Poker strategies for my specific opponents

The Game Room
1

Here’s the sitch. I play dealer’s choice poker every Tuesday and Wednesday night with two different sets of players. There is, however, a 30% overlap in the players, though. That is, 30% or so of Wednesday players are the same people from Tuesday night. I’ve been winning a decent amount of money, but I’d like to improve my game. Now, I COULD read some general tips online, but a lot of what I’ve learned about poker over the years doesn’t seem to apply to this group, due to the nature of the game and their habits. So here are some things we know about those habits.

  1. The game is usually Omaha Hi-Lo (8 or better). Second most frequently is Omaha (just Hi), and third is Texas Hold’Em. Finally, one strong player plays 7-Stud Hi/Lo on occasion (30% of the time).

  2. The blinds are extremely low. Tuesdays, it’s 20 cents while Wed, it’s $.50. But a standard bet is 6-10 times that high. That’s just an average bet, mind you. We’ve frequently had pots over $200. It’s common for someone to go up or down by hundreds in a single night.

  3. People like to chase. They also like to see a flop. So you’ll get a lot of calls, no matter what your preflop bet is. And if they get a 4-card flush on the flop, you’d better be prepared to see the river because SOMEONE will always chase it down. This has been…expensive for me.

So some questions:

  1. Where should I sit? The general rule is that you sit after a loose player and before a tight player, but I don’t know how that applies across so many games. Also, do I want to sit after the strong 7-stud player, since I get to miss my blind (and ante instead), or is that a bad idea because he’s a good player?

  2. What should I deal on my turn? It’s an advantage to be the dealer, but which game holds the most benefit in that regard? 7-card stud is out, since the button is irrelevant, so out of the remaining 3, what should I go with?

  3. How can I take advantage of this small blind/big bet dynamic? For one thing, stealing the blinds is impossible or at least not worth the risk. Is there anything else I should know?

  4. Considering what we know about the chasers and the bet sizes, how should I adapt my starting hand selections for these games?

  5. I’m a rookie at 7-card stud, so I don’t even know what to ask. Tell me anything you want to about it.

2

Is the Stud 8 or better – or no qualifier – or no qualifier with a declare?

Are the games all played No Limit or are you playing something like $5/$10 with a single 50 cent blind? Hand selection and playing strategy depend a lot on the specific blind / ante structure.

In a game of the sort I think you are describing (mainly casual unsophisticated players who like to gamble), I would tend to want to sit across from the best player … keeps you out of each others pots much of the time, and gives you opportunities to put/trap the weaker players in the middle when you both have playable hands.

With the button games, you should deal the game in which you have the biggest difference in skill over the other players. For example, if there are several decent Hold 'em players close to your level of skill but you are far better than the rest at Omaha Hi, choose the Omaha – you win most of your money from players who are much worse than you, so don’t spend your time grinding against players who are almost as good as you.

My experience at home game Omaha 8 or better with most of the players going to the river in huge pots is that you have a big edge but it will take a long time for it to show up since you will be the only one sitting out most of the hands and the hands take a very long time to play.

When you finally do get a playable hand, somebody will say “Uh oh, here comes Chessic. I raise.” The next guy will look at you, grin, and also raise, so most every pot you play will be capped on every street til the river … so, since you have the best starting hand, you will most often end up with the best hand, however, you won’t make them all and your bankroll swings will be huge … but so is your edge … but the game is sooo slow … there will likely be only 11 or 12 hands per hour and you could play three times that in Hold 'em but with a smaller spread of skills … it gets complicated.

Generally with the very small blind / big bet situation, with a drawing hand you want to play cheaply, for the minimum, until you make your draw, then bet as much as you can every chance you get. Conversely, if you have a hand that plays better short handed, a big pair of two, you want to start blasting right away, making it too expensive for the drawing hands to play against you.

This means that if you have a draw in a small pot and somebody makes a big bet, you fold. It means that when you make a big bet in a small pot against what you think is a drawing hand, you want him to call … because it is wrong for him to do so. That means sometimes he will chase down his draw, but not often enough for it to be correct. Your swings will be large, but so will your profits.

Pay attention to who will fold to a steal raise; if they won’t fold, don’t steal … unless he is aware enough to realize that you never steal against him; then, try to steal against him just often enough that he can no longer be sure of what you are doing.

In Stud Hi-Lo (except with a declare), remember these words: Play for low.

