I flopped four fives once and lost to a straight flush. This was fine with me, since it was in a 3-6 game while I was waiting to get into the 10-20, and I qualified for the bad beat jackpot. $7800. Ka-ching!
I know repeating “they’ll pay me off in the long run” is little comfort sometimes, Otto, and venting is natural on the downswing, but venting against bad players is counterproductive. Without the bad players, the mediocre players like myself would bust out in a hurry, and you’d have no one left to play. If everyone played perfect poker, only the rake would win.
Personally, I like to encourage the bad players to keep trying that same play against me. It’s +EV.
Hey, can I ask for analysis? Just to make sure I’m playing correctly and not being an idiot.
Tournament situation. Top 40 take home cash. I’ve been doing pretty badly all night–nothing playable, but I’ve managed to get up to about 4,000. That puts me near the bottom of the stacks by this point, and blinds are 200/400. I get KK. Flop comes out QQ and something else. I’m on the left of the BB, so I raise 500. Guy with about 13,000 in chips goes all-in. Everyone else folds, I call. Turn and river are no help to either, and he has trip queens. I think I was right. I mean, that’s only the third good hand I’ve had all night, and I’ve got a chance to go from near last into the top 10. Plus, he might’ve be trying to bluff me out because of the stack difference (though it seems a big bluff for only about 3000 in chips) or he might’ve had TT or JJ. Heck, I would’ve had him if another king had come out.
asterion - that’s such a close call, that any “right or wrong” answer would depend on your read of that player, and how he had been playing up 'til then.
Better than your opponents, yes.
Exactly. If a strategy consistently works, it is by definition correct, no matter what theory says.
No, because there’d be nothing to bet on. But the cards are secondary. It isn’t through drawing well you win, it’s through knowing what to do with your money - bet, fold, call, raise, re-raise. Most hands don’t lead to a showdown; are you seriously saying that the cards actually matter in those hands? They obviously don’t; it’s all about what you do with your money.
The basic foundation of poker is using your money to convince the other players that you have a different hand from what you actually have. That’s what the game is about on a fundamental level.
I didn’t have a read. He was moved to my table and that was either his first hand or not much more than that.
The poker gods, of course.
Those fuckers have been treating me like Poseiden treated Ulysseus.
I’m off I go to prepare a pyre for the sacrifice of Chris Moneymaker. Maybe that will appease them.
I’m (usually) good about not tapping the glass. I know it’s not to my advantage to teach my opponents better play. There are times though when I’m just overwhelmed with the dreadfulness of their play and the breadth of their suck-out and a comment like “I need to learn how to call with shitty cards and suck out, it’s a real hole in my game” slips out. I vent away from the table (99% of the time). I keep some empty soda cans by my computer, suitable for throwing.
asterion, if I’m reading your hand right, your were UTG with pocket KK and only you and the BB saw the flop? What was the pre-flop betting? What did his kicker turn out to be?
This seems to be the place for a bad beat story of the sort that Stoid mentions on the first page of the thread. I’m a decent home player, but haven’t played online and have little experience in casinos. Some friends and I went to Atlantic City this weekend to play at the Taj; I sat down with $100 at the $2-$4 tables and ended up around $20 up. Then we had dinner, and when we got back the list for $2-$4 was hellaciously long, so I played $3-$6 for the first time in my life. Here’s what happened:
So I sit down at the table and end up getting decent hands and playing on both big and small blind without winning anything; can’t remember the details, but I’m around $12 down. Next hand I’m on the button, and look down to see AA. Four people call the big blind ahead of me, and I raise it up. The big blind’s this guy who’s kinda cocky and has been playing pretty loose since I sat down at the table – one of those gold-chain, tracksuit-wearing Jersey guys. 
Anyway, he looks over and says “Just sat down and already you’ve got pocket aces, huh?” I grin and reply, “Well, I’ve played every hand so far, so maybe I’m just really loose.” He calls.
