maximum of somewhere around $3 to $5 depending on the room (not counting jackpot drop or dealer toke). However, I was never able to get a handle on the rake in this game. Dozens of chips were flying into the pot with each hand, fueled largely by Steve and his $1000-at-a-time re-buys. And each time the dealer dropped so many chips down into the rake box that, near as I could tell, it was amounting to 10% of each pot with no cap.

Generally speaking, a game of this sort simply cannot be beat. The only exceptions are when the players are particularly bad, or the game is particularly loose. And both of these elements were present in this game. When I finally calculated my overall win rate during the entire week of play, it amounted to around $100/hour, a phenomenal rate for a $2/$5 game. How phenomenal? Well, let me put it this way: It’s something I've never achieved before; and I predict that, no matter how long I live, I’ll never see it again.

Most of these earnings actually came at the Aruban poker room at the Excelsior Casino, located at the Holiday Inn resort. The rake there, I discovered by careful enquiry, was an only slightly more reasonable 5% with a $10 cap and $2 jackpot drop.

At this room they had a $4/$8 limit game with an interesting rule variation. In the States, a $4/$8 game would have blinds of $2 and $4, with pre-flop and flop betting increments of $4, and turn/river bets in increments of $8. Here, though, you could choose to bet either $4 on the flop or go straight to $8 a street early.  The math related to this flop bet modification, combined with the aggressive rake, called for an overly tight game.

I experimented with this feature somewhat, although when I discovered that I was consistently betting low with draws and high with made hands, I shifted gears to betting the max on the flop. I had no desire to make myself so easily readable; although at this table I could have played each hand face up and still come away winner.

I pretty much kept my limit play to a minimum, playing only until a seat at the red-chip game opened up. There was so much more money to be made there. Even so, to give an example, I played a 30-minute session at the limit game, buying in for $100 and cashing out for $265.

When I toted up the figures at the end of my Caribbean adventure, I discovered that I had pretty much paid for the hotel, airfare, and meals for the whole trip. I suppose this might just mean that a follow-up visit is called for at some point.

The History of No-Limit Hold 'Em

I guess it takes some audacity for me to claim that I can summarize the entire History of No-Limit Hold ‘Em Poker into a single blog entry. But blogging takes some audacity to begin with, so I suppose I’ll plead guilty as charged. Maybe it will help to say that my own evolution as a poker player mirrors the timeline that I’m about to lay out.

STAGE ONE: 1950s-late 1980s

No one really knows when the first hand of Hold ‘Em was played, or even where. The fact that its full name is “Texas Hold ‘Em” would seem to be a clue regarding the latter. It was definitely being played there by 1959, and within ten years it had spread to Las Vegas. Twenty years after that, it was declared a game of skill by the state of California, and poker rooms throughout that state (which had been spreading draw poker for some time) started spreading that game too. Even to this day, the twin epicenters of Hold ‘em poker are Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

Although poker was legally – and legitimately – determined to be a game of skill, very few players happened to have any. Roughly 99% of all players at this time just played by feel, not really paying attention to which hands are best to hold pre-flop, or when one should fold post-flop. There are still plenty of players who play this way, and you can still find them in pretty much every game. In fact, nearly every poker beginner starts out at this point, and only a few graduate to the next level of skill.

STAGE TWO: Late 1980s-2003

By the time the 80’s were coming to an end, folks started noticing that some players were consistently winning more often than others; i.e., that it wasn’t all just luck after all. The players who were winning had been studying the game, and had figured out that the way to defeat the amateurs was to play a very tight game – folding the overwhelming percentage of the time preflop, and only going to war with the best hands possible. Then, when they did play a hand, bet aggressively to build big pots that they were more likely to win. The strategy even had a name: Tight-aggressive, or TAG. Players like Tom McEvoy, Chris Ferguson, and Phil Helmuth, Jr. were winning world championships with this strategy. T.J. Cloutier became the most successful tournament player in history by using it.

But the seeds of change were being sown, and the TAGs were about to be left behind by a new generation.

STAGE THREE: 2003-Today

The year 2003 was pivotal in Hold ‘em poker. Several significant events happened during this year:

·       A new TV show hit cable television, called the “World Poker Tour”. The show featured (mostly) well-known players playing for millions of dollars, with hidden cameras showing the audience the players’ hole cards. People were finally starting to see some of the strategy behind how winning players played. And since success breeds imitators, the WPT was just the first of over a dozen poker TV shows to hit the networks over the next few years.

·       An anonymous accountant with the serendipitous name of Chris Moneymaker won the World Series of Poker Main Event – poker’s world championship. This fired the imaginations of would-be rounders all over the poker universe. If an amateur like Moneymaker could win the biggest game in poker, maybe they could too.

·       Internet poker started going mainstream. Someone playing online could play more poker in a minute than a live player could play in an hour. Some folks played more hands in just a few months than Doyle Brunson had played in fifty years at the live table.

As the popularity of poker skyrocketed, the TAGs from earlier days saw an opening and began to publish books evangelizing their TAG doctrine. A flood of material from authors like McEvoy, Cloutier, Sklansky, Gordon, and Ciaffone hit the poker universe. The seminal work was probably Dan Harrington’s series, “Harrington on Hold ‘em”. Harrington was himself a world champ, earning the tongue-in-cheek nickname “Action Dan” for his famously tight play. His disciples came to be known as “Harring-bots”. Sayings such as “tight is right” and “fit or fold” started gaining currency.

But behind the scenes, the oh-so-perfect edifice of TAG was beginning to crumble. The culprit? A new strategy, honed to perfection by hordes of internet players: LAG, or “Loose-aggressive”. TAG remains to this day a very effective strategy for cash games, where one has the luxury of sitting around waiting for the very best hands. But it’s suicide in tournaments. Bottom line, you just can’t wait for premium hands in tournaments; the blinds and antes will decimate your stack and make you a non-factor by the time you decide to play something. Consequently, loosening up your opening standards, which increases variance, is mandatory for tournament success. The “aggressive” component of TAG was still relevant in this new strategy. But tight was no longer right; and fit or fold meant failure.

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And this is the path my own personal game has taken. I started off with an understanding of the rules of Hold ‘Em but no idea of strategy (or even an awareness that “strategy” existed). Then I discovered – and read – pretty much every poker book that had been written by the TAG generation, and my game improved correspondingly. But tournament success continued to elude me. I would sit and watch my stack gradually get whittled away, implementing my TAG strategy to perfection. I came to realize that I needed to loosen my game, but wasn’t sure exactly how to do that. It wasn’t until I hired a coach with tournament success of his own that I started to assemble this final piece in my game. It’s definitely made my overall game much more successful … and more fun, too.