"A-ha!" moment of the week...

The guest on the Thinking Poker podcast this past week was Andrew "BalugaWhale" Seidman, who is the author of the very good Easy Game series of poker books (click here to see the latest edition of the book). During the discussion, Seidman made a comment that caused me to literally stop walking (and therefore get bumped into by a guy who was walking too closely behind me at the Reagan International airport in Washington D.C. on Friday).  I didn't write down his exact words, but here's the essence of what Seidman said:

We always hear that value betting should be where you make the bulk of your money at poker. Bluffing is definitely part of your earn, but value should be the lions share. Why is this? Partly because fish tend to call more than they fold... but there's a deeper mathematical reason. When you make, say, a pot-size bet as a bluff (e.g., with pure air) on the river, the most you're going to win is what's currently in the pot. But when you make a pot-sized value bet on the river (e.g., with the nuts), you're going to win at least as much as what is currently in the pot. If your opponent comes back at you, you're going to win that additional money, too. Bluffing profit is capped at the current pot size. Value profit is capped by the effective stack size.

A-ha!

All-in for now...
-Bug

Bug's Poker Tip #38

Bet only for value or to bluff.

There only two primary* reasons that should cause you to bet in poker.

The first is for Value. This is when you believe your hand is best. When you're betting for value, you want a villain holding a worse hand than yours to call. You want to bet the largest amount you can that will get called by the villain**.

The second reason is as a Bluff. This is when you believe your hand is worst. When you're betting for value, you want a villain holding a better hand than yours to fold. You want to bet (i.e., risk) the smallest amount than you can that will result in the villain folding**.

That's it; two reasons only. For example, you should never bet for information. You should not bet to probe or to "find out where you are in a hand." True, these are often beneficial consequences of betting, but they should never be the reason you're betting in the first place. 

We bet only for Value or to Bluff in poker. Period.

All-in for now...

-Bug

*Actually, there are occasional secondary reasons to bet in poker, such as for isolation or blocking, but these are relatively rare occasions. Value and Bluffing should make up 95% or more of your betting (and raising).
**Technically speaking, this isn't quite accurate. You actually want to bet the amount that maximizes your expected value in a particular situation. But thinking in terms of betting the largest amount that will get called by villain (when betting for value), or betting the smallest amount that will get a fold (when bluffing) is usually pretty close to the ideal.

Easy Game

I'm currently in Spain on the first leg of a hellish two week long biz trip that will literally take me from one side of the globe to the other, with twelve-hour time zone changes. To ease the pain a tiny bit, I brought a copy of Easy Game (third edition) by Andrew "Baluga Whale" Seidman with me on my Kindle to read in jet-lagged stupor.  [Click here to see the book on Amazon]

I had previously skimmed copies of the first two editions of the book Seidman wrote back in 2009 and 2011, but picked up this one after reading a bunch of reviews that said he'd rewritten and re-thought many of the major sections of the book. This rewrite was done after he (in)famously had a big meltdown in the high stakes games, going on a few hundred thousand dollar downswing, retiring from poker, and then coming back to it and winning again. He recognized that the game had gotten a lot tougher in recent years, and in fact strategies that had once worked profitably were no longer valid.

Anyway, I've read just the couple first chapters, and I have to say this is indeed an excellent book. Very detailed and very no-nonsense in nature. Also, he explains the "why's" as much as he does the "what's," which I always appreciate in a good strategy book.

The first chapter is a good example of this, with Seidman describing why we bet in poker. He echoes what I've preached herein this blog for years; i.e., there are only two valid reasons for betting in poker: Value or Bluff. We do not bet for information, nor do we bet for protection. Those are indeed often secondary and beneficial consequences of betting, but they should not be the reason that you're betting.