Flop comes down A59 rainbow. Big blind says, “Check to the guy with pocket aces.” The other four people check, and I bet it out. Big blind and two other people call, so the pot’s now $48. Turn is a 4. It checks around. I bet. Big blind thinks about it for a bit, and I say to the guy next to me (who I’d been bantering with), “This guy’s gonna suck out.” He calls, and the other two players fold. The river is, of course, a 2. Big blind bets. Now, there’s no way in hell I’m going to fold in this situation – the ONLY THING that can beat me is if he has a 3 in his hand – but I’m also not stupid enough to raise, so I call. And yes, he has the 3 for the wheel. Wanna know what it was paired with? A queen. HE HAD Q3o AND STUCK AROUND ON A PRE-FLOP RAISE AND ON A DOUBLE INSIDE STRAIGHT DRAW AFTER THE FLOP, EVEN THOUGH HE’D CORRECTLY PUT ME ON ACES. I laughed and turned over my cards; what’re you gonna do? The guy next to me said loudly, “That’s bullshit.” shrug Yup.
Oh, and the big blind guy, when he saw my aces, smiled and shrugged, as if to say, “See? I knew you had them.” Rrgh.
I ended up making most of that money back before we left, but that one stung a bit. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have played it better, though. Even assuming he was able to read me having aces from the get-go, he wasn’t getting anywhere near the odds to stick around that pot to the turn, let alone the river…was he?
And that in a nutshell is why I hate limit.
Well, I’m not sure what UTG is, but here’s what happened. About half the table saw the flop (I was basically bottom of the table in stack and near bottom in the tournament), with no pre-flop betting other than calling the BB. Flop comes out, QQX. I had first bet, so I put out 500. The guy directly to my left was the guy with the 13,000 stack and he goes all-in. Everyone else gets out (obviously) and I go all-in. He had a Q9s, I believe it was. So he won with the trip queens as I couldn’t pick up another K for the full house. Not something I probably would’ve even stayed in to see the flop with, although with my stack at that point in the tourney I might’ve played it.
UTG= Under the Gun, directly left of BB.
And while I’m here, check the thread in MMSIMPs about the Thursday Tourney. It’s play money, but the bragging rights are coveted enough to make it seem like a real risk.
Thanks, Duke of Rat. Yay, another abbreviation to throw around.
And I’m hoping to play tonight. I send an email to x-ray vision saying that I’d like to start getting in, starting tonight. Now, if PokerRoom will just let me in…Did I mention that I spent the first 25 minutes of that tournament just trying to actually be able to play? I missed the first two or three levels because the software kept booting me out.
That’s hard. If you wanted to win the blinds, you should have bet big instead of calling pre-flop. If you had been closer to the button, then you should have bet big pre-flop to pick up the blinds and the early callers.
But you were in a situation where this is probably the best hand you’re going to have for quite some time, so I can see where you wanted to build the pot up a bit. I still think a minimum raise would be in order, so then you only have to get half the callers to build the same size pot, and it’s less likely that somebody would hit a big flop.
Of course, this is coming from somebody who just won his first real-money online tournament last night (a 50-cent sit-and-go. Woo hoo! I’m up $2!)
The whole “game of chance” thing can be misconstrued.
Poker might be LESS of a game of chance than baseball.
HUH?
I say that because it depends on how you’re measuring. The SKILL of poker is making the correct decision based on your evaluation of the CHANCE. It’s not measured by the outcome of the random event.
Example: if we’re playing heads-up and I raise preflop with AA and you call with 22.
Then, I bet the flop, you call. I bet the turn, you call. Then the river comes a 2, and I check and you check. You didn’t outplay me because you won the hand. You made a mistake on every street.
Similarly, if John Doe was in the same hand with AA and he raised pre-flop, bet and got called on the flop, check-raised the turn and got called, and then checked it down on the river, even though he lost more money than I, his SKILL was better than mine on the hand because he got more money in while ahead. And the same amount in, zero, while behind.
You measure skill in poker by how much money you put in when you have the best of it versus how much money you put in when you have the worst of it, not by how much money you have in front of you at the end of the night.