3

It’s 8 or better. And it’s usually a NL game, but occasionally it’s sort of a Limit-PotLimit hybrid. They’ll say the limit is, say, $15, and that’s the betting cap but it’s not incremental betting. And if you bet, say, $10 then the next guy can go to $25 and the next guy can make it $40, etc.

Suppose that’s undetermined, thouh. I don’t know which games I’m best at.

Well the hand selection is part of my problem here. In a normal, “smart” game, if I have AA1010, single suited, I’d want to bet a lot on the flop so that I can chase out any gutshot straight draw hands. But if I lose the power to do that (because they call everything) then I should probably limp in. The hand’s value depends upon how many people are playing the hand, right? So if I can’t protect my pocket pairs in the normal way, then there must exist some hands that go from “raise to protect” straight to “fold right away so no one draws out on it”.

The question is which hands those are?

4

I suspect that since some of the same players are involved on both nights and since the limits / formats are so unusual that the games have been organized by one or more people who have a pretty good idea what they are doing. This sort of spread limit game with very small blinds doesn’t tend to last very long in areas where there is legal public poker because the better players win all the money too quickly.

Pay particular attention to those who play both sessions and see who tends to play very few hands … see what hands they show down at the end … those are good hands. Notice how they played those hands; they probably came out blasting with big pairs but they just limped along with drawing hands in unraised pots until they made their draw, then they started betting big.

There is a whole lot of truth in the old saying “If you sit down in a poker game and can’t spot the fish, you’re it.” You asked some very good questions … but they don’t all have easy answers … learning to (really) play poker takes a lot of time and experience … and learning to play so many different games will take even longer.

I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but you are going to be a donator in these games. Even if you want to apply yourself and really learn to play, these games are not the place to be; they are non-standard and the betting structure will insure a beginner loses the maximum while he learns and gains experience. I sincerely recommend you find a different game, one with a standard betting structure.

I’ll address the hand you mentioned. In Omaha Hi-Lo, hands with two big pairs like your AATT play best short handed, so you want to raise if it will drive most players out and get it heads up or maybe against two other players. You don’t want to play that kind of hand against a large number of players because if a low comes you are only playing for half the pot … and a lot of the time that low will accidentally make some sort of rag flush or straight, so even if you flop an Ace but don’t fill up, you end up with nothing. If you get it heads up, your big pair might be enough to win … and if an Ace comes on the flop, that makes a low more likely … so, with that hand, raise it if you think it will make the pot short handed, but if a lot of players come in anyway, slow down – likely even check and fold if you miss the flop and there is action … same with a hand like JJ24; you might take a shot raising it to try to steal the button, but if you don’t hit the flop you’re done with it.

The best hand in Omaha Hi-Lo is AA23, double suited … you can make a low, it will always be the best low, you have counterfeit protection if one your cards shows up on the board, you can make the nut flush in two different suits, and you can make top set or Aces full.

Middle cards are terrible in this game; something like 9988 is not playable … just throw it away … even if you do manage to flop top set and are drawing to a full house, you are only playing for half the pot because the fact that you made top set with middle cards means the other cards on the board are low, so somebody is likely to make a low … same for hands like 5678, just throw it away.

You don’t want to play two Hold 'em hands in O8 … something like JT55 is not playable … you want all your cards to work together … you want to play high only hands against just one or two others, or you want to play low only or two way hands against a lot of players so there is someone in there to pay you off. A bare A2 is usually playable, a bare A3 maybe if it isn’t raised, but hands like A488 aren’t even worth completing the small blind.

So there you go; I’ve rambled on mainly to convince you that you are in over your head. While there will be some nights you get lucky, I suspect your actaul long-term expectation in these games is to lose somewhere between $30 to $60 per hour. If you can afford the losses and enjoy yourself, carry on … otherwise, I suggest you find a more normal game in which to learn, or one with lower stakes.

Good luck.

5

To the contrary. The betting is strange because these people don’t want to play real poker. They know there is supposed to be a blind, but they don’t want it to be significant. They think in terms of money instead of in terms of bets. Sure, they’ll calculate the pot odds on tough calls, but they’ll bet $5 because that’s “the standard”, not because it’s good odds for that pot. And the hybrid-limit I mentioned isn’t designed to confuse players. It’s designed to cap the limit so no one gets stressed out by huge bets…a mentality of “if I check, the most he can bet is $15” and that comforts them. The rules certainly aren’t designed to shark anyone.

