A Nice Way to End a Long Day...

Chopped first place with two other players last night in my monthly live tournament. Really felt I was on my game, actively hand reading the entire night and almost completely playing the other players and not my own cards. A few highlights/lowlights from the evening:

Second hand of the night I verbally called a players' holding. He's an older guy who only raises very big hands, limps everything else. Also is somewhat of a "tricky" post-flop players and has more than once in the past remarked that his monsters always get sucked out. He's in BB immediately to my right. I open raise UTG with 44 to 2.5x, get three callers, then he clicks it back from the BB with a min-raise. Ding, ding, ding... he's got a big hand. Probably something like QQ+ or AKo+.  Getting good implied odds, I call. Flop is K-rag-rag rainbow. He sits up vertical in seat... and then checks, first to act. I'm no dummy, so I check behind. Some mid-fielder comes in for 1/3 pot size bet, others fold, and villain promptly check raises big. I obviously fold. Mid-fielder then folds a K face up and Villain slumps in chair with a sad look. Another player not in the hand says to villain, "You bluffing this early in the game?" Villain starts to slide his cards to muck, and I say, "that was no a bluff. Why don't you show your big slick to the table." Villain looks at me, then sheepishy turns over AK and complains he never gets paid off. No, not when you're that transparent you don't. In hindsight, probably should have kept my big mouth shut, but my big mouth didn't cooperate.

Two hands later I take down a moderately big pot, calling off what is clearly villain's busted flush draw hopeless bluff on the river with my own ace high, which I table with just a dash of ego mixed in. Wooooooooot!  Losing player scowls at me and asks nastily if I'm new to poker. I respond by saying, "Oh, I thought I had a pair of aces. Guess I need to look at my hand more closely next time." In your face!

Had a couple of coolers then set me back (KK ran into AA, and QQ ran into AK), then hit a set of threes against a really aggro player (who has given me fits in previous games; I usually play terribly against him). When he bets the flop, he can have anything, but when he fires turn and river I know he has at least TPTK and he loves to put pressure on players along the way. I'm OOP, so I let him bomb away on all three streets, with me check-calling and thinking I'm Marlon Brando with my acting skills, pretending I'm chasing some kind of draw, which of course never gets there. I check-raise all-in on the river, however, and get paid off.

Me big stack. Be big stack bully. Me run over table. Me really like poker!

Me take a big beat with another flopped set getting runner-runnered for a crazy inside straight. Me back to average stack. Me not so happy with poker.

Me get AA two hands in a row. Me no get paid off on either. Me more unhappy. Boo hoo, me.

We final table around 8:30pm, with nine players left and only four spots getting paid. I'm sitting to the right of two really good players, each with big stacks. I go card dead, and just turn into a folding monkey for lap after lap. Meh.

We then get into a weird hand, where a player tanks for at least 5 minutes after facing a big turn bet. He tanks and tanks and tanks.... and then calls the clock on the other player in the hand!  He's been thinking all along he's the one waiting for the other guy to act. The entire table goes nuts, demanding that the game clock be reset the original five minutes, which in fact is what happens.

We're down to seven, and I get KQs UTG. I open to 3x. Action folds to a competent lady on the button, who cold calls. Both blinds call. I cover everyone, but not by much. The villain lady is a decent player and usually quite tight, fully understanding the gap concept. Ergo I know she has a real hand. Flop comes J-T-3 rainbow. Both blinds check. I lead 1/2 pot with a semi-bluff and she quickly re-shoves all-in on me. Blinds fold. Damn. I'm getting (barely) the right odds to call, but it's my tourney life on the line... so I decide to fold and live to fight another day.... when I literally hear one of the ex-players standing on the rail behind me whisper to another that this lady is the evening's secret player, with a nice cash bounty on her head in the tourney. When I factor that money into my pot odds, I realize I have to make the call. So I do. Not real happy when she turns over AA. Quite happy when the river brings a nine and I double up-- and win the bounty. Woot!

I go back into fold-my-way-toward-the-bubble mode due to terrible cards and super aggro action from two of the remaining players on my left.