The “unit” of poker is just hard to define. Certainly, we all agree that heads-up, a weak player has a pretty close to 50/50 shot at being ahead after one hand. He also might have a 25/75 shot at being up after 30 hands.
So, what’s your “unit” for measuring who is better at poker? 1 hand, 30 hands or 1000 hands. The correct answer is impossible to define but probably sounds something like this: the correct unit is exactly the length of time it takes for the better player to be ahead with 99% certainty (or 99.99% or 99.999999%). In that sense, poker has no more chance than chess.
It is somewhat similar to baseball. That’s why we have 7 game series. Sometimes, the better team DOESN’T win the World Series. Sometimes, the team that was ahead 4 games to 3 would have lost in a 9 game series, or an 11 game series – both lengths are more effective methods of finding out who the better team is, but have practical drawbacks.
:eek:
That story in a nutshell is why I love limit.
He got 10 small bets into the pot pre-flop with Aces.
Another 3 small bets into the pot holding top trips.
And, he got a big-bet into the pot when the guy had a 4-outer.
What happens to this story the other 10 times you play it? Hero collects.
River, maybe.
He’s about 10-1 against hitting the straight which he knows is good, and your bet to him on the turn was charging him 8-1, BUT he still had two timid players to act after him on the turn. If only one of them calls, he’s getting 9-1, and if he knows you’re going to pay off a bet on the river, that gives him the necessary 10-1. If he knew they’d both fold on the turn, then it’s a worse call.
Folks, this example is just too perfect a lesson why limit poker is so profitable, and easy at the lower limits. You just need to realize that these beats don’t mean SHIT.
They’re a BLIP.
The ones that sting the worse are the ones that are making you the most money. You simply need to get comfortable with this if you’re playing poker.
Despite the fact that you’re in early position, you have to raise pre-flop with the pocket KK. It’s certainly true that you may end up just winning the blinds, but winning the small pot is better than losing a big one and going out. Without a read on this player, he may with the big stack and suited cards decided to stick around anyway, but with a big pair I’m a big believer in narrowing the field. You have to make it expensive for those people with the suited cards and the mid-level connectors and even smaller pocket pairs to stick around.
Your post-flop bet is pretty bad, especially if the third flop card opened up any straight or flush possibilities. There’s about 2000 in the pot and you put out 500. You’re pricing in anyone who’s playing a straight or flush draw or who paired the third card on the flop. 500 to win 2500 is 5:1 on their money and they’re 3:1 to make a flush, 4:1 to make a straight. The only person who shouldn’t call would be the “made” two pair, since he’d only be 12:1 to improve to a full house. 12:1 is also your odds of catching that third K so I don’t think your call is that close here; I think you have to let it go after the all in re-raise unless you think he’s on a total bluff.
As long as we’re sharing misery…
Last night, $3-$6 NL table, I was in early position. Guy across the table from me in late position has been a loose player all night, calling with garbage more often than not.
Pre-flop, I get AQ suited. I call, two other guys call, Loose Cannon raises $12. I call, two others drop. Comes the flop: QQA. OK, I’ve flopped a strong full boat. That happens to me all the time, right? I’m thinking, with loose cannon in the picture, a check-raise will play. I check to him, he comes back with $25. That gives me pause, because that’s aggressive even for him. I call. Turn is a K. I toss $15 in, he raises me $35. What the hell is he betting? I call. River is another K. I toss $20 in, he raises me $65 and change and is all-in.
I call, leaving me with less than $10 on the table.
He’s got pocket AA, for a full boat Aces full of Kings.
$340 pot. And I can’t even bitch about his play much; he flopped trip Aces and was playing it strong.
You know, these threads always make me feel better when I’m playing 8% of the flops and can’t get a hand to save my life. At least then I’m only losing a little bit at a time.
If you don’t mind me asking, where do all of you play? I play at Ultimate Bet and I’d love to sit in a real game with some Dopers if possible. That way, I can take all of youse guys’ money. 