Somewhere between the OP and here, you got the idea that I’m a beginner. I’ve been playing poker for $100s since early high school and have played in casinos in two countries and 5 states. This year, I’m up over $300.

I can spot the fish. His name is Todd. He gives us all his money on a weekly basis. I like him.

I’m not bragging or anything. I’m just pointing out that we’re well past the point of paying to learn the game.

You’re giving me poker 101 here. I’m looking for graduate-level courses. None of those suggestions are any different than how you’d play against good players. I’m asking how to adjust from standard, textbook play, considering what we know about the trends in these games. For example, you said I should bet big with two big pairs. But we know that won’t chase anyone out. So given that, is it still a good idea to bet big, should I just limp, or should I just straight-out fold it?

6

Definitely you want to sit behind him – not so much because you miss the (insignificant) blind, but because you get to avoid being first to act throughout the hand. Moreover, the best place to stick a good player is on your immediate right: he’s less dangerous that way.

Generally hold’em in my experience, though I don’t play a lot of Omaha. Definitely not Hi-Lo.

Theoretically, as the blinds decrease in size relative to the amount of money to be won later in the hand, your opening range should get tighter and tighter. In practice, if you feel you have a big skill advantage after the flop you’ll want to get involved with some more speculative holdings (and folding everything preflop is no fun in a live game, anyway).

In general, tighten up, like I said. More specifically, you want to flop draws to hands that are better than the hands the other chasers are drawing to, and you want to flop made hands that are strong enough for you to confidently blast away and overcharge the draws (I know this tactic seems expensive, but in the long run it’s the only way you’re going to make money against the chasers). Pick your preflop hands accordingly.

7

All poker hands start out as a struggle for the antes. If there were no antes or blinds, it would make no sense to ever play any hand except the absolute best hand for that game; in Hold 'em without blinds, you should throw away every hand except AA … anything else would be a mistake. (Think about that until it seems absolutely clearly correct.)

The skill to luck factor in a poker game begins with the ante to bet size ratio. Bigger antes raise the luck factor and make it necessary to play more hands so as to not ante off all you money before you get a playable hand. Smaller antes make it correct to play fewer hands, making hand selection a valuable skill. Extremely small antes might make it correct to limp into many pots hoping to get lucky and make a big hand quickly, but require the player to quickly dump hands that get raised preflop or that don’t improve on the flop.

A good balance of luck vs skill is needed to insure the losing players have some chance to have an occasional lucky win. Hold 'em started out in Las Vegas at the Golden Nugget with a single $5 blind in the $10/$20 game but the game didn’t become popular until the current $5 and $10 blind structure evened out the luck/skill factor. With the smaller blind structure, the tightest players had too big an advantage and the loose players pretty much never won and quit coming back.

That said, the structure of your game is not a balanced one. I don’t know where you got your ideas about why it is the way it is (I suspect that is what you were told by the guy(s) who designed it), but … ahhh … let me just say that it a very bad structure for a poker game … and it is a bad structure because it is so exploitable by a skilled player.

I would suggest you read The Theory of Poker by David Sklansky. I suggest this book to you because you do seem to have some knack for poker; you ask some very good questions but you seem to be somewhat confused on some fundamental concepts.

By the way, I have earned my living entirely as a poker player since 1996.
On preview: I’m going to disagree with VarlosZ on where to put the strong player. Since he is tight, I would much rather have him on my left than my right because he won’t be playing many pots, and the few times he does come in, I know he has a real hand and can play him accordingly. Also, since he is tight, I am more likely to be able to steal the button from him. I want the weakest / loosest player on my right, giving me position over him.

8

This is literally true only if one assumes a theoretically infinite number of hands. If you could play an infinite number of hands without blinds or antes then, yes, AA is the only hand you’d ever want to call or bet on because it would maximize your dollars won to dollars lost ratio.

However, you can’t play an infinite number of hands. In a typical night of live poker you might see, I dunno, 150 hands; since you’ll get AA just once in 221 hands, playing solely AA means you’ll win very little money because (a) you’ll never play and (b) people will learn to fold to you.

So in fact, without blinds and antes, you’d be better off loosening up just a little bit. You’ll maximize your winnings by at least expanding your starting hands to KK, AK suited, maybe AQ suited, QQ. Sure, you stand a much better chance of getting beaten with QQ than with AA, but it would still increase your profit **per hour. **

Having said all that I think the gist of the advice so far is correct; with low blinds and loose players, play tight tight tight and conservatively. Don’t bother bluffing, you won’t have many opportunities to check raise, and call only with premium hands, even in position. Simplify your play.