I forgot to mention that this game takes place in the courtyard area of an upscale restaurant in town. The owner of the restaurant sometimes plays, but often just kibitz's around during the tourney smoking cigars, drinking wine, and acting like the big shot he feels he is. Anyway, we're down to five players at this point when said restaurateur sits down next to one of the big-stack aggro players at our table and literally starts looking this player/friend's hole cards and commenting on play, whispering in the player's ear, commenting on the action, etc.. The guy who runs the game  (who is also dealing (and is also still in the game)) says, "Uh, Bob, you can't actually do what you're doing. We have a one seat, one player rule." The restaurant owner gets very miffed and replies, "This is my fucking restaurant, Fred. If you want to leave, you can at any time."  Uh, okay. He makes a point of playing another couple of hands with his friend before standing up and pretending like he has other important business to attend to. Not cool. (At one point earlier in the night, the restauranteer came to another table that I was playing at and sat down in an empty seat (next to me) and commented on board texture and the like. The dealer at that table tried to shoo him away there, but big shot clearly didn't give a damn and just continued doing what he was doing. Weird.)

Some terrible bubble play ensues between two other players, who get into a dick-measuring contest with each other. Ther rest of us sit back and let one of them kill the other off. Which they do. And we're in the Money four-handed.

I bust out one of the other three finalists with TPGK on a very dry board, and we're now down to three.

We play a couple more orbits, but then the blinds really start sky-rocketing. Someone suggests a chop, so we do. I tip the dealer, then sit around and jaw with some of the guys for while. Drive home with windows down and moonroof open on a crisp fall night.

Nice way to end an otherwise long, tough day.

All-in for now...
-Bug

Death by a Thousand Cards

/crabbiness on/

Now that the WSOP is over (well, at least until November), it seems everyone and their uncle wants to report on how they busted from the series. It doesn't matter if it was the $10K Main Event or a $200 daily deepstack event-- I've read about a dozen articles and have listened to a number of podcasts about all manner of people that played in Vegas over the past month and a half, and a  majority of them are saying basically the same thing when explaining why they busted from their respective tournament: "I was card dead for hours" or "I had a great table but the cards just didn't come" or "I was blinded down by a cold deck" or "The deck was colder than a witches tit in a brass bra an IRS agent's heart."

This is all fine and good, but these descriptions all strike me as nothing more than glorified bad beat stories. Oh, look at me. I lost because the cards didn't come. Boo hoo.

Is there anything more sad/pathetic/boring than a bad beat story? My old poker coach literally used to demand a dollar whenever/if I whined about a bad beat. News flash: We all get bad beats and coolers. That's just poker, folks. You agreed to the possibility when you signed up for this silly game. Yes, in a tournament a bad beat or cooler often means your tournament life comes to an end-- but again: you knew that was a possibility going in. Quit whining about it. The cards weren't coming, so you made the mistake of waiting until you were blinded down-- and only then made a stand. And then lost. And then had to leave. And then blogged about your bad luck.

I repeat: boo hoo.

The truth for most of these folks is that they let themselves get blinded down waiting for those mythical cards to come. Maybe I'm just cranky this morning, but I really don't have patience for people who blame their tournament bust-outs on being card dead. Cards don't matter (much) in big tournaments. Phil Ivey gets coolered just as often as you do. Phil Hellmuth gets bad beaten just a much-- in fact, probably more often than you. Vanessa Selbst goes card dead just a frequently as you. Annette O. sometimes plays without even looking at her cards.

And guess what? These pros all still manage to go deep and win.

Let's repeat that hidden gem again: your cards really, truly, honestly don't matter much. Seriously.

Uh, okay Bug. What exactly does matter? If my cards don't matter, what does?

Answer: Situations.

The thing the Phils and the Vanessas (and of course the cute-as-a-button Annettes) do so much better than you or I is they wait for situations, not cards. In fact, they actively seek out situations to attack. They aren't waiting for magical cards; instead they're actively probing for weaknesses in their opponents. They're looking for situations, not cards. They're chipping up. They're slicing and dicing. They're paying attention and REDi'ing and attacking and putting their opponents on the defensive. They're doing this constantly while you and I wait for the deck to heat up. The pro's cards don't matter. Instead, what matters are the cards of their opponents. They literally are making their opponents wait for the mythical cards while they themselves build their own stack by taking advantage of situations.