Seidman also repeats another thing that I've stated repeatedly here: at the micro- and low-stakes games, we should be primarily making our money by value betting, not bluffing. He argues that the reason for this is that humans are naturally curious people, and want to see if they've won at a showdown, even when they think they might be beat. Ergo, you should press the accelerator betting pedal whenever you think you're ahead (i.e., for Value). Bluffing should be minimal, and only against good, thinking players who are capable of letting go of better hands. (Bluffing however becomes much more important at the mid- and high-stakes tables, where your opponents are less likely to make calling mistakes and/or stack-of with a second-best hand).

Now back to being jet-lagged. Sigh.

All-in for now…

-Bug

The Secret is: Value. And Position. And...

I recently made the decision to cash out a big chunk of my poker bankroll to help pay for a new vehicle I purchased this week. I still have enough left in the offline 'roll to pay for a WSOP trip this summer, but my left pocket money is considerably lighter than it was last week. My online 'roll is also a tad on the meager side, again primarily because I've cashed out regularly every other month (which is because I fear Uncle Sam confiscating another chunk of my money like they did back on Black Friday... grrrr.)

Anyway, this is a long-winded way of saying I'm being forced to practice good BRM as I rebuild the 'roll, which means I'm back down playing at the baby stakes again. Primarily $25NL and below. Now, the players at these micro-stakes aren't bad (hell, basically everyone is better online these days), but they're nowhere near as savvy or tough as the sharks found swimming at the $100NLand $200NL tables. In other words, a slight change in tactics is required to maximize my long-term expected value down here in the micros.

What does this mean? In simple terms, it means I have to play a somewhat more mundane, straightforward style of poker to win. Playing tonight, I was reminded that there are some basics to beating these games. Here are four of the keys to crushing the micro games:

1. Value Betting is Better than Bluffing. At the micro-stakes, bluffing should be just a small part of your game. Heck, aside from blind stealing and c-betting on dry flops, bluffing should nearly be non-existent in your game. It just ain't worth it. Value is where it's at, folks. Wait for good hands and then pound the opposition with 2/3-3/4 pot-sized bets. Make 'em call and chase... and boy will they.
2. Position. While perhaps not as vitally important at the micro-stakes as it is at the higher stakes games, position should still be a key part of your game. I'm playing mostly 6max tables these days, and this means that in the first two seats to the left of the blinds (UTG and UTG+1) I'm basically only playing ATs+, AJo+, KQ+, and 77+. Yes, I'm tossing just about everything else. In the last two seats, however, I'm playing damn near anything that looks pretty.
3. Isolation. Part and parcel of playing position is the tactic of iso-raising open limpers and min-raisers. Want to crush da fish? Get heads up with a guppy in position and take their money.  I played for about 60 minutes tonight, and I honestly lost count of the number of times I iso'd on the button against incredibly weak villains. I can, however, count all the money I took off them.
4. Mind the Gap. Got ATs and there's an open raiser UTG? Throw that bad boy away. Got 33 in the BB and you're facing a LP steal? Toss it-- it just isn't worth it. Don't believe me? Google Sklansky's Gap Concept before you open your mouth to argue. 

Poker will forever remain a high variance endeavor, regardless of stakes you play, but you can make a pretty significant dent toward flattening the roller coaster--and therefore make a solid and steady profit--by playing simple ABC poker at the micros. It may not be as exciting as the rush of bluffing a good player off a better hand at $200NL, but making a solid thirty bucks an hour playing with the babies is also pretty fun. Plus my bankroll likes it. You never know when you may need to cash out and buy something big in life.

All-in for now...

-Bug

Bug's Poker Tip #6

Bluffing is Over-Rated

At the micro- and low-stakes games, the vast majority of your profit is going to come from value betting your Value hands. It is not going to come from Bluffs. This is because many of the players you face at these tables are a) not putting you on a hand range at all; or b) are doing so very poorly. Said another way: You can't profitably bluff bad players. So don't even try. Stick to the concept of making your money by getting worse hands to call, not trying to get better hands to fold.

All-in for now...

-Bug