9

Ah, but one must assume an infinite number of hands to think correctly about a game of statistics. This is a fundamental concept.

If there is nothing in the pot to win, it is not statistically correct to gamble. The more you stand to win, the more you can correctly take a chance to win it.

Putting the first money in the pot is an enticement to other players to try to win that money. Putting that money in there without holding the best possible hand is a mistake because you currently have nothing to win; you are hoping that someone else will play an even more inferior hand … it may now be statistically correct for them to do because you have given them pot odds … so they may not actually be making a mistake even if their hand is inferior to yours because they actually have a chance to win real money whereas you only had the hope that someone would be willing to gamble with you.

Thinking “I might not get AA tonight so I’d better play some other hands” will result in some nights where other poor players lose to you and your bankroll will fluctuate, but in the long run the person who is correctly waiting for that AA will win all the money.

So yes, playing poker without antes is pointless because there is no real reason for anyone to play without already having the best possible hand. Finding that balance between ante and bet size that gives the donators a fun run for their money but still gives the pros a reasonable chance to earn their living is what keeps poker alive. It is a much better solution than simply hoping somebody else at the table will also make the mistake of being the first to put money into an empty pot for no reason other than that he feels like gambling.

10

[QUOTE=Turble;12273812Putting the first money in the pot is an enticement to other players to try to win that money. Putting that money in there without holding the best possible hand is a mistake because you currently have nothing to win; you are hoping that someone else will play an even more inferior hand … [/QUOTE]

You’re not hoping. You’re betting.

If you have, say, KK, and don’t bet it, you’re giving up far more in potential winnings than you stand to lose. Assuming you’re playing against normal humans, people will bet to you with hands worse than KK. We’re just disagreeing over how one’s opponents will likely behave, I think.

Unless your bankroll is unlimited there’s no endless long run. A few bad beats… furthermore, if your intent is to maximize your profits, you need to think in terms of money won in a given period of time. I can win a far higher percentage of bets made playing at a 2/4 cent table on Pokerstars, but make more money per hours at the 50c/$1 tables. It won’t help you to win all the money if it’ll take eight thousand years.

Of course, it’s absolutely correct that without antes/blinds the game won’t really work; it’ll become too tight, even if - as I am convinced - they won’t go AA-only tight. Tournaments, in particular, wouldn’t really work at all.

11

I think RickJay is correct here. Turble, I think you’re just factoring into the math the odds of you winning vs. the amount you stand to win. You’re not factoring in the opponents.

You’re correct in thinking that if there are no antes, that the best hand for the game is the one you should wait for. But you’re wrong in thinking that AA, for example, is the best hand for the game. Because when you say “the game”, you shouldn’t mean “the rule structure”, but instead “the situation one is playing in”. That includes opponents that 1) gamble, and 2) learn. If you only play AA, then you’re effectively playing with your cards face-up. That can’t win, can it?

But I’m just nitpicking. For practical purposes, I agree with everything you’ve said.

12

I forgot to answer your response about the betting structure…

The limit-like rules are only in place when the dealer decides that it is. And so far, the only one that plays by those rules on a regular basis is an old, Jewish physician that just wants to play some cards to feel young again. He’s another “regular contributor”.

I just don’t see how such a simple thing could possibly be designed to fool anyone. It’s not all that complicated to understand either…you can’t bet more than the limit, but you can bet anything under that. So whereas Limit $30 usually means you can only bet $30, then $60, then $90, in this game it means that you can bet anything from $1-$30, and the next guy can make it anywhere from 2 bets to 1bet+$30. That’s all.

Can you explain why you think it’s possibly designed to obscure or confuse me? Or separate me from my money in some way? I just don’t see it.

13

It depends on how aggressive he is. If he’s tight and mostly passive, then having him on your left is fine. OTOH, if he’s doing more than his share of floating, reraising, etc., then just stick him on your right where he’s mostly a known quantity. Being able to steal the button is nice, but not as valuable in a loose game.