Now let's repeat that gem: They are NOT waiting for cards to come. If they bust, it's because they were situation dead, not card dead.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Now back to your regular programming.

/crabbiness off/

All-in for now...
-Bug

Rocks, Pebbles, and War

"Rock breaks scissors. Pebble breaks nothing."

-Arnold Snyder, The Poker Tournament Formula

In cash games, your chips are directly and explicitly equivalent to money, nothing more, nothing less. Effective stack sizes rule, so relative differences between your stack and your opponents are nullified and, essentially, meaningless.

In a tournament, your chips are equal to money (albeit in an indirect ICM-related manner), but they're also weapons, and the relative size of your weapon stockpile to that of your opponent matters a lot. Said another way, think of your tournament chips as a limited pile of ammunition. As the Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz pointed out, one of the keys to success in battle is to take away your enemy's ability to make war. The same is true in tournaments. The less ammo you have, the more judicious you have to be in how you use those bullets. Once your ability to make war is diminished, your enemies won't fear you anymore.

Conversely, the more ammo you have, the wider your range of tactics can be. This may seem simpleminded at first blush, but it's vitally important to remember in the heat of a tournament battle. Every time you're considering making a raise or calling a bet, ask yourself if using this amount of ammo from your limited munitions stockpile is worth the expenditure. Is the reward worthy of the risk? Frequently in a tournament/war, the answer is going to be no, it's better to conserve the bullets than fire them if your chance of winning the skirmish is not clearly in your favor.

In a cash game, this type of thought should never, ever enter your mind; if you're playing properly within your bankroll limits, you should take every +EV opportunity that comes along, even the slimmest ones. Tournament poker is a different beast altogether. You obviously can't just reload when your stack drops in size, so your tournament life becomes at risk. You simply have to be much less willing to get your stack all in in small edge situations....

...ah, but this doesn't mean you should assume a fearful, bunker mentality and avoid taking selective sniper shots from time to time, either. In fact, and especially in fast tournaments, your primary focus should be on accumulating chips early. Forget the conventional wisdom that says you have time and should be super patient. There is no time for bunker mentality in tournaments, especially low PF ones. The trick is accumulating chips in situations that offer you the highest reward:risk ratio as possible, and eschewing those with lower reward:risks.

Snyder likes to use the analogy of rock-paper-scissors to chips-cards-position in his books. I'm still not 100% sold on the analogy, but there are definitely some merits to constantly considering these three primary weapons at your disposal in a tournament and how they play off against each other. Everyone will get the same distribution of all three, so what matters is how each player uses these tools. Everyone will get the button at an equal frequency, everyone will get a random hand dealt to them on each deal, and everyone starts with the same number of chips. The trick is to use each of these weapons in a manner that maximizes their return. When you have position, put pressure on your opponents OOP. When you have strong cards, put pressure on your opponents to get their money in badly. And when you have a stack, use it to put pressure on smaller stacks.

Snyder writes that in fast tournaments with low patience factors, there is a huge onus on you to accumulate chips. It's not enough just to keep up with the blinds and the average chip stack. It's actually possible (probable in fact) in a low PF tournament that everyone can have an average stack, but all still be desperate and on the brink of elimination. This is just the nature of increasing blinds and low PFs. You have to take away your opponents' ability wage war, while at the same time increasing your own ability to attack. The blinds are going up, your opponents are building bigger and bigger bombs in their arsenals, so you have to do the same.

Tournament poker is essentially caveman war, with everyone starting with equal sized piles of rocks to throw at each other from their caves. The only question is how selective you are at who you choose to throw those rocks at, how many you're willing to commit at a given opponent, and how good your aim is. If all you have is a stack of pebbles, the other guy will be unafraid to come out of his cave and advance on your position. Don't let yourself get short stacked, or you will end facing an unafraid enemy.

All-in for now...

-Bug