In reality, assuming that most other players are playing too loose preflop and not especially well postflop, this would never be the case, for a number of reasons. Other players will quickly realize what you’re doing and be able to play perfectly against you. You might even be disinvited before long. Most significantly, the players who don’t know what they’re doing will go busto to the guy who only plays AA-TT long before the guy who only plays AA has a chance to get their money (and since the AA-TT guy is only going to play a big hand against the AA guy when he has a set, we shouldn’t expect him to be giving much if anything away in that pairing).
But fundamentally, your goal is to increase your *absolute *equity, not to have the best return on investment. As RickJay points out, if playing KK in a hold’em game with no blinds or antes has a positive expectation and you throw it away, then you’ve cost yourself money, and going a step further to convince yourself that folding it is best is to miss the forest for the trees.

14

No no no, I fully understand that people will play with poor hands even if there is no money in the pot. My point is that they are theoretically incorrect to do so; I’m talking about the pure basic fundamental aspect of what poker is about, not about irrational human behavior.

If there is no money in the pot and you bet with your KK, you are making a bigger mistake than an opponent who calls you with QQ because you had nothing to win when you made that bet unless somebody else enters the pot. The guy who calls you with QQ has a chance to win the money you put in there, so his mistake is smaller than yours even if hand is inferior.

My point is that a person who really understands the game would not put that first bet out there without AA, but he would gladly take chances with lesser hands if others are foolish enough to do so. I’m not saying AA is the only hand he will play, just that it is the only hand with which he will be first to put money in the pot. See? Once there is money in the pot, pot odds become a factor; when there is no money in the pot, you are simply hoping.

So, since it is always incorrect to be the first to bet with less than the perfect hand, a game with no antes means no hand will ever be played (disregarding the rare instance in which two players are dealt AA) unless the players make mistakes.

So what does this theoretical razzle dazzle mean in the real world? It means that to insure a long life for the game, luck must be balanced with skill. If the game is too heavy on luck, there is no opportunity for anyone to earn a living playing it, and if the game is too heavily biased toward skill, the casual players won’t have the opportunities to having a winning session now and then and will stop playing.

The luck vs skill factor is balanced by the ante to bet size ratio. Make the antes too small (or nonexistant) and the tight player have too great an edge over the loose gamblers. Make the antes too large and the game becomes simply a contest of who gets dealt the better hand.

Before the poker explosion of the past 10 years or so, No Limit (which we can think of as actually a game of extremely small antes in comparison to the possible bet size) was a totally dead game because the skill factor was too great; the live ones never really had a chance and quit playing. The only reason it caught on was it was what people saw on TV so that’s what they wanted to play.

There are still very few live No Limit games compared to well balanced Limit stuctures because the games simply don’t last. The big names basically only play No Limit when they have a live rich guy who specifically wants to play No Limit. The regular Big Game at the Bellagio is Limit … and in that game, the live ones do have an occasional win and therefor they keep coming back.

A little story: I once heard Stu Unger (quite likely the best poker player who ever lived) say “I had the worst nightmare last night. I woke up drenched in sweat, my heart was pounding, I dreamt I was playing No Limit Hold 'em with my own money.”

Back to the point: My point is that spread limit games with tiny antes give too much advantage to skilled players; they don’t give the casual a crowd a fair chance. While they may be started up by people who simply don’t know any better, I think it is more likely they are instituted by those who do know what they are doing. But no matter how the game came to be, it is ripe for plucking.

There is only the long run … anything else is just gambling.

Oh yeah, and about tournaments … keep in mind that they induce action by constantly increasing the blinds, meaning it takes skill to get to the final table, but once there, the luck factor increases enormously because the blinds become huge in relation to the stack sizes.

15

I don’t understand why you would care when you put the money into the pot, if you know what will happen after you make that bet. It doesn’t matter, theory-wise, if I bet and you call or if you bet and I call. Either way, there’s $X going into the pot and another card is coming.

The only difference is that in this scenario, the second guy gets to be the decision-maker. But since we’re stipulating that people will call you, he’s not much of a decision maker anyway.

Consider this theoretical set-up. Suppose no one has bet and I have AA in a Hold-Em game. It’s normal rules, except that if I bet you are forced to call me. You have no choice. This is exactly like playing with loose, gambling types. In this case, it doesn’t make sense to say it’s bad to bet into an empty pot, because you know the pot won’t be empty by the time the betting round is over. You KNOW this for a fact.

The reason the AA guy in your setup makes a mistake by betting AA is because it gives the QQ guy an option to try to win that money. You’re giving him odds. But in the real world, where people gamble and make bad calls, that decision has already been made. So now when you bet, despite being chronologically first to do so, you’re actually taking a stab at the implied subsequent call. He’s giving you odds for his money too.

16

No, that’s not necessarily true.

To look briefly at the tree in this forest, Player A calling with QQ might or might not be smart depending on what you think Player B has and what an intelligent expectation of his hand is. If Player A is like you, and bets only on AA, then calling with QQ is stupid. But suppose Player A is me, and will bet with AA or KK. Then calling with QQ’s still stupid, isn’t it? You’re likely to lose heads up.

But suppose you think I will bet with any pair higher than 9s or any two face cards suited. QQ will beat most of those hands, so you’d be wise to call.

To look at the forest now, instead of the tree, why is betting with KK stupid if I know you might call with QQ? If my expectation of hands you will call with includes a number of hands worse than KK - only AA is a better hand - then betting with KK is perfectly smart. I’ll beat you more than half the time, so I’ll be up money. I can’t lose anything if you fold right off, so the only question when I bet with KK is what the odds are that you will call with a hand worse than KK. If the odds are 50%+1, I should bet with KK.

Pot odds are always a factor. Always.

When you’re first to bet you have even pot odds against someone who hasn’t posted a blind - since they must, of course, at least match your bet. If they don’t bet there’s no hand; if they do your money’s even money. Expected pot odds are every bit as real as existing pot odds even if it’s harder to determine. But it’s not just hoping, it’s reading your opponents. If I’m in early position with a sort-of-loose table, I might be able to predict that a bet of four times the big blind will give me roughly 3-to-1 pot odds because, on average, I’ll get two callers or so on that bet.

If all players were perfect robots then a no-ante-no-blind game would eventually result in AA being the only hand played, I’d agree. But they aren’t. If I found myself at a game where the host said “Hey, let’s play without blinds” I’d be happily raising with KK and expecting to win lots of fishes’ money. I’m smart enough not to play at Daniel Negreanu’s house.

Depends on the tournament; they can bounce up and down in ratio a little. I often find myself suddenly playing with blinds that feel smaller than they dido before, but then a few minutes later back up they go.

The blinds and antes do get uhge, but on the other hand, in a sufficiently large tournament you do tend to end up at the final table with only good players left. You can win a 45-person sit 'n go with luck, but you’re not winning the Poker Stars Sunday Quarter Million as a maniac sucking people out with 8-4 offsuit every second hand.

17

C’mon guys, you asked for the graduate level course, you haven’t done the required reading, and yet you’re arguing with the professor over a concept that is a given.

I don’t mean this in an offensive manner: You guys are amateurs and it shows. Your kind of (lack of) thinking is the reason I have been able to earn my living from gambling games for over 40 years.

http://digitaleditiononline.com/publication/index.php?i=15850&m=&l=&p=52

Notice on that page from The Theory of Poker there is also a definition of Pot Odds.

Good luck, guys. If you have questions, I’ll be happy to answer them, but I have no desire to argue with people who don’t know what they are talking about.

18

Turble, it is possible that you’re not the only professional poker player in the thread, and that your tone has been somewhat inappropriate.

I’m just saying those things are possible, is all.

19

First of all, you have to know your best games. Mine are Omaha Hi/Lo, Stud Hi/Lo and Razz. Notice a pattern? I’ve won tournaments in these games whereas I’m a middle-of-the-road Hold’em. So In a lowball game I can outplay the table but in hold 'em I’m tight aggressive (i.e. as standard as you can get). If I’m missremembering who posted forgive me, but if you don’t know your best game you’re maybe POK103 not grad level.

Second of all, how well do your opponants play? Will they see or understand a subtle move (e. g. a bet that is low enough that you’re begging for callers) or are they like my stepdad that has learned strategy by watching WPT. This one took me a while to learn. You can’t bluff in razz with (KK)A32 when your opponant doesn’t realize T8A94 is a crappy hand.

Third of all, be unpredictable. Complete rather than bring in on a stud hi/lo hand. Be aggressive then passive. In a tournament, I try to trap with AA by slowplaying then show the card win or lose to give an impression but preflop raise later in the game.

20

And if you want to google up Implied Odds and Implied Pot there’s lots of definitions for that, too, Professor.

If you’re right, make the case in an argument. “Well, I’m smarter!” is not an argument.

And incidentally, aren’t you a retired casino worker? So you said in February:

Quite a lot different from implying you’re a retired gambler.